Creepshow 2

 Year of Release:  1987

Director:  Michael Gornick

Screenplay:  George A. Romero, based on stories by Stephen King

Starring:  Lois Chiles, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Tom Savini

Running Time:  92 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Young Billy (Domenick John) cannot wait to get his hands on the latest issue of his favourite comic book Creepshow.  The comic's mysterious host, The Creep (Savini, voiced by Joe Silver), introduces three stories:  The murderers of two beloved elderly people are pursued by a vengeful "cigar store Indian" statue; Four pot-smoking, partying teens swim out to a raft in the middle of a large lake for some fun but find themselves preyed upon by a carnivorous oil slick; A hit and run driver (Chiles) is pursued by the vengeful spirit of the hitchhiker she killed.

The original Creepshow (1982) was written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero.  Here Romero takes on scripting duties, with King providing the source material.  One of the stories, "The Raft", had previously been published, and can be found in King's 1985 Skeleton Crew collection, the other were original to the film.  As with the previous film this serves as a tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror.  However this lacks the style of the first film.  The whole thing looks very low-budget and ropey, despite some good make up effects in the first segment.  The man-eating oil slick in the second segment basically looks like a plastic sheet with some gunk on top of it.  The best of the bunch is the third story, mainly thanks to a very strong performance from Lois Chiles.  The three tales are linked by an animated framing story, that really looks like a very cheap children's cartoon.  The film's director, Michael Gornick, worked as Director of Photography on the first film and gets some interesting visuals.  There are some problematic elements with it's depiction of native Americans.  In keeping with it's inspiration,  the film has a strongly old-fashioned morality, where if you don't follow the rules exactly very bad things will happen to you.  This is not as good as the original film, but it's brainless old-fashioned nonsense and is fun if your in the right mood for it.  Stephen King appears in a cameo as a truck driver.

The Creep (Tom Savini) makes a delivery in Creepshow 2

     

Moonraker

Year:  1979
Director:  Lewis Gilbert
Screenplay:  Christopher Wood, based on the novel Moonraker by Ian Fleming
Starring:  Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel
Running Time:  126 minutes
Genre:  Thriller, action, science-fiction

This is the film where James Bond goes into space.  Aside from the title and a couple of character names, the film abandons pretty much everything from Ian Fleming's excellent novel, in favour of an overblown attempt to tie-in with the science-fiction boom after the success of  Star Wars (1977).

When a new space shuttle named "Moonraker" is stolen in mid-air, British secret agent James Bond (Moore) is ordered to find out what happened to it.  Following the trail to California and the home of the shuttle's sinister manufacturer, billionaire Hugo Drax (Lonsdale), Bond makes the acquaintence of alluring scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead  (Chiles), as well as his old enemy, hulking killer Jaws (Kiel), who has stainless steel teeth.   As Bond travels from California to Venice, to Rio de Janeiro, to outer space, he begins to realise that there is something far more dangerous than a missing shuttle at work.

For my money, this is probably the worst of the James Bond movies.  The plot is virtually non-existant, and what there is is impossible to take seriously because it is all played for campy laughs (for example the scene where the giant Jaws falls in love with a diminutive blonde girl while the soundtrack plays "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing", and the scene where Bond drives an inflatable gondola through the streets of Venice).  The special effects range from the serviceable to the terrible.  Roger Moore appears on autopilot throughout the whole movie, smirking his way through the endless quips and fights and Michael Lonsdale as Drax makes for a very flat villain.  However the sets are impressive, and even the very worst Bond films still have their share of entertaining moments.  The quip at the end is genuinely funny and some of the action scenes are exciting. 

  Lois Chiles and Roger Moore investigate Moonraker