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What’s That Werewolf Movie with E.T.’s Mom in It?

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The Howling (1981)

We’re off to Dick Miller’s lycanthrope lore bookstore for Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf picture, The Howling—an identity-shifting story born of the original book’s writer, Gary Brandner, who stated, “We all have two faces: our public face, and our private face,” and revealed his motto, “It’s always, ‘Oh no, I’m a werewolf,’ or ‘Oh no, there’s a werewolf,’ but it’s never, ‘We’re all werewolves.’”

Intriguingly, The Howling’s werewolves are able to shift their shapes purely by choice, and their werewolfery is in no way linked to the lunar cycle, so their transformations are apparently allegorical of an embraced, alternative, lycanthropic lifestyle, and act as metaphors for any behaviour considered unsavoury by ’80s mainstream society. It’s condemning cultures that repress our natural urges, and simultaneously skewering quack psychotherapy as an ineffective form of oppression and control, whilst also targeting the exploitative extortion by the movement’s money-grubbing maharishis. The Howling has been latterly labelled as a parody of pop psychology, and the self-help gurus of the era. John Sayles—known for his subversive, satirical subtexts buried within the Piranha and Alligator screenplays, penned a picture that can be retroactively read as a fearful demonisation of sex—equating sexuality to monstrosity; a loss of control, where giving into carnal urges, erotic taboos, and indulging in intercourse outside of traditional marital relationships is sinful and depraved.

The Howling depicts a grotesque, almost sexually-transmitted werewolfery. The retreat where Dr George Waggner—namesake of the original Wolf Man director, does very little to help matters, with his colony’s cove-dwelling clients ultimately turning into serial killers, and insatiable nymphomaniacs. Again, the post-structuralists and subtextual film critics invariably have a field day with the Eighties, and love to leap to jejune conclusions, but the fact of the matter is 1981’s American Werewolf and The Howling were a smidge too early to consciously coincide with the advent of AIDS, or to make any intentional allusions to the human immunodeficiency virus. During the mid-to-late ’80s, particularly when it had anything to do with body horror, HIV was cited as an underlying theme. Most famously, the blood test paranoia of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and more speculatively, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), David Cronenberg’s re-imagining of The Fly (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), and The Blob (1988) remake. However, back in ’81, AIDS was not yet firmly in the public consciousness. Of course, in retrospect, many viewers saw these two movies during their video rental and VHS purchase era, which would have synched up with the panic precisely, and undoubtedly shaped perceptions.

Long gone were the shoes and socks lap dissolves of Larry Talbot—played frustratingly, time and time again, by serial ham and cheese sandwich, Lon Chaney Jr, originally in 1941’s The Wolf Man with its contrived camera trickery and convenient cutting to illustrate a human shifting shape. As of 1981 we could see an elongating change-o-head snout stretching, rubbery feet elongating, and reverse hair sprouting. Not only could it now be achieved seamlessly on screen, but these two werewolfery depictions by the maestro; professorial master, Rick Baker’s An American Werewolf in London, and his protégé, the student understudy, Rob Bottin’s The Howling are two for the ages—they are, to this day, the duo to beat, and despite the advent of CGI, there’s no one, and nothing remotely close.

The Howling is an aptly suggestive take on the werewolf picture. As a warning, there’s a lot of chatter, and not a ton of action, but when we do get a transformation, it’s a prolonged, graphic, real-time indulgence. One could argue The Howling suffers from this excess as its pièce de résistance is a three-minute morphing sequence, in which Dee Wallace helplessly stands there petrified, and like us, witnesses the rubbery, lupine metamorphosis of Eddie Quist. It’s an unbelievable premise to have Karen simply stand there frozen; dumbfounded, glaring like an audience member while this all plays out. Granted, she’s petrified, mesmerised, or even hypnotised, but aside from the astounding effects, story-wise, the whole debacle adds up to very little, as Dee simply chucks acid in its face and flees. As illogical as this sounds, the scene still plays, and it’s impressive as hell. Dramatically speaking, this shapeshift seems somewhat stagey in comparison to American Werewolf’s private, pain-drenched transformation of David Kessler, which still tops my list.

Yet, some say it’s level-pegging between The Howling and American Werewolf. Pitting them against one another, The Howling scores points for its entirely in-camera bubbling rubber, and lumbering bipedal creature, and American Werewolf gets major props for its two and a half-minute metamorphosis, fully-lit under the fluorescent bulbs of Alex Price’s living room. In contrast, The Howling’s morph occurs partially veiled by its darkened, shadowy office setting. In my book, Rick takes the gross cake, although one could argue Baker’s protégé and student, Bottin’s practical skills surpassed his teacher’s with his show-stopping, breakdown-inducing, gooey, bladdery, pulsating practical effects work on The Thing the following year, and this could be a case of one artist spectacularly peaking as the other steadily climbs, and eventually passes their peer at the summit of a makeup effects mountain.

I responded to The Howling’s conceit that a media news team of investigative journalists; presenters, newsmen and women, and photographers are investigating this bizarre phenomena because they diligently read up on leads in a library, they record conversations, they do their research, and it was a diverting way of getting the exposition out. Dee Wallace is brilliantly expressive and empathetic as Karen White—a television anchorwoman, emotionally disturbed by frightening phone calls, and a risky undercover, faux-street walking encounter, in which she faced off with a murderous maniac.

White can’t conquer her amnesia, and only sees glimpses of the perpetrator in her dreams and visions, so her therapist, played nobly by Steed from The Avengers (no, not that one)—also Oasis’s chauffeur in the “Don’t Look Back in Anger” video, sends her to a retreat reserved for exclusive patients. Unbeknownst to Karen, she is soon drawn into a surreptitious, sexual subculture of werewolves, and must attend sorrowful, yet saucy soirées with beach barbecues, brazen hippy chicks, and folksy bluegrass-tinged makeouts. There’s some truly great moments of poignancy, with The Howling’s lycanthropes being so depressed that when we reach the cove, suicidal fogeys whinge about their old teeth before attempting suicide by bonfire. They’re completely over the idea. Even the werewolf therapist actively seeks to die by silver bullet, and attempts a suicide by cop—almost, leaving the rifle and silver bullet-toting Dennis Dugan no option but to quite literally “put him down,” vet-style.

It’s not exactly on the nose (or snout), but we can palpably feel Dante’s reverence of, and references to the B movie genre fare he loves so much. The humour comes through in shrewd, self-aware flourishes like Dee Wallace sighing, “Hmmm” to herself before making the inevitable, dumb horror movie decision to investigate a strange noise. We feel privy to Karen’s brief indecision, followed by her scary movie character-indulgence. She might as well behave like she’s a girl in an Italian gialli, or an early slasher. Dante knows full well the only reason Dee’s doing it is because she’s in a werewolf picture—and because he knows, wealso know—and because he wants us to know, we’re just as accepting of it as he is. I sensed Dante’s gaze during the scene; I felt him nudging my shoulder and throwing a wink, and it made me feel included as opposed to frustrated with such a tired trope.

Although we do detect a few Gremlins-inspiring Pino Donaggio music cues during nightmare sequences, this is another world for Dante fans raised on his festive mogwai, Explorers, Innerspace, and The ’Burbs. We can, however, happily spot the Dante stable regulars—Robert Picardo (forever the Cowboy from Innerspace to me) as Quist, Kevin McCarthy as an acerbic newsroom producer, and last but not least, the immortal “that guy,” Dick Miller as a crotchety bookshop sage. By my calculations, Miller is the key to Joe’s trademark tone. As the Dante saying goes, “If there’s no scene for Dick, then why make the picture?” Levity inevitably finds its way in, with Bill hopping from vegetarian to carnivore the day after he’s bitten by a werewolf. It’s also a laugh spotting the Forrest J Ackerman (Famous Monsters of Filmland mags), Roger Corman (phone box man), and John Sayles (flippant coroner) cameos.

Originally, the climactic barn face-off was packed to the rafters with topless werewolf women, but Wallace had a limited nudity clause in her contract—which apparently applied to the movie as a whole, and alerted producer, Mike Finnell, who agreed it was gratuitous and vetoed the bosoms, declaring, “She’s right. It’s stupid. Put some clothes on.” Despite attempts to curb some exploitation elements, as with hairy-handed adolescent pleasures, there’s an intrinsic, lewd voyeurism to The Howling. It’s the sleaziest Joe Dante got, with an extended, explicit grindhouse depiction of a female rape—the victim naked and bound. Prolonged, graphic sexual torture is not what you’d expect from the director of Small Soldiers and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. This ain’t Gremlins 2: The New Batch. The Howling requires patience, and an open mind, but it’s brief, I believe highly significant, and delivered some of the finest werewolf imagery ever seen.

As her last act of service as a human being, Karen boldly goes back on telly to unveil the secret werewolf society; warning the public, before sacrificially transforming live on air to convince any unbelievers—turning into the cutest she-wolf ever. Dugan knows he must kill her, and Dee knows it too. Although American Werewolf’s dark denouement is not without sentiment, and has a pathos of its own at the death, it can’t stack up to the way Dante’s film concludes. The Howling partly boasts a stronger ending because American Werewolf opted for an appropriately abrupt close—albeit with a lack of sophistication, irony, wit, or any global consequence of the story we’ve just witnessed. An American Werewolf in London bows out with a provocative and sudden conclusion—a real kick in the guts. In contrast, The Howling winds down in a much more satisfying, satirically sagacious and mischievous fashion. The Howling’s finale flits from heartbreaking sadness to all out body horror, and then a matter-of-fact, jet-black comedy before the credits appear. It’s a punch—powerful and poignant, with a humorous sting in the wolf’s tail; a chuckle-inducing coda with a deadpan bent to it, all the while resonating and reverberating in our minds as Dante’s rare hamburger patty sizzles through our recovering subconscious. It had to go last of my picks as there’s unquestionably no finer climax in werewolf cinema.

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I’m Not Like Other Guys

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Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983)

What’s the first thing your mind conjures when Hallowe’en creeps around the autumnal corner? For me it’s either the song “Thriller,” or the iconic imagery from its 1983 companion promo. Despite Jacko’s Jesus juice-addled, baby-dangling plummet from grace, it remains the undisputed, greatest music video of all time, with no real contenders or pretenders to the throne. Yeah, it veers more into zombie territory, but it also arguably depicts one of the three, top-tier werewolf transformations of all-time, and certainly one of the most well known in pop culture. Iconic doesn’t even scratch the surface—record sales, the Thriller album cover, the audience views on MTV were through the roof. It’s a clear example of music and visuals interlocking so inseperably, and the art and the iconography being so momentous, that we can almost turn a blind eye to MJ’s alleged atrocities—for the 14-minute duration anyway.

Thriller is a cornucopia of horror; a mashup packed with shout-outs to the hounds of hell, zombies, werewolves—or perhaps cat people, corpses, a haunted house, and showcases an alarming, foam rubber shapeshift—the werewolf, or arguably werecat here. It’s fairly feline, with prominent, extending whiskers, and memorably shows Michael in cat-like, yellow contact lenses. We’ve got spooky, mist-engulfed graveyards, cars breaking down, a grave emergence, Fred Astaire-inspired choreography, the sinister tones of Vincent Price, and a bassline that makes you wanna freaky deaky, right? Also, it boasts American Werewolf’s key crew of John Landis—who also made “Black or White” for MJ in 1991, cinematographer Robert Paynter, and Rick Baker’s special effects, which lead on perfectly from the previous picture. Stuff to spot for the sticklers and geeks—several makeup appliances were taken from American Werewolf and repurposed for the “Thriller” video, including the clawed hand appliance that extends over the porno cinema chair, which was reused on Jackson himself.

Say what you will about certified kook, Michael Jackson, and the controversy surrounding the bloke, but the magnitude of Thriller is undeniable, and the perfect example of an artist’s work transcending their problematic persona. If Jacko freaks you out, so be it! It’s Hallowe’en. What other night of the year would be more appropriate to be psychologically perturbed by the presence of Mike in your living room? All those disturbing claims and events aside, talk about commitment to the bit. Whatever you think of him, the devotion to the music, dedication to the video, the uncomfortable makeup appliances, and the art of it all is incontestable. It will endure; live, and last forever. Codswallop about a mere two nose jobs aside, MJ had a chilling physical transformation of his own—the vitiligo skin tone shift, an evident slew of surgeries—everything became altered as his career progressed, or perhaps deteriorated. Factor in the accusations during his life, and the damning Leaving Neverland revelations after his death, one could argue Michael became monstrous himself. I’d refer you to my piece on Captain EO and Moonwalker for an extended take on the nightmarish, poptastic clout of Jackson.

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Beware the Moon, Lads

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An American Werewolf in London (1981)

I recall being disturbed by the menacing and intimidating VHS cover of An American Werewolf in London in my local video shop, Cav’s. That black box with understated purple text and blood-red 18 certificate, and a monster resembling greasy kebab meat. So much so, that I never reached for the top shelf, or plucked up the guts to audaciously point it out to my mum as a potentially sensible rental. For as long as a decade or so after that, I’d only seen its wildly-inferior, shockingly shite, 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris.

It wasn’t until 2007, prepping my MA graduation short, The Wilds, that my head of year, Nick Wright, suggested I seek out the Landis original as both films dealt with cryptid attacks in Northern England, and American Werewolf was clearly his go-to genre reference. My ten-minute short had absolutely nothing in the way of humour—although the Farmer protagonist wisecracking “Nine lives, my arse” like John McClane or Arnie might’ve let slip, was jokingly considered as a daft quip. However, I did pinch American Werewolf‘s painterly, neatly-composed opening establishing shots, but little else, as we were armed only with a dummy panther tail, and drastically under-crewed and underfunded for an ambitious creature effort—we did, however, shoot an actual deceased black calf from an abattoir with a 12 bore shotgun at 70fps hoping it would look acceptable. What I would’ve given for a panther-headed rug we could’ve turned into a rudimentary, hand-puppeted, big cat noggin for close-ups. My ace cinematographer, Adam Conlon, and I even momentarily contemplated the title, Blood of an Englishman—a direct quote from American Werewolf.

A handful of American Werewolf’s actors were treading the boards in Nicholas Nickleby at the time, and Landis judiciously plucked them from our revered Royal Shakespeare Company. You’ve also got the godlike genius, Rick Mayall, in an early, subdued role, and the preeminent cinematic Yorkshireman, Kes’s P.E. teacher, Brian Glover, at the same table, playing chess in the pub, and we wonder if that’s where the pair first became friends. Perhaps that’s the explanation for Glover’s madcap appearance as Richie and Eddie’s irate neighbour, Mr Rottweiler, in one of my favourite Bottom episodes, “Gas.”

The locals gawk at the two young yanks as they barge into the Slaughtered Lamb and eyeball them as if they’re from another world. They’re made to look like—and may as well be astronauts to these village folk in this classic, western saloon gag. The premise is somewhat of an echo of an early experience for Landis on the Kelly’s Heroes set where the upstart was working in an early role and experienced a Gypsy funeral and its unorthodox burial, which was superstitiously conducted to ensure a violent criminal’s corpse wouldn’t subsequently rise from its grave and cause further havoc. American Werewolf plays on an incredulous belief in legend, hokum, and claptrap, but muddles it with the smart, horror picture conceit that it all turns out to be shockingly true, and these smug, educated, seemingly advanced Americans fall foul of powers and supernatural workings they can never fully believe in or understand.

1981 ushered in more practical, modern day werewolf tales, and introduced agonising mutations featuring distinctly lupine beasts—all gnashers and noses; hulking and monstrous. Transformationally-speaking, American Werewolf is the absolute pinnacle. Not even Rob Bottin’s real-time Howling shapeshift can compete with David’s agonised “burning up” transformation. The sudden, painful pang that strikes as he first begins to morph, followed by the terrifying, stretchy snout, and malleable-footed freak show in Jenny Agguter’s flat, that still churns the stomach almost 45 years later. At one point, David disturbingly reaches out to the camera lens as if he wants us; the audience to help him, but we’re powerless.

I definitely didn’t fall in love with American Werewolf instantly, and I must confess to finding the film clunky and clumsy in parts. I’m also not completely taken in by John Landis. The Twilight Zone tragedy and its weighty blame aside, I don’t believe I’d like to spend any time in his company. Having dinner with that bloke would be a real chore. Landis has an obnoxious, odious manner in interviews that I frequently find repellent. The “non-stop orgy” of the See You Next Wednesday segment heralds a revealingly sleazy tone born of the lascivious Landis just wanting Brenda Bristols to get her jugs out. He seems proud to be an arse. Landis has such an irksome, abrasive personality, and a crude, unfinished directing style that lacks subtlety. However, for a movie like American Werewolf, perhaps that’s precisely what was required.

Early Eighties London seems so seedy, with jazz mags at newspaper stands, and adult cinemas adorning Piccadilly Circus. I do enjoy the peculiar interactions in the porno theatre. It’s unorthodox, funny, and dark, with the prolonged carnal moaning in the background juxtaposed throughout. The chirpy and courteous, yet fiendishly undead “Hello” couple basically invent Edgar Wright, and give birth to Shaun o the Dead’s entire comedic/horrific aesthetic with a single line of exquisitely delivered dialogue, and the three homeless fellas—Alf, Ted, and Joseph glint in the shadows of the cinema as they’re creepily cajoling David into topping himself. If you’re attuned to the cadence, “You must take your own life” even has audible shades of Shaun‘s Peter Serafinowicz.

Buses are spinning, drivers are in car crashes—getting hurled through their windscreens, and run over, lying bloody on the floor. Frantic pedestrians can only watch helplessly as Hieronymus Bosch chaos ensues. The wolf is loose—nipping at bystanders’ ankles. That head copper takes one in the jugular, and gets his head bitten off. It’s basically bumper cars in Leicester Square with a mad dog dashing about. It’s astonishing how little we glimpse the creature when it’s all broken down. We probably see more of the shark in Jaws, and that’s one of the reasons American Werewolf is still so effective. It’s not that you couldn’t do it now, it’s that there’s no restraint anymore. In a time where computer geekery can arguably accomplish anything, filmmakers opt to show everything. They can, so they do. They show their workings, and eliminate all mystique.

Like Roger Corman once said, “When the monster is dead, the movie is officially over.” American Werewolf’s wrap-up has little consideration for the audience. Granted, Agutter’s reaction is moving, and we feel for the gunned-down David, and accept the foregone conclusion of his werewolfery, but it feels like a disturbed double-decker with no brakes careering into a shopfront. American Werewolf’s clipped conclusion leaves viewers with a peculiar, unsorted feeling hanging in the air, and that’s partly why it’s my penultimate pick, as opposed to the final entry. Ebert didn’t jive with how sudden Landis rolled his credits, and although I concede certain crowds prefer a softener, they, along with a chunk of critics, often mistake a blunt wrap up for a film devoid of professionalism. Tell that to Cronenberg’s The Fly, or the downbeat, sobering climax of Easy Rider, or the rapid, hard cut of Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

A potentially profound video essay by Jon Spira on the Arrow 4K disc argues American Werewolfmay hold a covert meaning. In Germany, the wolf is a brawny, indigenous, loyal protector as well as the name of a racist paramilitary group. The name “Adolf” means “noble wolf,” and Hitler would even refer to himself as such. His military headquarters in East Prussia was named, “The Wolf Lair.” The “Radio Werewolf” station was utilised by Nazi propaganda minister, Goebbels. “Wolf packs” were encouraged to hunt down enemies of the state. Curt Siodmak had been a successful novelist in Germany, and used The Wolf Man as a literary vehicle to explore his own wartime demons—where ordinarily decent men were turned into murderous animals. Siodmak laid out the werewolf lore that would follow for decades to come, and is cited and mimicked to this day. Many of Curt’s rules didn’t stem from folklore, he created them. Infectious bites, silver bullets, and tellingly, the pentagram forseen in the palm of a victim’s hand—those marked for death in Nazi Germany were forced to wear five-pointed yellow stars.

It’s worth wondering, is Landis wielding this loaded imagery, subtext, and historic context of the wolf to present a hairy, antisemitic Jewish allegory? David is a man in a country that doesn’t seem to want him, and drifts, disturbed by the murder of his best friend. The cheeky nurse’s subtle but perceptible, Eighties intolerance as she blurts out, “I think he’s a Jew” still lands palpably, suggesting some kind of surreptitious subterfuge. Is it an impudent throwaway (literally) foreskin quip, or an authorial hint at the public’s suspicion of the unrecognisably foreign—as sneaky wolves in sheep’s clothing?

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The Hardy Boys Meet Reverend Werewolf

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Silver Bullet (1985)

Silver Bullet, along with the second wave of ’80s werewolves, would satirise and skewer the social, political, and economic shifts of Ronald Reagan’s (the actor!?) time in office—the, lets face it, truism that seemingly harmonious groups shield scandalous secrets. Reagan’s policies were founded upon the principles of family, church, and community. King sinks his teeth into the patriarchal governments we’ve installed through the democratic process, and paints them as not only corrupt, but attests they actively pursue our destruction, with all social institutions—schools, marriages, and workplaces, each capable of descending into sick sideshows of self-serving rapacity, greed, and savagery.

The shapeshifting concept of the werewolf is ideal for exploring themes of evil masquerading as civil, and demonic disguised as human. Here, it’s wickedness lurking beneath the surface of idyllic, white Christian cliques in what has been coined “community horror.” At this point of the Eighties, there could very well be grotesque brutes, cannibals, or sadistic, murderous families in your neighbourhood. The Howlinghelmer, Joe Dante’s paranoia (or is it) picture, The ‘Burbs, along with the unforgettably slimy and satirical Society certainly expressed this, but it was perhaps David Lynch, who temptingly and skin-crawlingly articulated it best with the opening bits of Blue Velvet.

My initial reaction to 1985’s Silver Bullet was, God I wish this was better. I’d pencilled in Teen Wolf from the same year for my 6pm slot, thinking a gentler take on the lycanthrope would cater to younger audiences, and diversify my picks, but Fox and company didn’t pass my sensory test either—in spite of me making extensive notes on Rod Daniel’s retrospectively rich, satirical Reaganite capitalist skewering. I also seriously considered the original 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. picture, The Wolf Man, for its authenticity, brief runtime, and iconic status, but ’80s werewolves prevailed as they’re more provocative, wacky, watchable, and let’s face it, despite a recent deluge, neither before (unless you’re partial to the tamer originals), nor since (unless you have a real fondness for the early 2000s cluster of Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers, and the diminishing returns of the Underworldfranchise), has there been a stronger run of werewolf pictures than the ’81-’85 period. The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Company of Wolves, Teen Wolf, and Silver Bullet stand as the meatiest of the mob, and intriguingly reveal a great deal about American life.

In his sort of extended dissertation thesis, Craig Ian Mann’s indisputable king of the werewolf movie books, Phases of the Moon—the preeminent literary analysis of werewolf cinema, Mann has a real bee in his bonnet about writers who solely see the lycanthrope as a mere Jekyll and Hyde parallel, and loathes the limitations of the “beast within,” dual personality character cop out, rampant in both film criticism, and audience readings alike. Longing for deeper work with added resonance, Mann posits the eras these pictures were produced reveal fascinating layers of subtextual meaning. I feel his frustration, particularly as so many post-Eighties werewolf films have been inadequate backward steps.

Some kinda monster is terrorising the town of Tarker’s Mills, Maine (surely among the most Stephen King settings ever put on celluloid). Typically, a werewolf is a tortured soul, and Silver Bullet’s villain’s purported mercy killings have an arguably altruistic motive—at least in the mind of its antagonist, as well as simultaneously feeling somewhat capricious and violent. Nevertheless, the slasher-esque whodunnit factor of Silver Bullet is a novel wrinkle, and kept me wondering for as long as it could realistically sustain. I won’t spoil who the wolfy culprit is here, because it’s a particularly enjoyable guessing game, and the only lycanthropic mystery of my three choices. Having said that, it’s evident on the cover of the Canon VHS who the bad guy is, and it’s even painted on posters, so search them out at your peril.

The director’s chair changed hands from Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-Tep) to the fresh outta film school, Dan Attias (AD on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, second assistant director on Twilight Zone: The Movie and One from the Heart, and DGA trainee on Airplane!), although Coscarelli didn’t actually shoot a frame of the film—he didn’t even make it through preproduction. Silver Bullet’s slightly uneven approach and dual tone is likely due to the clashing of Dino De Laurentiis, who pushed for a hard R-rated picture, and Attias, who was angling for more of a kid-friendly PG-13. 

Silver Bullet’s originally hired—later fired helmer, Coscarelli’s shrewd take was to tackle the werewolf much like Spielberg’s recalcitrant shark, so the movie retains welcome remnants of that tried and tested approach scattered throughout. Silver Bullet boasts a somewhat bracing opening kill that’s largely unseen—but as with Jaws’s nude bather, Chrissie Watkins, the gory aftermath is. There’s a sparingly-shown child murder, with the parent of said youngster grilling the town’s cops about “private justice.” This vigilante-bating, angry mob haranguing goads the bar full o’drunken yahoos, who are all already chomping at the bit; eager to venture out as a pack, into tracking and hunting this beast down themselves. This Mrs Kintner-esque showdown, where a desperate dad puts a bounty on the beast’s head, is an unconcealed steal, and leads to a scene Coscarelli speculatively devised prior to his directorial departure—the passably suspenseful and visually appealing fog bank sequence, in which the avenging hunting party are waist-deep in thick mist, wading through a low-lying haze, and each get picked off one by one in a grisly manner. I have to emphasise the weakness of Silver Bullet is the werewolf itself. It’s far too bear-ish for my liking—however effectively hidden it is during Attias’s attempted Spielbergian set pieces. Talkin’ of Jaws-jackin’, there’s even a demise in a greenhouse, which resembles a shark attack as a bloke called Milt Sturmfuller gets dragged under the floorboards by the concealed creature.

Silver Bullet depicts a white, middle class family with a preteen paraplegic son named Marty (Corey Haim). The dad’s around, but he’s palpably absent as well—somewhat distant and seemingly embarrassed by his son‘s disability. Here, Marty is wheelchair-bound. His fussy, put upon mother views him purely as a handicapped child who requires constant supervision, her nervous attention, and ongoing aid. Marty’s physical disability gives him a kind of superpower—an understanding and empathy for the werewolf-afflicted—almost as if he understands this suffering, and akin to the lycanthrope, must not give in to his own internal frustrations. Fun uncle, or “funcle” Gary Busey as Uncle Red has an affinity with Marty, and sees a reflection of his own alcoholic demons and deficiencies in his nephew, and they form a firm bond. Cue Busey dishing out WWF chair shots to the werewolf, getting hurled into mirrors and cabin furniture over and over, and reeling off throwaway improvisational lines about how he’s gonna open up a reptile farm and cook ’em on a barbecue.

Far and away the finest sequence in the film—and a strong contender for best set piece in any of my picks, is the outstanding lycanthropic congregation fantasy in Silver Bullet. It’s one of those peculiar scenes where something’s clearly off, and we can’t quite pinpoint what it is. The ominous religious swaying with candles lit, the actors staring vehemently at Everett McGill as he sermonises, and every time we cut back to the uncanny parish, their wolf makeup is incrementally increasing. They’re getting hairier, and starier. Before long, they’re clutching at their own bodies, and their clothes are tearing away. Attias’s camera is juddering, the windows explode violently, and there’s blood everywhere. The stuffy organ music intensifies to a wild pitch with the strange performative smashing of the organ keys by a marionette-looking wolf woman. Then McGill is surrounded by furry hands, and bolts upright from his sweat-laden reverie.

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There’s a Killer on the Road

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China Lake (1983)

Robert Harmon’s calling card debut, China Lake, first burned its way into my brain via Momentum Pictures’ special edition DVD of The Hitcher, and to this day, is my favourite ever short film – and also one of the scariest.

The always welcome, darkly charismatic, Charles Napier, who more often than not pops up in Jonathan Demme’s pictures, plays Donnelly – a maniac motorcycle cop on vacation, who abuses his authority every chance he gets; locking innocent women in the boots of their cars, shooting locks off petrol pumps to steal gas, and arbitrarily targeting a pair of “germ” concrete workers (Blade Runner’s William Sanderson and Bob Dylan’s 1966 drummer, Mickey Jones). What results is a foreboding effort with an overarching, sinister tone; not a conventional horror film by any stretch, but one that lingers in the mind long after its blood red credits fade away.

Self-funded by saving every penny Harmon had for three years, and stitched together in rented (and stolen) editing suites, pulling industry favours left and right from his previous career as a stills photographer, with the whole cast and crew grafting free of charge, calling in solids from the sound crew that dubbed Star Wars, shooting on leftover short ends, blagging rent-free stages, borrowing cameras with anamorphic lenses from Panavision – even Donnelly’s motorcycle was loaned. Harmon also served as director of photography, and if all else failed, planned to use China Lake to bulk up his cinematography showreel.

The fact Donnelly is a police officer (something that didn’t manifest until the final draft of the script) makes China Lake a political statement; a fear of people in power is brought to the table. Donnelly takes a holiday from the rules and regulations of his job, but continues to wear the uniform. He tells a waitress he’s a writer, but really he’s a dangerous fantasist; a lunatic stalker, seemingly repeating his diabolical methods – his sick tradition, for his own antisocial amusement. There’s no overt motive beyond Donnelly’s warped view of society, and it’s his sick “community responsibility,” as it says on the police blackboard, which makes China Lake genuinely terrifying. The idea this psycho is out there, doing jumping jacks and press-ups between cruising the purple and orange-skied desert at night, searching for new victims, is beyond haunting.

The Hitcher (1986)

The Hitcher is a brutal, unforgiving, nightmarish cult thriller owing more than it would probably care to admit to the slew of unstoppable, serial slashers of the early ‘80s, Spielberg’s unrelenting, high-speed TV movie, Duel, and the relentless, incendiary action of The Terminator—with its familiar motel room hideout, and authentic, practical helicopter crashes, car flips, and death rolls that digital effects will never, ever equal.

This hallucinatory, propulsive action picture stars a despairing C. Thomas Howell as Jim Halsey (a sort of Marty McFly: The Horror Years) and a pretty-eyed, cherubic, mettlesome Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female) as Nash. A tricksy, persistent, Rutger Hauer steals the show as evil personified, John Ryder—a merciless, mass-murderous, motive-less hitchhiker, and real-life ”Ryder” on the storm, and killer on the road, taunting his victims to stop him.

Penned by Eric Red (Near Dark), and adeptly directed by Robert Harmon—ideally screened in a complementary double bill with his similarly-themed, nihilistic, calling card short, China Lake, The Hitcher is dynamically photographed by future Oscar-winning cinematographer, John Seale (Witness, The English Patient, Mad Max: Fury Road) with a handful of shots to die for. It’s a taught, tense thriller, unafraid to go absolutely anywhere, and drag us along—kicking and screaming for the hellish ride. In ‘86 anyway, it contained moments audiences, and certain critics, never believed they would see in a movie—specifically an unforgettable, and truly shocking truck-stop set piece.

Taking a trip to crap Critics’ Corner, Gene Siskel said he couldn’t quantify his hatred for The Hitcher, and its “violence in service of violence.” It was labelled as “heartless, cruel garbage,” and arrogantly and definitively proclaimed by Roger Ebert to be, “a movie that pretends to say one thing, but is really saying another thing altogether. The violent games are representative of perverted sex in a way the movie will not acknowledge. If you look beneath the surface of The Hitcher, it’s a deeply cynical movie that doesn’t even have the courage to admit what it’s really about, which is gay sadomasochism.”

Paging Dr. Freud! Yes, there’s a crotch stroke, and a palpable, sick intimacy between Ryder and Jim, but it’s locked within an unexplainable film with unspoken character motives. It casts such an effective broad stroke, and has an easily-internalised applicability. It invites such speculation, and evokes and inflames individual perspectives and readings to such a vivid degree, that it seemingly baited the repressed Ebert into publicly confessing his latent homosexuality.

For maximum enjoyment, pair this one with Harmon’s China Lake, and a good ole American cheeseburger and fries—hold the severed digit.

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Goddamn You, Hale

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Broken Arrow (1996)

My uncle in Hong Kong would periodically treat myself and my younger sister to videos of new releases for Christmas—often before they hit UK shelves. These tantalising, foreign VHS tapes arrived adorned with Chinese text, alternate artwork, and (forgivably) hardcoded Cantonese subtitles. Broken Arrow was one of these arbitrarily-picked, prized possessions.

I would typically receive blockbusters, and random action fare such as Independence Day (including the bonkers Jeff Goldblum-hosted ID4 making of) and that forgettable Michael Caton-Jones remake of The Jackal where Jack Black gets his arm blown off. My sister—seven years my junior, bagged Aladdin and The Lion King. Occasionally, he’d grab something from Heathrow instead, such as the moody Bruce Willis boat cop vehicle, Striking Distance, or Steven Seagal’s dire directorial magnum opus, On Deadly Ground. These sought after contraband cassettes were a hit amongst friends—and friends of friends, and would do the rounds in my village and secondary school, getting lent out, borrowed, circulated, and thankfully—most of the time, returned unscathed.

John Woo’s sophomore American film is perhaps most notable as John Travolta’s second stab at the big time, having been resurrected from talking baby movie jail by Quentin Tarantino’s Palme d’Or-plucking, Pulp Fiction, two years prior. Travolta was missed by QT and Pauline Kael alike, and deemed worthy of a career resurrection after fine performances in prime De Palma pictures, Carrie and Blow Out, and of course, the iconic hits, Saturday Night Fever, and Grease.

Broken Arrow also reunited former off-screen couple, Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis—the hottest chick in tan and taupe since the cousin in Jaws 2—who played together with teenage chemistry in the 1990 pirate radio, shock jock flick, Pump Up the Volume. This was also perhaps the first instance of score cannibalisation I can recall (outside of sequels, obviously) with Hans Zimmer’s instantly hummable, “dang-dang, dang-dang” being thieved for Wes Craven’s Scream 2 the following year.

Broken Arrow was an action staple for me, and remains a crackers, yet embarrassingly regular revisit. Travolta is a shimmering, glazed ham that clearly could not be corralled by the adeptly visual, yet evidently English tongue-lacking, Woo. Slater and Mathis arguably phone their parts in, with whatever former, adolescent screen alchemy they had palpably dissipating over the six years since. However, it should be said that Slater’s commitment to the physicality of the role is solid—particularly as it’s actually him getting precariously dragged beneath a train to sell the stunt.

Why cast Mathis over, let’s say, a 25-year-old Denise Richards, or a similarly peaking Heather Graham? Are we to believe either starlet as a single park ranger with no fella and a dog? Probably not, but when Hale and Carmichael go for an unintentional dip, and Terry has to whip her jacket off all of a sudden, we’d surely find ourselves in a very different movie if a screen siren such as Baywatch babe, and actual Playboy bunny, Miss July ’89—Erika Eleniak was wheeled out, purely for us to ogle—see 1992’s Under Siege. This mature, perhaps Eastern-influenced casting choice alerts us to the fact there is almost no male gaze in Broken Arrow whatsoever—Deak’s pervy, from behind, forced keypad pressing at gunpoint being the oddly lecherous exception. It’s not a lewd or lascivious film. Woo seems completely uninterested in exploiting sexuality here, other than any, I’m almost certain, accidental homosexual subtext between the duelling male leads.

Travolta’s preposterous, foldy-up, nuke through the guts demise is daft as a brush, and yet I return to this movie more often than I’d care to admit. It’s a bizarre comfort watch; a nostalgic, nineties explosioner with beat-hitting, box-ticking set-pieces, and stable—if somewhat unsophisticated performances. Woo exhibits a sure footing—more so than on 1993’s overtly humorous, snake-smacking, Hard Target, I would argue—with the JCVD mullet-led editorial tinkering failing to quell the director’s bullet ballet choreography—thanks partly to the gallantry of studio mandated “chaperone,” Sam Raimi. Having said that, it still feels diluted and sterilised when recalling his original Hong Kong smashers, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled—the most obvious direction I would point any newcomers when first encountering Woo.

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I’ll Send You a Case of Lollipops

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Pieces (1982)

You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre! Prepare to be slayed by a withering look by the quintessential midnight movie—the Spanish-American slasher, Pieces—known in certain dark circles as Chainsaw Devil, Chainsaw Bastard, and also by its sensationalist, hiperbólico title of Mil gritos tiene la noche (The Night Has 1,000 Screams or 1,000 Cries Has the Night). A young lad’s sexual development is seemingly stifled by his overbearing mother, causing him to grow up deranged, and when triggered by an unfortunate accident in which a jolly gal roller skates herself through a giant mirror, splitting it—and we assume, herself, into shards, the mystery murderer persists to chop up Boston campus chicks to construct his own, real-life, jigsaw lady.

This was a surefire gem from my 2021 Slash & Burn HorrOctober marathon. The tight running time, take-no-prisoner kills, abundant nudity, and Castilian flavour cement it as an archetypal coverall for newcomers to retro slashers, and connoisseurs alike. Take some uppers or something, and visit the only university where the students openly fornicate on lawns, and have perplexing martial arts altercations with dicky-tummied “kung fu professors.” Juan Piquer Simón (Slugs) surely paints a vivid picture. There’s a proper black hat, jacket, and gloves, giallo-referencing, heavy breathing (likely asthmatic) assailant, carving up pretty girls, and lopping off their lovely limbs, and it features, without doubt, the finest water bed murder ever committed to celluloid. In my preferred, dubbed American version, a pulsing, serpentine, shimmering score adds jittery suspense and thrust. Pieces also boasts a duo of exceedingly watchable rozzers—Det. Lt. Bracken, who resembles a butch Lionel Blair, and spends the whole movie trying to light his cigar, and his partner, Det. Sgt. Holden, who looks a bit like the love child of Frank Drebin and George Peppard. The daft dub adds a bonus, humorously offbeat bent to the proceedings, rendering every scene simplistic and direct, but with odd deliveries—ADR’d to match the lips of the original performances, and due to this, peculiar delays and stutters pepper the picture. 

If you’ve ever wondered where the pectorals were, Pieces will clue you in—often graphically, with a frankly more nudes than necessary quota filled, bloodshed to spare, and unexpected beats so amusing and bizarre, they’ll keep newcomers to this kind of schlock thoroughly entertained. As is often the case with the slasher subgenre, a lot of it is elementary, but there’s a neat enough concept, delivered rapidly, smartly, and efficiently, and with a super brief, palatable, and digestible, 85-minute length, the trashiness is somehow muted by the devil-may-care abandon of it all. It’s also acutely aware of its red herring deployment, and a fairly fruitful whodunit—with the shifty dean of the university, the “sugarplum” anatomy teacher, Prof. Brown, and the chainsaw-wielding brute, Willard, each suspicious enough to keep us on our toes. Underneath lies a deftly made horror, with a shock wrap-up that ladies—and especially gents, won’t forget in a hurry. The final ten seconds or so of Pieces is either a vulgar, nonsensical jump scare, or a feminist vengeance statement that shrewdly undoes the misogynistic, male gaze, borderline-porno gorefest that precedes it.

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Two Bahama Mamas

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Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

Although borderline calamitous in its execution at times, I digested the terminal death rattle of the Jaws series (on a 4:3, open matte VHS taped off the telly, no less) so often as a nipper that when its filmic son of Scheider dons that yellow (symbolic of danger 😉 as discussed in our original Jaws pod) raincoat, and ventures out aboard a boat, I start to feel a bit queasy. It gives me the seasick creeps, because ultimately it doesn’t matter whether a film’s much cop—if it swims beneath our skin at a certain age, it can remain there forever—nostalgia-soaked; unmarred by even the most sagacious professional criticism.

Jaws: The Revenge has the nerve to plonk a Poundland Michael J. Fox (Mitchell Anderson) as Sean Brody—thankfully not the forgettable, miscast John Putch from Jaws 3-D underlined, in front of us, followed by the actual generic bearded lead, Lance Guest (The Last Starfighter) doing his most middling work since Halloween II as the late Chief’s eldest, Michael (the fourth and final incarnation of each Brody sprog—ensuring there’s absolutely no connective tissue, or through line whatsoever, and we, the audience, must again start from scratch with entirely new actors in these roles).

Then there’s what can only be described as an exhaustive thesis in ham and cheese by Michael (I bought my mum a new gaff, and had a lovely ‘oliday in the Bahamas with this dosh) Caine as the sozzled, seaplane-piloting, degenerate gambler, all round cheeky chappie, and patronising grandma on the verge of a nervous breakdown chaser, “Hoagie,” eliciting bemusing Oedipal jealousy all over the shop. I will confess to mimicking Michael pulling on his moustache whiskers in reverie, and very specifically toying with a pencil over the years, as these throwaway character bits have each crept into my own human behaviour—much like quoting Costner in The Bodyguard, and pressing lift buttons with my thumb like John McClane, so perhaps there’s more value to Guest’s performance here than I initially gave credit for.

The playground debate-baiting, would-be death of most folks’ fave Revenge character, Mario Van Peebles, as Jake baffled us all, causing playing field bickering beyond, as the BBC’s UK terrestrial screenings opted for the harsh finality of the U.S. theatrical cut ending, in which the Neptune’s Folly’s bow-breaks, and Jake is munched, taking a slo-mo plunge into the white shark’s gob (also his fate in Hank Searls’ novelisation), and yet other television showings chose to air the international home video and subsequent (otherwise butchered) DVD release denouement, which saw Jake miraculously return from the depths—bobbing up bitten and bloody, but very much alive. If the rumors are to be believed, it was a negative audience test screening demanding more ending excitement—hence the inexplicable exploding Jaws (of course the shark’s called “Jaws.” Here comes Jaws: Jaws the Shark—mind he doesn’t bite you with his enormous jaws), which also triggered a wet set reshoot, and the subsequent resurrection of Peebles.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying Jaws: The Revenge is a good film. The shark is so clean, it looks like it just escaped from Florida’s Universal Studios—rubbery, restricted, jerky movements and all. The film is utterly devoid of logic at times, the daft—but aren’t we clever cut to the eye of a cod or whatever, Ellen being psychically-tied to a large mackerel shark, the clunky, sepia flashbacks, and awkward deployment of film grammar-destroying, nonsensical dream sequences. All that being said, it’s nevertheless a drastic improvement on Jaws 3-D.

After the Quaid-led mess of 3, it’s almost enough to just see Ellen Brody—it’s enough to bump into characters we know from the familiar town of Amity, taking the ferry, running down its now historic beaches, walking around the same locations as the first, following in the Chief’s footsteps—and call me nuts, but killing off the Marty McFly-esque red herring protagonist, Sean, in the opening moments is kinda brave. However, signs we may have jumped the shark—Fonzie-style, include the openly ridiculed, audibly roaring beast, a self-reflexive, meta moment where Jake disputably mimics John Williams’ Jaws theme over the underwater CB radio, and a whopping white pointer somehow navigating the narrow corridors of a wrecked ship—though to counter that, I do endlessly enjoy Michael’s bubbly, bends-inducing, yet ingenious use of a scuba tank to escape to the surface.

The mismatched, jumble sale sweater-vested dress sense—and even more muddled movie meanderings of America’s most birdbrained critical twosome, Shitskel and Eburk, each took delight in pointing out the picture’s finale was bizarrely missing an appropriate master shot to clue audiences into what was actually occurring. They’re not wrong; they’re just assholes. The bonkers levels of bloody geyser-spurt render the uncut version more satisfying—albeit in a preposterous way, but the death of The Revenge’s Carcharodon carcharias is an underwhelming catastrophe in the theatrical. The sequence drastically needed truncating. Although, I believe the filmmakers had enough coverage, as even an amateur YouTuber managed to experimentally trim the existing footage, and it’s a marked improvement—if a little abrupt, and crude in form.

S&E’s review lives in infamy as being among the most notorious, harshest, and arguably funniest reviews from their At the Movies segments, with the rotund, human dough-boy—schlubby Lego man, Ebert, peering at us achingly, like a bullied toddler through thick, jam jar glasses, hungrily pointing out logical fallacies regarding the shark’s POV, and pleading for acceptance from anyone who’ll listen. Then there’s the weedy Gene—candidate for world’s most asexual man—all corpse-like, with beige dismissals of truly great movies being a thing of regular occurrence, which I constantly attempt to capture in our Critics’ Corner segments. The snidey Siskel spouted, “An idiotic script sinks the whole show.” He loathed the dream sequences, appeared apoplectic, and relayed that audiences in his theatre were groaning, and that he felt an urge to punch a hole in the screen—which would’ve likely done more damage to his puny limbs than the theatrical paraphernalia.

Not wanting to be outdone, Ebert boastingly recounted shouting, “His shirt is dry!” aloud in his cinema showing, to which no doubt the entire audience lifted him up onto their shoulders, and declared him king of the pedants. He may have got a laugh from that particular preview audience, and I’m sure that gave him some semblance of satisfaction, being the desperate toad he is. As Ebert observed, “Mrs Brody could be haunted by flashbacks to events where she was not present, and that, in some cases, no survivors witnessed.” My infantile brain didn’t care. The Siskmeister General also latched onto the bugbear continuity error of a dry Caine when he clambers back on board the Folly after his seaplane vs shark altercation. They were obviously so bored that they noticed. I myself did not—especially as a little ‘un.

Jaws: The Revenge houses, “Old, cheap, lousy gimmicks,” which is rich coming from these two—their TV careers, at least, were based entirely upon the wafer-thin premise of two mutts pathetically bickering over movies for ratings. “Live in Iowa is the answer!” they chuckle. These two jerk-offs yank each other’s chains and giggle over the ineptitude of films that neither of them could’ve put together in a million years. They were clearly teased as children, and hold grudges against anything, and everyone they can, taking a palpable delight in the faux-intellectual destruction of someone’s art, whether it be Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, or Joseph Sargent’s Jaws: The Revenge. In future, I’ll be looking to their British counterpart—the equally elderly but more measured, Barry Norman instead.

Late Comedian Richard Jeni’s face-slapping, career-defining, four-minute Johnny Carson Tonight Show appearance mostly milked the Brodys’ bloodthirsty Bahamas trip for material. Jeni recounts renting all four Jaws movies in a row, and joked The Revenge‘s title should have been, “Here’s a fish. You’re stupid.” He continued, “It’s 4 in the morning. You’re sitting there with one sweat sock and a burrito watching a shark that only kills one family out of an entire ocean full of perfectly edible people, for no reason that we ever explain. Call me a spinal column with a bucket of popcorn, but you couldn’t be stupid enough to enjoy it.” Well, I sure proved him wrong!

I was so miffed by these so-called reviews, with the majority of critics halfheartedly sticking the boot in with stale, self-evident assertions. It’s an easy target, and it struck me as indolent and quite elementary, as they rarely peered beyond the sluggish demise of the creature with its nonsensical roaring, and the dopey, misguided premise that the same shark family is chasing the same Brody bunch. There’s certainly a case for The Revenge being more of a laugh than Jaws 2, and in my mind it’s infinitely better than the indefensible Jaws 3-D. I invariably try to sneak The Revenge in somewhere between Boxing Day and New Year, because never mind the Die Hard non-debate, this is a Christmas film! Why not double bill it with The Muppet Christmas Carol for a second slice of Crimbo Caine? After all, what says Christmas more than the child character from your favourite film, bathed in red light, writhing in agony and grasping at a limb that’s no longer there whilst carols are sung joyously on the shore by cheery Amity islanders? Belated berry crumble to you all!

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Some Dickhead is Standing in My Sun

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In 1982, the Ladd Company unleashed the dystopian sci-fi classic, Blade Runner. In 1984, they crapped out the first Police Academy movie. Quite the about turn. Overtly racist, sexist, homophobic, fat-shaming characters populated the hugely popular hit, which spawned six shady sequels ranging from amusing to abhorrent. Believe it or not, they still air on UK telly fairly regularly—albeit with the slurs chopped out. Already, I can feel some righty readers squirming in their seats at my politically correct 2024 hindsight—please hear me out, I’m a sort of fan.

The first Police Academy installment, for better or worse, established an overarching premise that would be regurgitated over and over, birthing the classic catchphrases, “Many, many,” “Move it, move it, move it!” and “Don’t move, dirt-bag!” They had a formula and boy did they stick to it—’til the wheels fell off (for me, to a lesser degree) in the juvenile, barrel-scraping oddity, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, and then altogether in the monstrosity that is the almost unmentionable, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. The franchise had sequential, annual releases for episodes 1-6, before Mission to Shitshow crept along a little later in ‘94 like an accidental pregnancy, and subsequently feels like the runt of the litter in a litter consisting almost entirely of runts.

The overarching premise is simplicity itself—under a new mayor, in an unnamed city bubbling with crime, a floundering police academy updates its admittance policy to include all willing applicants—cue the misfit new recruits as they blunder their way through, and then overcoming all odds, ultimately emerge on top. Whether the hapless cadets were rescuing kidnapped captains, foiling serial bank robbers, or defeating rioting street punks, the slapstick giggles, sexual innuendo, and cheap humour made the madcap movies staples in childhoods all over the world. But would the franchise survive a “woke” reappraisal? Is the first film in particular merely a tasteless, flesh-flashing, ‘80s screwball sex comedy in the sordid vein of ’81’s Porky’s? Should we disregard the worrying content, and excuse it on account of its “different time” hijinks? Should we stop being so bloody sensitive, and just enjoy it for what it is? Or do we hold the franchise to rights?

For the uninitiated, here’s a quick sequential rundown of the titles in the series:

Police Academy (1984)

Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)

Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)

Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988)

Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)

Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

The majority of the Police Academy films have a uniformity (soz), and are structured pretty much identically—beginning with some bullshit lead-in text before a (sort of) cold open—typically a tentative thematic tie-in to the story, opening on a cityscape and buildings at night alongside Robert Folk’s triumphant, earwormy score. Next, a new recruitment process will usually begin—with Mahoney, Tackleberry, or Nick, for example, meet-cuting their 90-minute love interest. Harris (or Mauser), driven by incurable insecurity and unfounded meanness—with their useless sidekick, Proctor, typically in tow, attempt to kick the insubordinate newbies out, or forge a devious plot to discredit them somehow. Cue a training scenario montage, and some sketch-like, vignette-style set pieces, separated by spinning tile transitions.

Next, the unconvinced senior officers will no doubt gripe about the ineptitude of the bumbling cadets up until a final, fifteen-minute-ish action set piece (e.g. the riot in Police Academy, the zoo punk raid in Police Academy 2, the airshow in Police Academy 4, and the Everglades swamp boat chase in Police Academy 5, in which a (relatively) serious, “someone’s in trouble” rescue attempt is miraculously a success—whether it’s Mahoney saving Kim Cattrall, and Hightower, in turn, saving both Mahoney and Harris in the original, or the rookies rescuing Harris and Lassard in Assignment Miami Beach. This act proves the worth of—or reinstates the chump cops as true heroes, and cements their rightful place at the academy with an approximately five-minute awards ceremony thrown in next, in which select dippy rozzers are rewarded with promotions—freeze frame on a joyous moment over the end credits, and they wrap it up! That’s yer lot!

“It’s dirty work, but somebody’s gotta do it!” blasts the soundtrack as Steve Guttenburg’s shit-eating grin greets us once again in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment. Decked out in a sleeveless cop uniform with ludicrous, unnecessary, cut-off shorts, cruising boobie beach on his trike of misogyny—this, ladies and gents, is Carey Mahoney—a handsome chancer, who typically finds himself the heroic, girl-getting, male lead in the midst of numbskulls. How this puppy-dog creep didn’t find himself at the wrong end of a sexual harassment lawsuit when—whilst impersonating an officer, he ordered a youthful Kim Cattrall to first show, and then describe her thighs, we’ll never know. The archetypal sex pest protagonist pressed his luck again as he casually drank a Bud whilst peeping-Tomming nubile cadets in the showers—gifting the first movie’s target audience some cheap, Porky’s-style T-and-A. Then in ‘85’s Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, whilst being fitted for new police issue pants, he pervily wrangled balloon animals into his trousers, and pleaded for the female shop assistant to, “Please be gentle.”

Mahoney is arguably the star of the first four films in the Police Academy franchise—although more colourful characters such as the klutzy, effeminate, Cmdt. Lassard, the Rambo-mad, armed to the teeth and ready for war, Tackleberry, human synthesiser and uncanny mimic, Larvell Jones, the intimidatingly androgynous, Callahan, and the lofty, Globetrotteresque, Hightower, eventually surpassed him as standouts as the shenanigans spiralled over a total of seven films (although I am loathe to even mention the tagged-on seventh installment, and disaster of Biblical proportions, Mission to Moscow). These were simpler times, when cadets all had “Johnsons” and were “the right colour.” Wouldn’t fly commercially in 2024—although I’m positive it still raises suspect chuckles in certain households, and it sure as hell flew in the ‘80s—so much so, that the Police Academy movies grossed over $537 million, with a sequel being produced every subsequent year, from ’84-’89, until Mission to Moscow—which I not only consider non-canon, but also a stain on the previous stain that is Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, excreted itself into existence.

At the risk of some invisible, Internet overlord expelling The Rewind Movie Podcast from your algorithm, I am about to explicitly quote Police Academy’s multiple racial slurs and non-pc terms without redactions, as to illustrate the content—so sensitive readers beware. Please take into account, in the Police Academy universe, all Japanese people are experts in martial arts, would be better suited as sushi chefs, and in all likelihood had family members who were somehow involved in Pearl Harbor. “Spade” and “dumb, fat, jigaboo” aren’t terms you’d typically find in a knockabout ’80s comedy, but they’re all shockingly present and politically incorrect here in the first Police Academy installment, alongside a plethora of homophobic digs—most notably in the many, many, Blue Oyster Bar dance sequences, “Mahomo’s”—I mean, Mahoney’s startling, out of the blue, “Sleeping’s for fags” utterance, and enough “bitches” and “queers” for Tackleberry to shake his sleazy saxophone at.

“You men stop that!” cries the sexually puzzling Commandant Lassard before showing gleeful approval at the male-female kiss that follows. Is Lassard gay? I would’ve bet my life on it. However, he is apparently married—although, so was Oscar Wilde, so all bets are off. I’d personally hazard a guess at latent homosexuality based on an ambiguously-gendered podium liaison, and his ongoing trademark, camp ejaculations. In this particular city, every blind alley appears to lead to a gay bar packed with over-familiar, mustached, leather-clad gents who love dancing. When you consider these Blue Oyster Bar scenes were the first example of on screen homosexuality I’d ever witnessed—my introduction to gay characters in movies, it’s perhaps less than ideal—jovial and lighthearted, sure, but at whose expense? It’s another unfortunate sign of the times that I believe should nevertheless continue to play out in reruns and repeats purely for posterity, historical hindsight, and reflection.

Just to momentarily play devil’s advocate—Mahomophobia aside, the first Police Academy movie is somewhat forward-thinking in the sense that it predominantly paints the racists and bigots as fools, and chooses to favour the city’s minorities as equal representatives of the community by depicting them as people considered worthy of donning the blue of the academy, and shouldering the responsibilities of being a cop. This message is unfortunately buried so low under the imbecilic gags that it rarely has opportunity to surface and resound—but it’s in there somewhere.

The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? Coke or Pepsi? Harris or Mauser? I’m a Harris guy, myself. Granted, he’s despicably mean to poor Hooks, bless her, but G.W. Bailey’s “pissants,” and “numbnuts” leap off the screen and explode like little comedy grenades. No one says, “Dickhead” like Bailey. He’s the king of villainy in these movies—and of course in another child of the ’80s fave, Short Circuit, where he faces off against a goodie Guttenburg once again as the loathsome army baddie, Skroeder—dead set on blowing up Johnny 5 and making him… not alive. G.W. was peculiarly passed up for Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, making way for Art Metrano’s copycat antagonist, Mauser—but when Art called it quits, Bailey returned triumphantly for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol in ’87, which, to this day, remains my go-to entry as it’s the sole Police Academy get-together to host the entire stable of key characters—Mahoney (not Nick), Jones, Harris (not Mauser), Hightower, Hooks, Zed, and Sweetchuck (plus an enchanting, mid-eighties Sharon Stone).

It’s important to note that a racist character exhibiting discriminatory behavior is not the same thing as a film itself being racist or discriminatory. Without meaning to regurgitate Ricky Gervais’s Twitter feed, we must differentiate between the subject of a joke, and the target of a joke, as a responsible, intelligent audience—something these films perhaps unfortunately failed to attract. Having said that, as dumb as this series gets, it’s still marginally smarter than its target viewer. Are these films harmless? To me, yeah. They’re a product of—and still bear a clear resemblance to, the seedier, bygone traditions of the era, and stood on the puny shoulders of the practical joke-filled, raunchy sex comedies of the time, to perv on nude girls in the locker room. I’ve neutralised the hate speech, and enjoy the majority of them as nostalgic, frisky farces in a similar vein to the British Carry On films—they’re neither respected, nor hold any weight or credibility, but are actually pretty benign. I equate the hankering to view any of these movies with the urge to smoke a cigarette, or eat a McDonald’s. It’s the same every time, ultimately bad for you, but nevertheless quite enjoyable. So if you’re craving a motion picture with witty discourse like, “I could show a movie on your butt, fatso!” or an Asian man mispronouncing “cauliflower” and “broccoli” for apparent comic effect, look no further! Amid the many, many, wonderful memories, you’ll no doubt glimpse the diseased, hamburger-heart of ’80s America, and it’s very, very, strange.

PS To aid you on your next Police Academy quest, I have prepared a user-friendly guide to the crap cop shenanigans—Police Academy: Pulling Rank! 🚓. The following brief reviews and ratings score the franchise, and grade each film out of a possible 10, in order of greatness (or reverse shitness).

1. Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)

The familiar yet amusing premise employed here is the introduction of a C.O.P. program—not, “Collection of Pissants,” as Harris would have you believe, but “Citizens on Patrol,” which sees incompetent civilians of all ages and backgrounds merely acting as police officers after superficial, basic “training.” It is perhaps the best incarnation of that core, repetitious, but comedically functional idea in the series. But nostalgia alone isn’t what cements Citizens on Patrol‘s claim to the top-spot. It’s the perfect Police Academy storm, and notably the sole Police Academy entry to feature franchise OGs and stalwarts, Mahoney, Harris, Zed, Sweetchuck, Hooks, Hightower, and a bonus Sharon Stone—which marks Citizens on Patrol as the only movie with everyone present.

There’s a skateboarding David Spade, Harris calls proctor a “dickhead,” and we hear the unforgettable, deep guttural chant of, “Yama-yama-yama-yama-yaaama!” with a hockey-masked Tackleberry jumbling up his horror antagonists, and emerging from a body bag clutching a chain saw. Bobcat Goldthwait—an acquired taste for sure (just ask Jerry Seinfeld), is absolute gold for his run of three films (2, 3, and 4). Zed getting a girlfriend may be his best plot line, with the charming and quite captivating, Corinne Bohrer puzzlingly finding the cacophonous madman attractive. There’s hope for us all! His guitar-accompanied, “Shut up! No, not you. The ducks” bit under the tree, and their poetry slam meet cute are ridiculous and hilarious in equal measure. Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), and her returning—still unlikely squeeze, Nagata (Brian Tochi) are reunited to fight ninjas alongside auditory sensation fan favourite, Jones—who is at this stage still a valuable novelty, and enjoyably on top form, new recruit, Mrs. Feldman bungles the C.O.P. program single-handedly, and then rescues it from the clutches of failure with the neat, “Book ’em Tack!” window motorcycle crash sequence.

Despite phoning in the entire movie, the top-billed Steve Guttenberg as Mahoney is sycophantically swooned over by thirsty female basketball fans, and rounds out his series stint sipping champagne with Sharon Stone in a Police Academy air balloon before disappearing from the franchise forever—at its arguable peak, no less. I’d call that a win. Citizens on Patrol‘s final Williams County air show set piece is legitimately ace—and surely influenced Blackadder Goes Forth‘s similar ADR’d death-defying Red Baron sequence two years later, showcasing impressive practical aerial stunts, and for me is good enough to top the Police Academy action denouement leaderboard. Mahoney appropriately rides shotgun in the passenger seat, while Stone heroically pilots a biplane—and despite a somewhat unbecoming Rod Stewart hairdo, the 28-year-old (post-Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, pre-Action Jackson) is off the charts gorgeous—to quote the ever so wise, Nagata, “Wow! What a woman!” Lance Kinsey as Proctor is an MVP here, Marion Ramsey is warmly welcome as the deceptively demure Hooks, George R. Robertson as Chief (later Commissioner) Hurst has a turn, Billie Bird is a fun addition as daredevil pensioner, Mrs Feldman, and Tony Hawk pops up as a (blink and you’ll miss him) sk8er boi.

As per usual, the blundering Harris and Proctor are heroically saved—this time from a watery grave by the recruits from the program they’ve been railing against throughout and refused to endorse, and now must eat humble pie and learn their lessons. As Zed and Sweetchuck plummet towards certain death with only one parachute between them, Goldthwait’s off the cuff, “Break your fall! Hit the kids!” is one of the funniest, and darkest lines in the entire series. If that wasn’t enough, Citizens on Patrol‘s theme song is performed by Michael Winslow & The L.A. Dream Team, featuring various James Brown and Michael Jackson riffs, parodies, and impressions.

7.4/10

2. Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988)

To quote Kevin Smith, in reference to the lost sequel, Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian—“Must we go tropical?” The answer here is an unequivocal yes! Having said that, the guilt of loving Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach weighs heavy on me. I’ve always felt (incorrectly, mind) that Matt McCoy was the thinking man’s Steve Guttenberg, whereas in reality, he’s kind of an unfunny, chucklehead lame-o. Although, that didn’t stop me pretending to be him when I was little—mimicking his hotel lobby hostage scenario exploits by diving behind our sofa with a plastic cap gun. New king of the pranks, Nick’s sexual harassment poolside massage is met with swift retaliation from the elegant and assertive Gretzky-bride, and slicked-back Playboy bunny, Janet Jones—refreshingly subverting the ordinarily successful Mahoney-style chat-up approach by hoying McCoy into a nearby pool. There’s no Sharon Stone, but at least we have a more proactive female character (albeit one we’re encouraged to ogle at first).

Amid the slapstick-o-rama and bozo bad guys, there’s enough “butt-wipes,” “sleaze-balls”, and “dick-weeds” to comfortably tick your Binge Bingo™ “PG-13 cuss” boxes, there’s a badass fanboat chase through the alligator-infested Everglades with an Apocalypse Now aping “Ride of the Valkyries” swamp rescue, Hightower fights an alligator, fat lad Tab Thacker returns as “little” Tommy Conklin, aka “House,” Proctor inevitably ends up nude—delivering my favourite ever Lance Kinsey throwaway line—“He’s thinking,” MasterChef‘s John Torode has a lookalike in the baddie gangster, “Mouse,” and then there’s “Sugar,” whose standout moment is unfortunately just a fart gag in a lift. We have an oily volleyball montage to rival the shirtless Cruise, Slider, and company in Top Gun—featuring the indelible, “How low can you go?” limbo montage, we take a leaf out of the Thaddeus Harris book of pick-up tekkers as he shoots his shot with a chick at a tiki hut bar, there’s a Jaws reference—”Desist the swimming area now, mister!” and enough spit-takes and squirting donuts to addle our brains throughout. Having said that, Proctor frustratedly throwing the unconscious Harris face-first onto a table in a fit of rage is hilarious—and I’ll have words with any man who says otherwise.

One review simply asked, “Where the fuck was Mahoney?” The thinking-man’s Steve Guttenburg, he may not be, but ol’ Matt McCoy as Nick is sufficient, I suppose. Harris has reached such an exasperated level of hatred, resentment, and frustration with the incompetence of literally everyone around him, but he himself continues to cock up every golden chance offered to him to do any better, and improve his station. The strands of Harris desperately trying to become commandant, the honouring of Lassard in Miami, the police training seminar, and then the actual diamond heist and real kidnapping converge and intersect with comedic benefits.

By 5, presumably even the makers were tired of the formulaic structure, and instead opted for the most movie-like plot so far—with entirely new crooks in the shape of the pencil-mustachioed, surely coked-up, diamond thief villain, René Auberjonois, as Tony the wannabe gangster, and his bungling sidekick henchmen. What works here plot-wise, severely drops off in the next installment, City Under Siege. Here, director Allan Myerson injects a more cinematic approach to the photography and staging. A “MAl-arke-ee Diamonds” sign proves the makers know how silly it all is, and evidently chose to embrace it. It’s such a fun ride, and unlike earlier entries, actually feels good-natured. Lassard can’t help but foil the criminals—even when he’s not trying to be a hero cop, he’s inadvertently knocking them down stairs, and dropping golf balls to maim and injure. In fact, the police procedure demonstration conceit makes for some surprisingly humorous interactions between Lassard and his kidnappers. A chipper camaraderie evolves between them; a mutual respect, and a budding friendship.

The conceit of the police procedure demonstration is innovative for the franchise, and allows Cmdt. Lassard to be both the klutz, the willing hostage, and the hero. The score is gentle and emotive—the kettle drum tunes make me happy—it all sounds like a Mario Kart track, and transports me back to a carefree youth. It feels like a slight recalibration before the overtly slapstick, plot-heavy (sorta) City Under Siege, and following Citizens on Patrol—which for me, was the peak of the first four entries with their somewhat honed, comedy vignette style. Although, this one does, quite novelly employ them during the Miami sequences, alongside the police convention, karate demonstrations, riot control drills, etc. which freshens the presentation a touch. They knew what worked, what they wanted to change, and they did it, so for me this one really delivers, and would also be a terrific introduction to the Police Academy franchise.

Assignment Miami Beach is a pleasant, unabashedly feel-good movie, aspiring to nothing more than it achieves. If you have any rugrats in your household, this is an excellent place to begin because when it’s rude, it’s gently rude. Sure, Callahan is reduced to a strutting boob gag, but fortunately for the film, or unfortunately for feminism, it still works. There are no offensive racial slurs or questionable content, and it relies on a heavy dose of kid-friendly slapstick and pratfalls. Everyone has grown into—as opposed to bored of their roles—I’m looking at you, City Under Siege and Mission to Moscow.

7.3/10

3. Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)

There are more laugh out loud moments in the first twenty minutes of Back in Training than the entire first two films combined. Police Academy 3 was perhaps my most-rewatched as a kid. “Warm tonight,” is one of the funniest lines in the whole series, and is something I either say, or think about, perhaps once a month, and is for me, Proctor’s second best ever (after Assignment Miami Beach‘s dumbtastic, “He’s thinking”), as is Tack’s, “Slug shredding your vital organs…” presentation. Influential? I’ll let you be the judge of that—in Back in Training, Nagata and Jones invent Rush Hour. Search your feelings, Brett Ratner—you know it to be true. Sadly, Mauser’s here in place of Harris, so that’s an automatic point off from me—but thankfully Proctor returns! There’s a clear, uncomplicated premise, which I quite enjoy—one of two rival police academies must close, only one can remain—with a stuffy committee making the final call. Brain off, and enjoy!

7.1/10

4. Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)

Alright, where’s Harris? The memorable hair-glue prank on Mauser soothes this travesty slightly, but G.W. Bailey is always missed. Chief Hurst returns—albeit meaner, and Lassard’s brother—played permanently stressed-out by Flight of the Navigator‘s baddie scientist, Howard Hesseman, is a nice new addition. There are some vandal grannies, and the moronic, hare-brained, walking disaster Fackler is back in full force. Mr Sweetchuck’s opening lock-up has a spoofy tone akin to Police Squad!. Notably, Their First Assignment marks the first appearance of franchise staples, Mauser, Proctor, Sweetchuck, and a scene-stealing Bobcat Goldthwait as the batshit “Zed”—who, as my favourite Police Academy character, brings a much-needed injection of chaos, anarchy, and solvent abuse to the proceedings. This entry showcases some of Zed’s best lines and manic scenes, such as crashing a funfair, and looting a supermarket. It contains both Mahoney’s funniest business in terms of the character, and it’s also Guttenberg’s best turn in the series, stretching his comedy legs as the undercover “Jughead,” not to mention all the fairly effective, filthy, Officer Vinnie Schtulman, new partner/two hander shenanigans. A decent final act climax helps Their First Assignment to climb just a smidge above the first Police Academy film in my personal rankings.

As if, “Nice piece! I was referring to your side arm,” and Tackleberry applying gun oil in lieu of cologne wasn’t enough to endear his and Kirkland’s like-minded coupling to us, the fun, spoofy tone is solidified with Eugene and Kathleen‘s disarming post-date strip down. It feels like a scene ripped straight out of The Naked Gun, but credit where it’s due, precedes it by three years. Having said that, as an example of Roger Ebert’s critical skewering—setups to jokes occasionally go absolutely nowhere. Here, Fackler needs to spend a penny, so stops at a petrol station. The blasé attendant informs him he can use the key but he shouldn’t run off anywhere. We see the bathroom key is tied to a big breeze block, and that’s it—that’s the gag. Nothing happens next. The scene just ends.

Police Academy 2 features the cringeworthy clangers, “I want to get my hands on some healthy young men!/There are bars,” “New recruits, not fruits!” and “Your little butt is mine/I’m straight.” There’s sadly some blatant, and occasionally disturbing racism from Mauser—with his throwaway, yet abhorrent “Jones boys” remark after they’re inadvertently blacked-up in a sooty tunnel. It’s a moment the character never really recovers from, and another example of why I prefer Harris as academy instigator. Mauser is also egregiously, and excessively cruel to Hooks, and dangerously antagonistic with Hightower—of course the film at least exposes racist characters for their idiocy, and they invariably get what’s coming to them. Here, the deserving Mauser does, as per, get his comeuppance, and is left with crap Lego man hair when a poly alloy, liquid adhesive glues his hands to his head in a shower, resulting in some hairy-palmed wanker quips.

Also in bad taste are shocking Asian stereotypes galore, including the phonically bungled, L and R mispronunciations of “Not on broccoli! Not on cauliflower!” Pete Lassard angrily exclaiming, “Is all that crap necessary?” because the Japanese chef with the wok is being a, quote, “stupid bastard,” the boiled fish bit, “Oh, you want stir fry?” exchange, and myriad Bruce Lee business. The undercurrent of racism is strong in this one, too, with Jones’s good ol’ boy partner blurting out, “I got you figured for an asshole. I’ve never taken any shit from you people, and I’m not gonna start now.” He also calls Jones, “boy,” which stings.

6.9/10

5. Police Academy (1984)

Spoof scribe, Pat Proft, of Real Genius, The Naked Gun, Hot Shots, and the Scary Movie series fame, penned this one, with Paul Maslansky producing, and Hugh Wilson (writer of Stroker Ace) on debut directing duties—capitalising on prior sex comedy genre efforts like 1983’s Private School, and attempting to read from the same zeitgeisty memo as the trashy, sexploitationer, Revenge of the Nerds—released the same year. The gently titillating tone is in the vein of, but not as harsh as the genre’s key predecessors—it’s more Meatballs, and Porky’s lite than the full fat Coke version.

It’s the original, and set the template for every sequel—barring the one that shall not be named. Like The Fast Show or something, it’s packed with little comedy sketches, cementing the template for the first four installments, at least. It’s firmly in the nostalgic camp now—corny, yet strangely cinematic at times with its visual gag deployment. The Brian De Palma-aping window gag shot, with girls getting changed, Callahan lifting weights, the Lothario’s bedroom harem antics, and finally, repeat sexual offender, Carey Mahoney, up to his old tricks—smugly kicking back with a brewski, and scoping naked ladies—before Harris predictably gets the blame, is I’m sorry to say, perhaps the most sophisticated cinematic composition the series ever achieved. Police Academy‘s clumsy, clunky jump cuts only enhance the crass comedy.

Never has hitting in your wife in the head with a car door, or whacking her in the guts with a suitcase been as funny. Pratfalls ensue as resident klutz, Fackler inadvertently starts a riot (by throwing an apple out of a car window), during which Harris is taken hostage (the first of many, many times). Mahoney pervs? Check. Tackleberry sax? You betcha. Trivia: David Graf, as the trigger-happy Tackleberry was the first character ever to appear in the series—foolishly shooting up his own surprise party. Amid timid, “butt breaths,” “scuzzballs,” “scumballs,” and “cretins,” the unfortunate, wholly distasteful—yet revealing of the era, use of racial slurs such as “spades,” and a 28-year-old Kim Cattrall describing her thighs, would absolutely not pass muster in 2024’s somewhat illuminated Thunderdome.

George Gaynes as Lassard is perhaps the standout performance here with a genuinely peculiar turn. His, “And what a lovely sight it was” in reference to “Johnson’s” everywhere adds another puzzling layer to the conundrum that is Lassard’s sexuality. Also, Mahoney and Hightower get involved in a slightly under-cranked Benny Hill car chase, and “I’m Gonna Be Somebody” by Jack Mack plays us out with a cut from his new record. Take it away!

6.5/10

6. Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)

City Under Siege features the best pool hustle scene since the late, great James Avery as uncle Phil broke out “Lucille” on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Jones breakin’ out just about every pop culture reference of the era—from Jimi Hendrix to The Terminator. In the movie’s standout moment, Tackleberry apologises to a cat—which is as funny in writing as it is in the film—very. Also, there’s a truck chase set piece to rival (not really) similar sequences in Con Air, A View to a Kill, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The cartoony, vertigo-inducing window-washing squeegee sequence—featuring Harris’ desperate, pathetic pleading—“I’ll feed the poor!” always makes me laugh, and the Fred Flintstone nod may keep the little ‘uns chuckling, but they’re running out of steam by this sixth entry, and only the dire depths of Mission to Moscow manage to sink and stoop lower—although this installment still feels like a genuine slice of the series, and not a last, lame tag on.

The Wilson Heights Gang storyline results in a little too much plot reliance. Who cares about the plot? This is a Police Academy movie, right? The masked, Scooby-Doo “Pinocchio test” ending is a real stretch, even for a childhood fan of the franchise. If Assignment Miami Beach “jumped the shark,” or more appropriately—“fought the alligator,” then City Under Siege makes it into a handbag in a borderline embarrassing fashion, with desperate slapstick squeezing the final comedic juice from the ailing franchise. The series was undoubtedly neutered when it went PG-13—the language is softened even more so here with “kick some butt” and “stupid twit” both lamely uttered. As a boy it didn’t bother me, but as an adult, it grates. There’s simply not enough sleaze or edginess to offset a plethora of pratfalls. Also, it’s Matt McCoy again, so…

5.4/10

7. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

What a mess. I am not ashamed to say I have attempted 1994’s Mission to Moscow twice in my life, and have failed miserably both times. It just ain’t canon. It’s abysmal; a monstrosity. There’s no Hooks or Hightower, either. 1–6, for all their faults, are the real deal, and the much delayed oddity that is the seventh Police Academy installment is merely—as uttered in the superior City Under Siege—an imposter. It should be reprimanded, and brought up on insubordination charges. The bewitching beauty of Claire Forlani (a year before Mallrats) can’t save it. Not even Dracula and Hellboy can—avoid like the ruddy plague. I’m serious.

0.9/10

Police Academy Drinking Game

PPS Prepare your livers! Here’s a bonus Police Academy Binge Bingo™ (in association with the Scarious Artists Trope-Tote™ collection) I made just for you. In no way am I condoning either excessive alcohol consumption, or any of the behaviour exhibited in the following rule inclusions, or corresponding scenes. Please excuse the juvenile nature of this, and at least try to drink your many, many bevoirs responsibly.

  • Prank
  • PG-13 cuss, e.g. “cretin,” “scuzzball,” “butt-breath,” etc.
  • Training montage
  • Sexual harassment
  • Dismissed—someone is threatened to be, or is actually thrown out of the academy
  • Racism (slur or stereotype)
  • Sexual act
  • Firearm safety breach
  • Street punks
  • Homophobia—or gay stereotype, e.g. The Blue Oyster Bar
  • Harris says, “Move it!”
  • Tackleberry weaponry
  • Free
  • Unintentional maiming
  • Angry Hightower—feat of strength
  • Lassard says, “Many, many“
  • Promotion
  • Film reference, e.g. Rambo, Jaws, Dirty Harry, etc.
  • Incoherent Zed
  • Jones vocal FX
  • Proctor is insulted
  • Nudity
  • Hooks yells
  • Attempt to discredit
  • Harris or Mauser is a kiss-ass
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The Clown Prince of Crime

by scariousartistsLeave a Comment on The Clown Prince of Crime

The Dark Knight (2008)

“Dark” is the operative. A ferocious, unstoppable leviathan of a movie. Its single cello string like a coiled spring—so tautly wound that it whines and quakes. Christopher Nolan knows precisely the vital images to carve, and the zinger lines that needed to pop—from the Joker gang’s brutal, Heat-inspired opening heist, to the bazooka-wielding jester’s explosive subterranean antics, and the kind of heart-stopping, chaotic car chases that both mimic, and ultimately eviscerate Friedkin’s French Connection, you’ll grimace and wince, then cheer and applaud.

Reinventing the Batman’s most-famed archnemesis as a Lynchian, wild man Tom Waits resulted in posthumous Oscar perfection with the late, great Heath Ledger’s giggly, guttural, cross-dressing Joker emerging as the epitome of cinematic comic book villainy, and the cloudy-minded poster boy for the criminally insane. In spite of its superiority, Ledger’s world-burner doesn’t quite nail the unruly rally cry irresponsibility of Joaquin Phoenix’s later portrayal, but edges close—palpably urging us all to introduce a little anarchy, and disturbingly makes a dangerous amount of sense whilst doing it—with the same brand of twisted conviction, and simplistic solve-all snake oil salesman logic that serves inflammatory world leaders. At a glance, this picture (war) paints Joker as a loony, but under a little surface scratch scrutiny, he’s so clear in his chaotic, criminal convictions that he eventually owns the role—in spite of Joaquin and Jack’s best efforts, exhibiting the kind of cocksure arrogance America laps up from its straight-talking politicians. Like other corrupt officials, Joker at least has an answer for the lost boys of America. Political allegory aside—and although tragically premature, I reckon Heath would’ve probably enjoyed bowing out on this menacing note. Although The Dark Knight Rises would have undoubtedly played differently with the Joker breaking out of Arkham Asylum, and returning for more malicious mischief, Nolan somehow unknowingly depicted both the pitch-perfect, macabre exit of the Clown Prince of Crime, and the unfortunate, final curtain call of the admirable actor playing him—with the Joker spinning and twirling; upended madly, and then through Pfister’s rotated lens, now seemingly the right way up, eeking out a closing, uncomfortably insane squawk, before colliding with us; the audience.

Bale wears Bruce Wayne’s suave smirk as comfortably as the silent guardian’s cowl, and British institution, Michael Caine’s Alfred is a consistent joy—it’s a pleasure to watch, and spend time in his dignified company. Gary Oldman isn’t exactly as I’d pictured Gordon, but it’s nevertheless a fine portrayal of the character, and serves as yet another father figure for Bruce’s collection. Freeman and Gyllenhaal support the film’s weighty, yet far-fetched high concept with restrained, grounding performances, and Eckhart elevates and colours the entire picture—stomping his thematic “dent” into the overarching tale of the trilogy as “Two-Face.” 

Minor caveats such as the spoiled continuity of Katie Holmes’ Rachel Dawes depiction robs the trilogy of a neat arc, and Batman Begins‘ through line character as we simply can’t just start again and warm to Gyllenhaal right off the bat. It’s one of the trilogy’s most regrettable cock-ups, but I suppose it was unavoidable—though Maggie is undoubtedly the better performer. The gruff, gravelly voice of Bale’s Batman is an acquired taste, and Nicky Katt’s rubbish comic relief commentary improv aside, the movie remains predominantly both humorous and disturbing. I always wondered if there was perhaps a way to excise the section with the two ferries. By the time it arrives, it feels like one set piece too many for a two and a half hour film that could’ve been just a smidge tighter. Having said that, the ferry sequence may be a bridge too far, but it’s arguably necessary to unearth and articulate the plot machinations of the battle for Gotham’s “white knight,” Harvey’s corrupted soul.

The Dark Knight showcases the level of seamlessly-integrated practical stunts and CGI audiences can often only dream of. Here, it thrillingly comes true, with the plummeting Batman crushing the roof of a van, circling the Hong Kong cityscape in elegant flight, flipping the Joker’s truck silently into the air, and the militarily-grounded “Tumbler” Batmobile and its handy interior ejector pod. Add to all this a booming, pulsing Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard shared score that drones and beats in syncopation—a rhythm and rhyme. This pulsating heart of the movie ensures it kicks off with a bang and does not stop until we’re plunged into a quick cut darkness at the film’s watchful protector climax—daisy-chaining every scene together smoothly without ever sacrificing pace, and if it ever did run the risk of losing momentum, the deafening thuds startle and jolt us back to life—each thick, thump to the body reverberates and is felt.

No one will ever get this close again—not even Matt Reeves’ acclaimed 2022 incarnation, with bat-fatigue dulling its Seattley, emo-goth impact. The Dark Knight is anarchic, adult cinema, walking a tightrope; teetering on the precipice of overblown ridiculousness without ever stumbling into the winking, glossy Marvel mire; rattling the tracks of its own implausibility, but miraculously never toppling the train. If Michael Mann read comics, this is what we’d get. In spite of the tale-ending muscularity and might of The Dark Knight Rises, this is Nolan’s caped crusader mic drop; the superhero film to end all superhero films—a total triumph, and worthy of every ounce of praise and credit it has garnered.