“Get Your Money’s Worth” Vol. 6

I find myself wondering why the hell I watch some of these movies.

Here’s what I’ve thrown on the last two weeks, I’ve been traveling a bit for work and I’ve fallen behind pace slightly, don’t worry, we’ll be back up soon.

The Killing, Stanley Kubrick, Amazon Prime

American Psycho II: All American Girl, Morgan J. Freeman, Peacock

Basic Instict 2, Michael Caton-Jones, Paramount

Lenny Cooke, Josh and Benny Safdie, Criterion Channel

Psycho II, Richard Franklin, Amazon Rental

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Tobe Hooper, Max

Speed 2: Cruise Control, Jan de Bont, Hulu

This entire exercise was born out of strange segmented streaming libraries and always seeing certain titles pop up when scrolling.

Why the Hell Did They Make This?

I wonder if Bret Easton Ellis had any inkling that there would be a sequel to American Psycho. Filmmaking is an industry, so it isn’t any wonder why we have so many sequels with plots that feel pulled out of thin air, but it is even stranger why some of them work. Compare something like Psycho II and Basic Instinct 2; both are sequels from hired studio hands that did not set out to change the playbook in any noticeable way and come well after their stars had lost any noticeable shine.

I think these two films' success or lack thereof is defined by the way their filmmakers set out to emulate the geniuses behind the previous iterations. Richard Franklin is perfectly capable of making a movie that follows a Hitchcockian premise and structure while adding the major plot point asking the viewer and characters “Can a person be redeemed? Is generational sin and trauma something we can overcome?” There’s an added degree of skill and quality with Franklin behind the helm, small camera movements that a typical hired gun may not push for in their rendition of the Bates story, while Michael Caton-Jones's Basic Instinct 2 feels like a real victim of its era. Rapid cutting, poorly lit and shot action sequences, and the beginning of the most sexless era in modern American filmmaking; you can see the writing on the wall when it comes to the downfall of the sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s ‘92 classic. There’s an attempt to flip the story on its head by making the object of Stone’s fascination a psychotherapist instead of a cop, but the Leora Barish and Henry Bean script doesn’t have the good sense to interrogate psychosexual relationships or even go beyond the notion of “doctor-patient confidentiality”. Holland and Franklin know better than to try and make the same movie that Hitchcock and Stefano did; enough changed in the filmgoing consciousness and the industry in those ensuing 23 years that if you set out to make a transgressive and shocking film, you are begging for scathing criticism. I can’t pretend that Psycho II is perfect, but it reads the instruction booklet well enough to know what not to do.

The most common knock against these sequels is that they are lazy. The performances are lazy (Sharon Stone had a precipitous drop off in her commitment to any role post Casino), the filmmaking is lazy, and the conceits of the films are easily the laziest part of the whole production. It’s usually some version of remaking the magic of the first film with a slight tweak, but even more groan-inducing is the totally unrelated project that gets folded into a franchise to create brand recognition. This is not a television blog, but I am staring directly into your soul True Detective: Night Country. This not only limits the sandbox that filmmakers get to play in, but typically they end up being dead on arrival. I can’t express just how strange it is to watch American Psycho II: All American Girl because there is an idea there, buried under a mountain of detritus and horny older men. In another universe there is a college slasher filled with black comedy ala Scream 2 that never has to make a connection to Patrick Bateman or a babysitter or parents who feel inexplicably midwestern; Mila Kunis gets to set the template for Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body and horror freaks everywhere have a direct to video classic they can hold in high esteem. It isn’t like the film is only bad because it is a sequel, it is much worse than that. If the trio of actors at the center of the film gathered all of their performances, I’m not sure it could add up to an even halfway competent act. Everyone’s favorite Danny Masterson defender, Mila Kunis, has stated that the final product is nothing like the film she was pitched and I really want to believe her. I want there to be a film worthy of a garbage reclamation, but some movies are just that bad.

Speed 2: Cruise Control also exists and I think there are volumes to be written about Willem Dafoe and his leeches, but that is for a better writer with more time on their hands. Thanks for reading, see ya next time.