Stranger Things: Season 3, Chapter Six- E Pluribus Unum

“You remind him of a fat Rambo...”

Dustin and co see the big Russian lab, they see the portal into the Upside Down... and things get chaotic. They run. Meanwhile, in the hospital, the monster, which looks absolutely bloody terrifying, is after Nancy and Jonathan. It's not exactly a relaxed beginning, and the monster really does look awesome, and clearly not all CGI.

The resolution is, of course, Eleven shoving it forcibly out of the window, from whence it oozes under the ground, returning to its home. More bad stuff ensues with the Mayor, who is completely under the control of the big boss Russian man, and with the Fourth of July going on and stuff, the anniversary of the Americans' independence from, er, us.

The scenes where Hopper, Joyce and Conspiracy Theorist Bloke interrogate Russian Alexis with brinkmanship threats of giving him the wrong flavour of drink from Burger King, a torture method almost as notorious as the comfy chair, are comedy gold. But these methods get results, and Joyce and Jim hear of the Russian attempt to open a portal to the Upside Down, right there in Indiana, beneath their feet, with the finest Soviet scientists in an impregnable fortress impossible to breach, guarded by the mightiest Soviet warriors. Getting in is simply impossible.

Meanwhile, having got in, unarmed kids Dustin and the splendid Erica are comparing notes. Erica now knows everything- and, wonderfully, her only note of scepticism is that her nerdy brother Lucas was part of it. Meanwhile, Steve and Robin are being interrogated by non-comfy chair methods, not a pleasant experience, especially when one’s interrogators won’t believe the truth. But at least there is a blatant connection between them being developed and it’s blatant that they will end up together. And Robin is really, really cool.

The kids, meanwhile, are progressing the main plot strand and, rather cutely, Mike accidentally blurts out to his friends that he loves El. Aaaw. El has the dangerous mission to psychically locate the Mind Flayer’s HQ via Billy, which she does, but not without a horrific tour of Bully’s abusive childhood; I hope his dad suffers an unpleasant death, I suppose, but sadly he represents a real life horror not hiding behind metaphor, rather than the fantastic.

Except.. it was all a trap. Billy’s final speech is chilling. The Mind Flayer now has El where it wants her and can see through her- and it plans to kill everyone...

Yep. That was bloody excellent, as per usual.

The Princess Bride (1987)

"Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?"

"Yes."

"Morons."

It's a genuine mystery: This Is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest films ever. How, then, can pretty much the same team- Rob Reiner directs, Christopher Guest has a major role- produce something so unfunny as this.

I can see what it’s trying to do- play with the silliness of the tropes and cliches. Hence we have exaggerated tropes such as a princess with absurd faith that her ridiculously heroic man will save her, and a Spanish swordsman who lives to avenge his father’s death. But none of this is addressed with any real wit, and it’s obly the names (Prince Humperdinck) and cameos from the likes of Peter Cook and Mel Smith that tell us this is intended to be a comedy.

All this is narrated by Columbo to his annoying, sport-obsessed grandson for no apparent reason, in a framing sequence that has no obvious reason to be there. It describes a weird mediaeval word where fictional countries mix with real ones and people seem to have heard of Australia. And where there are, er, “rodents of unusual size” which look awfully like a man in a suit. It’s clearly meant to be funny. It isn’t. An odd misfire.

I very strongly suspect, mind, that the “battle of wits” scene strongly influenced the first episode of Sherlock.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

"See the amazing cinematograph- the wonder of modern civilisation."

Francis Ford Coppola gives us a lush, gorgeous Dracula. While the film doesn't entirely work- it's bloated and over-detailed- I'd actually blame the source material rather than this excellently made film which, in spite of what is often said and in spite of some obvious and welcome homages to James Whale's 1931 film, is if anything a little too faithful to the novel.

The casting is full of big names, although an oddity is that very few of the big names are using their own native accents in one way or another. Gary Oldman is a splendid Dracula, while Winona Ryder- who, it being the early '90s, had to appear in this film- is well cast as the sexually repressed and innocent Mina, whose repressed desires are soon teased out. Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker is, as ever, Ted, while Anthony Hopkins is a convincing and amusing Van Helsing.

The film makes explicit what is implicit in the novel: it's all a metaphor for sex and sexuality, as numerous scenes make clear with vampirism always portrayed in an obviously sexualised manner. Another nice touch is that all narration us epistolary in nature, paralleling the firm and structure of Stoker's novel. But Coppola also adds a prologue in which Vlad the Impaler turns against God and (in a process not entirely clear) towards vampirism after the Juliet-like suicide of his wife, who thought him dead. In lesser hands this would have been corny and embarrassing, but Coppola makes it work.

The direction is beautiful: I love the change in texture and camerawork during the cinematograph scenes. The only real criticism I can find is Richard E. grant phoning in his performance; the film is beautifully made and bloated only because Coppola is clearly such a huge Dracula fanboy, something I'm well prepared to indulge.

Saw 3-D (2010)

"Game over."

Before we begin, and celebrate with huge relief having been through em the whole damn franchise, a point of order; I saw this on DVD, and thus both in glorious 2-D and under a different title. That aside, we have a puzzle, a film that, despite its box office success, has been panned by critics both professional and amateur. I have no idea why this should be so, other than a preconceived desire to bash the franchise; this may be no classic but it's a neat resolution and a good little film in its own right.

We begin with a spot of nostalgia, as we return to Cary Elwes as the surviving Dr Gordon  from way back on the first film. Perhaps, given that this is the first sign of the franchise beginning to eat it's own mythology, this is a sign that now is a good time to stop but, for now, the intrigue of Gordon's return works, as does the inevitable eventual realisation that he's been working with Jigsaw all the time. And it's fitting that he should be the one to finally dispatch Hoffman and bring the killings to an end.

Even the opening ordeal, with the two men and a woman in the shop window, is almost nostalgic in its basic structure and the use, once more, of that cute little puppet. On a bike, no less. In sure the children love that scene.

Oh, and the woman, Dina. Dies. Painfully, via her intestines. With loads of blood. How charming. 

Still, the film is mainly about the comeuppance of fake Jigsaw survivor and purveyor of typically vacuous self-help shite Bobby Dagen, a neat concept, as he has to navigate a typically ghoulish series of traps which result in his and others' deaths. Again, lovely, although not as satisfying as Hoffman's eventual comeuppance at the hands of, fittingly, Gordon. It's a very neatly plotted series of events. That's a good thing, I suppose, but it strikes me that we never ever seem to find people surviving Jigsaw's little traps by thinking outside the box that is his narrow little mind. That, I think, would be truly satisfying. My main criticism of the films is that they operate entirely within Jigsaw's rules, which could be said to be a sort of endorsement of said amoral psychopath.

That's not all; a bunch of neo-Nazis are tortured in the usual way, too; only with neo-Nazis do I have to actually remind myself that Kramer and Hoffman are both equally psychopathic bastards with no redeeming features between them.

The ending is ironic, and sort of justifies they franchise's increasingly inaccurate title: Hoffman is put in to the same trap as was Gordon at the end of the the first film. But this time there is no saw...

Saw (2004)

“I want to play a game…”

I’ll be honest; most of what I’d heard about Saw had been very negative, with the phrase “torture porn” being bandied about a lot. But I wanted to give it a chance, especially as my very lovely girlfriend is a huge fan. And, well, it’s gory, but it isn‘t what I expected at all.

To begin with, there’s absolutely no way that this is a horror film in any way whatsoever; it’s a violent thriller. Chills and suspense do not feature in any way. And the central conceit, of a criminal who torments his victims with “games” where they have to use their wits and their suffering) to survive, is a brilliant concept, though rather evil. Yes, it looks less than lavish, and the American accents from Cary Elwes and creator Leigh Whannell are often arse-clenchingly embarrassing, but I rather enjoyed the film. Which is a good thing, as my girlfriend has brought a lot of DVD’s of Twisted Pictures films to our new home, and no fewer than four of them are still in my backlog of films to review…

The mystery unfolds perfectly, starting out like a rather less glamorous version of The Crystal Maze but expanding to become more and more horrible. There’s also a strong aspect of the police procedural; I’m reminded more of Seven than any slasher movie I’ve seen. It’s gory, yes; very gory. But this film, at least, doesn’t seem to justify the label “torture porn”, although I accept there’s nastiness on show. The more dominant impression I have is of very, very clever plotting. The final montage revealing, we;;, not everything but enough for now, is all the more powerful for consisting mainly of snippets of scenes we’ve already seen, showing us that we had the clues all along.

Best of all is that Jigsaw, with that iconic, nightmare-inducingly ugly puppet, is a bloody brilliant baddie. THAT voice is just perfect, as is the revelation of his identity. Ironically, though, the puppet is a puppet master, having all sorts of effects on all of the other characters, and not just the ones whom he directly manipulates. Danny Glover’s obsessed police detective is every bit as manipulated by him as are the two main protagonists, Most interesting is Amanda, who genuinely seems to think she’s been helped.

Adam and the good doctor are ciphers, perhaps, but effective ones- the impulsive young man driven by id and emotion versus the repressed cold fish driven by duty. There’s a nice role reversal as Adam becomes increasingly logical and the doctor slowly loses it to the point of sawing his own leg off. This may not be the most three-dimensional kind of character development, but it’s enough to add depth to the film and ensure that there’s more to it than gore and clever plotting.

So… I liked the first film. What of the second…?