BEFORE: So here was my process for sorting out this year's horror films - and it's a reduced month, not a full 31 films because I'm going on vacation three weeks from now, same week as we did last year, because our BBQ Crawl was so successful last year, we're going to start from the same city and head in a different direction. That left me a maximum of 23 slots, once I subtracted the 8 vacation days. I isolated the horror films, moved them to a separate document from the main list and then started looking for films that shared cast members. This gets a little tricky when I try to go by genre, because there might be actors who do horror films all the time, and others who might appear in only one. But now that I allow myself to link between CHARACTERS in addition to actors, that made things a little easier, since there are only so many movie monsters out there.
Looking at the links, I came up with 22 films that fit together rather nicely, first five recent films that link by actor, and then I'll have to link by character to get back to the older classic horror films. The goal was to get to the Hammer Films Dracula series that TCM ran last year, and I found a way to link to that, and back out. Unfortunately it looks like I'll have to rely on indirect links at the end of the month to get back to where I need to be on November 1, but more about that later. Then TCM announced their "Monster of the Month" for THIS October, and that very nearly threw a monkey-wrench into my plans.
I'll discuss this in more detail in a few days, but if TCM's going to run a bunch of movies with the same character, I want in. Only I can't get to those films this year, because by the time they finish airing them, October will be nearly over, so even if adding them DID make my linking better (it doesn't) and even if I did want to abandon my plan to clear the Dracula slate of films clean (umm, I don't) then I still couldn't work them in to the 2018 plan, because I need to be mostly done by October 20, and some of the classic films I want to see aren't airing until October 28. So, by default they have to wait until next year. My only change was to move one of my Mummy films already on the list to next year too, because it should link both thematically and by actor to some of the films I had to ignore this year.
So here comes (in rough order) monsters, ghosts, demons, mummies, 1 werewolf, a whole bunch of Draculas, then back to ghosts for the ending. This will leave almost 30 films for next year, and they just don't link to each other very well, so this might be the last time I'm able to link horror movies by actor, we'll just have to see. I may face the same problem come February if I try to link romance movies together again.
But watching this one to start off October works out well when you consider my last horror film watched in 2017 was the "Godzilla" remake from 2014. This film comes from the same producers (or so the poster says), and, I'm assuming, also has a giant monster in it, so it's almost like I'm picking up right where I left off last October. OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch.
Samuel L. Jackson carries over from "Incredibles 2" for his last film this year - I may not see him again until the next "Avengers" movie, but hey, you never know. Boy, this was a good run, his second of the year. He should be high on the wrap-up list of actors with the most appearances at the end of 2018 regulation play.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "King Kong" (2005) (Movie #917)
THE PLOT: A team of scientists explore an uncharted island in the Pacific, venturing into the domain of the mighty Kong, and must fight to escape a primal Eden.
AFTER: I had the opportunity earlier this week to re-watch most of the first three "Jurassic Park" films - one of the premium cable companies is running them, and I've been able to catch them late at night, after the TV show or Netflix comedy special I was watching was over, when I was just looking for something to fall asleep to. You know, because people being chased by dinosaurs is always super relaxing...well, compared to the work I've been doing all week to qualify a short film for the Oscars, being chased by dinosaurs is kind of like a walk in the park. OK, maybe a quick sprint in the park.
It had been a LONG time since I'd seen "The Lost World: Jurassic Park II" or "Jurassic Park III: Good God, Why Do People Keep Coming Back Here" so I'd forgotten most of the story beats, and I'd certainly forgotten all of those little shock-filled moments, like when the raptors stand totally still and make the humans think they're dead, or a statue or something and then...PSYCH! They're alive and they want to eat you! Hell, I think I last saw J.P. 2 before I started going to San Diego regularly, so I didn't even recognize any of the local landmarks seen in that film the first time - and I've been going to San Diego for the last 14-15 years, so it must have been a while. This time I watched it and said, "Ooh, I know that trolley stop, there's a drug store right around the corner that I've been to..." and "Hey, that's Cedar St., I stayed at a hotel right near there for maybe three years in a row...". Because when dinosaurs are chasing people around, it's always good to look at the scenery behind them, it helps you get your bearings.
So it's no surprise that "Kong: Skull Island" reminds me of a "Jurassic Park" movie - after all, there's an island, a lot of giant, ancient creatures live there, and basically it's not a great place for people to be, because 99% of the things there want to eat them. But Skull Island is an important part of the Kong story, and it played a role in the 2005 Peter Jackson re-make of "King Kong", which was set in 1933. I tried not to learn a lot about this sequel before watching it - like I didn't even know what year it was setin, for that matter, I wasn't even sure it WAS going to be a sequel. Perhaps this would be a prequel, set in 1920 or so, explaining who first found the island, and how the crew in 1933 knew how to get there.
But they went a different way with it, the opening sequence is set during the last days of World War II, with American and Japanese fighter pilots crash-landing there, fighting each other until they realize that they share a much larger common enemy. Then a montage during the opening credits brings us through the events of the 1950's and 60's, stopping in 1973 to deliver the rest of the story. There are still some pretty big question marks about what the relation of THIS Kong is to the one in the 2005 film, if any. Of course, with any animal, even an impossibly giant one, there simply must be a way for its species to reproduce, unless it happens to be the last of its kind. One way or another, the giant ape seen in "King Kong" was just not the last one. Maybe the one here is his nephew or little brother or something.
But by setting this film in 1973, and including a team of helicopter pilots that are doing that ONE LAST mission before heading back home from Vietnam (oh, that can't be good...) and throwing in some songs we've heard before in those "other" 'Nam-based movies, your mind might make a connection between a particular other movie set in the last days of that war, which also featured a bunch of helicopters, and a team of soldiers headed up-river on a foolhardy mission. Even the color scheme of the poster seems like a reference to that movie, so I couldn't help but think of this film as (brace yourself, here...) "Ape-ocalypse Now". Just replace Brando with a giant Kong - actually that doesn't seem like much of a stretch, now does it? - and you've got yourself a movie.
I was going to make some more jokes about things like "Gorilla" warfare here, but looking back, I did that exact same thing earlier this year, after watching "War for the Planet of the Apes". Jeez, between that film, this one, "The Legend of Tarzan", it's been a very big year for monkeys. Let's not forget that King Kong also made a cameo in "Ready Player One" - I've got to remember that again at the end of the year.
The first Kong film I ever saw was the 1976 version, with Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange, and while the special effects in that one might have been groundbreaking at the time, in retrospect they weren't all they were cracked up to be. Like, you could tell when Kong was just a guy in a suit, and when he was just a mechanical face and prop hand. Sure, we've come a long way since then, everything's CGI and mo-cap now, but there's also a "King Kong" Broadway musical coming out, and it looks like they've gone backwards, with giant mechanical faces and prop hands. Yeah, I think I'll pass. That 1976 film, while I'm being critical, had some massive problems with scale, like I don't think they ever landed on exactly how big Kong was, and it didn't help that they transported the massive ape inside an even more massive oil tanker, which made him look small. Huh? Why would they do that? Then they made him climb the World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building (supposedly there were twin mountain peaks on Skull Island - lame) and again, Kong looked small compared to the Twin Towers, another huge mistake.
On the upside, this "Skull Island" film is wall-to-wall action, once they reach the island anyway, inconveniently located behind a permanent storm front, which is apparently a thing, though I'm not sure how that works. Inside the storm, the weather is great, so it seems like a perfect place to be, unless you count the giant monkey, the giant insects, the stabby giant spiders and the giant lizards with skull heads that will swallow you whole and then spit out your bones. There are plenty of those "It's right behind me, isn't it?" moments that will creep you out, and other times there won't be any warning at all, so people with heart conditions may want to seek out alternate forms of entertainment. Extraneous dialogue and character development have to take a back-seat when people are constantly on the defense against all the creepy-crawlies and the giant monsters.
As a bonus there's a hint at the end that future sequels in this franchise may connect with the Godzilla-verse and all the monsters therein, so if there's a particular monster mash-up you've been waiting to see, chances are it's coming on the horizon, if you can stay alive long enough to see it...
Also starring Tom Hiddleston (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), John Goodman (last seen in "Atomic Blonde"), Brie Larson (last seen in "Room"), Jing Tian, Corey Hawkins (last seen in "Non-Stop"), Toby Kebbell (last seen in "Gold"), John Ortiz (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Jason Mitchell (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Shea Whigham (last seen in "Savages"), Thomas Mann (last seen in "Fun Size"), Terry Notary (last seen in "War for the Planet of the Apes"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "The Lobster"), Will Brittain (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!!"), Eugene Cordero (last seen in "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"), Marc Evan Jackson (last seen in "22 Jump Street"), Richard Jenkins (last seen in "North Country"), Miyavi (last seen in "Unbroken"), Robert Taylor (last seen in "Focus"), Allyn Rachel, James M. Connor (last seen in "Horrible Bosses 2"), with a cameo from Dat Phan and the voice of Thomas Middleditch (also last seen in "Fun Size")
RATING: 7 out of 10 Psychovultures
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