Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers / 1/2* (1988)

The title alone inspires more thought than anything occurring on screen. What do these campers have to be unhappy about, you might ask? Are the would-be victims of yet another massacre in the great outdoors as miserable as the first warning insists? If so, what is the source of their discontent? Could it be they are dejected because all their friends start randomly disappearing? Not really, as that does little to affect their routine. Are they angered by the overzealous discipline instilled on them by a camp counsellor who treats them like infants? Hardly; her tactics provide the fuel for their own consistent rebellion. Are they just generally depressed? Not at all, otherwise they wouldn’t banter with one another like teenagers at a frat party for nearly every scene they occupy. No, these people are in total bliss of what they are doing, ignorant of what is coming for them. So what is it that constitutes that strange insinuation? I have a theory it’s an in-joke for the actors, all of whom look uncomfortable reciting inane dialogue while they are provided awkward overlapping speaking cues. That is the least of their worries. Unfortunately, by the time something strange or foreboding makes itself known to any of them, they are all in situations in which they will be murdered by someone with a strange axe to grind, usually before there is a chance to react. The real unhappy ones should be the audience: not only does the film contain no mystery or buildup, it reveals the face of the murderer before the opening credits have rolled.

Poltergeist III / **1/2 (1988)

The high-rise is essentially a character all its own, with corridors and rooms and vast galleries that seem to permeate an aura of supernatural danger. That one prospect is what separates the much-maligned “Poltergeist III” from its predecessor, and all with good reason; whereas the first movie’s direct sequel often took the launch point of thrills and lost them in a haze of elaborate confusion and boredom, this movie – the last of the original franchise – isolates them in a single space where they could fester into something of underlying tension. Often, the key scares don’t amount to everything they should; that much is never in doubt. But because nearly all the attempts are gathered within an area that offers foreboding identity, that which does not amount to something lucrative still has the benefit of some peripheral creepiness. Was it by accident at all then that the director Gary Sherman, an enthusiast of B-movie horror well before his Hollywood undertakings, used ice as a conduit for a poltergeist’s violent obsessions? Or was it at all surprising that their dimension of malevolent unrest could be spied through the reflections of mirrors, as if they had always been windows into their nightmarish intentions?

My Stepmother is an Alien / *** (1988)

One of the unspoken pleasures of seeing very ambitious bad movies is watching actors with some level of integrity hammering home their performances with unrestricted enthusiasm, and that is exactly what Kim Basinger does for nearly every minute she is chained to the mess that is “My Stepmother is an Alien.” Any acknowledgment of this obscure and often maligned 80s comedy is not without some level of wonder; initially pitched to the studio as a more dark and sinister parable on child abuse, it underwent countless revisions – and a slew of writers – before being formulated into a lightweight romp with screwball values. By then, the damage was done long before a moment of footage wound up in the editing room; without any visible narrative inkling to suggest laughs or basic comic timing, it was one of those movies destined for colossal failure, and found it. And yet somehow, someway, neither she nor her co-star, Dan Akroyd, subscribe to the internal discord; they plunk it home so ambitiously on screen that one can surmise ulterior motives on part of actors who find silver linings in the most tragic of scenarios. They know they are caught in a catastrophe, and take almost masochistic delight in playing through it like enthusiastic players making the most of a bad situation.

Big Business / **1/2 (1988)

Deep from within the doldrums of mediocre 80s comedies, “Big Business” endures as a curiosity on the credits list of several fine actors. You can practically reach out and touch the promise offered by the big names it houses: Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Edward Herman and Fred Ward, all of whom were recognizable entities of their heyday, and combined seem to contradict the very notion that any film starring them could be so deeply flawed. But here they are, slogging their way through material so clearly beneath their craft, barely holding composure against various plot inclinations that will require them to react to situations that are both unrealistic and downright impossible. Never mind the fact that the moment anything seems to be amiss, not one character is observant enough to point out the bizarre behavior problems they encounter.

Appleseed / *** (1988)

The hidden power of Japanese animation is not always about the quirky artistic style, but more about the deep level of story and metaphor the movies contain. Think of the mind-numbing and twisted thrills of “Akira,” or the compelling fantasy of “Princess Mononoke.” Feature cartoons don’t have to be visually superior to those of the mainstream in order to be better. Nor, for that matter, do they have to restrain themselves to material that would only attract the eyes of a child. Until moviegoers are willing to understand those possibilities, mainstream cartoons will always carry a stigma that narrows them to the youth market, made up of elaborate imagery but stories with limited appeal.