"Psycho II" (1983) The Far Better Sequel Than Anyone Expected

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Freddy Krueger as "The Phantom of the Opera" (1989)

After playing Freddy Krueger in four NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies, Robert Englund was probably itching to do something different. I mean, he was a classically trained actor, capable of playing more than a wise-cracking, murderer with a scarred face.

Yet when Robert Englund was asked if he wanted to play Freddy Krueger, only as the Phantom of the opera, he said Yes.

Well what was he going to say? Nobody was offering him the Tom Cruise role in Rain Man.

The late 1980's saw a Phantom of the Opera-mania. Based on a french novel, there's been a silent film, a Tchnicolor version, a Hammer-film version, yet it was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that really put the Phantom of the Opera in the public eye. For awhile, you couldn't avoid seeing the iconic white mask or hearing the music. Even Roger Ebert wrote a novel set against the backdrop of a production of Phantom of the Opera.   

In Toronto, Phantom played at the Pantages theatre, which meant if you went to school in the surrounding area, you likely went on an expensive field trip to see the play. It was a smart move on the part of the producers. What better way to sell thousands of matinee tickets than by busing in school children.

Using the pretence this was somehow educational, the Phantom tricked school groups into coming back year after year. I knew some people who saw that dumb play three or four times.

What leaves a bad taste in my mouth is how unfriendly the Pantages theatre was to ticket buyers. Unlike the Broadway theatres of the time, the Pantages was enormous, practically the length of the airplane hanger. About half the seats were so far away from the stage, you couldn't see shit, unless you rented those dopey binoculars. The Phantom was a very visual play, with fancy costumes, and one of a kind props, and special effects. Can you image paying a hundred bucks for a ticket, and then having to watch the show squinting through binoculars?

We went on one of those field trips, and our school was sitting so far back, most of us didn't realize the Phantom lost his mask and spent the last half-hour of the show running around in hideous face make-up. When the play was over you felt like you'd been ripped off. I'm pretty sure the Phantom made a lot of people swear off going to the theatre in Toronto.

Since interest in the Phantom of the Opera was riding high, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to release a new film version. I like how the poster has the disclaimer: This motion picture is not associated with any current or prior stage production.

First thing you notice is that the movie takes place not in Paris, but New York City. And that it takes place in present day, not the early 20th century. There's weird quote by a Saint who was supposedly executed in 1544, but I couldn't find any trace of him, so I'm pretty sure he was just made up for the movie.

Our lead character is getting ready for her big opera audition. For some reason, she wants to find an obscure piece to sing, so she gets her buddy to dig an old, forgotten opera out of a big pile of stacked up papers. She decides to go with it, despite the fact these pages are clearly cursed.

Her buddy is played by Molly Shannon, the future Saturday Night Live superstar.

At the audition, a sandbag comes free and she winds up hitting her head and going back in time to what I guess is supposed to be her previous life. But frankly, you find yourself wonder, why didn't they just start the movie here. Was this modern-day prologue necessary?

The Phantom has a crush on the young opera singer, so it pisses him off when the stagehand who almost killed her with the falling sandbag, falsely claims the accident wasn't his fault, and blames it on the phantom. If the guy had just manned up and taken responsibility for his own bumbling, I'm pretty sure the Phantom would have let him live.

The big star of the opera house is this blonde lady, who turns out to be a real prima donna. I love how the owner of the opera casually threatens to murder her.

The Phantom puts the body of the stagehand in the opera star's closet, and she has a shit-fit, screaming so loud she loses her voice. Which means her understudy, the Phantom's crush Christine, now has the chance to sing.

Y'know, for a movie monster, that was pretty nice. He could have just killed the opera star in order to give Christine the chance to sing, but he chose to scare her instead. I guess that means he's reasonable.

We see the Phantom pick up a prostitute who vaguely resembles Christine. Was there a version of this scene in the Andrew Lloyd Webber version? Probably, but I don't remember 'cause I couldn't see shit.

A group of thugs try robbing the Phantom, and he uses his knife to dispatch them one by one. This movie must have run into a lot of trouble with the MPAA, because these murders are very tame compared to the graphic screen-shots published in Fangoria magazine.

The next morning, the Phantom's hooker wakes up to find gold coins under her pillow. Man, that Phantom is real gentleman.

Except that his face looks like shit. Rotted or burned up or something. Makes him look a lot like you know who. He covers this disfigurement by sewing fresh skin over his face. Once he touches up the seams with make-up, he looks pretty good. Very dashing.

As the movie goose on, the Phantom's blood lust increases. He kills a critic who gave Christine a bad-review. He kills some old bum who knows his secrets. 

Despite everything the Phantom's done for Christine (I mean, he's practically handed her her entire career), she's put off by his hideous looks and his vicious murders. She's rather be with her hunky new boyfriend. This leads to a fiery confrontation in the Phantom's lair.

Christine wakes up back in the modern day. I'm pretty sure the same actor who played the police inspector also plays the director. And the same actress who played the blonde opera star also appears at the beginning, auditioning before Christine. So I guess this is the new lives they've been reincarnated into. Not sure why Molly Shannon didn't play the past life version of her character, Meg.

You know what I bet it was, I bet they cast the British actress first, and were too cheap to fly her over to America for the New York scenes, so they hired an American actress instead.

"Paradise Motel" (1985)

Back in the day, the drive-in stayed open from March all the way to November.

They had heaters for your car, so the only thing that closed down the screens was snow.

During the tail end of the drive-in season, the double-features got pretty random. Like Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS playing with NATIONAL LAMPOONS EUROPEAN VACATION, or REVENGE OF THE NERDS with COMMANDO, or the Patsy Cline bio pic SWEET DREAMS with GHOSTBUSTERS. It's pretty clear they were just slapping together whatever random film prints were still kicking around the projection booth from the summer.

One such double-feature to catch my eye is Chuck Norris's INVASION USA, with a movie I've never heard of called PARADISE MOTEL. Lo and behold, a thoughtful soul named DANIEL FITZGERALD uploaded a VHS sourced copy of the movie to YouTube, so finally I was able to give it a look.

The movie stars Bobby Brigg's best friend Mike from TWIN PEAKS. Since I know him best for playing Donna's abusive ex-boyfriend and the asshole Khroner representative from SIX FEET UNDER, it's strange seeing him play a shy, awkward, young nerd. In fact, I don't buy it. This kid has some major rage hidden under his demure demeanour. I just know it. 

So he lives in this Hawaian themed hotel with his practically elderly parents. They must have had him when they were in their late 40's, which really isn't a good idea. Supposedly, at 40 the woman's chance of having a child with down's syndrome is 1 in 100, but by age 45 the chance shoot up to 1 in 30.

The movie begins on Mike's first day at a new school.

Why is he starting a new high school in the middle of the year? What, did he threaten to shoot up the old one?

He immediately finds a new girl to stare at from a distance, and follow around. He finds her missing ID card, but instead of giving it back and saying, "Hi, my name's Mike," like a normal person, he decides to keep it, kind of the same way serial killers like to hold onto souvenirs from their victims.

Back at the hotel, Mike can't get any sleep, because his sadistic father has made the room over his bed into the honeymoon suite, so night after night it's full of couples fucking loudly. God, that's gotta torture an incel like him to madness. This kid is going to blow.

Now back at the school, the grumpy gym coach has a little shack where he likes to go to catch naps. However, the cool kids also use this as a place to bang their girl friends.

Having been evicted from their fuck-hut, the cool kids realize if they befriend Mike, they can use the hotel for their sexcapades. So they're paying for his videogames and offering him free burgers like he's some hot chick they're trying to woo.

Mike comes through in spades, letting his new friends use the honeymoon suite practically every night. Hanging out with them does wonders for his confidence, and soon, one of their hot girls wants to go on a date with him.

However, it turns out this is all part of a prank. The address Mike is given is not the house of the hot girl, but the grumpy high school coach.

For reasons I don't quite understand, Mike doesn't knock on the door, or even honk the car horn to let the girl know he's here. Instead, he jimmies open the window and climbs into the house like a burglar. He does this so smoothly, you kind of get the impression he's done it before. 

Now that he's in the house, he hears the shower running, so he immediately strips down and prepares to jump in with her. Look, I realize she's a loose girl, and she's already flashed him her tits at the pool, but holy cow slow it down a little bit tiger. I can't believe he even has the confidence to make such a bold move.

Of course, it's not the hot chick in the shower, but the coach's pretty-hot-too wife. Now he can never, ever go to gym class.

After the prank has been revealed, it turns out the hot chick still wants to sleep with him. They go back to the motel, and suddenly it cuts to the next day. How could they skip over the big sex scene with their lead character? Shouldn't this be a huge moment in the film? I would have assumed the guy's never been with a girl before, but the movie treats this moment so blase, like he's already up to his neck in pussy. 

Near the very end of the movie, to symbolize he's over her, Mike finally gets around to giving his dream girl her ID card back. She's probably thinking, wow, I just escaped with my life. I had no idea this guy was so disturbed. It reminds me of the story about Debbie Harry getting picked up in a car by Ted Bundy, but because she had the wherewithal to notice he'd stripped the door handles off the inside of the passenger side, she knew something was up and managed to jump out of the car before he could clobber her.

The other interesting thing about PARADISE MOTEL is the actor who plays Mike's father. He's an actor named Bob Basso, who made a name for himself amongst supporters of the tea party in 2009, when he released a video of himself as Thomas Paine speaking an open letter to president Obama. 

This video was so popular, it resulted in an urban legend that Obama was so angered by Bob Basso, he summoned the actor to the White House, supposedly never to be seen again.

"Paradise Motel" plays at the Can-View Drive-In with "Invasion U.S.A" in late October 1985

Marvel Comics Screws Up "RETURN OF THE JEDI" Comic Book (1983)

April of 1983, a young Mark Hamill must have been feeling pretty good. He'd completed his role as Luke Skywalker in the third and final STAR WARS movie. Currently he was starring on Broadway as Mozart in the play AMADEUS.

So one day during the play's intermission or something, nerd-boy Mark sneaks out to the comic book shop to stock up on his superhero fix. Inside West Side Comics, he saw something on the shelf that shocked and angered him:

This book:

Marvel Comic's adaptation of RETURN OF THE JEDI. In Full Colour. The entire story in one prestigious book.

Only problem was, the book was being sold a month before the movie's release. Marvel wasn't supposed to do that.

The final instalment of the STAR WARS saga, RETURN OF THE JEDI went into production under a massive cloak of secrecy. As all fans know, the working title was BLUE HARVEST. No one was trusted with a full copy of the script.

They couldn't even advertise all the toys! On the back of the action figure card, the new ewok figures were blacked out. Lucas didn't want you to know what they looked like until the movie premiered.

So the filmmakers put all that effort into keeping things quiet, but then a month before the movie comes out, Marvel publishes the entire story in a 64 page comic any bozo can breeze through in five minutes. All the secrets are in there; clumsy Bobba Fett dying, the revelation Luke and Lea are siblings, Darth Vader turning from the dark side of the force and sacrificing himself to save Luke.

The only odd omission is Yoda's death scene. We see him yammering away at Luke, lecturing him about some shit, and in the next panel he's gone, and the caption just says, "Luke leaves Yoda to much-needed rest."

I guess they wanted the kids to read between the lines. Yoda's taking The Big Sleep.

Mark Hamill must have blabbed to LucasFilm, because the next thing you know, Marvel is going into full-fledged damage control. Two members of Marvel's PR department show up at West Side Comics and grab all the RETURN OF THE JEDI books. Store manager Dave Toplitz is quoted in the July 1983 issue of The Comic's Journal, describing the encounter as "kind of nice, but very threatening." 

This was a pretty big screw-up. Marvel was probably worried about being sued by LucasFilm for breaking their contract not to release the book before the film, or even worse, losing the license to publish Star Wars comics.

So now Marvel is making phone calls, sending letters, telegrams even, insisting store owners stop selling the RETURN OF THE JEDI comic. Naturally, most of the stores told them to go pound sand.

Most comic shops are independently owned business, that operate on a razor thin margin. The RETURN OF THE JEDI comic was an expensive book, retailing for $2.50 at a time when the average comic cost 60 cents. Store owners couldn't afford to sit on expensive stock for weeks on end. They needed to sell those books to get their money back so they could pay for next week's comics. It was really unfair of Marvel to demand store owners sacrifice their business just to fix a mistake they made.

The comic stores had no agreement with LucasFilm. Marvel didn't stipulate the books couldn't be sold until May 25th. So once the comic shops had paid for the books, there really wasn't any legal or moral reason they couldn't do with them what they wanted.

An estimated tens of thousands of copies of RETURN OF THE JEDI were sold, but that didn't seem to hurt the movie. It quickly became one of the highest grossing films of all time, kids bought action figures, toothbrushes, and ewok stuffed toys by the millions. The movie was a big success, and Lucas raked in a lot of money.

Curiously, the novelization was also released before the film, but only by a week. No one seemed to care that. As time went on, LucasFilm seemed to become less and less concerned with spoilers. When The Phantom Menace soundtrack came out in '99, one of the tracks was titled: "Qui Gone's Noble End" and just in case you missed it, another called "Qui Gone's Funeral".

I looked at the track listing for the earlier STAR WARS movies, just to confirm they didn't give anything away. They're titled stuff like "Darth Vader's Theme", "Han Solo and the Princess", "The Battle in the Snow". You'll notice none of them are titled something like, "Lando Double-Crosses Han and Lea", or "Vader is Luke's Father", or even, "In the Next Movie You'll Find Out He's Kissing His Sister".

Return of the Jedi plays at the Famous 4 Drive-In in Windsor, Ontario

"Fright Night Part 2" (1989)

After practically going straight-to-video, the entire franchise is derailed by a double-homicide.

At the end, Red Coat Black Coat pay tribute a long running cast member, Manna the cat, who will be sorely missed.

Bill Cosby Records

For reasons only known to himself, Red Coat isn't throwing 'em out.

"Fright Night" (1985)

Remembering Fright Night at the drive-in. Best film of 1985?

Fright Night plays as the supporting feature for The Bride at the Can-View Drive-in in August 1985