Staying Alive (1983)

Oh, boy, where do we begin with Staying Alive. This is the sequel to the wildly popular Saturday Night Fever, a story about Tony Manero, an Italian-American dude from New York when it was still deliciously dirty, trying to hustle his way through life during the day and lives his dreams at night doing the thing he’s best at - cruising chicks and disco dancing. This continuation is yet another price of fame movie, but really more like the price of mediocrity and showing off for your Ma.

So this movie starts right away with 80s music, leotards and extreme dancing! MONTAGE! Everyone is just dancing and sweating and auditioning sooooo hard. Tony Manero is no longer disco dancing, nope he’s gone legits, and he wants to be on Broadway! He wiggles his pelvis and eye fucks every woman insight. His oblivious girlfriend is also auditioning. They’re having a good time and going for it together, meanwhile he’s making it with every girl that glances in his direction. All of the actors are really full on dancing - no body doubles here. The dance moves are completely ridiculous. And it’s only the first five minutes!

We get another immediate MONTAGE! We see Tony juggling his jobs as a dance teacher and as a fancy waiter. We also get a Sly Stallone cameo as Tony is bouncing from one place to another. They look back at each other and give this strange look. As if Sly is silently saying, do you know how bad I’m about to damage our careers? So, so badly.  

So we see that Tony lives in a teeny room in a boarding house. He shares a phone with the residents. He owns like 2 or 3 outfits and washes his clothes in the shower with him, we don’t really see him eat or drink much. We get the impression that he’s suppose to be ripped muscle wise. I guess he’s kinda ripped? Ripped for John Travolta, anyway. Director and co-writer Sly Stallone was training him for the role - in which, according to the script, he was supposed to be really big, like super hero muscular. Nope.

At this point the fellas and I are 27 minutes into the movie and we are on our FOURTH MOVIE MONTAGE! I feel like my brain might explode with the leotardedness of it all. Suddenly, Tony finally nails an audition! You’d almost be excited for him if he wasn’t such a jerk. He goes and calls the only connection to the first movie we’ve seen, his mama. He’s so excited, he tells her he got a real job on Broadway -  and she automatically assumes it’s stripping! He sputters like the Tony we remember and tells her it’s a real show and he’s gonna spend a whole $27 on her ticket!

Tony starts striking it up with the limo driven prima starlet of his new Broadway show, Satan’s Alley. They have this weird competitive love hate thing going on right from the jump. Played by Finola Hughes, she makes it clear that Tony isn’t good enough for her or the show, and she matches his narcism and cunning. Tony flaunts his relationship with Finola right in front of Cynthia Rhodes - his girlfriend, and then denies, denies, denies when she asks him what’s up with that girl. It almost becomes a battle between the two ladies over him. Why? Who knows! He’s a total slime bucket!

Eventually they both are over it and quarrel with him, Cynthia is moving on to her musician band mate, Frank Stallone and Finola to pretty much any man she wants, leaving Tony to go on a I have a sad weiner walk, and trip that leads him back home at his mother’s house. Even she doesn’t want him there! When she asks why he came, he apologizes for being a jerk all of his life and so full of attitude. Apparently, it took women not wanting to bang him anymore to come to that conclusion. His mother tells him not to apologize, he must have been doing something right, because attitude got him out of that neighborhood. (And into living in a boarding house?) To which he responds:

“So what you’re sayin’ is I’ve always been this bastard, but it’s alright, because like - it comes naturally to me.” And then she says “Something like that… Yeah. YEAH. Double yeah!”

Like what you’re sayin’ is I don’t need any redemption as a piece of shit human right? Yeah. Double yeah!

So Tony heads back home with a new attitude, sort of, and he wants Cynthia Rhodes back. You know what that means? Another mutha fuckin MONTAGE! So they have a weird love dance montage that signifies their back together and she’s totes going to dump Frank Stallone, even though he doesn’t cheat on her and treat her as second best. Because love? I guess.

Now it’s time to kick some ass as everyone is getting ready for the opening of Satan’s Asshole, oh I mean ALLEY, Satan’s Alley. Finola and Tony are dancing to a song that just randomly yells the words DANCE! And FIRE! Over an electronic drum beat. Oooh, arty guys. Tony has a little I’m the star meltdown.The director explodes at him and says everything you’re thinking - that his dick and his narcism are ruining everything and if he wants to be a star to stop being such an asshole and focus on the SHOW. Like yes!!! FINALLY! Someone is saying something intelligent and Tony has an actual consequence of his behavior! But that feeling won’t last for long! Cause we’ve got a getting the show ready MONTAGE!

We are literally up to 6 or 7 montages now. I’ve lost track and they’re all becoming one big blur. My guess is the script was like 30 pages because every few pages it just says like 8 lines and then [ poorly executed dance montage ].

At long last, we finally get to see Satan’s Alley - and it is one spectacular shined up turd. There is so much dry ice, it takes a minute to clear enough to see anyone. At first view, it feels like watching an insane S&M zombie musical, but instead of zombies it’s very sweaty, oiled up glistening people. They use every chance they get to show off Travolta shirtless, shiny and in a loincloth. If you’re into moist men, it could be sexy, I guess. Just don’t let his skin touch any of your fabrics. Now that’s a stain!

Things go super cuckoo bananas as the show kicks into high gear and becomes an almost exact replica of Goddess’s S&M number in Showgirls.(Or other way around, but I refuse to think Showgirls stole anything.) Except instead we get Travolta battling Finola Hughes for control and stardom, live and on stage! His ego monster emerges as he tries to end the number by planting a kiss on her. Angry and embarrassed she literally tries to scratch his eye out just narrowly missing, and runs off stage. Everyone yells at him for improvising and assholing off again. His girlfriend also sees this and is none too pleased. I mean the Love Montage was only 2 montages ago guys. Sad face!

We get another MONTAGE! This time on stage, and it’s all just kicky, arty jumps and leaps. At the end of the show, Tony leaps onto a giant disc like he’s in Cats. Every character gets a shocked face shot yelling something like OMG What’s he doing! Finola Hughes freezes, panics and is like oh no what do I do? Literally, everyone on stage is telling her to jump on the disc thing too. She acts like she has no clue how to jump and then suddenly leaps up and Travolta does a Dirty Dancing style lift, but as a one handed hold that is probably going to hurt like Hell in the morning. (Weirdly enough, Patrick Swayze is a background dancer in a few of these scenes. Shit are we talking about stealing again?) Tony is grunting and dripping sweat everywhere. Everyone wildly applauds, his mama cries, and now they’re both big stars. Cynthia Rhodes even pretends that kiss with Finola never happened and cries as well.

When the show is over Tony tells Cynthia Rhodes he wants to start over and be with her. He kisses her, while creepily staring at Finola Hughes. Cynthia gets all happy for no reason and says like OMG Tony, you’re like a big bright shining star. What do you want to do now? What do you think he wants to do? Nope, not cheat on you AGAIN with Finola Hughes... yet!

He wants to strut! And cue those beautiful Bee Gees! He literally leaves Cynthia Rhodes in an alley and struts through Manhattan alone. THE END!

Perhaps you thought this soundtrack would be dominated by the Bee Gees once more, well it sort of is. They are less than half of the music on the soundtrack. But the real domination is the sounds of Frank Stallone. Here’s an interesting Plissken fact, Ty Burger-ler is a HUGE Frank Stallone fan! Not just for his acting - but for his sweet sweet jams! He had never seen Staying Alive before we reviewed it  But I remember back in the day, when we all worked as lowly video store employees, Ty would sneak Frank Stallone albums into the store rotation. Well, Ty must have been elated with joy, because Frank Stallone has no less than TWENTY vanity credits in this movie!

I’d also like to mention, I think Finola Hughes knows exactly what movie she is in. In fact this movie flung her right into soap opera stardom, where she has stayed for, a few decades now, serving time on both All My Children and General Hospital. We’ll actually be discussing her very first movie - The Apple, in a future Plissken review. (Geez, no wonder she was banished to the soap opera Forbidden Zone.)

If you want to blame someone for this dry ice, glittered up mess, you can blame John Travolta directly. For a while, Travolta had no intention of doing a Saturday Night Fever sequel. He even turned down $10 million dollars to revive his role. But while on a vacation he saw Rocky III, and was so impressed, he said he’d do a part two, if they got Sly Stallone to write and direct.  

At the end of the day, this is a movie made, almost completely, of montages! It’s about a piece of shit character, who attempts to redeem himself, but doesn’t really learn all that much. Maybe possibly, he learned to keep his dick in his pants, but that’s doubtful. I’m sure he’ll be back to being that unlovable asshole in no time! Just another tale of unlikable characters that destroyed an entire movie with dance.

TY - 3 Plisskens MATT - 2 Plisskens JILL - 3 ½  Plisskens

References:

Staying Alive Movie Review with Michael Medved - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAJJyEaBWs8

Staying Alive - So Bad But So Good -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrViNBUtwY

BONUS! Monday Mini-Review - Alien 3000 (2004)

One of the worst movies the Plisskens have seen yet, Alien 3000 is just a steaming trash pile. Find out why!

The first big moment of the movie starts with a  CGI dirt landslide - it literally just suffocates you with horrible, annoying screaming and bickering characters. It sets a precedence for awful editing and effects.

On top of this, the viewer is assaulted with a bait and switch with our stars. Hey, “Renegade” Lorenzo Lamas and Priscilla Barnes are in it, can’t be all that bad. Well - they are barely in it! You literally can’t see them anywhere. When you do, they’re mostly shrouded in darkness by the bad lighting. Poor Priscilla Barnes gets close-ups in the dark with the only light in the shot highlighting her wrinkles. Also, a surprising appearance by Scott Schwartz, who you may remember as the child star from The Toy, who later did some porn. He should…. maybe reconsider going back to adult entertainment…..

Once you realize you can’t see them and you have to watch a gaggle of lame Predator knock-off characters, you’ll want to shut this off immediately. Get off our screen!

The final insult - turns out that Alien 3000 isn’t a stand-alone movie. It always has a feel like you’re missing something. Or details have been omitted that explains more about who everyone is. Turns out the original title is Unseen Evil 2. It's A FUCKING SEQUEL! It was renamed, most likely because they didn’t make any money the first time around.

This should have been called Avoid 3000.

Mahogany (1975)

Get ready for a cocaine-addled ride through 70’s fashion! I made the Plisskens watch Mahogany, a movie so embarrassing, Sweet Matty could barely look at the screen.

We open to the world’s most ridiculous fashion show. Very reminiscent of our last review, Gentlemen Broncos. It’s all different kinds of kimonos. Floral kimonos, bathrobe kimonos, space kimonos, punk kimonos, racist kimonos, everything, all of it. A sad and exhausted Diana Ross comes out on the runway and everyone is floored. You think they’re thinking the same thing - what in the Hell was THAT!?! But instead one, I guess important Italian dude, stands up and gives her an ovation. Then the whole room stands up and applauds. Applauds the house down like it was the most amazing shit on planet earth.

AND FLASHBACK! - We see 1970s NYC, the hipster parts of Brooklyn looked like a bombed out warzone and was the bad part of New York. We meet Tracy, as played by Ms. Diana Ross, a  young woman living in one of these run down Brooklyn neighborhoods. She goes to school at night for fashion and works as an assistant during the day for a major department store and fashion warehouse. Her boss is an old uptight white bitch that treats her with slave mentality, and tells her if she wants to keep her job, quit going to that stupid school at night to better herself. Sheesh!

Tracy also loves practical jokes. she meets the handsome Billy Dee Williams, a take charge kind of man from her neighborhood who aspires to make it a better place for his community and is running for alderman. Instead of helping his cause, she decides to cause a little trouble, and for some weird reason - pours milk into his bullhorn so when he picks it up, the milk pours all over him and he’s an old milk face. He assumes it’s one of the construction worker white guys that’s been hassling him and a huge fight breaks out. Instead of show any concern, Tracy laughs her ass off and waves around her ½ gallon of milk like it’s a 5th of bourbon while saying oooohhh ohh woooo oooh oohh like this is exactly what she thought would happen and it’s hilarious. It’s not.

Billy Dee gets arrested and Tracy feels guilty so she bails him out. When he tries to thank her and asks her out, she tells him leave the bail money in her mailbox and fuck off…. but after a weird role playing scenario where Tracy stands in the welfare line saying hey - you gonna get me my old man back? How about that? All the while Billie is trying to speak to and help the people. For some movie trope romance of a reason, they go on a date anyway. I guess Billie Dee is into assholes.

We also meet another important character early on in this flick. It’s a character that stays with us throughout the film and just gets bigger and more over the top in every scene. It’s Diana Ross’s face! Her crazy faces, teeth gritting and bugged out coke eyes dominate this movie like no other! In just about every scene her eyes are making the craziest faces perhaps ever on screen. It’s borderline disturbing. I asked the guys to do some research in the first 20 minutes because I was worried that Diana Ross had Graves’ Disease, a disease characterized by protruding, bugged out eyes, extreme weight loss, erratic behavior and a thyroid problem. (Wendy Williams has it for example.) From what we could find - She doesn’t have it. My guess is cocaine is Diana’s co-star, and it loooooooves the spotlight! Those faces are on a journey all their own.

Working at her shitty day job, Tracy is accidentally discovered by fashion photographer, Sean, played by Anthony Perkins. He sees Tracy and thinks she’s a model and is thrilled to have a woman of color to photograph. He begs her boss, the bitchy old racist white lady, to bring him 10 more like her. But she recoils and says “She’s no model! She’s my (gagged face) secretary!”

And just like that, Tracy is asked to model for real. They hold a weird photo shoot in the department store backroom the next day. Tracy wears one of her own designs, a giant creped sheer rainbow poncho that you simply need to see. It’s epic on many many levels. By the way ALL the costumes in the movie are designed by real life Diana Ross. So, enjoy that! They just get weirder and weirder until we get to a crescendo of the full bad kimono fashion show that are suppose to be her couture line…. They’re bathrobes guys. Big weird mildly racist bathrobes. NO.

Anyways, Sean / Anthony Perkins starts photographing Tracy and cocaine fueled magic happens. He names her Mahogany and a supermodel is born! Anthony P. also asks Mahogany to assist him on his next shoot, which is held at a rundown building in her neighborhood. Mahogany is having the time of her life moving around models and pulling neighbors from the crowd to be in the shoot. Naturally, Billie Dee shows up and is like, uh, what’s this all about? She tells him as she is pulling what looks like a homeless woman from the crowd to put in the foreground of the shot. Billie Dee snarkily asks, what’s she getting paid? Is she being paid the same as these models? Diana says no pay, they are getting to be in this shoot! It’s art! It’s exciting! Billie Dee corrects her and says no, it’s exploitation. But Diana Mahogany thinks he’s just being a dick and doesn’t get fashion. It’s SHE that is dicks! And they seemingly agree to disagree.

Tracy and Billie Dee have a love montage and start dating. Magic happens there too and Tracy is soon singing made up campaign songs for her do-gooder boyfriend. You can tell by his face this is the point in the movie where he falls in love with her. Billie Dee expresses this with smiles and facial cues, and his overall presence, you know, acting! Diana chooses the Oh we are filming that subtle love scene today SNNNNOOORRRTTTTT sniff sniff, ok guys I’m in LOVEEEEEE!

As Mahogany’s star begins to rise, we start to see a change in her. She goes from a poor mean-spirited jerk to a rich mean-spirited asshole. Her lack of redeeming qualities is dwindling down from one (she bailed BDW out of jail after he gets arrested for a fight she caused) to ZERO. Ah, my favorite kind of storyline begins to emerge. The price of fame storyline, where the character is completely unlikable, yet everyone seems to love her and help her, while she acts like a raging bitch, then something awful happens and they walk away from celebrity. We have seen this story told a million times in a million different ways. Showgirls is another great example, or the classic - All About Eve, a quintessential example.

In this version, the beginning of the fame gone too far starts immediately. She becomes besties with Sean and they almost have some kind of sexual affair. Perkins whining that the rumors aren’t true and he’s going to PROVE he’s a real man and then instead lays at her tummy and snuggles while oddly touching her while she just lays there and takes it. Then, Mahogany throws a hissy fit on set when she is told she can’t wear her own line of fashions in the photo shoot they’ve already set up and paid people for. She has to wear the designer’s dresses, because well, the designer is the client, who is paying you, and that’s how fashion works. Instead of going like right - this is my JOB, her face goes from zero to 1000 and slaps Sean and rages off set, complaining when is it HER turn! Anthony Perkins creepily smiles. Here is the point where he goes from loving her to wanting to break her. Ok, Anthony, bring on the Psycho! And he DOES!

Mahogany forces her sad fashion designer debut, instead, at a charity fashion show in Italy she is modeling for, so that they can auction off the dress - for charity. Charity! She decides to NOT wear the money fetching designer dress that could help raise a bunch of money and instead wears her shit handmade dress and shoves it down everyone’s throat. Clearly, no one likes it. It is really…. Interesting… Anthony Perkins laughs and offers 5 lire, which is a dead currency, but I believe it’s the equivalent to like .02 cents? A rich dude feels bad for her (stop feeling bad for her!) and offers something like a couple million for it. GASP! And now she’s a goddamn fashion designer. Congratulations no one!

Now Anthony Perkins / Sean is super pissed. His bestie is out doing him, and he is not having IT. He throws a crazy swinging fashion party, which Mahogany brings her bf, Billie Dee to. He’s looking fly and seemingly having a good time until a drag queen tries to feed him dip from her fingers. Then he gets kind of weird. I don’t know if it’s gay panic or if he’s like dude, I’m not eating gross dip from your questionable fingers. Either way, Billie Dee is out of his element and he feels it. Anthony Perkins pops over to say a bitchy hello. Then we get a real treat with one of the weirdest scenes in the movie. As Perkins is showing him around the place, they stop in his special office full of photos of death and fear from real life war crimes and a very creepy Nazi gun, which Perkins pulls on him. He appears to be getting off on it. He and Billie Dee then do this weird sexual slow motion wrestle for the gun. Not slow motion as in a movie effect. Slow motion as in they seem to be moving in real time slo-mo and the scene lasts an uncomfortably long amount of time. You’re not sure if they’re going to kill each other, or get it on and it’s not a sexy tension. It’s very uncomfortable, but you can’t stop watching. As if trying to out face Diana Ross, Anthony Perkins begins to go all bug eyed and gritting his teeth. He opens his mouth to take gun barrel, when the gun doesn’t go off, he laughs and smiles.Then he starts to say over and over “Bye bye, fella.” It’s just weird!

When Billie Dee wants to peace out because Anthony Perkins was a tad too Psycho for him, Diana Tracy has a meltdown because she’s having a good time. Billie Dee angrily leaves the party and Tracy Mahogany has the fashion fabulous meltdown of the century! Ole crazy face starts stripping off her clothes and wig and begins to pour hot candle wax all over herself, which, let’s face it, just looks like jizz globs all over her. Great look for the Roman orgy.

Mahogany does the walk of shame back to her apartment where Billie Dee fumes, because now it’s morning and she’s still partying. She changes her kimono into a fresh new kimono and starts the fight of fights with BIllie Dee, which ends in the bitch don’t you know who I AM speech. Because she’s MAHOGANY! Everyone LOVES Mahogany! I’m a winner baby! And you’re just a loser! Loser, loser, loser. Boy, Bye. *glug glug glug*

Now Tracy Mahogany is back on a shoot with her old bestie / psycho frenemy. She’s pissy and tired. But Psycho Sean has a great idea to take modeling shots of Mahogany AS he drives a cool old sports car on the highway. Yup, sounds legit! Once behind the wheel, Psycho then reveals his real plan, to get pictures of fear and death of Mahogany! He’s going to take the pictures of her last moments. Just when you think this can’t get any more weird and campy, Diana’s face goes to max power and she shows him her max modeling skills as she pulls her own hair makes her most insane face of the film! It will make you laugh and simultaneously haunt your dreams. I had to check if I wet my pants, I laughed so hard at this weird wild shit.

Then CRASH! Anthony Perkins is dead NOT Diana Ross, and they quickly scurry to the end of the movie, realizing they’ve killed off their most interesting character.

For some reason the rich guy who bought Tracy Mahogany’s sad dress at the auction, must be feeling sad for her again, and gives her the investment capital that was burning a hole in his pocket. She hires some folks and starts her mediocre line. The bathrobe kimono line! She has her big amazing you’re a big bright shining star fashion show and we come back to the beginning of the movie.

After her great fashion success, Ms. Tracy, not Mahogany, is doing her ‘can you help me get my old man back’ line at Billie Dee’s campaign rally. Except this time, she’s serious, and it’s for real. We see this great romantic exchange between them and a great onscreen kiss to end the movie. At least the ending was good.

The breakdown:

The Best Part - Billie Dee Williams is still a smooth mother fucker, even amongst the scenery      chewing.

The Best Parts are the Worst Parts too!

• Diana Ross’s faces must be experienced to be believed.
• Insane 70s fashions
• Anthony Perkins is a different kind of Psycho

TY - 2 MATT - 2 JILLIAN - 3 1/2

Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls (2011)

Happy Valentine’s Day! We are celebrating the best we know how - with a really messed up love story, courtesy of Lifetime! We watched Salem Falls because it stars AJ Michalka - Lainey from the Goldbergs, and TV’s James Van Der Beek, who for a brief period was the star of several Lifetime movies. It was too ridiculously awesome to pass up! Bring on the… love?

The film opens to 3 teenage girls who’ve collectively read like one book on being Wiccan and now they are so totally witches. They spend a good chunk of this time while the opening credits roll, talking about how cool they are. And it is so totally not like a knock off of the Craft, because their witchcraft is real, because they totally live in Salem Falls, Mass. Because they’re like high school witches. And like no one knows. And like they’re super powerful because they are so totally like witches. Witches who do totally cool spells. They like, are totally going to get what they want. Because they did like spells for each of them to get like one cool thing they really, really want for themselves.

That cool thing is a totally grown middle aged man. And that man, is James Van Der Beek.

So the cool witches totally skipped school and are hanging out sipping milkshakes at the local diner while talking about how awesome their spells are and how they are so totally going to work. Lainey, oops, I mean Gillian, looks up to see a James Dean like James Van Der Beek, who plays Jack, pull up to the diner and walk in. Gillian is like you guys, my spell totally worked because Dawson just totally pulled up on his sex bike and he’s totally ready for me! The other girls are weirded out because her new crush is a grown up. But Gillian is, haha, spellbound, and walks up to James Dean Van Der Beek and starts checking him out hard and throwing sad innuendos his way, while the Beek is just like hello, who’s kid is this!?! And why is she macking on me so uncomfortably hard? Not interested! But who he is interested in is the weird lady who runs the diner that talks to her dead kid and makes her pancakes every day, Addie. Love connection!

Now Jack is  working at the diner as a busboy. And the diner lady, Addie, and he are definitely feeling those love vibes. The Beek doesn’t even seem to mind the dead kid thing, he finds it endearing. But then a cop walks in and he has been doing some serious digging. Turns out the reason why Van Der Beek is in town is because he just got out of jail….. for being a pedo! Oh no! While Gillian is in the next booth with her parents doing anything she can to get him to notice her, she hears the news and is elated. There’s a chance he’ll diddle her yet! She pockets the pedo info for future use, and goes home with her dad. Meanwhile Addie the diner lady is mad as hell, because she really liked JVDB and thought he was special. Why is he messing with those young girls?

So yada yada yada, in an awkward fight JVDB tells diner lady his story. That he was falsely accused of messing with a girl, didn’t occur to him to ask for ID. Low and behold it turned out she was 16 and she had ulterior motives of her own, and now he’s spending time in the slammer because no one believed him. But now he’s out trying to start over, but has to register as a sex offender and now the whole town is up in his business. Just as he is wrapping up his story and he and diner lady Addie are chill, guess who comes pulling up saying OMG Jack JVDB I need to totally talk to you, like right now. It’s Gillian the Teenage Witch! And boy does she like to make this shit look weird. Gillian has a fight with Jack, that seems suspiciously like a lovers quarrel and Addie goes apeshit. She’s weirded out and wonders, is Jack really a pedo?

So Gillian has now made it her life goal to fuck up Jack’s life. If he’s not going to slip her that sweet sweet Van Der D, then she’s going to frame him and send him back to jail. Because she is totally a witch, and a rich witch on top of it, and she gets what she wants. So Gillian and her totally cool witch friends decide to meet in the woods at night where they can get totally naked and do some rad spells. Meanwhile, Jack’s got a huge case of the sads because his girlfriend of like one day doesn’t believe he’s not into teenage girls. He saddles up right next to Addie’s alcoholic dad who also works at the diner. The Dad tells the Beek he’d better not break Addie’s heart, she’s been through too much already. Jack looks at him hard and says, well what if she breaks mine. Dad thinks for a minute, he says - if she breaks your heart, I’ll buy you a drink. Start buying Pops, because Jack is feeling plenty thirsty and sad!

Cut back to some skyclad teenage witches in the woods. Gillian’s latest spell is to bring Jack to her. Convinced that they belong together and she just needs a little help from magic. So the girls start working the spell and Gillian is way too into it. Crazy shit starts happening and the girls hear someone coming. Her witch friends are so ready to like put their clothes on and like leave. Suddenly a drunk Jack comes running through the woods and smashes straight into Gillian. They both fall on the ground. Gillian is still naked in the middle of the woods by the way. This is not looking good for the old JVDB.

After another refusal to get it on with her, Gillian tells everyone, including the police, that Jack touched her and is totally a pedophile. She uses her friends as false witnesses and suddenly there is a witch hunt for Jack (get it, haha!) Everyone except Addie thinks he’s a diddler.

Now here is where things get tricky. Please bare with us. And seriously, SPOILERS - there’s no turning back! Things for Gillian start to get out of control. Her friends are weirded out she would take things this far and are the only ones who know she’s full of shit. They’re ready to turn her crazy ass in. Gillian gets introspective and gothy and starts acting the part of a victim. Addie decides to take things into her own hands and confront Gillian to try and save Jack, her true love, of like what, a week? She goes to Gillian’s palatial estate where she is chilling with her Dad, who has been all kinds of crazy with the townsfolk since he heard his daughter was touched and is pretty much behind the lynch mob out to get Jack. Addie tells Gillian a story about when she was her age. She worked for the richest guy in town, which was Gilligan's dad. And he was a pompous ass who thought he owned everything, including her - since she worked for him. And that’s when Gillian’s Dad started raping Addie. AND that Addie knows he was probably raping Gillian, his own daughter, as well. WHAT!?! If you are sitting here reading this and saying what in the fuck? Where did that come from? Believe us, we know! All three of us Plisskens literally jumped up and started yelling at the tv. Nothing could have been so out of nowhere as this little detail.

Gillian breaks down and it turns out it’s all true. She leaves with Addie to go tell the police. Jack is cleared and lives happily ever after with Addie and the dead kid. The End.

This movie’s plot line seemed soooo slow and boring in the beginning, and then incredibly rushed at the end. I went on IMDB to see what the overall consensus was. Fans of the book seemed to find this film confusing and deplorable. Some stating that the movie changed a lot of the plot for what seemed like no reason. A lot of new things were inserted while key plot points were completely removed. Might make for why the pacing is so off. There is no build up to anything, very little foreshadowing and no character background let along development. You’re just suppose to know who is good, who is bad, and what motivates them without any details. It left me wondering if there were other movies, was this one in a series about this town and characters? But that would make way too much sense! There are other movies based on Jodi Picoult’s books, but they are not a series.

On the other end of the spectrum, this is a Lifetime Movie. So you know there will be camp value, and something shocking to exploit. If you can make it to the end, it is worth the wtf factor. If not, I am pretty sure you can find the ending for this on YouTube. Just do that.

You can also catch this flick for free on Lifetime Movie Club this month.

The Breakdown:

The Best Parts:   - JVDB

The Worst Parts  - A poorly adapted script.

Ty - 2 Plisskens Jill - 3 Plisskens Matt - 2 Plisskens

References:

IMDB Salem Falls page - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2011218/

BONUS! Monday Mini-Post: Who the HELL are The Three Plisskens?

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, three immature people met and became friends at an archival video store, back when video stores were a nationwide thing. Everyone who worked there seemed to have a specialty genre that they knew exceptionally well. Together, their combined powers formed to create - THE THREE PLISSKENS!

Ty Comeuppance; aka Tyler Burger - specializes in the rare, low budget and straight to video / on-demand action movies. He also enjoys the career on the skids movies of actors that were once A-listers and have gradually fallen off the map, or are deeply underappreciated character actors.Ty sure loves seeing these guys “still getting work.” He has an incomparable eye for details when watching a movie for review. He also tends to catch onto technical errors faster than anyone else. He finds great moments of camp in the manliest of movies. Of the Three Plisskens, he’s probably the MOST Plissken.

You can also find Ty as part of the duo for the blog Comeuppance Reviews, written with his brother, Brett Comeuppance.

Sweet Matty; aka Dick Dangers - Matt loves movies on the edge of sci-fi, fantasy, action, and all reason. He enjoys the most traditional geekery and anything from a book by Stephen King or of the same genres listed above. Matt loves a movie so bad you can’t help but belly laughs at the buffoonery. Sweet Matty is also the quietest of the group, our personal Silent Bob Plissken, staying silent for most of our viewings, speaking only to come out with some of the best one-liners and observations ever. His natural humor and insight is essential to the Plisskens. This is Matt’s first experience as a blogger. Matthew is also happily married to our third Plissken.

Vintan Jillian; aka Jillian Lyons; aka ValleyVintageRetro - Jillian is our main writer, creator of The Three Plisskens (though the name came from Ty) and the only female Plissken of the group. Jillian specializes in the highest of camp, big-budget disasters, unintentional comedies, cult films, art house, everyday comedies, bad Lifetime movies, and trash yourself cinema. Movies like Glitter, Showgirls, and Valley of the Dolls make her heart sing. Anything from John Waters is her bread and butter. Jillian is a former professional blogger and ghostwriter and is also known for her online shops, ValleyVintage, and her online following.

Citizen Verdict (2003)

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