I'm Unsure as to Why John Carpenter Hasn't Sued the Makers of Methodic

Also James Cameron might have a case, but just for one scene.

When I read the synopsis of Methodic, I was full-on stunned. Let's take a gander at it together, shall we?

“As a child, Nicholas Matthews (Stephen Muzzonigro) became possessed by a malevolent entity called the Dollman, who drove him to murder his parents. After years in a mental institution, Nicholas seems to have finally overcome the demon inside him. But the Dollman has only remained dormant, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take control of Nicholas once again and drive him to slaughter the innocent. Niki Notarile co-stars in this paranormal shocker.”

My initial reaction, as it necessarily must have been, was shock that someone had remade Halloween without licensing the rights. It's not like this is a completely unheard-of phenomenon, the movie 'Halloween Night' claimed to be based on a true story, which was accurate insofar as it's true that the movie Halloween was made, the filmmakers saw it, and then decided to turn a profit by ripping it off. Halloween Night at least went to the effort of mixing things up a little while committing criminal acts of plagiarism - there were some gratuitous lesbians, a bloated cast of teens at a party, a new needlessly convoluted backstory... enough changes so that the filmmakers could have offered a plausible defense in court should John Carpenter have decided to sue them.

They wouldn't have won the case, of course, but at least they could have made a decent showing.

Methodic doesn't even put in that much effort. Save the gratuitous lesbians, of course. Now, let's break Methodic's various sins against originality and filmmaking into a few different categories for easier consumption.

No, seriously: Halloween Resurrection sucks.

So, last time around we covered Michael Myers killing Jamie Lee Curtis, and with her, his last motivation as a character to continue existing. But he’s not done at the asylum, no sir. While headed for the door he pauses at the tubby guy’s room. And doesn’t kill him. No, instead he hands the self-described expert on serial killers the knife and walks away.

Why? Why would you do that? Are you trying to frame him for the murder of the security guards and Jamie? Because I’m pretty sure the evidence is going to point another way, no matter whose prints are on the knife. Also he’s on a bunch of video camera footage. Or did he steal the tapes as well? But why would he do that? For this whole framing thing to have been included at all in the script the writer would have to know nothing at all about the character of Michael Myers.

A theory that I’m pretty sure I can prove right now.

Halloween Resurrection is also a terrible film.

Really, just awful. But like my recent look at H20, I’m not going to provide a critique the overall film, but rather a single portion of it that I find indicative of the complete product.

Once again, this section comes from the beginning of the film, and I believe that it proves, rather conclusively, that the filmmakers not only don’t understand Michael Myers, the character, but that they don’t know how any element of anything works.

Let’s start with the heavy lifting that they had to do at the beginning of the movie, explaining how Michael Myers managed to bounce back from the beheading that closed out the last film.

H20 is not a good movie.

For a whole lot of reasons, actually. But I’m not here to talk about about the awful film as a terrible whole, but rather just an inexcusable piece of the loathsome puzzle.

The problem is in the film’s opening credits montage and, shockingly, it doesn’t have to do with the fact that Dimension, rather than just acquiring the rights to Donald Pleasance’s dialogue from the first film, hired a guy who sounds nothing like him to just read that dialogue. Although I’m still kind of pissed about that.

Sunday Afternoon Avod!

Welcome to another episode of the Avod, the Internet's sole audio-only Vodcast!

This time around, we go in-depth in our discussion of DiveMistress' John Carpenter project, while I discuss some of the myriad problems that Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles offers to anyone foolish enough to view it.

Enjoy! By right-clicking the word Enjoy back there and then saving the file and listening to it!

Avod Episode 2: Halloween Special!

That's right folks, just in time for Halloween, the Divemistress and I have teamed up to produce a Halloween-themed Avod, covering everything you need to know to have a spooktacular holiday weekend (as long as it involves watching horror movies, or possibly listening to people talking about them)!

Happy Halloween! (right click on the previous statement and 'save link as' to enjoy the Avod)

P.S. - In case you're wondering why the Halloween poster wasn't altered at all, it's because you don't mess with perfection.