The Inside View is a tabloid all about blood, gore and Fortean stories that is mentioned in several Stephen King stories, like Desperation, Insomnia, The Waste Land, Bag of Bones, Needful Things and Doctor Sleep. In The Night Flier, cynical reporter Richard Dees (the superb and sadly deceased Miguel Ferrer) is the senior reporter for that rag, on the hunt for the titular killer.

The Night Flier is a serial killer who uses a Cessna Skymaster to travel to small airports, where he kills people as if he were a vampire. A pilot himself, Dees follows him to Wilmington International Airport, where in the midst of a violent storm he learns that he’s really after a vampire.

This is no modern vampire. It’s a horrifying creature that looks more beast than man. When he comes to face to face with the monster, it destroys his evidence and leaves him at the crime scene where he’s killed by the police.

Reporting on it all is Dees’ would-be apprentice/rival, Katherine Blair. He abuses her with his language, telling her his rules of reporting and continually judges her. She survives to report on his death, which becomes the front cover of the newest edition of “Inside View.”

The Night Flier movie is the nexus for several King stories and is packed with references. In a scene where Katherine looks at some of Richard’s most famous headlines, they all refer to past King tales: “Kiddie Cultists in Kansas Worship Creepy Voodoo God!” is Children of the Corn, “Satanic Shopkeeper Sells Gory Goodies!” is Needful Things, “Naked Demons Levelled My Lawn” is The Lawnmower Man and “The Ultimate Killer Diet! Gypsy Curse Flays Fat Lawyer’s Flesh” is Thinner.

The character of Dees also appears in the book version of The Dead Zone, as he attempts to interview protagonist Johnny Smith for Inside View. Additionally, the vampire in the tale “Popsy” is also the same one from this story.

The Night Flier depends on Ferrer’s performance, which he aptly delivers. It’s an interesting film and one worthy of watching.

Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat video game, calls this the “worst moment” in the history of the franchise. Coming from someone who loved the original film and has played every one of the games, I agree.

Christopher Lambert was seen as one of the highlights of the last film. He’s gone, replaced by James Remar (The Warriors). I always dislike whitewashing in movies, but Lambert was so game in his scenes and such an integral part of getting the last film made (Lambert’s great attitude calmed director Paul W. S. Anderson as he worked on his first big movie. While the highest salary in the film, he paid his own way to go to Thailand and do all of his own scenes for basically free there, just to ensure the movie looked better. Plus, he paid for the wrap party.) that this feels like a major loss.

In fact, only Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Kitana (Talisa Soto) are played by the same actors from the previous film. Robin Cooke, who played Reptile, plays Sub Zero here, with that fighter gaining a much larger role.

Did you like Johnny Cage last time? Lots of people did. Bad news — he’s killed seconds into this new film to get over new bad guy Shao Khan. He’s opened a portal from Outrealm to Earth (hey wait — didn’t we just fight a tournament to stop that from happening?) and has brought back his queen (and Kitana’s mother) Sindel back from the dead.

Sonya Blade (now played by Sandra Hess, who played the cave girl in Encino Man) brings in her partner Jax and they immediately battle Cyrax and Mileena. Then there’s Nightwolf (played by Litefoot, the Native American who also portrayed Little Bear in The Indian in the Cupboard), a shaman who will guide Liu Kang and Kitana toward defeating Shao Khan. Another fight against Smoke and Scorpion, with the help of Sub Zero, happens and Kitana gets kidnapped.

Raiden meets with the Edger Gods, who don’t really give any answers. I have several questions for them. Like, why are we fighting Shao Khan when we won a tournament to stop things like this from happening? And why is there a fight every ten seconds instead of character development like the first film? Or why didn’t you bring back the actors we liked in these roles? And why doesn’t the “Toasty!” guy show up?

Nightwolf makes Liu Kang pass several trials to gain the power of Animality, which allows him to shapeshift into a new form. He must pass the self-esteem and focus trial. The trial of temptation, where Jade tries to get in his karate pants. And there’s a third test, but we never get to it!  One assumes that he passes it, as we’ll see in the finale.

Raiden gives up his immortality to fight for Earth, which means that he needs to cut off his hair. Jade is a double agent and while the good guys rescue Kitana, they still face tough odds. Raiden reveals that Shao Khan is his brother and their father, Shinook, is favoring his evil sibling. After a big battle, Raiden is killed at the hands of that very same brother.

Another lengthy fight sequence happens, with Motaro, Ermac, Sindel and even Noob Saibot all showing up.

Liu Kang then shows what an Animality is by turning into a poorly rendered dragon in a scene that makes this movie seem more dated than the 1995 original. Luckily, the Elder Gods discover the shenanigans afoot and declare another round of Mortal Kombat.

Aren’t you glad we have Liu Kang on our side? He defeats Shao Kahn and allows Raiden to return as the Earth realm wins again.

Director John R. Leonetti would go on to be the cinematographer for The Scorpion King, I Know Who Killed Me, The Conjuring and The Insidious series before directing Annabelle and Wish Upon. He’s done great work in those films, but this film feels so much cheaper than the original. It’s weird, because that film succeeded because it transcended it’s junk food origins while the sequel just piles way too much on.

Original directed Paul W.S. Anderson decided to do Event Horizon instead of this film. He hated the results and that’s why he’s stayed close to the Resident Evil franchise throughout its sequels.

It’s hard to hate a movie where alien monsters battle ninjas, so if you accept this one as goofy chop socky fun, it’s fine. But when compared to the original — and with the rich mythology of the Mortal Kombat video games at its fingertips — this one really suffers. There have been rumors of a franchise reboot for years, including two online series. Here’s hoping the next one recaptures the first film’s magic.

Serial killer Jack Frost has killed thirty-eight people and was only caught due to the bravery of Sherrif Sam Tiler. As his state execution transfer vehicle passes through Tiler’s hometown of Snowmonton, Frost escapes by killing his guard and crashing into a genetic research truck. Chemicals from the accident cause him to melt and become one with the snow.

Reports of a snowman killing people soon follow. And soon, the FBI sends Agents Manners and Stone to help get rid of the creature. That said, Jack Frost is on a spree, wiping out kids, their parents, cops and more. He even rapes and kills Jill, (Shannon Elizabeth, before American Pie) the daughter of an entire family that has been killed by Frost.

So here’s where things get crazy: the chemicals that transformed Frost were to be used to contain DNA in the case of a nuclear holocaust. He goes through every trap and wipes out most of the police, but oatmeal with antifreeze in it proves to be his kryptonite. Yep. I just wrote that sentence.

This is one of those movies where the killer keeps coming back. And back. And back. It even ends with a reveal that Jack is still alive. To top that, the film was shot in seventy-degree weather, meaning that the majority of the snow and ice you’ll see is fake.

Did you ever want Frosty to finally get upset and flip out on everyone who got in his way? Then this is about as close as you’re going to get. If you want to see it for yourself, Diabolik DVD has this in stock and you can always watch it on Shudder!

There was a time when comic books were not celebrated. When only the disenfranchised cared or knew about them instead of the mainstream. And in those ancient times — let’s call them 1992 — no news was bigger than when Marvel’s biggest creators left en masse to form Image Comics. At the time, these artists were derided as style over substance. Many of them weren’t known for hitting their deadlines. Or even how to draw feet properly. But one of them — Todd McFarlane —  took the opportunities that his new home presented and made the most of them, creating his signature character: Spawn.

Spawn is everything that McFarlane loved to draw: a muscular hero covered in spandex, chains and a cape that seems to be way longer than it should be. It was an instant hit, giving birth to a toyline, an HBO animated series (which still holds up) and finally, this movie.

Al Simmons (Michael Jai White, playing one of the first African-American superhero to be a movie lead, as this movie and Shaw’s Steel came out at the same time) is a black ops soldier assigned to a mission to investigate a North Korean biochemical weapons site. But he’s been set up by his boss, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen) and is killed by Jessica Priest, Wynn’s new top assassin. After being set on fire, he winds up in Hell, where Malebolgia offers him a deal. If Simmons will lead his armies to Heaven’s gate, he can see his true love, Wanda, one more time.

You know how those deals with demons work. They’re rarely fair. When he returns to Earth, Simmons learns that Wanda is now married to his best friend Terry(D.B. Sweeney, Fire in the Sky, The Cutting Edge), who is raising his daughter, Cyan.

Malebolgia sends one of his demons, Violator (John Leguizamo), to mentor Simmons. But there’s also Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson, The Exorcist III), who also sold his soul to become a Hellspawn but who has found his way to Heaven.

Meanwhile, Simmons becomes Spawn and attacks Wynn, now a powerful arms dealer. He easily defeats his killer, Jessica, and escapes an attack by an army of mercenaries thanks to his new powers.

Violator — who either appears as a clown or an Alien-esque demon — gets Wynn to add a device to his heart that will release Heat 16, a biochemical superweapon, if he dies. Malebolgia wants Simmons to kill Wynn and start the end of the world. But Violator has his own agenda and nearly kills our hero before Cagliostro saves him. As he learns how to use his powers just as he also learns that Wynn plans on killing everyone he loves.

What follows is a battle on our earth and in Hell, where Spawn denies his contract with the Devil, bests Violator and returns to our reality, ready for the sequel which never came.

Spawn is very of its time, a film packed with early CGI (nearly half of its effects were unfinished until two weeks before it was released) and a soundtrack that mixes techno with hard rock and metal (the Atari Teenage Riot/Slayer mashup “No Remorse” is a highlight). It’s a decent enough film but is a sanitized version of the chaos inside every panel of the Spawn comic. It just feels like something is missing. There’s no real heart in the film, nor any real threat to our hero.

After years of talk of a sequel, McFarlane announced a new Spawn adaptation in 2015, with the goal of the creator writing the script and directing. In July of this year, it was confirmed that this was true, with the film being produced by Blumhouse. Here’s hoping for something great.

It’s hard to find a movie as critically reviled and universally despised as Batman and Robin. But I was going into this with an open mind. I hadn’t seen the film in twenty years, since seeing it on opening night. I must have blocked the film out of my mind with some PTSD-like fight or flight response. It worked — I’ve filed so much of this movie away in a “DO NOT OPEN” file.

But it can’t be that bad, can it? Keep an open mind, I said. It’s been twenty years. Maybe it improved with age.

That open mind lasted around twenty seconds of enduring fetish-like, slow motion crawls up the rubberized bodies of Batman and Robin. Pomp and circumstance and flexing abounded, punctuated only by the plaintive voice of Robin, who must be in his twenties, begging for the Batmobile, because “chicks dig the car.” Batman’s response, “This is why Superman works alone,” can either be seen as a horribly throwaway joke. Or it can be an admission that the DC multiverse exists within this film.

But let’s rewind. There once was a time, back when the phone rang and you had no idea who was on the other line, when there were no comic book movies. You had to hunt for them — sure, there was Superman, but even Marvel’s best heroes barely registered anything more than a Saturday morning cartoon or a bad cover version, like the CBS Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and Captain America (starring Yor, Hunter from the Future’s Reb Brown!) movies. In fact, 1988 had just one comic book movie made: TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns. As a good friend of mine has commented many times, we had to take what we could get.

In 1989, we finally got something we could call our own: Tim Burton’s Batman. But not everyone was happy. I was a regular subscriber to the Comics Buyer’s Guide, and the outcry over Michael Keaton being cast was a cacophony. If Twitter had existed then, I doubt the movie would have ever been made. Luckily, audiences were wowed by a Batman that wasn’t the 1960s pop art Adam West they had known before. Batman was dark, moody and dangerous — in effect, he was everything that comic book fans loved.

Looking back, there’s a lot to poke holes at in the first Burton Bat films. Batman takes his mask off at the drop of a hat, generally in front of his greatest enemies. Jack Nicholson is the real star of the show. And how did we ever all Batdance to happen? That said — there’s a lot to love, too. The second film. Batman Returns, expands Batman’s rogue’s gallery while also having him take his mask off in front of an enemy. But again — good to great film, with nothing to be embarrassed about.

1995’s Batman Forever exchanged Keaton for Val Kilmer and Tim Burton turned the director’s chair over to Joel Schumacher to not-so-satisfying results, thanks to a muddled plot, too many villains, Jim Carrey’s incessant and inane mugging for the camera and after setting up Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, Two-Face ended up being played by Tommy Lee Jones (who, to his credit, once told Carry, “I hate you. I really don’t like you … I cannot sanction your buffoonery.”). But hey — “A Kiss from a Rose” is in it! And H.R. Giger designed a Batmobile for it that was never used — but it would have improved the film a hundredfold!

That brings us full circle back to Batman and Robin. This is a movie that clubs you over the head with subtext. Before we even leave the cave, we know that Robin and Batman have issues and Alfred doesn’t just have a cold…the man is dying! But there’s no time for that — there’s a new villain in town named Mr. Freeze, who is Arnold Schwarzenegger painted blue and wearing armor. If you happened to love Arnold’s one liners in other films, good news! Every single line from him in this movie is a one liner, screamed and snarled, shouted and smiled. It’s all peaks and no valleys, like a Slayer album with no lyrics or drums, just atonal guitar solos. Someone on IMDB was kind enough to count how many ice-related puns Arnold makes in the film — 27 to be exact.

There are no fight scenes in this film. Oh, there and fight scenes. But no one really fights, they just slide toward one another and dance around and even play hockey. Yes, for some reason, Batman and Robin have ice skates in their costumes. The film feels like a series of Rob Liefeld panels brought to terrifying life — cocks in your face, muscles pulsating, teeth gritting. The big fight between Batman and Mr. Freeze is as simple as Batman flying at Freeze’s vehicle, SMASH CUT, Batman’s cape is lifted to reveal a knocked out Freeze. Perhaps we’d have to liked to have seen this battle!

There’s no dialogue in Akiva Goldsman’s script — merely diatribes and camp asides — and his is from the man who won an Oscar in 2001 for A Beautiful Mind. This points at one of the most upsetting things about this film — it felt like we, as comic book fans, had clawed our way into the multiplexes and wanted people to know that the books we loved weren’t just filled with bright colors and words like POW, ZAP and BAM! There were three-dimensional characters on the flat page that we lived and died with. Only Burton had gotten close and now, we were slip sliding back into camp.

To wit — Bane, who in the pages of DC Comics had broken Bruce Wayne’s back and given him one of his few lasting defeats. In the comics, Bane was raised in a prison, serving the sentences his father died too soon to serve. He’s as smart as Batman, yet a stronger, more cunning and better fighter. In this film, he’s a scrawny prisoner who is transformed by Venom into a gigantic brain damaged buffoon, played by pro wrestler Jeep Swensen (who would go on to be called The Ultimate Solution in WCW, one of the most ill-advised nicknames, well, ever).

There’s also no shortage of characters to try and take in. There’s Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy, who looks great, but is the Mae West of supervillains in the film. She takes particular delight in playing Batman against Robin, who argue as if they were a couple and not father and adoptive son (according to George Clooney, this was no accident). There’s Alicia Silverstone, who shows up in one of her Aerosmith video costumes. She becomes Batgirl, getting a skintight, rubber butted costume of her very own. And oh yeah Alfred is dying, remember? Oh yeah, there’s Vivica A. Fox as Ms. B. Haven in just one scene that makes no sense! There’s a Jesse Ventura cameo! Oh! There’s Gremlins 2’s John Glover as Dr. Jason Woodrue (who comic fans would know as The Floronic Man) for about two seconds! It’s an onslaught of characters that do nothing but shout at you!

I’m not one to pooh pooh day glo comic book fun — Flash Gordon and the aforementioned Danger: Diabolik are two of my favorite films of all time. But they had heart and artistry beating beneath their multi-hued surfaces. This film is a paean to Happy Meals and toy tie-ins (I had the Mr. Freeze, which looked nothing like Arnold). I can apply the same insult to this film that I gave to the cinematic turd known as Sucker Punch: it’s about as much fun as watching one of your friends beat a video game.

As this was being filmed, Warner Brothers was so impressed with what they saw, they started thinking about a fourth installment, Batman Unchained. The plot was to have featured the Scarecrow (Howard Stern was rumored to be cast in the role) bringing Jack Nicholson’s Joker back to life, at least inside Batman’s brain. Harley Quinn, now the Joker’s daughter, was also to be in this film. There was even talk of a Nightwing spinoff. But critical savaging and poor returns scuttled any  sequels or spinoffs, as well as other attempts at adapting Batman Beyond, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One (Darren Aronofsky was to direct).

It wasn’t until Chris Nolan came on board that Batman would finally return to Hollywood. This is the movie that, to quote Clooney himself, “killed the franchise.” It did more than that. It killed comic book movies, until Blade and X-Men showed that serious comic films could draw a mainstream audience. This is a film that will leave you with so many questions: What kind of God would make life so simple — and painful at the same time — by giving Alfred the same disease that struck Mr. Freeze’s wife, sending him on the path to evil? Why is Elle Macpherson in this movie (Most of her scenes were cut, including her being killed by Poison Ivy)? Did Arnold really get $25 million to just laugh his ass off and smoke a cigar while wearing blueface? Will we see more of those Batnipples? How awesome of a song is R. Kelly’s “Gotham City?” Where the fuck did Batman get a Bat Credit Card from? Why is there a scene packed with gangs ala The Warriors, including a bunch of droogs and Coolio of all people (and Corey Haim as a biker)? And most importantly, how much time is left in the film, because it seems like every minute is an hour and every hour is a decade?

This film also held back the careers of Alicia Silverstone and Chris O’Donnell, nearly making the latter disappear. It also hurt Joel Schumacher — but that’s just justice, Gotham style — who didn’t direct another film until 1999’s 8MM.

I wish that I could find some joy in this film beyond making fun of it. But the best allegory I can find for it is a very true story. It took forever to take off the complicated Batman suit, so George Clooney would just piss inside it  — on more than one occasion. That says just about all you can say about Batman and Robin.

This article originally was posted at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/looking-back-batman-robin-1997/