On Blu-ray/DVD: UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 (2019), AMERICAN DREAMER (2019) and POLAROID (2019)

UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2
(US - 2019)

Universal's 1440 DTV division is back with another belated sequel nobody was waiting for with UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2. A modest hit in the summer of 2002, the combination blaxploitation/Bond spoof UNDERCOVER BROTHER was based on an animated internet series created by John Ridley, who also wrote the script and would go on to win an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation of 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Ridley obviously has better things to do than this sequel, as does everyone else associated with the first film--not just Dave Chappelle, a standout as Conspiracy Brother, but also stars Eddie Griffin and Chris Kattan, neither of whom have been burdened with busy schedules in recent years. UNDERCOVER BROTHER remains in regular rotation on cable, and one thing it likely had a hand in inspiring was the 2009 cult classic BLACK DYNAMITE, a pitch-perfect homage to blaxploitation that gave Michael Jai White the greatest role of his career. And that's what makes UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2's existence all the more pointless, because White has been hired to replace Griffin in the title role, and as enjoyable as UNDERCOVER BROTHER was, it's a safe bet that everyone--White included--would rather have a BLACK DYNAMITE 2 than this. Making things even worse is that Undercover Brother spends most of this sequel in a coma after he and his tag-along, dog-grooming kid brother Lionel (Vince Swann) are frozen in ice when the nefarious The Man (Barry Bostwick) triggers an avalanche after they track him down at his secret headquarters in Austria. Cut to 16 years later, and the pair are discovered by a climber due to melting ice caps. While Undercover Brother remains hospitalized, Lionel--aka "Undercover Brother's Brother"--joins the secret agency known as The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. to lead the search for the long-missing The Man, who never fulfilled his master plan of black mind control via fried chicken, menthol cigarettes, and orange soda. The Man's gay son Manson (Steven Lee Johnson) has taken over his father's organization and is using Resistance Brew, an overpriced fair trade coffee chain, as a front to flood hip, gentrified enclaves with a powerful street drug called Woke, which can cause hooked users to become petty, hypersensitive, and judgmental.

There's some undeniable potential in the script, co-written by Stephen Mazur, whose credits include other illustrious DTV sequels like WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING, JINGLE ALL THE WAY 2, and BENCHWARMERS 2: BREAKING BALLS. But UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 is a borderline unwatchable fiasco, even by the lowered standards of a Universal 1440 sequel. Super-woke hipsters are an easy target, but this film never finds a funny way to skewer the subject or mine any real laughs from Lionel being frozen for 16 years (he can't believe Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Prince are dead, or that Donald Trump is president). Much of this is a direct result of the grating, shamelessly mugging Swann, who equates being loud with being funny, and whose idea of a screen persona is to be young Will Smith, RUSH HOUR-era Chris Tucker (even stealing the "Do you understand the words that are comin' outta my mouth?!" line), and the least-talented member of the Wayans family all rolled into one. The film is so sloppily directed by Leslie Small (HAIR SHOW) that no one bothered to pay any attention to the continuity of Lionel's hi-top fade, which drastically changes from scene to scene, along with his earring that appears and disappears throughout. Swann is absolutely atrocious, but nobody fares well here. Bostwick, looking like Mitt Romney as the Frankenstein monster, is saddled with the most embarrassing role of his career, at one point even spooning with a blow-up doll. But the real bullshit is leaving White sidelined for 75% of the movie, lying in a hospital bed or occasionally appearing as an apparition to guide his little brother until he eventually returns for the climactic raid on The Man's new stronghold. White gets the only amusing lines, and they sound more BLACK DYNAMITE than UNDERCOVER BROTHER ("I'd launch a full-scale investigation...into those titties"). In a perfect world, BLACK DYNAMITE would've catapulted Michael Jai White to mainstream stardom and eliminated his need to star in movies as bad as UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2, much less cynically coasting through on his status a B-movie cult hero when he only has a glorified cameo. C'mon, man. (R, 85 mins)


AMERICAN DREAMER
(US - 2019)

It's occasionally overwrought and contrived, but the grim indie AMERICAN DREAMER--shot in Norfolk, VA and partially financed by Old Dominion University--establishes a certain level of cringe-worthy intensity the more it goes on, sort of like a schlubby version of GOOD TIME. Much of that is due to a strong dramatic performance by comedian and popular late-night talk show guest Jim Gaffigan, who's doing his best sad sack Philip Seymour Hoffman misery-wallow through one of the most haphazardly-planned crimes of financial desperation this side of BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD. After losing his job and being slapped with a restraining order by his estranged wife (Tammy Blanchard), who refuses to let him see their son, unstable rage-case Cam (Gaffigan) moves into an extended-stay shithole motel and earns a meager income as a rideshare driver. He also picks up some side money by chauffeuring volatile drug dealer Mazz (Robbie Jones) on his runs. When he falls behind on his child support and his brother won't loan him any more money, Cam decides to kidnap Mazz's girlfriend Marina (Isabel Arraiza) for a $20,000 ransom. With an hour to kill after dropping off Mazz before he has to pick him up, Cam goes to Marina's house and finds their toddler son alone while Marina is out having sex with Mazz's partner Gumby (Alejandro Hernandez) to score some drugs. Cam hastily improvises by taking the kid instead and putting him in the trunk of the car. He sends a ransom text to Mazz on a burner phone he just bought at a carryout and, of course, ends up driving him around all night in pursuit of the kidnappers.

Cam's plan is extraordinarily stupid, but that's the whole idea. It goes without saying that things quickly fly off the rails as Cam has to go to extreme lengths to keep Mazz from finding out what he's done. It doesn't take long for a body count to start accumulating as Mazz assumes the kid has been taken by rivals, underlings, or even Gumby. Jones has an intimidating presence as Mazz even if his performance falls a little on the side of caricature at times, but the film is really a showcase for Gaffigan, who's quite effective as a troubled guy whose life completely went to shit because of one bad day. At the same time, director/co-writer Derrick Borte (THE JONESES) never tries to get you on Cam's side despite some attempts to show that he's not a bad guy (he gives his leftover Chinese takeout to a homeless person before picking up Mazz). The ending could use more punch, but overall, it's a solid little film with admittedly limited commercial appeal, though fans of Gaffigan, urban "survive the night" scenarios, and poorly-plotted crimes going tragically awry in every conceivable way will definitely find AMERICAN DREAMER worth a look. (R, 93 mins)


POLAROID
(US - 2019)

Set for release in theaters in August 2017 before being bumped to December and then back to November, POLAROID then vanished from the release schedule altogether when it became one of the many casualties of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that broke in October 2017. It would be another two years before the film finally resurfaced with zero publicity as a VOD dumpjob courtesy of Vertical Entertainment, with nary a mention of Weinstein or Dimension Films to be found in the credits. Even before the scandal, Dimension had to know it had a dud on its hands with POLAROID, but now had a convenient excuse to bury it. It's Norwegian filmmaker Lars Klevberg's feature debut, an expansion of his identically-titled 2015 short film, which itself seems to owe a huge debt to "Say Cheese and Die," a 1996 episode of GOOSEBUMPS that starred a young Ryan Gosling (Klevberg went on to direct this year's CHILD'S PLAY remake, which ended up getting released first). In the small town of Locust Harbor, high school loner Bird Fitcher (British actress Kathryn Prescott, 26 years old at the time of filming) is a photography enthusiast who enjoys collecting old trinkets and knick-knacks and works part-time after school in a local antique shop. Her friend Tyler (Davi Santos) gives her a vintage, still-working 1970s Polaroid SX-70 instant camera that he picked up at a garage sale. When she takes Tyler's picture, she notices a smudge lingering off to the side of the shot. That same smudge appears in several other pics she takes with some friends at a party, and almost immediately, everyone who appears in the photos starts being offed one by one by a supernatural entity (Javier Botet) whose vengeful spirit rests inside the camera.

Prescott has a striking resemblance to TEACHING MRS. TINGLE, GOSSIP, and FREDDY GOT FINGERED co-star Marisa Coughlan, and that's not the only reason this feels like it could've been made in 2003 in the waning days of the post-SCREAM era as a response to both FINAL DESTINATION and THE RING. The sense of it being a stale retread is uninspiring enough, but Klevberg and cinematographer Pal Ulvik Rokseth (22 JULY) also make the bizarre decision to shoot the entire film in almost complete darkness, making it virtually impossible to see what's going on for the majority of the feels-like-three-hours 88-minute run time. With some more sensible lighting, POLAROID could've been harmlessly average and merely forgettable, but it goes out of its way to establish itself as the year's dumbest horror movie this side of ELI. This takes place in a small town. Why then, is the revelation that Bird's dad was killed in a car accident when she was 12 and that she always wears a scarf to cover a scar on her neck a surprise to anyone? If she's in high school now, that means it happened, at the most, six years earlier. None of these kids--who have just now started calling her "Scarf Girl"--are aware of this traumatic event in the life of a classmate they've known for years? That wouldn't stay secret in a small town, nor would anyone forget it. Hell, I still remember the name of the kid in my class who shit his pants in third grade. Also, the Polaroid is discovered to have once belonged to a serial killing teacher who abducted, tortured, and murdered three Locust Harbor high school students in 1974. Wouldn't this be the major urban legend that everyone who lives in Locust Harbor would know and pass down from class to class and generation to generation? Why does Bird have to go to the archive room at the local library--a building that seems to be lit by a single 15-watt bulb that's got about 30 seconds of life remaining--to peruse old newspapers for the shocking discovery? And it's also a big plot reveal that the teacher's widow (Grace Zabriskie, second-billed for a five-minute cameo) still lives in the same house under an alias. Really? Nobody knows who she is, 40+ years running? Did all of the Locust Harbor townies just shrug and say "Hey, that weird shut-in lady who bought the crazy killer teacher's house looks a lot like his wife who just sold it!"?  How has she managed to keep her existence a secret all this time? I suppose she could order all of her necessities from Amazon but from what I can tell, Locust Harbor doesn't even have adequate electricity, let alone good wi-fi. And honestly, would Mrs. Killer Teacher not want to start her life anew somewhere else, maybe? I mean, what the fuck, POLAROID? I know you're just a dumb horror movie, but you've gotta try a little harder than that.  (PG-13, 88 mins)

In Theaters: IT: CHAPTER TWO (2019)

IT: CHAPTER TWO
(US - 2019)

Directed by Andy Muschietti. Written by Gary Dauberman. Cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Bill Skarsgard, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Teach Grant, Nicholas Hamilton, Javier Botet, Xavier Dolan, Jess Weixler, Taylor Frey, Molly Atkinson, Joan Gregson, Will Beinbrink, Stephen King, Peter Bogdanovich, Stephen Bogaert, Luke Roessler, Jackson Robert Scott, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Joe Bostick, Megan Charpentier, Juno Rinaldi, Owen Teague, Jake Sim. (R, 169 mins)

A blockbuster hit that currently stands as the highest-grossing horror film of all time (by present-day dollars and not by ticket sales or adjustment for inflation), 2017's IT, an adaptation of the first half of Stephen King's gargantuan 1986 novel, ushered in an era of renewed interest in the legendary author's work. This includes the Netflix films GERALD'S GAME and 1922, this year's remake of PET SEMATARY, this fall's DOCTOR SLEEP, a sequel to both King's novel The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film version, which King has spent nearly 40 years criticizing, and several other announced film and TV projects in various states of development or production. Every generation has their genre touchstones, and IT--in many ways a hard-R GOONIES--has become a gateway film for impressionable young horror fans. Every generation's gateway is different, and just as aging purists who cut their teeth on Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi dismissed the blood and guts horror that gained traction in the 1970s, it's easy to for us jaded cynics now in our 40s to take a shit all over whatever it is "the kids" are into and inevitably sound all Old Man Yells at Cloud. I liked IT--it didn't blow me away, but I can see where a 13-year-old might consider it a watershed moment that hopefully leads to further exploration. IT was entertaining but it relied heavily on the now-overused trope of "scary clowns" as well as the crutch of nostalgia, especially by updating the setting of the childhood section of the novel from 1958 to 1989. Of course this also meant recurring invocations of everything 1989, from BATMAN to LETHAL WEAPON 2 to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5, and a running gag about New Kids on the Block. This retro fetishizing of everything '80s (all that's missing is a John Carpenter-esque synth score) is representative of the move in horror toward The Reference--the AMERICAN HORROR STORY/STRANGER THINGSification of the genre, if you will. And returning director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman push that even further in IT: CHAPTER TWO.

Running a bladder-challenging 169 minutes--a mere three minutes shorter than THE GODFATHER--IT: CHAPTER TWO is a disappointing sequel. With the first film's characters reconvening in 2016 after 27 years apart, the film is a success in terms of its effective casting choices and finding actors who, for the most part, strongly resemble the younger versions of their characters. When murders begin taking place in Derry 27 years after "It" was defeated, Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa), the town librarian and lone member of "The Losers" who never moved away, reaches out to his six childhood friends spread all across the country--Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy), a novelist and screenwriter with a habit of writing bad endings; Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), a popular but hacky stand-up comic who doesn't even write his own material; Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone), still a nervous hypochondriac who works insurance risk assessment and married a woman just like his mother (and played by the same actress, Molly Atkinson); Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan), now an architect who lost all the weight that made him a target of incessant childhood bullying; Stanley Uris (Andy Bean), who grew up to be an accountant; and Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain), a successful fashion designer stuck in an abusive marriage. The reunion is one short when childhood memories come back to Stanley, who commits suicide rather than face the manifestation of It in Pennywise the clown (Bill Skarsgard). Those youthful traumas are only remembered by Mike, who informs the others that once you leave Derry, the memories slowly fade away. But with "It" rearing its ugly head again and the body count rising, the other Losers begin to remember. Through his research, Mike learns that the only way to defeat It is by performing "The Ritual of Chud," a Native American tribal rite that requires them to find one artifact from their childhood before venturing deep into It's lair underneath Derry.

The camaraderie of the young cast of IT--who also appear here in new scenes--was probably its most successful aspect aside from Skarsgard's wild performance as Pennywise. As in IT, the actor is too often replaced by herky-jerky CGI enhancement that almost makes his very presence pointless. IT: CHAPTER TWO, however, spends much of its length with the adult Losers on various solo quests to obtain their artifacts, during which time they have their own confrontations with the past and run-ins with It. There's also the grown-up bully Henry Bowers (Teach Grant), busted out of a mental institution by It in the form of the decayed corpse of his childhood partner-in-crime Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague); a little boy (Luke Roessler) who lives in Bill's childhood home and is a new target of It; and Ben's still-unrequited love for Beverly, and these are just some of the too many subplots that IT: CHAPTER TWO has to juggle while jettisoning key characters like Bill's movie star wife Audra (Jess Weixler) and Beverly's asshole husband Tom (Will Beinbrink), who are quickly introduced and never seen again, and still managing to find time for a jokey Stephen King cameo. The film seems long for the sake of being long, and certainly the interminable artifact quests, which constitute almost the entire second hour, could've been condensed or perhaps would've played better if this were made into the limited cable series that it often seems to be emulating, especially with the extended wrap-up that feels more like a series finale than the ending of a movie.

The MVP standout is Hader, whose grown-up Richie is given a new layer of characterization that could've easily come off as woke pandering but is brought to life with heartfelt empathy by the SNL vet, best known for his comedic skills but someone I can easily see morphing into a versatile dramatic actor of the Micheal Keaton variety. As it is, IT: CHAPTER TWO is the HOBBIT of Stephen King adaptations. For all its bloat and overlength despite dumping huge chunks of the novel, it's a story that could've easily been told in two hours, but its predecessor was such a success that Muschietti was likely given carte blanche to run as long as he wanted. It has its moments, but they're spread out over the nearly three-hour run time. Any experienced horror fans will see the jump scares coming a shot before they do since Muschietti's set-ups are all the same, and Pennywise's now-repetitive antics seemed much scarier when they were aimed at the childhood-era Losers (and nothing here even comes close to the terrifying slide projector scene in the first film). Plus, the endless referencing and shout-outs--to things like THE THING, ALIENS, THE SHINING, STAND BY ME, THE LOST BOYS, and even Hader is forced to utter a groaner in the form of DIE HARD's most iconic line in the final battle with Pennywise--just feels lazy. Right around the point when adult Eddie's frightful run-in with It in the dank, cavernous basement of the Derry pharmacy is punctuated by what might go down as the dumbest and most pointless needle-drop in film history in the form of Juice Newton's 1981 hit "Angel of the Morning," I was pretty much over this chapter of IT.

In Theaters: SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (2019)

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
(US/Canada/China - 2019)

Directed by Andre Ovredal. Written by Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman. Cast: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Gil Bellows, Dean Norris, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Kathleen Pollard, Javier Botet, Troy James, Mark Steger. (PG-13, 108 mins)

Based on the beloved trilogy of YA books written by Alvin Schwartz and vividly illustrated by Stephen Gammell, SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK takes some of the series' more famous tales of terror ("The Big Toe," "The Red Spot," "Me-Tie-Dough-ty Walker!") and weaves them into a more ambitious narrative rather than going for the anthology structure. It's also got the fingerprints of producer Guillermo del Toro all over it, especially with some of the nightmarish monsters recalling The Pale Man from PAN'S LABYRINTH and the title character in the GDT-produced MAMA, who was played by Javier Botet, called upon once again by del Toro, this time to play a corpse searching for his missing toe. Though he had a hand in shaping the script in its early stages (along with Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the duo behind the FEAST and THE COLLECTOR franchises, as well as writing SAWs IV-through-VII), del Toro farmed out directing duties to Andre Ovredal, director of the found-footage cult hit TROLLHUNTER and the terrifying THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE. Despite the source being a series of books written in the 1980s and being in various stages of development for several years, it's a safe assumption that SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK probably wouldn't exist in this cinematic form were it not for the massive success of both IT and the Netflix series STRANGER THINGS. Comparisons are inevitable and observing that this is kinda just a more age-appropriate IT that tweens and younger teens can get a ticket to is an argument that's not without merit, but SCARY STORIES manages to be its own beast. That's due in large part to an appealing cast of young actors and it being a rare throwback sort-of project that actually conveys genuine affection for what it's doing beyond misremembered nostalgia and the resurrection of a short-lived disaster of a reformulated soft drink that anybody who was conscious during 1985 and still of sound mind today can verify that absolutely fucking nobody liked. Nobody. 

Set in 1968 in the small Pennsylvania town of Mill Valley Township with an America at war in Vietnam and in the days leading up to the election of Richard Nixon, SCARY STORIES centers on three outcast teenagers--aspiring writer and horror fanatic Stella (Zoe Colletti), lanky, sarcastic Auggie (Gabriel Rush), and goofball jokester Chuck (Austin Zajur)--who are introduced on Halloween throwing a flaming bag of shit (Chuck's, in case you were wondering) into the lap of jock bully Tommy (Austin Abrams) as he passes by them in his car. Fleeing for their lives, they end up at a drive-in showing NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and hide out in the car of Ramon (Michael Garza), an 18-year-old drifter who drove into town earlier that day. Stella talks Ramon into taking them to the shuttered and reportedly haunted Bellows mansion on the edge of town, home to the once-powerful family that built Mill Valley. Tales have been passed down for generations about Sarah Bellows, the black sheep of the family and all-purpose Mill Valley urban legend who was kept in a locked room in the house after she allegedly poisoned some local children at the turn of the 20th century. While roaming around the mansion, Stella and the others find the secret room and in it, Sarah Bellows' book of scary stories, handwritten in her own blood. Stella takes the book home, where she lives with her dad (Dean Norris) after her mom left them years earlier, the cause of some cruel rumors that still persist, and finds that a new story is writing itself--in blood--in the pages of the book. Sarah is seeking vengeance for the theft of the book by punishing all who were there when it was taken from the house--including Tommy, who followed them and spray-painted a racial slur on Ramon's car, and Chuck's older sister Ruth (Natalie Ganzhorn), who's secretly been going out with Tommy. Using this set-up, SCARY STORIES takes some of those more popular tales from Schwartz's books and uses them as comeuppances against Stella and her friends, like a local folklore-based FINAL DESTINATION that condemns all of them as Sarah Bellows will not stop until she has her revenge on them and the entire town of Mill Valley Township.

As a 46-year-old child of the '80s, SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK feels like the kind of movie I would've seen with my dad in 1984 and still have an affectionate soft spot for today. It's the kind of "crowd" movie that you don't see much of these days, where you can sense that nervous communal tittering going across the theater when everyone knows something's about to happen. Ovredal does a really good job of playing the audience, often delivering the payoff jolt right before or right after you've been conditioned to expect it. It's about as icky as a PG-13 horror film can get, but like the books, it's the kind of grossness where the eew-factor provides much dark-humored fun (a beef stew with a toe and an eyeball among the ingredients; a seriously infected spider bite that's about to explode on a girl's face), and it works all the creepy tropes (scarecrows, ghosts, long, ominous corridors in a dark basement with something approaching from the distance) in an effective fashion. The weaving in of a Vietnam subtext lends some social commentary to the proceedings (and the setting allows the use of Donovan's always-creepy "Season of the Witch"), but the attempted contemporary allegorical implication doesn't really land, even if it adds some texture to Garza's character and helps explain why the local sheriff (Gil Bellows, presumably no relation to the Mill Valley Township Bellows) is giving him such a hard time. A film that would've been better suited to hit theaters near Halloween instead of the second week of August (it's probably coming out now so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle with next month's IT sequel), SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK is a fun ride with solid scares and an engaging cast playing well-written characters, the kind of goofy horror crowd-pleaser that Joe Dante (GREMLINS), Fred Dekker (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS), or maybe Tom Holland (FRIGHT NIGHT) would've made in the mid '80s.