IN: Review: There's more to offer in the opening of The Odd Couple than in the entirety of most films. Felix Unger (the poor guy's monogram even curses him) checks into a New York hotel. A cleaning lady says "Good night." "Goodbye," he answers back. In his room he empties his pockets, then struggles to take off his wedding ring only to put the objects neatly into an envelope, addressed to his wife and beloved children. When the viewer finally puts it together aha, he's going to off himself we watch him struggle to open the window oh no, he's going to jump The poor guy injures his lower back. This is all you need to know about Felix Unger his wife has left him, he's a compulsive cleaner and he's a hypochondriac. And all in one scene. This is the particular genius of Neil Simon's comedy it's about situation and character. There are few obvious physical jokes no kicks to the groin, no cheap gags just funny characters in uncomfortable situations. And, of course, he is a master of manipulating the audience's expectations. Coming from the Swingers era, imagine what I thought in the date scene when Felix starts lamenting about the breakup of his marriage to the girls his roommate Oscar has worked so hard to get into his apartment. He's blowing it, right? Think again. The girls love his sensitivity, his ability to cry in front of them. They invite him back to their place since his meatloaf has burned because Oscar wasn't paying enough attention to it. He's in like Flynn, right? Uh, yes, but he doesn't want to go with the girls because he's feeling vulnerable. Great stuff. And it's made even greater with a style that minimizes editing and maximizes the wonderful eight-room apartment set. You've got Jack Lemmon and the slouchy, pouchy Walter Matthau for Chrissakes, why mess it up? The visual style reminded me of Breakfast at Tiffany's, in that great effect is made from a large depth of field and the interplay between the various planes of action. Particularly memorable is the scene in which Felix, fleeing from Oscar, closes a partition only to realize the partition doesn't cover the side where Oscar is coming from. You get a real sense of the layout of the apartment, and thus the proximity in which the two divorcees live. The twist here is that these two are really married to each other. So the observations about married life that might be ignored in an ordinary romantic comedy are made all the more poignant since they are two guys.
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: The movie opens with a flashback to Doddsville County High School on April Fool's Day. A group of students play a prank on class nerd Marty. When they are punished for playing said prank, they follow up with a bigger prank which (par for the course in slasher films involving pranks on class nerds) goes ridiculously awry leaving Marty simultaneously burned by fire and disfigured by acid for the sake of being thorough. Fast forward five years, where we find members of the student body gathering at the now abandoned high school for their five year class reunion. We find out that it is no coincidence that everyone at the reunion belonged to the clique of pranksters from the flashback scene, as all of the attendees are being stalked and killed by a mysterious, jester mask-clad murderer in increasingly complicated and mind-numbingly ludicrous fashions. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of the killer's identity, as it is revealed to be none other than a scarred Marty who has seemingly been using his nerd rage and high intellect to bend the laws of physics and engineering in order to rig the school for his revenge scenario. The film takes a turn for the bizarre as Marty finishes exacting his revenge on his former tormentors, only to be haunted by their ghosts. Marty is finally pushed fully over the edge and takes his own life. Finally, the film explodes in a crescendo of disjointed weirdness as the whole revenge scenario is revealed to be a dream in the first place as Marty wakes up in a hospital bed, breaks free of his restraints, stabs a nurse, and finally disfigures his own face.

The script is tired and suffers from a terminal case of horror movie logic. The only originality comes from the mind-numbingly convoluted ways that the victims are dispatched. The absurd it-was-all-a-dream ending feels tacked on. It's almost as if someone pointed out the disjointed nature of the film and the writer decided then and there that it was a dream.

Technically speaking, the film is atrocious. Some scenes were filmed so dark that I had to pause the film and play with the color on my television. The acting is sub-par, even for slasher films. I can't help but think that casting was a part of the problem as all of the actors look at least five years older than the characters they portray, which makes the flashback scene even more unintentionally laughable. Their lack of commitment to the movie is made obvious as half of them can't bother to keep their accents straight through the movie.

All of this being said, if you like bad horror movies, you might like this one, too. It isn't the worst film of the genre, but it's far from the best.
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OUT:
negative