Overboard – As a child perusing the video store shelves, years before my horror fascination, I would always hit up the comedy section. If I wasn’t renting Airplane and its sequel or The Jerk for the umpteenth time, I was usually trying to find something I hadn’t seen before within the parameters of my age, also known as what my mom would let me watch. This led me to discover films like The Party, Stripes and, my personal favorite, anything with Goldie Hawn. When I laid eyes on a movie starring her and Jack Burton himself Kurt Russell, well, Overboard was a game changer in my little mind. So, when I heard that this would get the remake treatment I was probably a little irate. The film was about a bitchy heiress who, after falling off her boat, is convinced that she is the husband of a carpenter she screwed over in an act of revenge. For this remake, the genders have been swapped and one of my beloved comedy stars Anna Faris plays the Russell role leaving me conflicted but the trailer is a hot mess of mediocrity. Comedian Eugenio Derbez stars in the opposing role and I’m at a loss to who he is honestly, aside from a bit role in the crapsicle Geostorm, and does nothing to sell this movie. This may be the rare case where the remake is so bad that it tarnishes how much I enjoy the original which on its own may be marginally good at best. Ugh.
Happy Death Day is granted a sequel – I may be taking crazy pills but I thought the Universal Pictures Groundhog Day style horror film Happy Death Day was nothing more than a heavy turd but for a large part of the audience apparently it was a hit. Well, now we will be subjected to a follow up with star Jessica Rothe returning and my question is how? We had a full resolution at the end without the usual horror stinger to set up a sequel AND the male lead equated the entire plot of the film to “that Bill Murray” movie this putting it as part of our world. There’s just so many issues with this film and yet we’re getting a new film to be gobbled up by the mindless masses. To quote the big orange tyrant south of the border, “sad!” Don’t even get me started on the fact that this was written by Scott Lobdell, the mind behind Marvel Comics series like Generation X, Excalibur and X-Factor. My comic nerd side weeps…
Steve Stebbing 