Purchased at a thrift store in May 2012
While running around on my day off, I decided to pick up a new yet old VHS to watch, ponder and review. There were slim pickings between multiple copies of "Days of Thunder" and "Father of the Bride" but with my cassette scanning skills, I saw the name John Carpenter among the shelves. Carpenter best known for "Halloween", "Big Trouble in Little China" and one of my personal favorites, "Escape from New York", follows through in his own way with this 1987 flick.
The story starts off with a priest who passes away before he can explain to a cardinal what his role was within a local church, which involves a key, diary, "an ancient canister containing an evil looking liquid" and a book written in a collection of languages. Donald Pleasence (who was in Carpenter's "Halloween" and "Escape from New York") plays a the priest who hires a physics professor portrayed by Victor Wong (who also worked with Carpenter in "Big Trouble in Little China") and a team of various "experts" to decode the mystery. The story continues with the group finding out that the liquid is basically the devil in goo form with a life of its own! After the substance gains control of the minds and bodies of the various characters from the movie, they morph into a zombie-like state in which they work under the satanic Jell-O, which ultimately wants to infect the world with evil.
Though I am typically for any horror movie, that incorporates religious aspects in an intelligent and tastefully visual sense, it falls a little flat. The elements are there but Carpenter fails to connect them to the script and certain aspects of the story. I must commend John Carpenter though, because after some research, I discovered that not only was he the director but he also wrote it and worked on the soundtrack with a budget estimated at about $3 million. Though I could see what he was trying to accomplish with the concept of science versus faith, I feel like it would have been better under the direction of someone else or at least with more of a budget. It is pretty 80's -tastic though, with some interesting images and corny one-liners, very watchable for anyone who appreciates the genre and his work.
Left at Park Street Station in Boston around 6 p.m. on 5/19/12
While running around on my day off, I decided to pick up a new yet old VHS to watch, ponder and review. There were slim pickings between multiple copies of "Days of Thunder" and "Father of the Bride" but with my cassette scanning skills, I saw the name John Carpenter among the shelves. Carpenter best known for "Halloween", "Big Trouble in Little China" and one of my personal favorites, "Escape from New York", follows through in his own way with this 1987 flick.
The story starts off with a priest who passes away before he can explain to a cardinal what his role was within a local church, which involves a key, diary, "an ancient canister containing an evil looking liquid" and a book written in a collection of languages. Donald Pleasence (who was in Carpenter's "Halloween" and "Escape from New York") plays a the priest who hires a physics professor portrayed by Victor Wong (who also worked with Carpenter in "Big Trouble in Little China") and a team of various "experts" to decode the mystery. The story continues with the group finding out that the liquid is basically the devil in goo form with a life of its own! After the substance gains control of the minds and bodies of the various characters from the movie, they morph into a zombie-like state in which they work under the satanic Jell-O, which ultimately wants to infect the world with evil.
Though I am typically for any horror movie, that incorporates religious aspects in an intelligent and tastefully visual sense, it falls a little flat. The elements are there but Carpenter fails to connect them to the script and certain aspects of the story. I must commend John Carpenter though, because after some research, I discovered that not only was he the director but he also wrote it and worked on the soundtrack with a budget estimated at about $3 million. Though I could see what he was trying to accomplish with the concept of science versus faith, I feel like it would have been better under the direction of someone else or at least with more of a budget. It is pretty 80's -tastic though, with some interesting images and corny one-liners, very watchable for anyone who appreciates the genre and his work.
Left at Park Street Station in Boston around 6 p.m. on 5/19/12
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