THE INVASION – oliver hirschbiegel – 1.0 / 10

Easily the worst of the four films based on the 1956 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers, The Invasion gets absolutely nothing right. Unbelievably stupid to the point of having the main character’s child’s Superman costume have a mask, Hirschbiegel’s film has no insight to offer and nothing to recommend it except for maybe a nifty car chase at the end of the film that was probably directed by the Wachowskis anyway (in a much publicized reshoot) in which, for some reason, one of the pod people hurls a Molotov cocktail at the heroes' fleeing car.

But I guess the actual on screen action was never the interesting part about these films. No, the interesting part was seeing how what makes a “pod person” changes from one film to the next, to see what each new generation views as the height of conformity. And on that level, The Invasion has a couple of interesting, though not exactly earth shattering, things to say, namely that without humanity, the planet would be free of war and strife of all kinds. A couple of scenes in which Nicole Kidman’s Dr. Carol Bennell walks down the now quiet and orderly streets of Washington, D.C. have the right mix of spookiness and awe that the picture strives for and fails to achieve during the rest of its running time.

The biggest difference between this version and the last two, and the one that says the most about the times in which we live has nothing to do with the nature of the pod people. It has to do with the way in which humans become pod people. In each of the last three versions, the humans are replaced with pod versions of themselves. In this version, the humans are merely infected with the pod spores and turned into new versions of themselves. This may have been done to ping off our collective fear of a pandemic in our now globalized world but what it really does is open the door to the creation of a cure that would allow this film, unlike the prior three, to have a completely unearned happy ending. Indeed, this new version of The Body Snatchers takes the easy way out and has everything end perfectly happily.

That fact says more about the times we live in that anything about the pod people or the differences between their society and ours. We need to have a happy ending now. Not because a modern audience can’t take an unhappy ending (especially an earned one, see The Departed for proof of that) but because a modern studio won’t finance a movie like this unless it ends happily. Those responsible for our entertainment have become so spineless that that they can’t even remake a film faithfully if it involves an unhappy ending. It’s an incredibly sad state of affairs and if the film had attempted to focus on this element of pod people behavior, it could really have been something. Oh well, I guess we’ll have another one in a couple decades.

DEAD SILENCE – james wan – 0.3 / 10

Not one character in this entire film does anything that has any basis in logic. As an example of this idiocy, take the opening scene. It involves a young couple spending a night at home in their apartment when they hear a knock on the door. They open it to find a mysterious package that bears the man’s name but no postal markings or return address. But rather than wonder how it got to their doorstep (or, for that matter, being worried that the package contains a bomb), they take it inside and open it up. In the package is a very creepy looking ventriloquist doll that, for some reason, the couple decides to sit on top of their bed. Eventually, of course, the doll comes to life and kills the woman.

The film continues in this vein for a while. Nothing anyone does makes a lick of sense. Even the motivation of the villain is never more than vaguely defined. But only when the film reaches its climax does it get really stupid. That’s the part where it’s revealed that the hero’s father has been turned into a real life ventriloquist doll by his third wife. Just why she’s done this, who she is and what she hopes to get out of it remains unclear. And before you go thinking it’s some kind of metaphor, rest assured that this film is not that smart.

Easily one of the stupidest and most poorly executed big budget horror films (a generally execrable genre to begin with), Dead Silence proves that the complete artistic failure of Saw was no fluke. It also proves that Twisted Pictures was right to can James Wan after that first film and get someone else to direct the sequels. Rarely does a director do so little with so much money. Hell, I watched ten minutes of Stick It this afternoon and that piece of completely disposable entertainment was twice as creative and enjoyable as Dead Silence. Indeed, I’m hard pressed to think of a worse horror film to come down the pike in this new century.

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF – john hughes – 0.2 / 10

At this point in my exploration of the films of John Hughes, it’s comes as no surprise that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is borderline racist and misogynistic. It’s also no surprise that it’s bad. What is surprising is just how awful it is. It’s just flat out terrible in every way. Nothing in it makes the slightest bit of sense. From the unexplained fainting of Ferris the night before the events of the film to the newspaper article about the campaign to save Ferris that appears on the same day that the campaign begins, nothing makes any logical sense.

In fact, I could spend the better part of two pages cataloguing the ridiculous inconsistencies. An abbreviated list would be as follows: Ferris’s sister appears much older than him but attends the same school even though he’s a senior. The same sister appears to attend no classes however, and plays hokey from school with no issues even though Ferris has to perform some ridiculous stunts to do the same. Then there’s the fact that the principal seems to have some sort of authority outside the school since he seems to think that he can punish Ferris for pretending to be sick. Then there’s the fact that Ferris crosses paths with his father on three separate occasions in a city of millions.

But what’s most troubling about the film is that Ferris is a giant asshole and his assholishness goes completely unpunished to the point where the consequences of his actions, which are being borne by others, aren’t even glimpsed on screen. His buddy takes the blame for the destroyed Ferrari, but it happens off screen. It’s almost as if, if Ferris can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. That makes a certain kind of sense considering that’s how the self-centered Ferris behaves, but it’s an incredibly reckless message to put into a movie aimed at teenagers.

The more I see of John Hughes’s movies, the less respect I have for those who have some fondness for them. Having never seen them during my youth when they would have had the most impact, I can’t vouch for how strong the pull of nostalgia is. But I cannot imagine how the fact that a person liked a film a decade or two ago can overrule all their critical faculties. There is just nothing redeeming, interesting, funny or insightful in any of these films. They are superficial, unfunny, boring and insipid. And I’m beginning to think that Hughes's disappearance from filmmaking around the start of the 1990s had less to do with him and more to do with everyone figuring out what a no talent hack he really was.