Movie #332: Lake Placid

Lake Placid is a late-90s horror/comedy written by the creator of Ally McBeal and starring Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, Betty White, and Brendan Gleeson. That works about as well as you'd expect.

Kelly (Fonda) is a paleontologist who gets sent to Maine to look at a tooth found in the body of a Fish and Game Warden who got bit in half in Black Lake (yes, the titular lake isn't even in the movie). That premise is pretty flimsy on its own; I'd just about buy it as an in-game justification for getting an RPG group together, maybe, but then she goes out on the lake with the local (surviving) game warden Jack Wells (Pullman) and sheriff Hank (Gleeson), and they are shortly joined by rich crocodile-obsessed nutball Hector Cyr (Platt, clearly loving every minute of this). Like, these are the PCs in a game of Chill 1st Edition, folks.

Anyway, the lake is in fact home to a giant croc, which kills a couple of deputies and some local wildlife (and a cow, generously led to the water by the crazy old lady who lives on the lake, played by 90s Betty White, who likes to say "cocksucker") before the envoys team manages to drug it and trap it, just in time for its mate to pop up and get its head blown off by the sheriff's immense grenade launcher gun.

So, I've long held this movie up as an example of what happens when you spend your minuscule budget in a horror movie on the cast instead of the effects, except that the effects that jump out as a kind of crappy are the CG effects at the end. The practical effects were designed by Stan Winston, and they look pretty baller. But still, the cast. The interplay between Gleeson and Platt is especially fun, as they go from enemies to frenemies over the course of the movie (every time Gleeson's accent slips, drink!). Fonda is appropriate neurotic (according the featurette, this was a concept priority for the movie), and Pullman is his usual laconic self. The death toll in the movie is a whole two, and while there are some grossout moments, as a horror movie it's pretty tame.

This is creature horror in that awkward 90s-transitioning-to-00s phase, but again, the cast kind of makes it, and it's got a special place in my heart.

My grade: B
Rewatch value: Medium-high

Next up: Land of the Dead

Movie #331: Ladyhawke

Ladyhawke is an 80s fantasy film starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, John Wood, Leo McKern, and Alfred Molina.

We open with Mouse (Broderick) narrating as he escapes from the dungeons of Aquila, fleeing the area, and then bragging about it to an inn full of people who turn out to be palace guards. As he's about to skewered, Etienne of Navarre (Hauer) rocks up and saves him. Turns out Navarre is on a holy quest to kill the Bishop of Aquila (Wood) and needs Mouse's help to get back in. Oh, and Navarre has a hawk with him. That's important.

At night, though, Navarre disappears, a mysterious woman named Isabeau (Pfeiffer) appears, and Mouse is basically like "wtf" until the hawk is wounded in a fight with the guards and Navarre has him take the bird to a monk (McKern) who explains: Navarre and Isabeau were lovers, the Bishop wanted her for himself, and when she told him to get fucked he made a deal with Satan to curse them (which seems an odd career move for a bishop). During the day, Navarre is human and Isabeau is a hawk. At night, Navarre is a wolf, but Isabeau is human.

The movie concludes with the lovers confronting the Bishop during an eclipse ("a night without a day") and breaking the curse, which is nice. Along the way we get a small role from a very young Alfred Molina as a wolf-hunter.

This movie was very meaningful to me when I was much younger, to the point that I went by "Nevarre" (misspelling deliberate) on various message boards and chat rooms for a long time. The notion of the lovers being "always together, eternally apart" appealed to my love of tragic romance (BTW, ladies, if you find a man who's enamored of tragic romance, maybe think twice before getting in too deep). The movie itself holds up pretty well; no Oscar-worthy performances, here, but it's fun to watch Broderick chew scenery and Hauer be badass and blonde. Interestingly, the villain (Wood) is kinda boring; the captain of the guard (Ken Hutchison) has more to do and more bite.

The soundtrack, composed by Alan Parsons, is bloody awful. Every now and then we get some nice orchestral music, but then the synth and the electric guitar come back and it's like "oh, wow, it's the 80s now."

I think, personally, that this movie would be good to remake now with a better soundtrack and better effects. They have to keep the "Are you flesh or spirit?" "I am sorrow," exchange, though, because that's the best line in the movie.

My grade: B-
Rewatch value: Low

Next up: Lake Placid

Character Creation: OmegaZone

Yay, post-apocalyptic RPG! You know I like those.

The Game: OmegaZone
The Publisher: Brooklyn Indie Games
Degree of Familiarity: None yet; I'm running it in a couple of weeks. It's Fate Accelerated, though, which I'm quite familiar with.
Books Required: Just the one. There's also a setting deck, which isn't required but it's very helpful.

 

So, first thing's first: I promised Filamena Young that the next character I made would use this as a theme song (beware, nudity):

Sounds good to me.

So, OmegaZone focuses on a post-alien-invaded Los Angeles. Unlike a lot of post-apocalyptic settings, it doesn't do a tedious world tour or exhaustive history. We're focused on one particular city, and then it gives us some details on the heavy hitters and the troubles going on in this weird new world.

Given the song, I want to create a character who's a badass debt collector. I'm thinking he could work for Apeman Tony or someone, but I'll do the chargen thing before I make a lot of decisions.

Like other Fate Accelerated games, OmegaZone uses approaches rather than skills, which I greatly enjoy. Unlike other FAE games, character creation is as simple as drawing a few cards, which provides aspects and stunts. I'm meant to draw two character definitions and one mutation, so let's see what I get.

I draw Mundane, Unique Animal Hybrid, and (for my mutation) Radioactive Vampirism. OK, then. The interesting thing here is merging Mundane and Animal Hybrid. Hmm. I'd almost get a "Boy and His Dog" vibe off this, but I'm not sure I want to effectively have two characters.

Actually, I have an idea. We'll say that my character's mutations are invisible. He is an animal-hybrid, but it's all internal; you'd have to dissect him (or at least do a blood test) to detect that he's anything other than human. He's actually more leech than man; he doesn't eat solid food, but can feed on the flesh and blood of irradiated creatures (or eat normal food that's been irradiated, I guess, but that's boring).

Now, the cards are treated as Aspects, but does that mean I have "Mundane" as an Aspect? 'Cause that's a shitty Aspect. I think we'll call it "Stealth Mutant" instead. "Unique Animal Hybrid", too, is kinda dull as Aspects go, so I'll call it "More Worm Than Man." Finally, "Radioactive Vampirism" actually is kind of cool, so I'll keep that. I note down my three stunts, too (one from each card).

Now I do a High Concept and a Trouble Aspect. Hmm. My worm-man doesn't feel like an Apeman Tony guy, actually. I think he works for Jacobite Jones or Baron Junkpile. Let's go with the Baron. When someone tries to cheat Junkpile, trading him crap or otherwise taking advantage, sometimes the Baron calls in Hunny Bother. Hunny looks like a pretty normal guy, which makes him stand out a bit in this world of gelatinous people and uplifted cats. His preferred tactics involve getting ahead of his quarry and waiting, and if people can't pay, he's not above irradiating them and eating their organs. I think since "Bitch Better Have My Money" is too on the nose for a High Concept, I'll make it Patient Shylock.

And now Trouble. Hmm. Hunny is hungry (actually, hell, that's probably how his name started and then it was mispronounced by some drunk or terrified welcher). Sometimes he's been known to pocket money that should go to a higher-up just so he can eat someone/something. He doesn't do it much, but... Hunger Gets the Better of Me.

Filling in the approaches isn't specifically called out as part of character creation (though it should be, and there's no example, garrarargh). I wind up with +0 in Careful, +4 in Clever, +0 in Flashy, +2 in Forceful, +2 in Quick, and +1 in Sneaky. That's interesting; I think most of the time in FAE, you don't get approaches over Good. That also means when I can use my Mundane stunt, I'm starting at Fantastic, which is pretty baller.

Right, I think all I need now is to collect three Fate points and name myself, but I did that last bit. I could spend refresh to buy additional stunts or gear, but eh. Having a stunt for creating an advantage when I track them for at least a day might be cool, though. Yeah, I'll do that.

And that's me done!

Movie #330: The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid is an 80s teen drama/quasi-action flick about a boy who learns karate in two months in order to get a gang of bullies off his back. It stars Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, and William Zabka.

Daniel (Macchio) and his mother (Randee Heller) move to Los Angeles from Newark. Daniel is salty about the move, but that's probably to be expected. He immediately meets a group of guys and makes friends, and at a beach party, lays eyes on Ali (Shue). All goes well until her ex-boyfriend Johnny (Zabka) shows up with a gang of his buddies from Cobra Kai, the local dojo, and Daniel starts some shit (in fairness, Johnny was being an ass), and gets his ass kicked.

From there, we get a couple of months of cat and mouse; most the older kids screwing with Daniel when they get a chance, until they throw him down a hill on his bike. He also meets the handyman at his apartment complex, Mr. Miyagi (Morita), who teaches him how to clip bonsai trees and is generally cool. Then one night at the Halloween dance, he pranks Johnny by spraying water on him, and the Cobra Kais chase him down and beat the shit out of him. Miyagi jumps in and takes out the gang, and then agrees to teach Daniel karate so he can compete against the gang at a tournament. And then, of course, Miyagi trains him using household chores, he deals with Ali's family being rich and his poor, he wins even though the Cobras cheat, roll credits.

This is one of these movies that years of overanalysis has kind of ruined. Like, for instance, much is made of how Daniel learns karate over the course of two months (assuming that the Halloween party was late October and the tournament is December 19th). But it's not like he's an expert. He's trained in a different style than his opponents and he's terrified, so he's paying attention. And it's not like he wins decisively, he fucks up quite a bit. In a real fight, he'd probably have lost.

Also, there's a video floating around about how Daniel is a bully and Johnny is the real hero, and on a watch, it seems convincing...but then watch the movie again. Johnny talks about how senior year he's going to quit being a screw-up, but he hasn't learned important lessons like "respect the girl's wishes when she wants to be left alone" and "if she's nice enough to grant you a dance, don't kiss her just to fuck with the other guy," not to mention "getting water poured on your head is no excuse for assault." So, no, Daniel makes some stupid choices, but he is by no means a bully.

And finally, there's a stupid meme going around that Daniel shouldn't have won the tournament because he kicks Johnny in the head, and that's against the rules. Except Ali says quite clearly in explaining the rules to Daniel that anything above the waist is a point (that's why the knee strike is a big deal and disqualifies the Cobra that employs it).

Anyway, with those points out of the way, I think this movie holds up decently. The soundtrack is kind of awful and the score is worse, but the movie itself was a cultural touchstone, spurred a lot of imitators and lazy memes, and apparently launched an interest in kids learning karate, if some of my more martial-artsy friends are to be believed.

My grade: B+
Rewatch value: Medium-low

Next up: Ladyhawke

And Also Beast!

Right, and then we played Beast on Monday. Here we go!

Last time, the brood had gone to Put-In-Bay to get out of town for a while, and so Maia could swim around and investigate the lake. Tyler called Dr. Bones and asked her what was up with the whole "dude is trying to kill me and can't die" thing; she said she wouldn't have helped him if she'd known his last actions would be so violent and promised to look into it. She also agreed to call in a favor from someone called "Robert" and have him watch Tyler's store, so that Dillon didn't burn it down or anything.

The brood went out on a boat, and Maia dove in and looked about. She taste squid ink, which was weird because squid aren't native to Lake Erie. She tracked it for a while, and then found it - a large squid-monster with barbs on its sides. It attacked her, but you don't attack a Makara in a lake. She opened a Primordial Pathway to her Lair, merged with her Horror, and ripped the squid in half. She tossed half into her Lair and half up onto the boat.

She and Miriana examined it, and they noted that the barbs were more like bird beaks. This was the same level of weird that the fish-man creature had been. They decided to head back to land and check one of the islands in the morning.

Needing to feed, Maia had John open a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and squeeze dead squid-juice in them. She wound up feeding deeper than she meant, and made it to Sated.

Next day, they brood got back on the boat and headed out. They found the caves, and Maia went diving again. She found a little underwater cavern, and a human skeleton tucked back on a ledge. Not being any great shakes with investigation herself, she called the others in. John and Miriana noted that the skeletal individual had multiple wounds, and had apparently crawled back on that ledge to die. There were also scratches on the walls, scratches that Miriana recognized as werewolf in origin, though she couldn't read them.

They got back to the boat, and Miriana called Niki, a werewolf friend of hers. They sent Niki pictures of the carvings, and Niki seemed concerned. She offered to hook the brood up with the Bridge Pack, a pack of werewolves more knowledgeable about this kind of thing, but advised they not get snarky - the Bridge Pack takes this seriously.

The Beasts headed back into town, and Tyler met Robert at his store (Robert was a Sin-Eater, like Dr. Bones). Robert said that he'd owed her a favor, but that the Sin-Eater community at large didn't care much for what she was doing and indeed, they weren't sure how she was doing it. Robert also wasn't crazy with the notion of setting people on fire for stealing shit, but he had fulfilled his obligation, so he left.

Next time, the characters get to meet a pack of werewolves. That'll be fun.

Dragons & Eels

Last Saturday we played Epyllion, and it's been a busy week, so I'm just now getting around to it. Previously, the clutch had passed through a forest of strange narcotics before heading to White Falls for the feast. There, they were expecting to see their fifth member.

We finally had our fifth player back, and he's playing the Daredevil, called Hawley. He'd gone down to White Falls early to explore the Serpent Caves; it's the kind of thing he does. Before the clutch arrives, Nova uses true warrior to prepare herself for any coming battles, and Veris uses haunting visions. He sees the waters off the cliffs by the Serpent Caves, and sees something huge swimming in the water. He makes a note of that for later.

The clutch arrives and stakes out a campsite. Nearby is another young clutch, so Veris askes if they'd seen his friend Hawley. The other dragons are haughty and standoffish; Veris studies them to try and figure them out a bit, and then convinces them to engage in a riddle contest. He fails that last, though, and they laugh at him.

Nova, stepping up, challenges them to a drinking contest, which takes the form of eating fermented fruits called star apples (which leads to a condition the dragons called being "starry eyed", if you eat too many). Nova acts despite danger for the contest, and wins, but does so by finishing her barrel too quickly and getting very starry eyed indeed.

The dragons tell the clutch that their friend Hachiro had gone off with Hawley and his friend Biscit to investigate the caves. Veris convinces them to watch their campsite, and the clutch heads for the cliffs.

Freja uses scent of a place to figure out the best way to gain access to the caves, and realizes that diving into the ocean and swimming up through the caves would be the most direct route. She also uses spirit guide (which she picked up recently; her spirit guide is one of those little sap-builder birds, which the clutch names Oodle) to help her figure out whether to go now or wait until dawn. Oodle tells her that if the dragons are still alive, they almost surely won't be by dawn.

The clutch finds Hawley lying near the caves, and he reveals that he and Biscit and Hachiro were doing their daredevil thing, but got separated. The clutch decides they'd better go diving. Veris calls on the storm moon to make them all faster, while Nova calls on the liberty moon to sober up. Both magics are exceptionally powerful, and all of the clutch dives down into the water, swimming too fast between the giant stone pillars. Everyone acts despite danger. Nova, Azrael, and Hawley all take harm from hitting pillars and being tossed by the current. Veris, leading the way, emerges unhurt. Freja lags behind and avoids the pillars.

All of the dragons emerge into an underground lake. Freja sees horrible little shadow eels, and acts despite danger to fly out of the way as they bite at her. She emerges from the water with the eels nibbling her wings. She lands, and uses wild speech to talk with these creatures. The eels make it clear they would like to eat the dragons, but the ones that the clutch is looking for aren't in the water. The clutch figures this to mean that they've crawled out into tunnels somewhere.

Hawley, since he's been here, looks around and finds a path for the clutch. He follows a foul smell, acts despite danger, and slides down a tunnel too fast into a pit of rotted flesh. The others follow him, but don't jump into the pit right away. Hawley acts despite danger again to pull himself out of the charnel pit, but gigantic eel-creatures start attacking. Nova flies down to battle the darkness, but is pulled down through a hole under the flesh-pit into another chamber. She uses battle plan to find the most dangerous enemy, and realizes that it's the thing below all of this that's the deadliest.

Freja attempts to battle the darkness, and trades harm but take a Shadow Point, but Hawley shares the load and takes the point for her, pull her back up out of the muck. Veris calls upon the stone moon to solidify the muck, and does so, making the eels more visible. Azrael battles the darkness using her special obsidian rock, and Hawley battles the darkness, but winds up taking extra harm from the massive eel-creatures.

Below, Nova battles the darkness and crushes the eel that was attacking her, but then she finds a strange object - an immense black throne, designed for a serpentine dragon.

Freja calls on the liberty moon to find Nova and finds the hole in the ground, and the dragons crawl down into the lower chamber, and all behold the dark throne. Veris helps Azrael to battle the darkness, again using her rock, but she fails. The rock strikes the throne and drops, and then shatters. Azrael marks Anger and lashes out at Veris, berating him for his "help" which cost her a special object.

The dragons decide that this throne is pure evil, and Freja calls on the void moon to negate its power. It shatters, and Azrael's rock fragments are lost amidst the broken throne. She uses bag of potential to grab a sack to grab up some of this obsidian to craft later.

Veris, meanwhile, looks at the dead flesh that was in the pit, and finds a chewed up dragon wing. He examines an object and realizes it belong to Hachiro - he's dead. The dragons, sobered, realize they need to find Biscit, if he's still alive. Freja asks her spirit guide to help, and Oodle marks five tunnels leading out of the main column. He advises that the dragons split up. They recognize the danger, but also the wisdom, in doing so.

Veris calls on the storm moon to make them faster, but fails, and the column begins to flood. The dragons, grumbling a bit, split up, and all act despite danger to find Biscit and get out.

Freja fails, and gets swept along by the current and out of the caves. Nova also fails, and finds herself in a large cavern. She sees an immense, black, serpentine dragon, surrounded by thousands of writhing shadow-eels. Recognizing the Darkness when she sees it and not foolish enough to take it on herself, she flees. Azrael, on her way out, drops a stone that Hawley had given her - an invitation for a private event later.

Hawley escapes, but sprains his wing in the process. Veris, however, succeeds, and finds Biscit and tries to drag him out. Veris calls on the liberty moon to escape, and winds up destroying the rock face of the cliffs, dropping much of the cliff into the sea.

The clutch heads back to White Falls, where they deliver the bad news about Hachiro to his friends. They stay up late into the night, eating star-apples and having a wake for the fallen dragon.

Meanwhile, at the cliffs, an immense black shape slithers out of the sea, clutching a special stone in its paw...

Movie #329: Halloween

Halloween isn't the first slasher movie, but it's close. Directed and scored by John Carpenter, it stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, P.J. Soles, Nancy Loomis, Nick Castle, and Charles Cyphers.

The story is pretty simple: A young Michael Myers (Tony Moran as a child, Castle as an adult, credited as "The Shape") murders his sister (Sandy Johnson) for no particular reason. He's put away for 15 years, under the care of his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (Pleasance). Then he escapes, steals a car, and zips back to his hometown just in time for Halloween.

There, he runs across a trio of girls baby sitting and having fun (or not) on Halloween, and proceeds to murder two of them (plus a boyfriend). The last, Laurie Strode (Curtis in the role that made her), manages to..."outwit" him is the wrong word, because mostly she just dodges his knife and hides from him, so maybe "outlast" is better. Then Dr. Loomis shows up and shoots him a bunch of times...but he still gets up and vanishes.

Halloween is one of those movies that you can appreciate if you like the genre, but it's probably not going to scare anyone these days. The dialog is stilted, the story is dated (and has been improved and retouched like whoa), and it's worth remembering that as brilliant as Carpenter is, this was a very early movie for him and he's stepped up his game since. But as an aficionado of the slasher genre, Halloween is crucial, and seminal. It shows us the faceless killer with no motive. Myers doesn't have a history of abuse, he's not possessed, he's just...evil. We talk later about how the Final Girl is the "pure" one, but while Curtis' Laurie is certainly more responsible and school-focused than her friends, she smokes weed with them and she's obviously crushing on a boy at school. Are the others punished for their conduct on the night? Maybe, but it's hard to believe that's Myers' motivation.

The telling shot, I think, for Myers is after he kills Bob (John Michael Graham) and just...stands there, admiring his work. I know later movies in the series gave Myers a backstory, like they do, and I haven't seen the Rob Zombie remake, but for me, the essence of the genre is right there. Myers, staring at a dead body. Proud? Satisfied? Or just...interested?

My grade: B+
Rewatch value: Medium-high, depending on the audience

Next up: Ladyhawke