Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Merry Christmas to all of the diligent readers of the Progressive Cinema Scorecard, as well as those of you who stumbled upon this by Googling for “sex with chupacabras” (haha - caught ya!). This year, we wrapped the nanobots in garland and mistletoe to gird them from one of the most ridiculed Christmas movies of all time: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

A film on every bottom 100 list you can think of, riffed on by everyone from Svengoolie to MST3K, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is about as schlocky as you can get. But is it really as bad as everyone says it is? We ask this question in the name of science – Christmas science!

• "Hooray for Santa Claus" has to be one of the catchiest songs about Santa Claus ever to be included in a Z-rate Christmas film. = +10pts 
• Despite it being nearly 100 degrees below zero at the North Pole, the news correspondent covering the first telecast of Santa Claus still finds the time to fit in a few cornball jokes before his frostbitten toes snap off like flesh-cicles. = -3pts 
• Santa Claus’s laugh is less the ho-ho-ho of a jolly old elf and more the rum-soaked chuckle of your soused uncle. = -10pts 
• After fumbling over the names of his beloved reindeer, Santa recovers by pointing at the camera and reassuring the viewers at home that the kids remember the damn names. = -20pts 
• Mrs. Claus is so excited to be on TV that she flutters her skirts and titters away like a gibbering schoolgirl. = -5pts 
• “Winky is in charge of our space department.” = +4pts 
• Saying that you were dozing on the job because you forgot how to fall asleep at home and needed to practice is the best worst excuse to cover for workplace ineptitude. = +6pts 
• When the leader of all Mars seeks out the wise man of the forest to figure out how to stop Martian kids from thinking about Santa Claus, the only Martian who suggests that they think for themselves instead is the film’s antagonist. Let that soak in, kids: only bad guys rebel against authority. = -25pts 
• When the wise old space hermit says that Mars needs a Santa Claus so that kids can be kids, the Martians take the wisdom literally and embark on a quest to snatch St. Nick. = -15pts 
• ‘60s alert: liberal use of stock footage to show that important things actually are happening right now. = -6pts 
• Two kids talking about not believing in Martians immediately have laser guns pointed at them by Martians. What are the chances of that? = -4pts 
• The mustachioed “villain” Voldar once again voices his opinion against the “hero” Kimar’s wasteful ideas, this time regarding the use of an assuredly expensive murder-bot to kidnap the Santy Claus. Shouldn’t the villain relish the idea of Santa’s fleshy body being manhandled by the merciless steel of a robot’s claw? The nanobots certainly think so. = -10pts 
• Aww, it’s cute how the kids think that the USA is equipped to pursue the Martian kidnappers to outer space. = +2pts 
• After narrowly escaping the clutches of a crazy person in a polar bear costume, the children are attacked by crazy man in a robot costume. = -5pts 
• Voldar finally does something villainous by commanding the man in the robot costume to crush, kill, and destroy the Earth children. = +4pts 
• Since Kimar anticipated Voldar’s treachery and reprogrammed the robot at some point off-screen, why didn’t he just not bring the robot? Martians are obstinate in really boneheaded ways. = -8pts 
• Watching a robot smash its way into Santa’s workshop as the elves look on in horror. = +11pts 
• Santa disables the robot’s murderometer simply by marveling at the robot’s fine workmanship. = -5pts 
• The Martians kidnap the children so that no one knows who stole Santa, then they leave their robot behind and dozens of witnesses in their wake. Unsurprisingly, the newspaper headlines all read, “Santa kidnapped by Martians!” = -30pts 
• The German doctor in charge of this ‘60s universe’s NASA says phooey to testing their space shuttle and astronauts for interplanetary flight – they’ve gotta get Santa back! = -6pts 
• Kids not laughing at Santa’s corny jokes. = +3pts 
• Having “the Christmas Spirit” means following someone who openly hates you into an airlock. = -9pts 
• Awkward Martian fistfight choreography. = -5pts 
• Santa introduces himself to the Martian children by laughing, going from an unsettling chortle to a maddened guffaw. It’s unclear whether the children join in genuinely or because they fear for their very lives. = -12pts 
• Voldar’s big-nosed henchman either suffers from tardive dyskinesia or is straight-up fiending. = -3pts 
• If Mars had the capability to build a machine to make an infinite number of toys at the push of a button, why did they kidnap Santa in the first place? The plot is falling apart faster than the USA’s pursuit rocket to Mars. = -22pts 
• After Santa body-shames Dropo for not being fat enough to fit into his jacket, the inept manservant binges on dessert pills, puts a pillow down his shirt, and sings Christmas carols in an attempt to hold back the tears from not living up to his idol’s expectations. = -6pts 
• Watching Voldar devolve from a war-hungry council leader with no qualms murdering children to a bumbling buffoon who can’t tell the difference between the real Santa and Dropo in a fake beard. = -13pts 
• Another scene of a character not laughing at Santa’s corny jokes. = +3pts 
• Foiling Voldar’s plan to kill Santa by gleefully attacking the villain with bubbles and toys. = -7pts 
• After appointing Dropo (who was referred to earlier in the film as the “laziest man on Mars”) as Martian Santa, Ol’ St. Nick and the kids dash away back to Earth in a rocket that one of them apparently knows how to pilot safely. = -9pts 
• Including a sing-a-long to "Hooray for Santa Claus" after the credits. = +5pts

Total Score: -190pts
Availability: Netflix, YouTube, and in novelized form

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was most assuredly a bad movie. But one of the worst? It’s certainly one of the worst portrayals of Santa Claus. Being a creepy, child-endangering half-wit isn’t what people look for in a Santa – especially not when he’s the titular character of the film.

The movie certainly teaches terrible lessons to kids. Capture-bonding, following orders even when their mental faculties are in question, not running away from approaching robots – these shameful behaviors are all showcased predominantly in the film.

The film is also insulting to anyone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas. All Mars needed to be happy was the magic of Christmas – take that, Chanukah!

While Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is fantastically entertaining for all the wrong reasons, it’s definitely not one of the worst movies ever. It’s still pretty bad, though. Hopefully Santa leaves this scorecard under your tree so that you too can sing, “Hooray for Santy Claus!”

Score Technician: T.J. Geise

Star Wars Holiday Special

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It's that special time of year again, scorehards. Snow is falling, the colored lights are in shop window displays, and Black Friday body counts have long been finalized: we are in the thick of the Christmas season. What better time than now to turn our attentions to the Star Wars Holiday Special?

Originally broadcast in 1978 to a scathing critical and audience reception, the two-hour television special was largely forgotten for decades, only re-emerging into the popular consciousness thanks to the cruel and unfailing memory of the Internet. The SWHS was your typical '70s TV variety show, only set in the fertile soil of the barely one-year-old Star Wars universe, and featuring just about everyone who mattered from the original cast. The results are... well... maybe you should just read ahead and let the nanobots break it down for you. But you'll see that there's a reason why George Lucas (the guy who thought "midichlorians" were a sensible addition to the Star Wars canon) has done everything in his power to bury this thing.

• The picture quality on our copy of the special is everything you'd expect from a nigh-40-year-old program that was digitally transferred from a chewed up VHS cassette. = -19pts 
• Han struggles to break through an imperial blockade in order to get Chewie back to his home planet Kashyyyk (for some reason referred to as "Kazook" here) so he can celebrate Life Day with his family. As long as it still involves a fat man in a red suit climbing down chimneys with a sack full of toys, we're into it. = +3pts 
• We are introduced to Chewbacca's horrifying family in the credit sequence:
  
  Chewie's father, Itchy...
  

  

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  His wife, Malla...
  

  

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  And their son, Lumpy
  

  

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  Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, his brother Scabby and cousin Gurgly had to be cut from the script. = -30pts
• Other notable guests: Bea Arthur, Jefferson Starship, and Hedley Lamar from Blazing Saddles. = +20pts 
• Holy shit, is that Boba Fett in the animated segment that they're teasing? = +80pts 
• Following the opening credits, we are greeted by a tender scene in the Chewbacca household (sans the head of house) that's devoid of any human dialogue, and which goes on for what feels like 47 hours. = -28pts 
• It's like they tried a little too hard to humanize these Wookies. There's something comfortingly blank about Chewbacca's features that mark him as both alien and relatable, but there's a weird uncanny valley thing happening with Malla, Itchy, and Lumpy that, combined with domestic setting, makes us feel like we're watching the rabbit sitcom from Inland Empire. = -11pts 
• But Malla is a little chunky, which is admirable considering that, were this special to be remade today, she would most assuredly played by a size-zero swimsuit model with huge fake boobs. = +7pts 
• Why is there a snack dish out on the kitchen table if no one is allowed to snack on its contents? = -2pts 
• The 47-hour domestic scene is, at last, broken up by a holographic acrobatics show. This does not exactly count as an improvement. = -13pts 
• Concerned that Chewie has not come home yet, Malla calls up Luke and R2 to ask for his whereabouts, thus continuing the program's motif of never having more than one character in any scene speaking a human language. = -4pts 
• By the way, looks like Luke got a new haircut/unnerving, dead-eyed glare since A New Hope wrapped. = -6pts

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• The only thing creepier than Luke trying to coax a smile out of Malla is the sight of her actually doing it. = -15pts 
• The conversation with Luke ends abruptly when R2 ruptures something on the X-Wing the two of them were repairing and Luke gets enveloped in a cloud of steam and (presumably) scalded to death. = +4pts 
• Why would an imperial naval trooper be responsible for inspecting Saun Dann's curio shop? = -3pts 
• In his first of many roles in the special, Hedley Lamar plays a four-armed alien version of Julia Child. = +10pts 
• ...In blackface. = -40pts 

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• Vader gets about 18 seconds of screen time. = -14pts 
• Saun Dann,beleaguered shopkeeper/rebel symph, shows up at Chewie's house with Life Day presents for the whole family, then asks Malla, "What does an old friend get?" Is this holiday special about to take an unsavory turn as we find out how Malla has been making ends meet while her husband gallivants across the universe with his...ahem..."partner?" = -16pts 
• Saun Dann presents Itchy with a machine that visualizes his sexual fantasies. There's a whole lot that we don't understand about Wookie culture. = +12pts 
• Looks like Itchy has a fetish for human women. = -18pts 
• By the way, absolutely everything about Diahann Carroll's spoken intro to her song is designed to make your skin crawl at a cellular level. = -25pts 
• For not cutting back to a scene of Grandpa Itchy furiously masturbating in the living room while plugged into his porno chair. = -33pts (Go big or go home.) 
• The appearance of the storm troopers at the Wookie family's front door sends this special into Sound of Music territory, with potential to veer straight into Inglorious Basterds. = +7pts 
• The frontman of holographic Jefferson Starship looks like he's singing into a radioactive dildo. = +5pts 
• To distract himself from the storm troopers tearing his bedroom apart upstairs, Lumpy sits down to watch a cartoon about his dad. It's worth pointing out that this animated feature is, hands-down, the only halfway watchable thing in this entire special up until now. = +12pts

• When did Dr. Eggman join the Rebel Alliance? = -4pts 
• Boba Fett saves Luke Skywalker's life by tasing a sea serpent, while sitting astride a different sea serpent. = +50pts 
• Boba Fett, upon being discovered as an Imperial spy, flies off in his jetpack. Of course, if he was wearing a working jet pack the whole time, one wonders why he bothered scaling the cliff wall earlier in the featurette. = -3pts 
• Also, there is something seriously wrong with Han's face. = -8pts

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• Hedley Lamar shows up in his second role as a malfunctioning cyborg delivering an instructional video. It's every bit as funny as it sounds. = -22pts 
• Whoa! We're back on the Mos Eisley Cantina! = +10pts 
• And Bea Arthur is the bartender! = = +15pts 
• ...But unfortunately, here comes Hedley Lamar in his third role as a stalker-alien who consumes liquid by pouring it into a hole on the top of his head. = - 35pts 
• Bea Arthur chases all the alien patrons out with a song set to the tune of the "Cantina Band Theme." = +13pts 
• ...Only to find that she's alone in the bar with stalker Hedley Lamar. Weeks later, some storm troopers were probably called out to a remote location in the desert to investigate a moisture farmer's report that his bantha came back chewing on what appeared to be a human femur. = -26pts 
• Lumpy tricks the imperial forces into abandoning their post, except for one storm trooper, who will undoubtedly learn a lesson about the true spirit of Life Day. = +2pts 
• Wait, never mind, Han and Chewie show up and throw him off a cliff while he emits a Wilhelm scream. = +8pts 
• I guess we can just take on faith that no one from the Empire is going to come back to investigate the last place the storm trooper was stationed before he mysteriously went missing? = -6pts 
• Is it just us, or was there a sexually charged moment that passed between Han and Malla? = +3pts 
• Your guess is as good as ours as to what's going on here. = -17pts

• How did all of the main characters end up in the same place? = -9pts 
• Princess Leia takes us home with a heartwarming rendition of our favorite Life Day carol. = +2pts 
• Chewie reflects on all his fond memories from Episode IV, making the fatal mistake of reminding the audience of what they'd rather be watching. = -21pts

Total Score = -163pts
Available on: Just Pirate Bay, for the foreseeable future; there's not enough CGI in the world for Lucas to retcon this mess into working order

So, yeah, obviously this was one of the most ill-conceived moments in television history, but can we talk more about the Boba Fett thing? This was two years before Empire came out, making it the first appearance by the beloved bounty hunter. It's also notable because, if you add it to the canon, it pretty much triples the amount of spoken dialogue that Boba Fett gets in the original films. Seeing him rendered in the quirky style of Nelvana Ltd. (who also brought us the Droids and Ewoks animated series in the '80s) almost made up for the rest of the special, which combined miserable storytelling, the worst of '70s MOR, and cringe-worthy comedy routines into a hellish cocktail of nostalgia-destroying horror. It's not hard to see why Lucas wanted this locked in a lead-lined vault as soon as it saw the light of day; had it been widely circulated, there's a good chance it could have snuffed out the fledgling franchise before it even had a chance to breathe.

Looking back from the 21st century, though, it makes less sense to continue hiding it. After all, it's still a hell of a lot more fun to watch than Episode I.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

The Flash/Arrow (Occulus Crossovercus Spectaculus!)

If there is anything the Marvel movies (particularly The Avengers) taught us, it's that comic fandom's geekgasm is particularly hair trigger when two of their favorite superheroes show up together in the same frame. Rather than ask for a coherent synopsis, it's often better to simply call an ambulance and a truck full of Gatorade because most comic geeks won't be able to talk, much less recite the names of key creators or storylines of their favorite comics when recovering from the image of actually watching Hero A shoot Hero B in the back with arrows, or speak intelligently at all about how cool it was to watch Hero B pummel Hero A at supersonic speed. (Note: We have changed the names of the heroes in the previous sentence in order to protect the scientific validity of the nanobots calculations.)

In fact, it would be nice if Hollywood treated such events with more care, and not less. (See Fox/WB plans for almost their entire superhero slate of movies.) Everybody knows that prolonged explosive geekgasms are a public health issue. So, in an effort to assist in this epidemic, the Scorecard has turned this unprecedented television event over to the nanobots to properly score. (Note: This issue hit us particularly close to home recently, as the deciphered notes of our technicians for this scorecard simply seemed to be a delirious scrawl featuring the phrase, "ERRRMAGAHHHHHHHD..........." The less said about the amount of bodily fluids present the better.) This was a two-parter, so let's start with:

Round Flash:

• Using your super powers to micromanage the citizens of your city who seem to be doing fine. = -2pts
• Meet your supervillain for this episode, Captain Duckface. Careful, he's contageous! =  -3pts
• Nothing clears your head quite like failing to murder someone. The police should try this. = +5pts
• Welcome to the newest member of the popular Hollywood trope: gay police captain! This one eats burgers at work in order to escape his wife's nagging him to "eat healthy." Wait, did we say wife? We meant boyfriend. Boy, swapping out gender pronouns sure makes everything confusing! Wait, should we have started that last sentence with "girl." Obama's America is so confusing! = (In 1940, the year The Flash first appeared in comics. = -A human life; In 2014, the year of the gay police captain on TV. = +10pts) Net score: +10pts (and a life!)
• Iris' cop boyfriend: "Hey, sweety! *Kiss, Kiss* Look, I just pitched our newly gay Captain on the idea of launching a task force that will hopefully track down and destroy this thing you tied your entire life/blog to. I hope this isn't going to be a problem between us. *Kiss, Kiss* Want to grab a coffee?" = +4pts (For giving new meaning to the term cognitive dissonance.)
• Using your superhero alter-ego to skeeze on someone who doesn't like you that way. = -4pts
• I see your supersonic speed, now watch me climb this wall out of frame! = +7pts (For pure existential chutzpah.)
• Diggle's appropriate reactions to seeing someone move at super speeds. = +5pts
• Iris realizes what regular watchers of Arrow have known for three years: Oliver Queen is hot. = +2pts
• "We can talk about you giving your enemies silly code names later." Burn! Proof that The Flash may be able to outrun a bullet, but he can still be stopped cold with a well-placed witty retort. = +5pts
• Shooting your friend in the back with arrows in order to prove a point. = +6pts
• Callously pulling them out because you heard a rumor the shot person heals quickly. = +3pts
• Hm, Prism's powers apparently involve manipulations of all the colors of the rainbow. Hm, on the same day the captain mysteriously forces a mention of his boyfriend into a conversation about why he loves fast food burger? We call shenanigans. = +2pts (Because we love shenanigans.)
• Getting into a fistfight with the fastest man alive. = +25pts (Because, along with pegging, it is the one thing every man should do once.)

Round Flash Score: +70pts

We'd love to wrap this up, but something's telling me we gotta run.... (WINK FACE!)

Score technician: Sean McConnell

Round Arrow

During the second part of the highly anticipated DC TV CW crossover event, Arrow and Flash teamed up to work together on stopping a mass murdering boomerang wielding super villain from destroying the city and killing Diggle’s not wife...girlfriend?... lady, person?… This episode focused more on the two DC legends working together, and continued the streak of not suckage! Let’s gear up those nanobots! 

• The murderer’s house is rigged with explosives. What’s the worst that could happen? Blow it up and open the episode with an explosion? = +5pts.
• The murderer’s gone, and ARGUS comes by to tell them to stay out of it. They’re super serious this time! = +3pts
• Flashback time! Waller tells Oliver to nut up or shut up about little things like torture. (Fun fact: The CIA saw this episode, and started kicking themselves for not thinking of this first.) = -4pts.
• Cisco and Kaitlyn drop on over to pick up the analysis of Canary’s murder, and to see the Arrow Cave. Because, team Arrow's bread and butter nowadays is giving out admission to their headquarters. = +6pts. (Note: Fuck Colton Haynes for stealing our joke before this scorecard could get published! Double Note: Please don’t hate us we love you!)
• Cisco gives out some ideas about improvements for the Arrow suits. The nanobots are worried about the day he drops by with feathered hats and red gloves, but Stephen Amell could probably pull it off. = +3pts
• Dozens of highly trained ARGUS agents are taken down by a Crocodile Dundee armed with a couple of metal boomerangs… It’s a sad day for national security = -3pts.
• Captain Boomerang has Diggle and Lyla cornered, but help arrives in the form of an Arrow and a Flash! = +15pts
• The fact that Barry needs to be reminded about keeping a secret identity is a bad sign for his future as a superhero. = -3pts.
• Through techno babble The Flash and Arrow head to where one of Captain Boomerang’s associates is. The Flash tries to act tough, but Arrow ends shooting him to get the info out. = +2pts (For getting the job done.)
• Barry shows concern and fear about Oliver’s methods. Oliver tries to justify it with his super awful pain he’s had to go through. Um, Oliver, you’ve got some issues dude. =-4pts
• Flashback time! Young Oliver was no Jack Bauer. But, still demonstrates more personality then Kiefer Sutherland ever did. =+3pts
• Flashback time! The bomb goes off, and Amanda Waller is pissed! That’s going to be an awkward subject during his performance review. = -2pts
• Cisco brings up a thought about how Metahumans and super powers were created in this world to deal with crazy people. Man imagine how Zero Dark Thirty could have gone if Batman was on the case! = +4pts
• The “not his wife” joke is getting stale.  = -4pts.
• The Flash taking up all the cool fight scenes! = -3pts.
• Captain Boomerang tricks the gang, and puts Lyla in the hospital! Dramatic twist! = +3pts
• Arrow feels all mopey about how his methods put someone he cares about in the hospital. The traditional dramatic CW stare off to space ensues. = +4pts.
• Hit on a vigilante’s sister, and another vigilante’s ex girlfriend. Not the smartest idea there Cisco. = +2pts.
• Arrow and Flash go to the train station to fight Captain Boomerang! Epic hand-to-hand combat! = +10pts.
• Staging the most complex bomb defusing ever! = +20pts.
• Captain Boomerang is sharing a cell with Slade Wilson. Everyone is relieved, and Arrow and Flash have a quick showdown to see who’s the best. This is how superhero team ups are supposed to be! = +10pts 

Round Arrow Score = +60pts.
Crossover Total: +130pts

This is how you do an epic awesome cross over event. Two nights in a row, two stories, both awesome, and really utilizing every character as much as possible, both shows continue to be strong and a lot of fun. We can’t wait to see more awesomeness as the series continues!

We can talk about you giving your enemies silly code names later.

Score Technitian: Nick Enquist

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 7 & 8

Two episodes to score this week, so let's get right into it.

Episode 7

• Being from a carnival and promising conjoined twins that your carnival friends can protect them when most of the carnival friends that would be doing the protecting are dead. = -2pts
• Not even trying to find a reason to insert a musical number into your show that is not Glee. = -10pts
• Acting like a smug asshole while another person lies for you. = +4pts
• If you think Vic Mackey is the kind of guy to roll-over and murder one of his own to save face and earn a few bucks, chances are you must have read his diary, because that's exactly the kind of guy he is. = +5pts
• Ah, the '50s! Back when Ma used to keep a handy bottle of chloroform next to the Vic's vapor rub for the days when the ground beef wasn't settling well in the ambrosia salad and patriarchy had broken her spirit. -2pts
• Strong Man < Amazon Woman. = +10pts
• Kathy Bates accent remains immaculate, lived-in, and unbearably annoying. = 0pts (For being the best of both worlds.)
• Jimmy Darling should think of changing his name to Jimmy Ex Machina. = -2pts
• The Toledo Code: The Scorecard's new way of describing something that we've just made up that will likely be discarded in the next scene. = +5pts (Because that's just how we do.)
• Tattooing your daughter's face to prove a point to everyone what a deranged psycho father you are. = -5pts
• Didn't being a carnie used to mean that you were the one good at conning people? I guess that's just another example of the Toledo Code. = +4pts
• Ma Petite is on a rocket ship to that great glass jar of formaldehyde in the sky and she ain't looking back. = -10pts

Episode Score: -8pts

Wait?! YOU MEAN THERE'S MORE!

Episode 8

We here at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard would like to thank you for continuing to read on after last episode. Will things continue to get better or will more beloved characters get killed off?

• Talking to a psychoanalyst about your son’s insanity after he’s already become a serial killer. = -3pts
• Elsa cries over Ma Petite with such sincerity that Ethel accuses her of killing “innocence itself.” = -5pts
• That moment when you realize the leg you just put a bullet through was made of wood. = +6pts
• How Elsa Got Her Groove Back, starring the Axe Man. = +10pts
• Kathy Bates’s Bostidelphamore accent makes her pronunciation of “Ma Petite” sound like “Muppet Teat.” = +2pts
• Elsa is ever determined to prove everyone around her wrong, even the guy who coined the phrase, “Never bring a knife to a gunfight.” = -15pts
• “Went to buy a squash” is white folk lingo meaning that your mother was murdered by a psychopath. = -4pts
• Giving Jimmy a proper chance to mourn his mom without Elsa making it all about her. = +6pts
• Forming a She-Ra Man-Hater’s Club over the grave of your deceased friend (and not ending your meeting by shouting “Girl power!”). = +7pts
• Giving such disturbing answers to psychoanalysis questions that the doctor does little more than fidget nervously with his hands. = +5pts (So metal!)
• Decorating your Christmas tree with the animal skulls as you ask your mother to murder your childhood friend. = +10pts (So fuckin’ metal!)
• While trying to recruit exceptionally voluptuous vixen Barbara as the freak show’s obligatory Fat Lady, Elsa goes straight for the throat with the line, “You have a pretty face,” and then unwraps a Baby Ruth. = -25pts
• Rather than provide actual motherly support to a drunken Jimmy Darling, Elsa suggests he motorboat Barbara instead. = -4pts
• The She-Ra Man-Hater’s Club: fulfilling female revenge fantasies since 1952. = +5pts
• Having your tar-an’-featherin’ ruined by white privilege… again. = -3pts
• In true Frances Conroy fashion, Gloria Mott only takes offense to being called worse than the Roosevelts during Dandy’s tirade about her marrying her own psychopathic cousin just for the money. = +10pts
• Matricide with a solid gold revolver. = +15pts (So precious fuckin’ metal!)
• Rejecting a scrawny prognosticator for the ample bosom of Ima Wiggles. = +12pts
• Bathing in the blood of your murdered mother. = +20pts (So goddamn fuckin’ metal that we had a METALGASM)

Episode Score: +49pts
Season Score: -3pts

Yes… beloved characters were killed off, but not senselessly this time! “Blood Bath” was proof that Freak Show is doing the opposite of what Coven did: it’s actually improving after the Thanksgiving break. There were no useless sideplots this go-round, just character development and game-changing consequences.

The death of two power players (creating a theme that Francis Conroy can’t stay away from Death and that Kathy Bates can’t keep her head) was poignant and visceral. As Jimmy Darling begins to lose his spark and sink into both debauched depression and the love pillows of Elsa’s newest recruit (who we hope will be a positive portrayal of a woman of size in television rather than the curvaceous butt of cruel jokes), his foil Dandy Mott becomes even more dangerous (and kind of badass) now that the silver tether to his mother was shot off with a golden bullet. Can the show keep up this momentum? Given that Neil Patrick Harris has yet to shown up (as Dr. Sugar, we can only hope), our Magic 8 Ball says… “reply hazy, try again.” Well, shit.

Score Technicians: Sean McConnell & TJ Geise

The Walking Dead Season 5, Episode 8

It's not typical for a show to hit its creative stride five seasons into its run, but that appears to be the situation we're in with The Walking Dead. During the previous four seasons, the show has enjoyed occasional flirtations with greatness sprinkled amidst long expanses of nothing much happening and shoddy character development. Season 5 has been tight as a drum, though.

By way of catch-up: Rick's party has been split between Reverend Detective Carver's church, the road to Washington D.C., and the so-called "Slabtown," a small human settlement based out of a hospital in Atlanta. For the past couple of episodes, Rick has been concocting a plan to rescue Beth, and later Carol from the community's clutches. Now, with three Slabtown cops as hostages, the gang is ready to make the big exchange. Let's see what the nanobots have to say about how things went down.

• For being the mid-season finale to the best season of Walking Dead to date. = +70pts (+10pts per episode) 
• Rick exchanges insurance information with the cop he hit with his car. Rick's insurance provider is Smith and Wesson. = +10pts 
• Not content with merely being a cowardly lump with no useful skills, Reverend Detective Carver also decides to lead a herd of walkers back to the church where Carl, Michonne, and Judith are staying. = -7pts 
• Michonne makes Reverend Detective Carver's idiocy worthwhile with her sword-fu. = +7pts 
• The zombie that splits its head open on the Machete stuck in the floor. = +12pts 
• Is Slabtown leader Dawn just super lonely? Why exactly does she feel the need to tell Beth her entire life story? = -4pts 
• Even after the apocalypse, cops are still total assholes. = -25pts 
• The close-quarters fight between Dawn and one of her back-stabbing officers. = +14pts 
• Meeting up with Beth in Carol's room after the fight, Dawn greets her with "It's okay to cry." Is dispensing fortune-cookie wisdom part of her job as community leader? = -2pts 
• Total aside, but how does Tyrese keep his beard so neatly trimmed? Rick looks like he's got a Chia Pet growing out of his face, but Tyrese is all GQ. = -6pts 
• "They're close." = +8pts 
• Prisoner exchange scene is tense as fuck. = +19pts 
• A bunch of white people arguing over who gets to keep the black dude. = -8pts 
• The black dude in question being played by Steve Urkel from that Key and Peele sketch. = +10pts
• In true Beth fashion, Beth totally Beths up the hostage exchange by stabbing Dawn in the clavicle with a pair of scissors and getting herself shot in the head. = -6pts (Maggie is going to be really sad now. WHY DO YOU WANT TO MAKE MAGGIE SAD, BETH?!?) 
• Damn, Morgan, how have you still not caught up with these guys yet? They've been hunkered down in a church for, like seven episodes. = -3pts

Total Score = +16pts
+ Awesome Season Bonus = +136pts
Season Score = +279pts

Not the greatest mid-season finale the show has dropped on us, but a satisfying conclusion to the Slabtown arc. Maybe the biggest breakthrough of this season is that Walking Dead is now successfully mining the morally ambiguous core of its premise, and wringing it for every drop of dramatic tension its worth. Whereas the dilemmas that faced our heroes in previous seasons (The Randall problem of Season 2, The Governor's ultimatum in Season 3) felt a little contrived, the uncertainty surrounding the prisoner exchange felt real, like we were watching two groups of flawed human beings attempting to reach some kind of arrangement, never certain of how much good will they could presume of the other. Let's hope whatever they've got planned for the season's back-half will maintain the momentum of these first eight episodes.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Arrow, Season 3 (Eps 5-7)

The PCS coverage of CW’s Arrow continues! Origin stories, sidekicks, boxing glove arrows, and gripping whatever CW calls “drama” are all prevalent in the third season of Oliver Queen’s quest to save his city. Let’s hope that this season ends with only minor property damage. Nanobots, draw back your bows and let’s see what you find!

Episode 5

• Triple training montage galore! = +9pts (Because, it’s divisible by three.)
• Flashback showing another attractive actor made ugly with an awful wig. = -3pts (What did they do to you Felicity!)
• The painful “Thea Queen being obnoxious while Oliver is being judgmental” scene is over with early in this episode. = +2pts
• Felicity’s mom has got it going on! =+5pts
• Somehow Diggle is even more badass with a baby hanging on his chest. = +3pts
• New computer-based villain Brother Eye blocks out the city! Arrow and… Roy (we need a name for him) away! = +3pts
• Felicity’s hacktivism days (and former boyfriend) have caught up to her and are taking over. But, Felicity can’t deal with it, because her Mom is so embarrassing you guys! = +1pt
• Felicity and her mom get kidnapped = -6pts (It’d be easier to count the people who haven’t been kidnapped on this show.)
• Yes Roy, it’s pretty awesome you shot a rocket launcher with an arrow, but for Christ’s sake you’re still in a firefight! Keep dodging those bullets! = -3pts
• Felicity and her mom make amends through the ultimate bonding mechanism: A near death experience. = +3pts
• Roy has dreams that (dramatic pause) he killed Sara in the most over the top ridiculous way possible! = -4pts.

Episode 6

• Laurel Lance studying boxing under Ted Grant, who turns out to be a real shitty teacher and sparring partner. = -4pts
• Oliver is against it, because he doesn’t want her to get hurt, but he’s just jealous that Laurel found another Starling City vigilante martial artist who has a similar code of justice. = +3pts
• Add blood testing to the ever-growing list of Felicity’s skills that don’t seem to be useful for a technology expert. = +3pts
• BOXING GLOVE ARROW! = (The nanobots have no way of calculating this level of awesome, so instead they are using emoticons to indicate a well-deserved slow clap.)
• Flashback Ollie learns to channel his inner Sherlock Holmes mind palace through meditation. = +4pts
• Sidekick vengeance against Ted Grant. = +6pts
• Hey, maybe we should find more definitive proof, before we all start confessing to murders. = -8pts
• Sidekick show down! = +8pts
• Oliver shows Roy the same meditation trick, and Roy discovers that last season during his Mirakuru overdose he killed a cop…. Someone probably should have told him that. = -10pts
• Arsenal begins! = +6pts

Episode 7

• Oliver discovers the horrid, disturbing depths of the menace known as “fan girls.” = +4pts
• Ray Palmer shirtless! = +15pts (Extra points added due to lack of shirtlessness in this entire season.)
• Oliver confesses to Cupid during their fight that his life is really lonely as the amazingly attractive leader of a team of equally attractive vigilantes. You don’t want to know his pain. = +3pts
• Give Cupid to the Suicide Squad. What could go wrong? = -4pts
• Diggle tells Ollie what the fans have been demanding for nearly two years now (and what the writers have only just figured out). = -6pts.
• Ollie walks in on Superman returning his lips to Felicity’s… Okay the joke only worked once. = -2pts
• Olicity Smash! = +3pts

Episode(s) score: +31pts
Season Score = +83pts

This season continues to be a lot of fun. Sure it’s silly, and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from simple story perspectives, but the show continues to have a lot of fun with new villains, new allies, bigger action scenes, and well-timed shirtlessness. Not an easy task. We hope to see much more in the future, and coming up next week, as we take on the epic crossover of Arrow and The Flash.

We can’t wait!

Score Technician: Nick Enquist

The Innkeepers

After making a name for himself with The House of the Devil, a throwback to 80s Satanic cult horror films, director Ti West turned his attention to ghosts with The Innkeepers. Set in a New England hotel, the film follows two 20-somethings about to lose their jobs as hotel clerks due to the hotel’s upcoming closure. Rather than provide competent service to their guests, they choose to hunt for ghosts. Much like the humans searching for them, these ghosts can barely be bothered to do anything of substance, as the film takes its sweet time in getting to the spooky stuff. Is this an exercise in building tension, or the mark of a boring movie? Check into the Yankee Pedlar Inn with the nanobots to find out.

• This film was shot on location at a (supposedly) haunted hotel. = +10pts 
• Claire and Luke have the greatest job ever; little work and they can take shifts napping in cool hotel rooms. = +8pts 
• Claire acts like she’s never seen a screamer video before and Luke’s website was built in Angelfire. Is this a late '90s period piece? = +9pts 
• Claire is excited about the prospect of recording a ghost. Claire is doomed. = +4pts 
• Getting to geek out to your idol while she’s wearing nothing but a towel is a rare fan achievement. = +4pts 
• Before she played a barista on GIRLS, Lena Dunham played the local barista in The Innkeepers. = +4pts (For being the brewer of her generation.) 
• Apparently, this barista is even less self-aware than Hannah Horvath. = -5pts 
• “IM”? Yep, totally a late '90s period piece. = +5pts 
• “Quarter-life crisis.” = -5pts 
• Porn and ghosts are the only things Luke cares about. = +3pts 
• If you’re gonna do exposition, telling it to an impressionable kid in the form of a creepy ghost story is definitely the way to go. = +10pts 
• Generic jilted woman origin story. = -4pts 
• Wait, are the ghosts stealing all the towels? = -3pts 
• “I don’t spend my time trying to figure out what women want. Especially dead ones.” That’s why you’re alone, Luke. = -4pts 
• If Claire gets this freaked out by non-paranormal activity, maybe ghost hunting isn’t the right career path. = -6pts 
• “Enjoy your internet porn.” Oh, like you’ve never indulged a little bit, Claire? = -4pts 
• The obviousness of what’s going to happen doesn’t make it any less unsettling. = +6pts 
• For someone who runs a ghost hunting website, Luke cares surprisingly little about actually hunting ghosts. = -4pts 
• Leanne says that pendulums are used to answer life’s difficult questions. We were unaware that “what time is it” was a “difficult” question. = -5pts 
• Leigh needs to start a podcast called Spirits & Spirits, in which she talks to ghosts while drinking vodka. = +6pts 
• ANOTHER GHOSTLY TOWEL THEFT?? WHAT DO THESE GHOSTS HAVE AGAINST TOWELS? = +3pts 
• Again, holding on Claire while nothing is happening makes it obvious that something is going to happen. But the drawn out shots makes the something very effective. = +9pts 
• A mysterious old guest demanding a specific room in a haunted hotel? What kind of shit ghost hunters are these if they don’t question his connection to the ghosts? = -6pts 
• Now the creepy guest is referring to the hotel as a place like home. ASK HIM ABOUT GHOST SHIT! = -3pts 
• Drinking and haunting. = +4pts 
• Luke flirts like a high school guy trying to get to second base. = -5pts 
• “Let’s go to the basement and find out what that fucking ghost’s problem is.” Maybe it’s being referred to as a “fucking ghost?” She has a name, you know. = +6pts
• Mere minutes after awkwardly trying to hit on Claire, Luke adopts the George Constanza method of saving himself. = +7pts (for keeping the classics alive) 
• Vodka helps Leanne get in touch with the paranormal. = +5pts 
• We understand wanting to kill yourself in a place that holds personal significance, but doing it in a hotel, where underpaid cleaning staff will have to clean up after you, is just inconsiderate. = -8pts 
• Now this is putting your ghostliness to good use. Just because you can’t touch someone doesn’t mean you can’t be scary. = +15pts 
• We’re not sure what it is, but there’s just something about a ghost bride that is inherently creepy. = +5pts

The Innkeepers is not for people looking for non-stop terror. West takes his time and lets the creepy factor build up until the tension becomes unbearable. The film relies heavily on offscreen scares and playing with audience expectations. West knows that we are trained to expect certain things at certain times and either intentionally fails to deliver or waits until we think he won’t deliver. As a result, West pulls off a chilling film without relying on many jump scares or gory effects. (There are a few of those, though.)

Total Score = +47pts
Available on: Netflix, DVD

Score Technician: Andrew Daar

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 6

projectfandom.com

After yet another episode of terrible things happening to nice characters, the nanobots are starting to grow uncomfortable with the goings-on in American Horror Story. Will this episode continue the unpleasant trend of, as Sean so eloquently put it, “assholes being stabby assholes to each other?” Probably.

• Breaking in your new maid by having her serve your deranged son condoms on a silver platter. = +2pts 
• Insinuating that your son is so crazily inbred that his impregnation of uterus-sharing Siamese twins would sully their gene pool. = -4pts 
• Wrapping up the World’s Most Adorable Woman as a birthday gift for Elsa. = +3pts 
• Elsa’s birthday demands: have fun or have knives thrown at you while shackled to a circus wheel. = -7pts (This is a really tough choice.) 
• Denying that anyone knows about your pity-fucking an aging starlet only to have The World’s Most Adorable Woman swaddled twenty feet away. = -5pts (The things she must have heard!) 
• Bringing up the time you shared in an opium-induced orgy is a great way to convince a guy to have sex with you again. = -4pts 
• If Woolworth's had been more successful in advertising their ice cream, maybe they wouldn't have been bought out by Foot Locker. Or maybe Foot Locker should just start serving ice cream. = +3pts (We need to make this happen. Email write-in campaign, ho!) 
• Tossing a hissy after being called out on the bullshit you told in a secret-telling game. = -4pts 
• Fantasizing about drowning the World’s Most Adorable Woman in formaldehyde. = -10pts 
• Making us watch the aforementioned fantasy play out in gruesome detail. = -40pts 
• Volunteering to let an egomaniacal amputee strap you to the Wheel of Death so that none of your friends get knives thrown at them. = +5pts 
• “Accidentally” murdering the only guy who pity-fucks you because he “spread rumors” about how you sold your star attraction to a crazy inbred serial killer.  = -10pts (Even though that's totally what happened – come on.)
• Losing your NRA membership for pointing a gun at your daughter and then pussing out on pulling the trigger. = -4pts 
• Even though she's about to get drowned in a toddler-sized mason jar, the World's Most Adorable Woman can't help but be 31 flavors of cute. = +5pts 
• Wait, they're not actually going to let Maggie kill her, are they? She's making butterfly hands and talking about wanting nothing more than to ride a pony. What the shit, guys? = -25pts 
• Maggie's choice to run away with Jimmy Darling instead of killing the World's Most Adorable Woman is the most positive thing to have happened this season. +50pts 
• Coming to the realization that you are the White Affluent Specter of Death after your mother reads aloud from your captive girlfriend’s scathing journal entry about how stinky and boring you are. = -5pts 
• “My son has no friends.” Nailed it! = +8pts 
• After Elsa calls Ethel the sister she never had (because – yikes – her real sister was stillborn), Ethel feels so warm and fuzzy that she threatens to kill Elsa if she was lying about what happened to the twins. Here's hoping that Ethel bumps into Dandy at the drugstore too! = +7pts 
• Realizing that the subplot of Denis O'Hare wanting to kill a circus freak is completely unnecessary given how many freak corpses are littering the camp grounds. Dig anywhere, Denis – you'll find one! = -15pts 

Episode Score = -60pts
Season Score = -44pts

This was the episode that made it clear that Freak Show was going to be more Coven and less Asylum.

It was so thickly foreshadowed that the newly-unveiled Wheel of Death coupled with the sudden focus on developing Paul's character meant curtains for our favorite Illustrated Seal. This greatly skewed the ratio of likeable characters to unlikeable ones, so much so that it's going to be even more difficult to continue watching the show.

Knowing American Horror Story's track record, however, the writers will introduce so many new characters that at least one of them will have to be likeable. We call this "The Papa Legba Effect." With news that Neil Patrick Harris will be guest starring in the later episodes, we're can only hope that The Papa Legba Effect will be proven correct!

Score Technician: TJ Geise

Road House

Well, mijo, the time has come to tell you a little story about a man named Dalton (Patrick Swayze), a sensitive, philosophy-major kind of man from one of them fancy schools back East, who wasn’t too proud to work the bars as a bouncer, keeping ‘em safe for gentler folk. Well, Dalton tried to be peaceful like, but he knew the time would come when he would be called upon to rip out a windpipe or two, and that time came when he was hired to clean up the roughest dive of all: The Double Deuce. To do that, he had to go toe to toe with one sumnabitch crime boss, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), and …what’s that, mijo? You (the reader) want to know why we (the scorecard technicians) keep referring to people in parentheticals? Shut up, mijo, don’t get distracted. Did you prepare yourself like we asked? Did you bring the box of nicotine gum, the surgical gauze, and a fresh pair of big-boy undies? That’s good, then. You may just be ready for the rest of Dalton’s story; the story men call: Road House.

• Ever notice that Swayze is wearing mom jeans in the poster? = -5pts 
• The way the guy in the opening sequence announces proudly, “How about some gold plastic?” = +4pts 
• Dalton - so cool, he only dances with his chin. = +3pts 
• Setting your movie in a world of famous bouncers who all know each other and brag about being “the best.” = +17pts 
• Dalton’s Travel Tips: Balls to the 1964 Buick! Roll into Jasper, Missouri in a brand new Benz! = +7pts 
• Because it’s a magic Benz, that goes from New York to Missouri in one frame. = +7pts 
• Jeff Healey, as a young, struggling musician, you probably played a lot of shitty bars. How would you like it now, at the height of your career, to play a role in a major motion picture as the front-man of a band playing in a shitty bar? = +27pts 
• Can everyone in this movie smoke more, please? = -7pts 
• John Doe as the sleazy bartender. = +3pts 
• Cheating a pimp out of his hard-earned breast squeezing remuneration. = -3pts 
• This dive can’t seem to turn a profit. We could cut back on furniture breaking, but that’d drive away our best clientele. = - 12pts 
• Dalton demonstrates his used-car negotiation skills: “I’ll take it.” = +2pts 
• The Double Deuce’s main problem might be that its entire staff consists of bouncers. = -8pts 
• “I think you’ll be my regular Saturday night thing, baby.” = +17pts 
• Welcome to Ben Gazzara’s Half-Naked Pool Party/Drunken Convertible Road Tour! = +6pts 
• Dalton flows through tai chi by the riverside, sweat dribbling down every muscle. Soon, it begins again: elderly men, approaching from all directions, staring, staring, staring at the ideal form of Dalton’s body, perhaps regretting the loss of a youthful prime, perhaps in awe of a heretofore unknown desire. = +23pts 
• The Jasper, MO Chamber of Commerce is right! It really is the stabbiest place on Earth! = -4pts 
• My other armpit smells like the top of a baby’s head. That’ll be 25 cents. = +14pts

• Welcome to Ben Gazzara’s fist in your face! = +2pts 
• “This place has a sign hanging over the urinal saying, don’t eat the big white mint.” = +3pts 
• Hey! Didn’t you see the sign? No extra-long bendy legs! = + 20pts 

• Breaking a guy’s leg and throwing his boot on the roof. = +12pts 
• From Road House Dating Tips: The best way to pick up a sexy doctor is to beat the shit out of some guys at a bar. = -7pts
• We’re getting lung cancer from this movie. = -27pts
• Dalton – so cool, you can trash his car, and he’s all like “sha bro, you trashed my car. Good one.” = +3pts 
• Doo dee doo, just a bouncer with an NYU degree in philosophy, lounging on the hood of my car, lookin’ cool in case anyone is watching me. Doo dee doo…. = +7pts 
• Ah, the picturesque Kansas City mountains. = -3pts 
• Remodeling the Double Deuce in one night. = +2pts 
• This radio only plays Otis Redding slow jams, over and over again, in case you want to have sex. = +6pts 
• Welcome to Ben Gazzara Watches you Do It! = - 10pts 
• Wade’s sage advice to Dalton on having killed a man: “I can’t believe you’re still dragging that shit around.” = - 7pts 
• Welcome to Ben Gazzara’s Monster Truck Rally! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! = +5pts 
• I used to fuck guys like you in prison. And that’s also a line in this movie. = +45pts 
• Dalton resolves his guilt over ripping out a guy’s windpipe by ripping out Jimmy’s windpipe. = +25pts 
• Scratching your back with a shotgun. = +12pts 
• Shooting a stuffed bear, getting crushed by it. = -6pts 
• Welcome to The Whole Town Shoots Ben Gazzara! = +9pts 
• Elizabeth wasn’t sure about Dalton after he killed one guy, but killing two, that’s pretty hot. = -7pts 
• Wait, why does Jeff Healey wear a wristwatch? = -2pts 

Total Score: +167pts
Available on: Amazon rental

Yup, mijo, that’s the story of Road House, a story that, despite the lack of Keanu Reeves, flies to Point Break heights. Roger Ebert said it: “Road House is the kind of movie that leaves reality so far behind that you have to accept it on its own terms.” So yeah, it might have made more sense if the owner of The Double Deuce didn’t scour the country for the best bouncer ever, and instead hired an interior designer to give the place a family-friendly, T.G.I. Friday’s kind of vibe, but screw it. And did it make sense for a crime boss to cause millions of dollars of property damage for the sake of a pissing contest with that bouncer? Hell no, but did it make sense for Ahab to chase after the white whale? Well, we don’t think so. We don’t really understand the concept of metaphor. But you see what we’re saying, mijo? What made Moby Dick great was its fight choreography and quotes like “Pain don’t hurt,” and what makes Road House great is its trenchant use of symbolism and fun facts about whales. Or maybe we got our IMDB and Wikipedia references mixed up there, but here’s our point: if you want a story of frustrated, hot man-action smothered in folksy machismo, it’s tougher than a woodpecker’s lips to find a movie that delivers like Road House.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 5

Well, Edward Bore-Drake has come and gone, taking with him the world's saddest swamp clown. The only real question that remains is: Did he take the parts of the show worth watching with him? This is why we leave such things to the nanobots, they aren't distracted by shiny things, three-breasted women, or a pristine pair of tighty-whiteys. They only score the facts.

• Brushing aside a cohort's concern about committing a murder, Take 1: "Accidents happen all the time!" = -2pts
• Brushing aside a cohort's concern about committing a murder, Take 2: "People run away from the circus all the time!" = +4pts (For artful use of the word "from" in that argument.)
• Dandy's shock and horror at the site of a dead Patti Label not fooling Mumsie one bit. If Frances Conroy has a super power, it's seeing through terrible acting. = +3pts
• While reading the palms of someone called "lobster boy," missing the opportunity to predict that his future appears to be "full of cracks." = -5pts
• Slagging television to tout the glory of film when your biggest credit to date has been a Nazi snuff film where you lost both your legs. = -2pts
• Pulling a coin from behind the ear of a little person who has participated in the ritual stabbing of a local police officer. = -2pts
• Trying to kiss every woman who says, "You're a nice guy." = -5pts
• Musical numbers with no music. = +2pts
• Musical numbers with no music and a crowd throwing popcorn. = +4pts (For reading our minds.)
• Suffering from a terminal illness while listening to your son's father's three-breasted lover tell her doctor about how your son probably poked "something loose" in her vagina with his lobster hands. = -3pts
• Turning a dead black servant into an opportunity to build that tulip mausoleum you've always wanted. = (In, the '50s = +10pts; In 2014 = -20pts) -10pts
• Steal my spotlight once, shame on you. Steal my spotlight twice, shame on me. Steal my spotlight thrice, you need to stop buying me spotlights because I clearly can't hold on to them. = -3pts
• Working out in your playroom in your tighty-whiteys. = +3pts
• Yelling "There are no other guys but me!" in a gay bar where there are a lot of guys around. = -2pts
• Watching the stripper with the dreamiest eyes from Magic Mike reinvent the black knight scene from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. = +5pts
• Yelling at the guy you are dismembering because his refusal to die, "makes you feel bad." = +5pts

Episode Score = -5pts
Season Score = +16pts

Apparently when you run a show called American Horror Story, it's much easier to come up with new concepts/settings when you've eliminated the need to create any likable characters whatsoever. It's a sad state for a show when the nicest character you can point to is an old doctor who apparently doesn't have an ounce of prejudice in his body. But this also helps to illustrate how necessary those kinds of characters are in horror. Watching Michael Chiklis pulverize adorable Doctor Jupiter's fingers was far more horrific than anything the swamp clown did the last two episodes. At this point the show should probably consider changing its name to American Assholes, because that's been the gist of this season: Assholes being stabby assholes to each other.

We would like to remind the readers that as AHS tanked its way into Real Housewives territory last season, Frances Conroy's Grace Coddington-like performance became the most interesting/enjoyable thing of the season. This time around, she's had to elevate her game even earlier and should be given special thanks for her efforts. Watching her chalk up Dandy's homicidal tendencies to "inbreeding," or turn a daughter's inquiry into the location of her mother into a confession about the child-rearing strategies of the uber-privileged has been awe-inspiring. So thank you, Frances Conroy. You remain the bright twisted lantern in this otherwise dreary swamp full of snakes.  

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Arrow, Season 3 (Eps 1-4)

And so begins The PCS coverage of the third season of CW's Arrow. In case you need a refresher on what's been happening, there's this. And, in case you're behind on how shirtless Stephen Amell became so shirtless, there's this. Now, with all of that out of the way, it's time to fire up the nanobots and see what can be done to SAVE THIS CITY. (Hint: It may involve rock n' roll.)

Episode 1

• Opening your season with a shot of Arrow and the Outsiders. = +10pts
• Re-establishing the most important love story in the show right out of the box, that being Oliver and Diggle. = +5pts (Oliggle 4-Eva!)
• Captain Chest Hair is promoted to Captain Police Face. = +3pts
• Superman Returns...as Roy Palmer. = +4pts (See what we did there?)
• Fight clubbing yourself. = +6pts (Because who else knows you better than you.)
• The Black Canary finds no air in the new Star City coal mine. = -2pts

Episode 2

• Delivering the body of your dead sister to her friend with benefits, who also happens to be your ex-boyfriend. Awkward. = -2pts
• Oliver embarks on a new series of flashbacks with Asian Slade Wilson. = +4pts
• Hanging out in a building where you witnessed a murder and then being surprised when someone shows up looking for said murder. = -3pts 
• Jousting on bikes instead of horses. = +4pts
• Using bows and arrows instead of lances, the event horizon of rubbing your belly while patting your head. = -2pts 
• Shooting an arrow out of the air with your own arrow and then catching the follow-up arrow and shooting someone with it. = +8pts
• It's good to know that Laurel has elected to continue her impressive streak of bad decisions. = -4pts
• Saving money on funeral costs by secretly being buried in a grave people already thought you were in. = +3pts
• You don't have to name your new baby after the most recent dead person you encountered. Baby names aren't a co-op in NYC, you know. = -3pts

Episode 3

• Star City, where the seven stages of grief include:
1. Infidelity
2. Confession
3. Karate (or Krav Maga depending on your sense of entitlement and injustice.)
4. Fashion shoot
5. The Club
6. Archery
7. MMA
• Total points = +7pts

• Corto Maltese, where Daddy Daughter Day includes adorable smiles and second degree burns to your hands. = -2pts
• Your dad crashing your AA meeting. = -4pts
• Macgyvering Arrow quality equipment from your hotel room. I may or may not be a an urban street vigilante but I did just stay at a Holiday Inn. = +2pts
• Oliver and guns. = +10pts

Episode 4

• Hunting your ex-GFs killer with her ex-GF, who also happens to be an assassin and daughter of the most dangerous man on the planet. Call us crazy, but this sounds like a sitcom on FX. = +5pts
•  Playing hide the dead daughter with your police chief dad. = -5pts
• It's a new episode so Laurel must want another person not responsible for her sister's death dead. = -3pts
• If being in the League of Shadows means that we could be the biggest, most popular,  businessman in our city and totally destroy an impoverished neighborhood, resulting in the death of over 500 people, and still be able to chill out in a trendy part of town while being completely unrecognizable despite no alterations to our face/hair/body, then sign us up! = +5pts (Because we love our perks!)
• Parkour flipping into a sleep dart in front of a chick you are trying to bang. = -2pts
• League of Shadow threeway. = +10pts
• We're not sure the "no prison can hold me" excuse means that you shouldn't at least give it the old college try. = -2pts

Season Score = +52pts

Slipping into a new season of Arrow is as comfortable as slipping into a nice comfy quiver. You know, assuming that you're an arrow yourself, metaphorically speaking. And who wouldn't be at this point, three seasons in? Many of the hits have, so far, been played very well:

• Random shocking death? Check! 
• At least one great action sequence per episode? Check! 
• At least one episode where Oliver displays one heretofore unknown talent/ability? Check! 
• Felicity cracking wise? Check! 
• Laurel acting completely erratically in order to still warrant screen time? Check! 
• Male physical specimens wandering around scenes with their shirts off? ch-wait? What?! 

Call us crazy, but there seems to have been a drastic reduction in the number of shirtless workout scenes this season. While the nanobots aren't in panic mode yet, we hope this doesn't signal a turn towards self-seriousness. Arrow is good when it is serious, but not too serious. So here's to hoping the popular DC villain Gym Rat makes an appearance at some point this season. Otherwise we may start to worry.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 3 & 4

Lots of Halloween stuff to get out of the way as we begin preparations to celebrate the American Day of the Lots of Dead that is Thanksgiving. So let's just get into it.

• Dispassionately going through the motions as a lead tour guide/owner of the American Morbidity University. = +3pts (For staying in character.)
• Dennis O'Hare being allowed to act in AHS without make-up. = +5pts
• Twisty the Swamp Clown covers the classics. = +2pts

 

• Freakshow performers handle grief the way carnies traditionally do, by eating bales of hay and bobbing for apples. = +4pts
• It appears Edward Moondrake has moved on from the elliptical meaning of floating plastic bags and embraced the certainty awarded from the bodies of dead carnies. = -2pts
• Watching Pattie Labelle humiliate herself on the offhand chance she gets to sing a song that at some point reminds people she is Pattie Labelle. = -5pts
• Just to be sure, carney freaks confirm Meep's death by tossing a bunch of chicken heads on a ratty coffin while emptying a fifth of whiskey. = +2pts (You never know with Meep, he sure was a prankster!)
• Sharing dreams with your sister whom you also share a body with. = -3pts
• Those dreams involving fantasies of her brutally sawing you from her. = -6pts
• Evaluating a potential new psychic while high on opiates. = -3pts
• What you missed that Halloween reference earlier in the episode? Don't worry, Ryan Murphy has you covered with the obligatory Carpenter mask-cam! = -2pts
• Dandy totally dandies up his first kill. = +2pts
• Minority Horror Survival Tips for the Modern Age: When confronted by someone who's planning to murder you, don't run. Just tell them what you really think of them. The more disdain in your delivery the better! = +4pts
• Forcing your little sister to call you Master Mike. = -5pts (Ew.)
• Oh look, another musical number. = -10pts
• Edward Moondrake's super power apparently resides in his gamma farts. He who smelt it...is dead. = -2pts
• 10-cent live freak birth ticket leads to a show that's about as awful as you imagined. = -10pts

Episode Score: -18pts

Things aren't looking so great for AHS this season. You wouldn't know that this was the "Halloween" episodes of AHS, unless of course you caught all of the Halloween references, which rather than playing like clever Easter eggs, feel more like desperate mining for proven ideas. Your turn, TJ!

Thanks, Sean!

Have you heard the news about Edward? Though he’s been an urban legend since the 1800s, he hasn't turned up with much significance in modern storytelling apart from Tom Waits immortalizing him in song. That was until Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy stylized him as the Phantom of the Freak Show. When we last left off, Poor Edward was currently shaking the freaks down for their deepest, darkest secrets. Let the scoring resume!

• True Freakshow Confessions, hosted by Poor Edward. = +5pts 
• Bleeding to death from a leg wound inflicted by a legless woman. = +2pts 
• “Tattered waste of oxygen” is the Scorecard’s new go-to for pretentious insults. = +3pts 
• When asked what the clown makes the children watch, we're really glad that his victim answered with, “clown stuff.” Knowing how Falchuk and Murphy are, we barely scraped by from seeing the Swamp Clown twisting his filthy whirligig. = +6pts 
• Jimmy Darling and his psychic friend are as horrified at seeing the Swamp Clown tackle a young girl as we were. = +4pts

• When the ghost of a dual-faced aristocrat asks you to tell your darkest story, we hope that you could come up with something more interesting than the time a guy thanked you for making him sit on a torture toilet in a Berlin bondage club. = -5pts 
• German chainsaw amputation porn, established 1932. = -8pts 
• Dandy and the Swamp Clown entertain the kids and Jimmy Darling with the old “saw the fortune teller in half” routine. = +3pts (Because she didn't see that one coming!) 
• Jimmy Darling doesn't use his lobster claws to Zoidberg himself free. = -2pts 
• Instead, he knocks Dandy the eff out with a wild haymaker. = +4pts 
• The Swamp Clown tears his face off once again to regale Poor Edward with the tale of how he went from this jovial entertainer of children:
  
  ...to this wretched murderer of Floridians. = +6pts

• Lesson learned: never be nice to children around dwarves. Your simple kindnesses and lack of worldy experience are a canvass for them to paint with the bitter tar of reality. = -15pts 
• The nanobots are relieved to find that even characters on the show want nothing to do with the Swamp Clown’s filthy whirligig. = +2pts 
• Clown Shotgun Suicide will be opening for Puddle of Mudd and Trapt at the nu-metal revival concert at this summer's Palm Beach County Fair. = -8pts 
• As the Swamp Clown vanishes into the mists with his new friends, his old pal Dandy puts on a happy face. = -6pts 
• In true renegade style, Jimmy back-sasses the coppers when they congratulate him on being Jupiter's man of the hour. = +4pts 
• Though Jimmy and the rest of the freak show soak up praise from the very people who drove them to the outskirts of town, Bette and Dot get damn near booted out of the performance. Harsh! = -4pts 
• Patti LaBelle is too sassy for her own good. = -7pts 
• Ending the show with no musical number (which is infinitely better than listening to Jessica Lange belting out Tom Waits). = +10pts

Episode Score = -6pts
Season Score = +21pts

We hope that you scorehards enjoyed origin stories, because almost everyone spilled their necks (literally and figuratively) over the course of the past two episodes. While the whole idea of Edward listening to tragic tales had so much potential, learning too much about a character as enigmatic as Twisty sapped the terror from him.

As the silent Swamp Clown whose efficiency in the area of murder was proportional to his inefficiency at entertaining children, Twisty was pure nightmare fuel. Knowing that he did so in some innocent campaign to save children just took too much of the menace away. We liked him better when he was as bloodthirsty as he was mysterious!

Moreover, the steps that Twisty took from being a developmentally impaired clown to a junkyard artisan to a cunning psychopath desperately needed to be fleshed out. An entire episode could have been devoted both to Twisty's fall from sanity and to explore the grit of why he became the menace to south Florida. Instead, his story lost too much steam from rushing at the start and ended up more stitched together than his costume. Though he was most assuredly a sympathetic character, he devolved too quickly into a monster whose credo was, “I hate freaks and love kids – blargh!”

Oh, well! Now we'll have to put up with Dandy following in Twisty's big floppy footsteps for the rest of the season. Thanks, Brad and Ryan!

Score Technician(s): Sean McConnell & T. J. Geise

Halloween II (2009)

Two years after his remake of Halloween, Rob Zombie steps back up to the plate to tackle Halloween II. Mr. Zombie is in many respects a talented film-maker. He has a powerful and distinctive visual sense. He understands pacing, editing, lighting. He understands film.

He does not, however, seem to understand humans, or the things they do, or why and how they do those things. If RZ’s previous film endeavors have taught us anything, it’s that he will show us only, almost without exception, the worst examples of humankind: the filthiest, the stupidest, the most miserable and hateful; the drunk and the nihilist, the racist and the slob.

Is it possible for Rob Zombie to tell a story in the absence of any characters with whom the audience can identify? Can we reach a satisfying conclusion to this narrative by walking in Michael Myers’ enormous, bloody bootprints?

Perhaps the nanobots can find answers in this unrated director’s cut. We have followed where Rob Zombie led, and now we desperately search for a light to guide us home.

• The action picks up exactly where Rob Zombie’s Halloween leaves off, right after Laurie Strode shoots Michael Myers in the head. = +4pts 
• Once again, the town sheriff is played by Brad Dourif, all around Good Guy. = +12pts 
• A nice extended scene of Laurie getting her wounds attended to in the hospital reminds us why we chose not to become trauma surgeons. = +6pts 
• One of the coroner’s van drivers goes on about how a dead, naked girl they’re transporting was F-I-N-E fine and how he never got “urges” with the corpses until tonight. We don’t believe him. = -7pts 
• The other driver tells him, “That’s disgusting. Stop. Shut up.” He must be a visitor from beyond the Rob Zombie-verse. = +9pts 
• You can’t just yell Cow! and expect a response. You need to provide context. = -6pts 
• The Coroner’s van, which is transporting Michael’s corpse, hits a cow on a deserted country road. This movie can now add vehicular cowslaughter to its list of crimes. = -3pts 
• This accident brings Michael back to life. Or wakes him up. We don’t know, and the movie won’t tell us, because in its secret heart it despises us. = -4pts 
• Michael, off his meds for a few days and now shot in the head, begins to hallucinate his dead mother leading a white horse as some sort of spirit guide. = -8pts 
• In Laurie’s dream sequence, every TV in the hospital is tuned to the Moody Blues playing "Nights in White Satin." Meanwhile, Michael is chasing and trying to axe murder her, which we find somehow less disturbing. = -3pts 
• It is two years later and Laurie lives with her friend, Annie, who is also a Michael Myers survivor from the first movie, and Annie's dad, the town sheriff. We’ll just be referring to this place as PTSD house from now on. = -5pts 
• Malcolm McDowell plays Dr. Loomis as an even worse, but more famous, child psychologist/rock star than he did in the first movie. = -7pts 
• Howard Hesseman shows up as a character named Uncle Meat, which is totally just Dr. Johnny Fever 40 years later. = +4pts 
• Laurie’s post-trauma lifestyle includes working at Uncle Meat’s crack den coffee house, showing off her tramp stamp and screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. = -5pts 
• But she listens to MC5! The best reason to scream obscenities at the top of your lungs! = +15pts 
• Michael has been spending the last two years not dead as everyone in Haddonfield believes, but as a 7.5 foot tall vagrant that hangs out in a run down barn owned by a seemingly less successful branch of the Duck Dynasty family. = +8pts 
• Unobtrusively. = -75pts 
• The family discovers him, resulting in a Donald Duck Dynasty beatdown of Michael. = -6pts 
• Time for Michael to put on his murderin’ mask and get to work. = +20pts 
• Michael’s creative use of the antlers affixed to the front of the truck now allows the redneck patriarch to be used as a colander. = +7pts 
• Laurie makes an emergency visit to her therapist (Margot Kidder!) and tries to negotiate a prescription refill by screaming obscenities at her at the top of her lungs. = -10pts 
• Later, Laurie tries to convince Annie to get out of her room by screaming obscenities at her at the top of her lungs. = -15pts 
• In his empty strip club, the owner mutters that Haddonfield “loves him like cancer.” Cancer clearly has a superior brand. = -4pts 
• Michael’s mother/spirit guide sends him to the club, her former place of employment, where he starts murdering people. We are not sad. = -7pts 
• While reading Dr. Loomis’ new book, Laurie learns that she is Michael’s little sister. So, using the tools she learned in therapy, she screams obscenities at the top of her lungs. = -20pts 
• All of the dialog between Dr. Loomis and his assistant is more stiff and awkward than a beginner’s improv workshop. = -6pts 
• In fact, Michael Myers is becoming our favorite character simply because he makes all the other characters stop saying words. = +19pts 
• Laurie decides that facing the truth about her heritage is too much to bear. Time to get liquored up. Makes sense so far. = +4pts 
• Stopping to put on thematically matched costumes with friends, then hiking to Haddonfield’s monster Halloween bash, makes less sense in this context. = -4pts 
• Rob Zombie presents: Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures! The delicious cherry atop this cake of filth and sadness. = +35pts 
• More people die. Whatever. = -7pts 
• This movie ends in a Hamlet-esque pile of dead bodies which means the Myers family is reunited, or something. Honestly, we stopped caring about any of this about 20 minutes ago. = -16pts 

Total points = -66pts
Available on: Amazon Prime

After literally opening the film with the definition of his primary visual symbol, Rob Zombie goes on to serve up the imagery and related themes on a plate. And yet Halloween II still makes no sense. We could forgive Halloween II for that, if in its head-scratching weirdness it managed to deliver anything of interest. Or touched any emotional chord. But it did not.

Instead it just confused us. An argument can be made that Laurie is the protagonist of this film with Michael filling the role of the antagonist. However, Rob Zombie spends so much time on Michael’s story of woe between the two Halloween films, that a counter argument can be made that Michael is the protagonist. The nanobots seem to think that RZ has created a new category of fictional character that they are calling simply, “‘tagonists.” We hope that the literary community recognizes this scientific breakthrough and begins using this term immediately.

Score Technicians: John Ormond and Stacey Hanlon

Halloween II

horrorhomework.com

If Norman Bates and Leatherface were the slasher film's biological parents, then Michael Myers was its abusive foster dad. John Carpenter's Halloween seized the disparate elements present in those early forbearers and forged them into the tried and true formula that every movie in the tradition has followed ever since. With Halloween II, Carpenter (along with writing partner Deb Hill and director Rick Rosenthall) sought to look further into that fateful Halloween night back in '78. The original ended with Myers shot six times and thrown out a second-story window, only to have his body disappear. Our prediction? He crawled off someplace to die of serious internal injuries, and the remainder of the movie is about Laurie Strode's (Jaime Lee Curtis) peaceful convalescence in the hospital...

• Beginning your movie with the last five minutes of your last movie. = +3pts (Hey, it was the early '80s; most of us didn't own VCRs back then.) 
• Donald Pleasance cast as Dr. Sam Loomis but seems to think he's King Lear. = -8pts 
• Pausing a moment to point out that this movie was edited by Skip Skoolnick, a man with a name so wholesome, he can only be neighbor teen from Leave It to Beaver who was sucked into the real world through some electromagnetic anomaly. = +4pts 
• Post-opening credit scene filmed in Halloween's patented Stalkervision^TM. = +15pts 
• Michael Myers pops by a lone teen girl's house to grab a murder for the road. = +2pts 
• Paramedics rush Jaime Lee Curtis to the hospital past a boy whom we can only guess came down with a serious case of "sass mouth." = +1pt 
• Donald Pleasance showing zero compunction over waving a gun around in a cop car, crowded street full of children. = +11pts 
• Guy in Michael Myer's mask hit by speeding police vehicle, pinned to a news van, and then incinerated as the rocket fuel that the officer was storing near his engine catches fire (at least, we're assuming that's what happened. There's no other logical explanation for why a t-bone collision would result in a massive conflagration). = +14pts 

horrornews.net

• By the way, no one in the movie is nearly as concerned as they should be that a cop accidentally plowed into a pedestrian so hard that the guy burned to death while pinned between two vehicles. = -9pts 
• The teenage paramedic sneaking into Jaime Lee Curtis's room to watch her sleep is supposed to be touching. Supposed to be. = -10pts 
• Paramedic Budd lives up to his name by smoking a J in the break room. = +13pts 
• As if showing up late to work wasn't bad enough, the "slutty" nurse is now shamelessly flirting with Budd. Thank God masked, butcher-knife wielding justice is on its way to clean up this lot of miscreants. = -4pts 
• To be clear: The prissy nurse has no problem with Budd's illegal drug use in her presence, but she just cannot tolerate all that sailor talk. = -2pts (Slasher movie rules dictate that she's probably going to come out of this alive.) 
• Budd advises his teenage companion not to get involved with patients, but that nurses are another story. But maybe don't take advice from a guy who has to smoke up where he works. = -4pts 
• The fat hospital security guard seems fated to die of repeated jump-scares. = -5pts 
• Never mind... Claw hammer. = +7pts 
• Upon discovering that the flash-fried body is not Michael Myers, the Haddonfield police, in conjunction with city hall, arrange for a lawyer for the officer that hit him and hire an expert PR firm to help them weather the media firestorm that this tragedy will doubtlessly unleash. Ha ha, J/K. He is immediately forgotten. = -10pts 
• A cryptic dream sequence that throws Jaime Lee Curtis's parentage into question? Eh, it's probably nothing. = +3pts 
• Budd and "Slutty" Nurse have a rendezvous in the hydrotherapy tub, which seems needlessly involved for a work-quicky. = - 7pts 
• Predictably, this encounter ends with Budd strangled to death and "Slutty" Nurse getting her face scalded off, but not before we got to see her boobs for a few seconds! = -14pts 
• Why does the gauge on the hydrotherapy tub even go up to "scalding?" That just seems like poor design. = -6pts 
• Sorry if we're beating a dead horse here, but that would be like if an ordinary light switch could be turned up to "permanently blinding." Under what circumstances do you want that to happen? = -5pts 
• Donald Pleasance finds "Samhain" written in blood in an empty schoolhouse and determines that Michael Myers is preparing an old-school pagan sacrifice. Really, though, he was just expressing his enthusiasm for Danzig's post-Misfits body of work. = +16pts (We know the timeline doesn't work. Shut up about it.) 
• Donald Pleasance's superior from the mental hospital comes to retrieve him, along with a federal marshal. Was not aware that "chaufferring civil servants" fell under the marshal's mandate, but I guess there's a lot we don't know. = -3pts 
• Hey, Prissy Nurse bites it after all! = +10pts 
• The teen paramedic knocking himself unconscious after slipping on all of the blood in the head nurse's body. = +8pts 

frightskool.blogspot.com

• Even when the object of his life-long, murderous obsession is on the cusp of evading him in a very slowly closing elevator door, Michael Myers takes things at his own pace. All of us scrambling around in this workaday rat race of a world could take a page from his book. = +7pts 
• Donald Pleasance learns that Jamie Lee Curtis HAS BEEN MICHAEL'S ESTRANGED SISTER ALL ALONG. WHOOOOAAAAAA! MICHAEL TOTALLY HAS A MOTIVE NOW! = +4pts 
• Donald Pleasance, who has apparently become the prototype for Frank Reynolds, forces the marshal to drive him to the hospital at gunpoint. = +12pts 
• Teen paramedic makes his way into the car where, up until now, Jamie Lee Curtis has been successfully hiding from her psychotic brother. He does not help her situation. = -2pts 
• Upon arriving at the hospital, the marshal is obliging enough to come inside and investigate with Donald Pleasance rather than, you know, arresting him on the spot for pulling a gun on a federal officer. = -6pts 
• My wife's reaction, after watching Jamie Lee Curtis fail to call out for help in time to get the attention of Donald Pleasance's entourage: "She's like the opposite of Sigourney Weaver." = -18pts 
• Despite her best efforts, Jaime Lee Curtis is still rescued by Donald Pleasance, who once again unloads a full cylinder into Myers. = +3pts 
• The marshal does not think to kick the scalpel out of Michael Myers' hand before checking for vitals. Raylan Givens this guy is not. = -10pts 
• Holing up in a surgery room, Donald Pleasance hands Jaime Lee Curtis another gun that we guess he's been carrying all along. Donald Pleasance never rolls out unless he's double-strapped. = +7pts 
• Jaime Lee Curtis proves to be a natural marksman by shooting out both of her brother's eyes. = +2pts 
• Michael Myers' blind flailing about in the operating room reminds us of this classic Simpsons' moment. = -8pts 
• The shot of his burning figure emerging from the massive explosion in the operating room is pretty badass, though. = +20pts 

blu-ray.com

Total Score = +31pts
Available on: DVD

Halloween II is not without its admirable qualities. The fact that it picks up immediately where the original leaves off is pretty cool, and it makes good use early on of the first-person camera work that was so unsettling in the first installment. Overall, though, it feels a little like "more of the same," except Jaime Lee Curtis doesn't really have anything to do except hobble away and scream. Even the big reveal that she's Michael's estranged sister feels a little underdeveloped. Don't get us wrong, compared to the later sequels, HII is Citizen Fucking Kane, but it's not exactly all that it could have been.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling