In my life, I’ve seen a lot of movies that I have a problem with. I’ve seen some that suck because they have tiny budgets and cannot live up to their own ambition. Some are visually strong but have such huge writing flaws that it’s impossible to care what’s going on on the screen. I’ve seen some, mostly ones made by Fred Olen Ray, Rob Schneider or Michael Bay, that are such pure Hollywood tripe that it’s as if every frame was deep-fried in shit. But there’s a special brand of sucky movie – the one that gives you something to get attached to and then degenerates into one of the aforementioned types of movies – that stings the most sometimes. Yes, sometimes these miserable cocktease movies can sting even more than watching Pearl Harbor with your eyelids freshly cut off.
Such a film is Junior (no, not the Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnancy one. That’s a whole other kind of bad movie), a 2002 effort that starts out as strong as anything being made today but turns into typical Hollywood-standard bullshit halfway through as if Jerry Bruckheimer poked his ugly nose into my living room and flipped on a shit switch.
Junior, which I think was made in Belgium and originally released under the terminally stupid alternate title Engine Trouble, introduces us to Rebecca and Sandra. Rebecca and Sandra, with the help of an ineffective European car, are roadtripping across whatever the hell country this movie takes place in for what will presumably be the wildest spring break ever. Eventually, the car breaks down and Sandra, the non-attractive one, heads off into the woods to get help. That leaves her girlfriend – the movie consistently implies that the girls are lesbians but never quite seals the deal – all alone. Soon enough, with Sandra out of the picture, Rebecca finds herself in the crosshairs of Junior, a deformed killer whose favorite toy is a giant blade.
You don’t know that right away, though. For the triumphant first half of the film, the attacker is only heard and sensed. Frankly, I love it. It’s a terrifying situation, one girl, all alone in the middle of nowhere stuck in a dead car with an unseen, unknown attacker coming from all angles. It’s great writing and filmmaking to realize and embrace the fact that true terror lurks in the mind. And yet, as obvious and elementary as that fact is, I still have to gush over it like it’s the freshly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls.
As you’d probably expect, it’s all downhill from there. Rebecca is eventually captured by a gas station attendant (it seems like that might have happened in a movie once before but I don’t remember which) who turns out to be … you guessed it, the father figure of Junior. Junior, who looks like every cliché slasher movie killer rolled into one hunchbacked package, had a thing with cutting the heads off of young girls. That I could live with, but Junior’s dad (who we later find out was responsible for the car breaking down too) turns out to be a true killer of the worst kind, a scene killer!
As dad, actor Bob Dougherty is given monologue after agonizing monologue and grinds the once-enjoyable fear movie to a complete halt. For what feels like an eternity, dear old dad whines and mugs for the camera as he tells us why Junior likes to kill, because dad got fucked over by his wife – as if anyone could blame her - and he taught Junior to take revenge for him. Or something, it was like watching a terrible(r) version of “Dr. Phil”. It was as if Dougherty was working in a dialogue slaughter house and each of his lines was being served to him one-by-one for the chop.
Dialogue bit #1: “Did you get a good night sleep? I didn’t think so. After all, this isn’t exactly the honeymoon suite at the Hilton, is it?” WHACK!
Next!: “Today is my son’s birthday. And you’re his birthday present!” WHACK!
Next!: “Come on boy, you should be able to recognize your own birthday present. After all I did to get it here for you!” WHACK!
So on and so on and oh God, it goes on forever.
As the plot descends into even stupider and more predictable depths, Rebecca eventually convinces Junior to turn on dad, blah blah blah, Junior cuts dad’s throat. And yet, even with a gaping hole in his throat, dad still doesn’t shut the fuck up!
It’s hard to understand how a movie with so much promise at the beginning – it basically played out like a solid “Twilight Zone” episode without all the social commentary – can turn into such conventional crap in seemingly one snap of the fingers. My best guess is that some talented young writer had his script revised by a Hollywood shitbagger who happened to be vacationing in Belgium at the time… say, Kevin Williamson!
I imagined it went something like this:
Bright young writer: “You wanted to see me, sir?”
Big shit dumbass film producer: “It’s about your script, Mr. Bright. It’s not good at all! It delivers a solid story with some good fear and mood, but … let me ask you, did you attend film school?”
BYW: “Err, no. I just have a good understanding of what can be translated to film in a frightening way.”
BSDFP: (Chuckling) “Ah yes, another one of you so-called ‘freelancers.’ You see, Mr. Horror-pants, we have a certain way of doing things around here that you should have been taught be now. There is no room for your goddamned pace, fear and entertainment in the world of movies today. That’s why we brought in Mr. Kevin Williamson to give your script the necessary alterations.
Williamson: “You see, Mr. Amateur, you’ll never make it big like me because you don’t follow the rules – you know like in Scream, the movie I wrote! Remember the rules? Seeing as how I’m on vacation, though, I’m going to try something different. Rather than just taking your 40 minutes of good movie and padding it out with 70 minutes of beautiful yet completely stifling characters, false scares and reject pop songs, I’m just going to tack 70 minutes of pure shit on the end of your story. If you’d have gone to film school, you’d know all about doing this sort of thing.”
BYW: “But, what are you going to fill that time with?”
Williamson: “I’m glad you asked. Since I’m the one responsible for “Dawson’s Creek”, I’m the perfect person for that question. First of all, you should know as well as anyone that it will be much less scary and much more boring if we add some dipshit, contrived reason why your monster is attacking these girls. Since it’s been done a million times, we’ll probably go with it being a mongoloid ‘child trapped in an adult’s body’ being controlled by a parent with some stupid problem with society or something. Then…”
BSDFP: “Holy shit! I just had an idea. I know this terrible actor who is so bad at reading his lines that we’ll be able to make five minutes of exposition seem like at least seven! That way, we can keep our runtime down and still create the illusion of 70 minutes of crushing exposition!”
Williamson: “Now do you see why you’ll never make it in this business?”
BYW: (Growing increasingly incensed) “Just hold on a minute. We’ve already got a solid story with good action, not to mention an x-factor – it’s scarier because the audience doesn’t know who or what this guy is! Adding all that crap is only going to bore the audience and make them go away NOT having enjoyed the movie! Don’t you want the audience to enjoy the movie?”
BSDFP: “Yeah, you’d think that wouldn’t you?”
(He and Williamson laugh uncontrollably while BYW turns around and walks away.)
BYW: “Fucking idiots, oh well, maybe I’ll have to start writing like that to make it in this business. I wonder if Jerry Bruckheimer is hiring?”
I didn’t care for the second half of the movie; I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Anyway, I can’t recommend this movie because the tag team of bad and disappointment effortlessly crush the good. The only redeeming value it ultimately has it that it would be a great “What not to do” example for film students, or for anyone considering hiring Bob Dougherty for their next project. But, taking into account what film schools are apparently teaching today, there’s a good chance that Professor Williamson will use it as a primer.
