Stranger Things 2, Stranger Things II, & Arabic vs. Latin

I’ve just quite enjoyed watching Netflix’s Stranger Things 2, though I can’t help but feel that I’d enjoy the series more if it would make more of an effort to be its own thing, and stop beating you around the head with homages to 80s cinema. That indebtedness to cultural reference begins right with the title. Ordinarily, a new season of a TV show doesn’t have a new title, but Stranger Things isn’t influenced by other TV shows, only by movies. So the pulsing Carpenter-esque score and neon logo of the original is supplemented with a “2”, to give you the feeling you’re sitting down in anticipation of some kick-ass, 80s-vintage sequel movie.

Except…that’s really not how it would be, at all. Nowadays, everyone knows that the second movie in a series is called [Original Title] 2, and maybe with some kind of subtitle, though that format’s actually been going out of fashion for a while, with sequels like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron going simply for a subtitle, while others like Rocky Balboa, Rambo, Jason Bourne, Logan, Leatherface and Jigsaw decide that the main character’s name alone is sufficient, even where it’s confusing.

But people in the 80s likely wouldn’t recognise a big fat number 2 as the dominant sequel numbering format, either. Have a look at some of the sequel films of the 70s & 80s: The Godfather, Part II; French Connection II; Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist III; Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V; Superman II, Superman III, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace; Friday the 13th Part II, Friday the 13th Part III, Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jason X; Faces of Death II, Faces of Death III, Faces of Death IV, Faces of Death V, Faces of Death VI; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; Psycho II, Psycho III, Psycho IV: The Beginning; Porky’s II: The Next Day; The Hills Have Eyes Part II; Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rambo III; The Karate Kid Part II, The Karate Kid Part III; Evil Dead II; Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love; Ghoulies II, Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, Ghoulies IV; Phantasm II, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Phantasm IV: Oblivion; Hellbound: Hellraiser II; Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, Hellraiser V: Inferno, Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker, Hellraiser VII: Deader, Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld, Hellraiser IX: Revelations; The Fly II; Ghostbusters II; Back to the Future Part II, and Back to the Future Part III. There’s a trend here for Roman numerals, perhaps because they lend your (quite possibly trashy) sequel a touch of class, perhaps because they’re familiar from Superbowl numbering (which only ever took one short break from Romans, for Superbowl 50); or, most likely, because everyone else was doing it. This extended to the biggest franchise of the time, Star Wars, which may have been screwy by starting its numbering at four, but nonetheless ran through Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi before reaching Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

With a small number of exceptions, running basically only to Jaws 2, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Police Academy 2–6 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2–5, it was like this all throughout the 1980s, and it wasn’t until the dawn of the 1990s that Arabic numerals started to take over from Roman: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989), Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990), Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991); Fright Night Part 2 (1988); Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998); Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990); RoboCop 2 (1990), RoboCop 3 (1993); Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990); Troll 2 (1990), Troll 3 (1993); Child’s Play 2 (1990), Child’s Play 3 (1991); Predator 2 (1990); Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003); ALIEN³ (1992); Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Home Alone 3 (1997), Home Alone 4 (2002). Maybe this was due to greater audience familiarity with that more practical numbering system, which wouldn’t see audiences getting distracted trying to figure out what number Friday the 13th Part VIII really translated to. But then again, they were probably all just playing follow the leader. Some series even started out using Roman then switched to Arabic in the late-80s or 1990s: there was 1981’s Halloween II, then 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch before we got 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers; Meatballs Part II (1984), Meatballs III: Summer Job (1986), then Meatballs 4 (1992); Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988) and Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993).

And you have to feel sorry for the really confused Texas Chainsaw series, which managed to take a step backwards in following up 1986’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 with 1990’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, as did Death Wish, moving from 1982’s Death Wish II to 1985’s Death Wish 3 and 1987’s Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, then backtracking for 1994’s Death Wish V: The Face of Death. For the most part, though, switching to Arabic was a permanent decision, and it was always Latin to Arabic, never vice versa. Looking at how many of the movies listed here have been invoked by Stranger Things, you might think they’d think pay closer attention. But it’s too late now for them to try Stranger Things III.

Leatherface, Hooper/Henkel, & incestuous Texas family trees

It’s Halloween soon, and also it was Friday the 13th the other day, so I think it’s only natural to discuss Texas Chainsaw. Leatherface made a good impression on me at FrightFest a couple of months ago, and I went in unsure what to expect; the horror sequel machine churns out a lot of garbage on the one hand; on the other, Lionsgate made the ballsy move of hiring the two guys behind Inside, the brutal home-invasion thriller from the French neo-extreme movement. So it could have gone either way really, but I was pleased with the end result, which was well-characterised, nicely paced, well-shot, unpredictable and nasty in the right places. What it’s not, though, is a Texas Chainsaw movie, at least not a stereotypical one. Instead, it belongs to the long line of twisted romantic crime drama road Westerns. You know the ones: Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Wild at Heart, True Romance, Natural Born Killers and The Devil’s Rejects, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; where TCM2 took on a divisive comedic tone, Leatherface plays things straight and doesn’t really get going with all the familiar imagery and tropes until pretty near its end.

I’d call that a good thing; the last three films in this ignoble franchise have been so samey you might have trouble telling them apart. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the remake of the original, and spawned all the other classic horror remakes, all of which were pretty hard to tell apart from one another. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was a prequel to the remake. It was also superior, but that isn’t saying much. Texas Chainsaw 3D was a direct sequel to the 1974 original, establishing a new and humdrum continuity in which Leatherface also takes place. Those three films are incredibly similar, not just tonally and structurally, but also in terms of plot developments. All three feature corrupt sheriffs, twisted matriarchs, Vietnam trauma and Southern Gothic-style melodrama. Curiously, as much as these pictures try their darnedest to be nothing but formulaic Chainsaws, none of these are features present in the original.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is still, to my mind, one of the most astonishing films ever made. It’s famous for its brutality (which has been greatly exaggerated) and its relentless energy (which hasn’t), but I think what’s often overlooked about it is the eerie, off-kilter atmosphere which you can’t really find anywhere else in cinema before or since. Night of the Living Dead maybe comes close with its intense nightmare logic, as does the obscure Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood. But neither are quite so unforgettable, surreal or haunting (they also both predate Texas Chain Saw Massacre). I have a hard time defining what exactly makes it such a unique picture. I think part of it has to do with how beautifully shot it is for such a nasty, downbeat film, part of it has to do with its mostly-daytime setting (note every sequel takes place mostly at conventional nighttime), part of it with how minimalist its storytelling is; it really recreates the quality of a nightmare in a way few films can be said to. Ultimately, it’s just a picture that’s more the sum of its parts, a lightning-in-a-bottle type of thing that came out of the collaboration between director Tobe Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel, neither of whom went on to replicate their success here (Hooper did helm some other horror classics, like Salem’s Lot and Poltergeist, but both are successes on a considerably more conventional level). There’s a certain tension created by Hooper’s hazy, head-film atmosphere (his debut, Eggshells, was thoroughly hippie and “head”) with the apocalyptic imagery Henkel inserts. It’s like a bad trip, the real death of the 60s.

The horror classics of roughly the same era aren’t the same at all; Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser are all great films, and Friday the 13th is a movie too, but these are all harmless fun, ghost-train movies that spawned sequels sticking more-or-less exactly to formula. The first batch of Chainsaw sequels, the ones that came out prior to the remake, nobly each try their own thing, each redefining in turn what the series was really all about. First Hooper made a reluctant return to the series with 1986’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, sending-up his own previous work, killing off the entire cannibal clan, and giving us the series’ first corrupt lawman in Dennis Hopper’s (awesome) Lefty Enright, who unlike later lawmen is not portrayed as being just as bad if not worse than the murderers he pursues. Many of the elements first introduced here would be picked up on by later instalments, even as they ignored its events. Those elements include the appropriate family name, Sawyer, not mentioned in the original.

New Line then acquired the rights to the series and made an attempt to turn it into a Friday the 13th-style moneyspinner with Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Despite the number in the title, the only acknowledgement it gives to the second film’s events is a brief and ambiguous acknowledgement in its opening subtitle. Making the movie’s name further misleading, Leatherface doesn’t really earn the top-billing the title gives him. Presumably the intent was to make him a bankable icon like Freddy, Jason or Pinhead (neither of the latter two were the main villain in the first film of their series, either). While he’s the only family member to feature in every film of the series, he’s not a main concern in any of them, acting instead as more of a henchman or attack dog for the main villains, with TCMIII being no exception. In the first film, that main villain is probably the Hitchhiker; in the second film, it’s the Hitchhiker’s twin brother Chop Top, played by horror legend Bill Moseley. Here, it’s Viggo Mortensen as Tex Sawyer, an unaccountably handsome scion of the inbred Sawyers. The film does feature a few reasonably effective chase sequences and some enjoyably unhinged doomed teens who make a change from the usual flat slasher characters. But, while it may be more enjoyably executed than most, TCMIII is nonetheless a formulaic slasher.

When Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III failed to ignite the franchise “buzz” New Line had hoped for, they gave the series back to its old co-creator, Kim Henkel, for one of the oddest horror sequels ever filmed. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, filmed under the moronic title of The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, once again ignores continuity, with another surprisingly good-looking young man, played by Matthew McConaughey with a screwy robotic leg, leading the clan, whose family name is now Slaughter (ridiculous). It’s all pretty generic until the finale, which reveals that the Slaughter clan are employed by the Illuminati, who run the government, planned the JFK assassination, and were apparently responsible for the events of the film. Apparently, true terror leads to spiritual enlightenment, but in this case it turned out horrible*. The Illuminati’s representative Rothman, who may not be human, rescues final girl Renée Zellweger and apologises for the horrible experience he put her through. Henkel was apparently interested in further exploring the conspiracy-theory symbolism he wove so subtly into the first movie, but this may be taking things a bit far. If it’s intended as meta-commentary, the only discernible message is “Sorry this film turned out a bit shit”. It languished on a shelf for two years until Columbia cashed in on the sudden stardom of McConaughey and Zellweger by finally releasing it, causing a minor stir when McConaughey’s camp attempted to prevent its release, not unreasonably fearing embarassment by the association.

And after that point, we got three generic Chainsaws and then Leatherface. While Leatherface avoids pandering by paying homage to every famous moment of the original, it still mixes ideas from all of its predecessors into its formula. As is so often the case with these long-running film franchises, it feels like a kind of Pop Cultural Osmosis has gone on, whereby the formula becomes a bastardised version of the original, supplemented with small parts and ideas from each of its successors. But Leatherface actually tries to do something new with that formula. In that respect it reminded me of Psycho II, which might be the most commendable sequel ever made, and it similarly managed to work a mystery that familiarity with the original didn’t give away; it’s not until the film’s final act that we’re sure which of our main characters is actually going to grow up to become Leatherface. If directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo are to be believed, they even toyed with making a female character become Leatherface, which would retroactively have made the Leatherface of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Texas Chainsaw 3D female also. Now that’s daring.

*Says Henkel: “Of course, it does produce a transcendent experience. Death is like that. But no good comes of it. You’re tortured and tormented, and get the crap scared out of you, and then you die”. Er, yeah.