AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)

Director: Sam Mendes

Writer: Alan Ball

Producers: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, Peter Gallagher, Allison Janney, Scott Bakula, Sam Robards, Barry Del Sherman, Amber Smith, Brenda Wehle, Lisa Cloud, Marisa Jaret Winokur, Dennis Anderson, Joel McCrary, Matthew Kimbrough 

42-year-old Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) has been employed ad writing at a magazine for the past 14 years. He is stuck in a joyless, middle class, suburban lifestyle with his career-obsessed, real-estate-agent wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), and his emotionally distant, teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch). When Lester meets his daughter’s beautiful, blonde classmate, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), Lester is smitten and has a midlife awakening. He has ongoing fantasies about young Angela and shirks his adult responsibilities. Lester’s new attitude exacerbates the dysfunction in the Burnham household. 

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So, this lover of the lowbrow is reviewing a film that won five Oscars including Best Picture? “Where the hell are my standards?” you scream. Well, it is a pretty old film by now and still an odd one after a quarter century. Er—and uh—well, it’s also kind of transgressive. That’s gotta count for something, right? And—uh—it’s just a great film, dammit! But fear not, for I shan’t start sipping tea with my pinky finger extended while I extol the virtues of prestigious cinema. Trust me. I shall soon resume reviewing my regularly scheduled selection of significant schlock. American Beauty has reinforced my value of being true to oneself. 

I remember first seeing American Beauty in the theater way back in 1999 and really enjoying it. It capped off a decade of indie films that were a relief from Hollywood blockbusteritus. The quirky and personal films getting noticed were welcome alternatives to franchises, generic action hero product, and evermore-bloated “high concept” effects shows trying to engage the video game crowd. While American Beauty, with its $15-million budget on a DreamWorks Pictures production and distribution deal, was hardly down-and-dirty, guerilla filmmaking, it was still made in the indie spirit by refusing to fit neatly into an easily marketed genre. The time was still ripe for another eccentric, challenging, and heartfelt movie. 

The moral in this film may seem obvious: Achieving status and maintaining a lifestyle does not always lead to happiness. However, that is a message that could not be shouted loud enough in the go-go ’90s. Much of America’s so-called freedom has always been about working hard to conform to the routines that will make the money needed to create an image that makes us feel worthy. Always striving to pass the judgment of others to feel accepted and admired is a trap. 

The central event in the story is the midlife crisis suffered by Kevin Spacey’s character. His Lester Burnham does his unfulfilling job for management that he has no respect for. His career is just a means to help provide for a family he feels disconnected from. His sudden infatuation with his daughter’s friend knocks Lester out of his midlife malaise. He is not yet so old that he can’t change, but time’s a-wastin.’ 

 

Lester begins to rebel by not giving a shit about going through the establishment motions in his life anymore. Now he can tell people exactly what he means and confront their own insincere behavior. I practically stand up and cheer when Lester quits his job while coercing his manager into giving him a decent severance package. Damn, this guy’s a slacker superhero! Then he immediately finds the least demanding job he can think of: flipping burgers like he did back in high school. We are soon treated to the ongoing fallout from this development at the family dinner table where Lester demonstrates that the domestic worm has turned. 

That will-they-or-won’t-they moment between Kevin Spacey’s middle-aged Lester and young Mena Suvari’s Angela really got to me. Everything is perfect: performance, pacing, and lighting complimented by the wonderful source music of Annie Lennox covering Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” playing on the stereo. Helluva scene. It’s one last gasp of real movie magic before the following century’s cinema would pander to an attention-span-challenged audience with relentless shaky cam, quick cuts, and digital tweaking for practically every goddamn frame of “film.” 

That narration of Kevin Spacey’s character opening the film by letting us know he is already dead is novel, though not original. As director Sam Mendes himself acknowledges, Sunset Boulevard (1950) also began its dystopian look at the Hollywood lifestyle with narration from a dead character. It makes some satirical sense to use that same technique here in a picture about a different dystopian dead end located in American suburbia. It also imparts a bit of tension underlying the whole film leading to the protagonist’s death. 

All of the main adult characters in American Beauty begin this story locked into identities that keep them from being happy and true to themselves. Their issues result from a lack of self-esteem. Jane’s fellow cheerleader, Angela, is also well on her way to falling into the same adult trap of affecting an image and reputation that she thinks will make her better than ordinary. 

 

The two characters that clearly view their world and those around them are teenagers Jane Burnham and her next-door neighbor and classmate, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). They have their own issues due to the dysfunction of their families. Probably as a result of no emotional bonding and reassurance from her parents, Jane is dealing with her own sense of inadequacy as she is already saving her money for a “boob job.” The voyeuristic Ricky uses his video camera to capture the beauty that only he perceives in the real world. Ricky seems almost ethereal in his remote calm that has resulted from the emotional disconnect he has developed coping in the rigidly disciplined household commanded by his ex-Marine father, Col. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper). 

All of this seems to be adding up to a dismal kitchen sink drama that can spill over into preachy moralizing. That is hardly the case here. Lester Burnham’s midlife rebirth exposes this film’s truths in amusing ways. It never devolves into a lifestyle farce, but it does create moments that are funny for being recklessly liberating. 

Of course Kevin Spacey won the Best Actor Oscar for a performance here that works because most of the time he seems subdued. His Lester Burnham character is established as repressed and seething with resentment about his life and family. Once he has his midlife attitude conversion, he indulges himself with youthful abandon and rejects any status-dictated responsibilities. However, there are still unresolved dissatisfactions in his home life that can break through that don’t-give-a-damn calm. It is the direction, writing, and cinematography that does the stylish heavy lifting while Spacey’s mundane sincerity rings true. 

There are many other fine performances. Annette Bening’s manic Carolyn becomes almost grotesque in her career-fixated fundamentalism. Thora Birch’s Jane goes beyond sadness to disaffection in her character’s lack of self-esteem. Birch would go on to star in my favorite film of the next century, that quirky delight Ghost World (2001). Wes Bentley exudes a calm confidence as Ricky Pitts that is as much of an influence on Lester’s new attitude as the Angela fixation. Chris Cooper’s intense performance as Ricky’s hard-ass, control-freak father gives us a character that is both despicable and pathetic. Finally, Mena Suvari’s vain and shallow Angela is funny, yet she surprises us with her vulnerability. 

American Beauty skewers the middleclass mainstream’s empty vanity. It does this all in a darkly humorous manner that can be quirky, distressing, and cathartic. It all ends by challenging us to accept a philosophy embracing truth and appreciating life experience rather than lamenting lost goals.

 

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BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964)

Director: Mario Bava

Writers: Marcello Fondato, Mario Bava, Giuseppe Barillà, Mary Arden (adapting dialogue into English)

Producers: Massimo Patrizi, Alfredo Mirabile

Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Mary Arden, Arianna Gorini, Lea Lander (as Lea Krugher), Claude Dantes, Dante DiPaolo, Massimo Righi, Franco Ressel, Luciano Pigozzi, Francesca Ungaro, Harriette White Medin, Giuliano Raffaelli, Heidi Stroh, Enzo Cerusico, Nadia Anty, Mary Carmen (as Mara Carmosino), Goffredo Unger (uncredited), Calisto Calisti (uncredited), Romano Moraschini (uncredited)

A masked man in black brutally murders Isabella (Francesca Ungaro), a model at the Rome fashion house Christian Haute Couture. Many of the models and staff at the fashion house have secrets to hide. While Police Inspector Silvestri (Thomas Reiner) investigates, the killer claims more victims. Silvestri suspects one of the men who work at the fashion house or are having relationships with the models.

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The now-revered Italian director Mario Bava worked in many genres, but his horror films are what have received the most acclaim. He is also celebrated for originating the giallo film, that Italian subgenre of horror and suspense. Bava’s 1963 The Girl Who Knew Too Much is usually considered the first giallo film. However, it is his Blood and Black Lace, made the following year, which established the iconic stylistic template most associated with the genre. All of the traditional giallo elements are there: a black-gloved mystery killer; beautiful victims; prolonged stalk-and-kill set pieces; plenty of suspects and scandal in a posh environment; and the use of music, lighting, and editing that stylize the violence and terror.

Blood and Black Lace is must-see viewing for Mario Bava fans that showcases the director’s visual aesthetic. It was the signpost pointing the way for the giallo genre that would become increasingly popular in its native Italy and abroad by the 1970s. Bava and the film genre he initiated would inspire and influence Italian directors such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino as well as Americans like Brian De Palma and John Carpenter.

It seems almost unthinkable that this pioneering film in this distinctive Italian genre was not successful in Italy at the time of its release. Despite some of its influences, such as the then-popular German krimi films (usually based on the crime thriller novels of British author Edgar Wallace), Blood and Black Lace may have been just a bit ahead of its time. The mystery aspect of the story is little more than a guessing game rather than a clue-laden plot. This is clearly an exercise in style over substance. Just as much as any Gothic horror film, the best giallo films are meant to disturb and excite with their atmosphere and menace.

One distinction that probably made the giallo an acquired taste was the lack of the sort of moral triumph concluding most typical horror and crime films at that time. Giallo films reveled in a world of glamorous sleaze, amoral ambitions, and sadistic violence. Representatives of law and order meant to solve the mystery and apprehend the culprit were not the main protagonists and were often ineffectual.

Another reason that Blood and Black Lace may have been off-putting was that there are no characters we can really bond with. They are all rather remote or secretive and conniving. This just confirms the cold and corrupt environment that makes the ongoing murders seem inevitable.

It is not surprising that Mario Bava would initiate this stylish and cynical genre. Bava had a strong streak of pessimism regarding the capitalistic, modern world. His later Bay of Blood (1971) is not only his most violent production and a direct influence on the American slasher film; it also seemed to vent his disdain for society’s amoral greed that consumes almost the entire cast. That pervasive pessimism seems to have its roots in Blood and Black Lace. Most of its main characters are corrupt or shamed and may be capable of anything. Their conflicts and secrets seem to be the catalyst for ongoing homicide, despite the best efforts of those enforcers of the social order, the police.

The reason that any of this engages the audience is its technique of presentation. Mario Bava had always been a great cinematographer, and his colorful and moody lighting here is every bit as striking as his earlier black-and-white classics. His visuals and shot choices tease us as much as the identity of the killer. It is Bava’s artistry that makes this grim tale of murder amid a cast of one-dimensional characters into a visceral experience for the viewers.

The biggest name in the cast is American star Cameron Mitchell as the fashion house co-director Massimo Morlacchi. He exudes a cold reserve that makes him seem just as suspect as anyone else. Mitchell made plenty of films in Europe, and this was the second of his three Bava-directed pictures. Mitchell and Bava seemed to really hit it off, and Mitchell considered Bava probably the greatest director he had ever worked work with. Mitchell admired Bava’s creativity and ingenuity in making good and interesting films despite budgetary limitations.

Eva Bartok also tops the cast list as the widowed Countess Cristiana Cuomo, the fashion house owner and business partner with Massimo Morlacchi. She appears to be all business and seems as remote a personality as just about every other character. Her performance becomes much more interesting as the film progresses and the plot develops. Blood and Black Lace would be the penultimate film in Bartok’s 20-year career of film acting in both the US and Europe.

If ever an actress went above and beyond the call of duty for a film, it was Mary Arden. Her character of model Peggy Peyton was subjected to probably more prolonged physical abuse than any other woman in film up to that time. While we take such physicality in movies for granted, this is all being performed in take after bruising take by Arden without a stunt double. I hope all of the pain and terror she expressed was just good acting. Arden was also nearly killed by the sharp latch of an automobile trunk lid that slammed down on her while filming a scene. The multilingual Mary Arden even pitched in to do the translation of the screenplay’s dialogue into English. After all of that injury and effort, Mary Arden never got paid!

Another lady in the cast deserving kudos for efforts way beyond her job description is Lea Lander. Billed as Lea Krugher in Blood and Black Lace, she plays the model Greta. A decade later Lander would act in Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs (1974). That film’s post-production was not completed due to the bankruptcy proceedings resulting when one of the film’s financial backers died. Rabid Dogs went unfinished and unseen for almost a quarter century until Lea Lander took the initiative to help finance its DVD release. This would be worked on further by Mario Bava’s son Lamberto and grandson Roy along with producer Alfredo Leone to be released in 2002 as Kidnapped. Bravo to black-laced beauty Lea Lander! She not only graced a classic giallo, but she also resurrected Mario Bava’s most atypical and cynical film.

A key accessory to any giallo film hoping to make a stylish impression is the soundtrack. Carlo Rustichelli’s Blood and Black Lace score sets the pace for the musical flourishes that adorn the genre’s best. His main theme is sinister lounge music that is reprised throughout the film, often building up to horrific intensity. Rustichelli also scored two of director Bava’s Gothic horror classics: The Whip and the Body (1963) and Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966).

For the giallo curious, Blood and Black Lace is the perfect introduction. It is the trendsetting model of the genre designed to knock ‘em dead by that morbid maestro Mario Bava. So, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? You can ditch the tuxes and gowns and just barge on into this sanguinary salon for a bloody good time.

SMART BLONDE (1937)

Director: Frank McDonald

Writers: Kenneth Gamut, Don Ryan, adapting Frederick Nebel’s story “No Hard Feelings”

Producers: Jack L. Warner, Hal B. Wallis

Cast: Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Winifred Shaw, Addison Richards, Charlotte Wynters (as Charlotte Winters), Robert Paige (as David Carlyle), Craig Reynolds, Max Wagner, Jane Wyman, Tom Kennedy, Joseph Crehan, George Lloyd, Joe Cunningham (uncredited), George Guhl (uncredited) 

When racetrack, fight arena, and nightclub owner Fitz Mularkey (Addison Richards)  decides to “go legitimate” by getting married and settling down, he agrees to sell his businesses to his reputable friend “Tiny” Torgenson (Joseph Crehan) for much less than some shady operators were offering. Torgenson is soon gunned down. Police Lieutenant Detective Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) is trying to solve the case while warning Mularkey not to take the law into his own hands for vengeance. McBride’s girlfriend, ace newspaper reporter Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell), assists and exasperates the hard-boiled cop in her zeal to solve the mystery and get the scoop for her paper. 

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Nowadays journalism often seems to be either an anachronism or an affectation. While journalistic standards have always had lapses, those lapses used to be a source of shame when exposed. Much of today’s so-called news is shamelessly crafted just to be clickbait and biased barbs spewed by celebrity talking heads pandering to their chosen ideological market.

The traditional competitive standard of the news media getting the real story quickly and accurately was an inspiring ideal. In the good old days of fewer media outlets in the 1930s, newspapers were probably the most respected conduits of information for public awareness. Newspaper reporters were often regarded with a bit of reverence and romanticized. That’s because the public had not lost the faith in the notion that a free press was vital to truly informing the public so that elected officials could be held accountable. Reporters were the workaday heroes doing their part to maintain a democracy.

To the moviegoers in the depths of the Great Depression, newspaper reporter characters ferreting out the truth were very appealing. There was certainly no more appealing representative of the press than Theresa “Torchy” Blane. Actress Glenda Farrell set the standard for brassy, beautiful reporters back in 1933’s Mystery of the Wax Museum. I was smitten with her in that film and was delighted to find out that she brought her spunk and humor to another female reporter character in the Torchy Blane film series. 

Smart Blonde is the first of nine Torchy Blane films made in just two years. Seven of those films star the two-and-only Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane. Most of these hour-long B films are mysteries that are the duty of Police Detective Steve McBride to investigate and are only solved with the additional wits and daring of his girlfriend, reporter Torchy Blane.

Beautiful blonde Glenda Farrell had been acting on the stage since childhood. She became a very busy film actress at Warner Bros. Pictures throughout the 1930s. Farrell appeared in gangster pictures, dramas, mysteries, and comedies. Her fame probably peaked when she starred as the sassy, daring, and fast-talking heroine of the Torchy Blane films. Farrell’s performance is great fun and the main reason these films became so popular. 

Barton MacLane is the perfect surly and burly foil to sassy and sexy Glenda Farrell. MacLane was also under contract to Warner Bros. in the ’30s. He usually played supporting character roles and villains during his film career. It must have been a nice change of pace for MacLane to play the heroic co-starring lead in the Torchy Blane series. By 1939 MacLane would marry Charlotte Wynters who plays Marcia Friel, the fiancée of Addison Richard’s Fitz Mularkey, in Smart Blonde. 

Farrell and MacLane play well off of each other. They both portray down-to-earth urbanites dedicated to their professions that benefit the public. The banter and bickering between these two characters are the main charms of these flicks. Torchy loves to tease her hard-boiled cop boyfriend and resents often being told to mind her own business. Of course her newshound instincts can’t be tamed, and she continues to compete with or assist Detective McBride until the culprit is exposed. 

As these films are brisk, crime dramas full of humor, running gags are established in this very first series entry. Torchy seems to have an insatiable appetite for more than news and is always nagging McBride to take her to dinner (usually a steak). These meals are often postponed due to the demands of McBride’s detective duties. The films are also always teasing the prospect of marriage between these two characters that keeps getting delayed due to the demands of the latest case. 

The particulars of this case fly by pretty fast and, as in many B films with their mile-a-minute dialogue, you really need to pay attention. While the story is meant to present our crime-solving couple with a mystery to unravel, the real draw here is being amused along the way with their mutual antagonism and affection. 

Farrell’s iconic portrayal of pushy female newspaper reporters inspired the creation of the Lois Lane character by writer Jerry Siegel for his DC Comics Superman stories. It is also interesting to note that the first actress to try replacing Farrell for the fifth film in the series was Lola Lane. That similarity of names could just be an amazing coincidence as the Torchy Blane film that Lane starred in was released one month after the Superman and Lois Lane characters debuted in the first issue of Action Comics. However, many years later Jerry Siegel said that he liked the name of actress Lola Lane whom he was aware had also played Torchy and claimed that suggested his naming of the Lois Lane character. Perhaps prior to the publication of that first Superman story, Siegel had noticed Lola Lane in earlier film roles or else he had read some movie news about Lola Lane replacing Farrell for Torchy Blane in Panama (1938)? 

In this nine film series, Warner Bros. Pictures tried replacing the leads Farrell and MacLane twice. Each time the moviegoers did not embrace those replacements. The last film in the series, Torchy Blane... Playing with Dynamite (1939), had Torchy played by Jane Wyman. In this first Torchy Blane film, Wyman appeared in the small role of Dixie, the hatcheck girl. 

So, if you long for the days when journalism meant showing the cops how to solve murder mysteries (and looking absolutely fabulous while doing it), tag along on the newsbeat with The Morning Herald’s Torchy Blane. She certainly knows how to increase my circulation.

PROPHECY (1979)

Director: John Frankenheimer

Writer: David Seltzer

Producer: Robert L. Rosen

Cast: Robert Foxworth, Talia Shire, Armand Assante, Richard Dysart, Victoria Racimo, George Clutesi, Tom McFadden, Kevin Peter Hall (uncredited), Charles H. Gray, Everett Creach, Burke Byrnes, Johnny Timko, Mia Bendixsen, Graham Jarvis, Evan Evans, Lyvingston Holms, James H. Burk, Lon Katzman, Bob Terhune

Washington, D.C. Government Health Inspector Dr. Robert Verne (Robert Foxworth) brings his pregnant wife, Maggie (Talia Shire), along with him into the woods of Maine to assess the environmental impact of the Pitney Lumber Company paper mill. It is hoped that this assessment can help settle the conflict between the paper mill and members of the local Native American tribe who feel that their ancestral forests are being despoiled. The lumber company is blaming the tribe for recent disappearances of loggers in the forest. An elder of the tribe believes that Katahdin, a legendary forest spirit, has risen to protect his people and the environment.

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The filmmaker who delivered the classic, dark-humored, political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1963) might seem like the last guy in the world who was itching to make a monster movie. Apparently, director John Frankenheimer and his writer had some things to say, whether there was a receptive audience or not. The screenplay was by none other than David Seltzer, who had written the huge horror hit The Omen (1976).

Chasing the 1970s pack of animals-attack flicks, Prophecy is the eco-horror alternative to the radiation-spawned-monster movies of the 1950s. It has often been derided over the years, yet I have always liked it. Much of the negativity about this film is because it is loaded with issues. I suppose some people want to take offense at anything that raises concerns they are apathetic to or in denial about. There are also many moviegoers who don’t want anything too heavy when all they are looking for are thrills and chills. Others may argue that this film is being heavy-handed in the way it addresses its concerns.

There is no denying that there is a lot to ponder here beyond how to survive the big, bad monster. In addition to the main issue of industrial pollution that can poison people and the environment, there are also the conflicts of industry with Native American culture, concerns about overpopulation, business corruption, inadequate urban housing, and abortion. For many viewers this movie may have just seemed like a checklist of contemporary issues striving for some sort of relevance.

I never seek out a film or judge it worthy because it is trying to be relevant. I am hoping to be involved and entertained. In the case of Prophecy, I don’t have an issue with its issues-heavy approach. Who says horror can’t be thoughtful? I think the pollution angle is a good one providing a topical basis for the menace here. It also provides the basis for most of the cultural and character conflict in the film.

The four main characters articulate all of this film’s issues. Health Inspector Dr. Robert Verne is concerned about the pollutants the paper mill may be discharging into the environment. Maggie Verne is reluctant to tell her parenting-averse husband about her pregnancy. Paper mill supervisor Bethel Isely (Richard Dyshart) contends that his mill is ecologically safe and simply meeting society’s demand for paper. Native American John Hawks (Armand Assante) defends his tribe’s concerns for their land being ruined by the paper mill.

Despite these oppressive themes, Robert Foworth and Talia Shire give nice performances as the Verne couple. Although he is idealistic, EPA appointed investigator Dr. Robert Verne does not immediately take a side in the local dispute. Maggie Verne is looking for the right moment to tell Robert that she is pregnant knowing that he does not want to bring a child into a troubled and overcrowded world. We get to share one quiet moment of romantic relief with them in their rustic cabin on the lake deep in the idyllic Maine forest just before the film’s main concern literally shows up on their doorstep.

Perhaps the weight of all these issues would have been easier for the film to carry if there were a bit of humor to be found with some of these characters. They are all delivering exposition or debating. I am not about to suggest we need a comic relief sidekick bumbling about or that characters should be delivering sitcom-styled wisecracks, but despite most of this film taking place in the great outdoors, emotionally we could use a breath of fresh air. It may have alleviated Prophecy’s preachy atmosphere.

Prophecy gets off to a great start with an opening scene that does what the best horror films do. It establishes a sense of dread and intrigue; we wonder just what the hell the nasty thing is that makes mincemeat out of the first characters we meet. That immediately catches this horror hound’s interest and keeps me eagerly sniffing along the trail this story leads me on.

Many don’t like the monster. I do. It’s big, brutal, and ugly. While no one in the film gives us an exact definition of the beast, it is generally understood to be a mutant bear. This creature seems like a reasonable extrapolation based on the environmental pollution hazard that is this movie’s main concern. We are shown other forms of life in the area that have also been altered in size or temperament. As a supporter of exposition in films when it is needed to get our heads around challenging concepts, I appreciate the effort made to explain an industrial waste’s monster-making potential. I am sure some self-styled scientists out there won’t accept that such a mutation could occur. I say that toxic waste is just as believable a justification for a monster as radiation was back in the good old ’50s. In more recent decades, it seemed that all any filmmaker needed to do was throw around the term “genetic engineering” to get the audience to accept the creation of any monster or superhero.

There are also special effects nitpickers wanting to find fault with the monster that I have never really understood. Prophecy is using many techniques of the time to realize its menace and to tell its story. I think that it accomplishes this, even if we think we know many of the tricks that were used. Nowadays, people will accept any absurdity presented with CGI and yet are so jaded that they are not impressed. About the only notice now given to CGI is when it is poorly done. While some back in 1979 were obviously not making a practical effects-to-CGI comparison, they seemed to be unwilling to engage with this issues-heavy film. Hence, they criticized everything from its characters, to its plot, to its issues, to its special effects.

With Prophecy this horror junkie gets a little extra kick beyond the high I will usually settle for. This is a horror movie with a thoughtful consideration of the environmental factors that justify its menace. We also have characters strongly motivated and impacted by those factors beyond just the most imminent threat of the bloodthirsty monster. Perhaps best of all, we get the innovative sleeping bag kill. Eat your heart out, Jason Voorhees.