Say what you will about its CGI today, but if we didn’t have 1998’s Blade, we may have no Marvel Cinematic Universe. Let me tell you, there was probably no cooler hero than Wesley Snipes at this point in time. Ah, it’s still pretty rad today.

New Line almost made this movie as a comedy, but after Snipes couldn’t get Black Panther made, he was able to get the main role in this one. To me, the best part of the film is the relationship between Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and Blade, but I’d still be interested to see what it would have been like if Patrick McGoohan or Marc Singer had taken the role.

As for the main bad guy, Deacon Frost, Jet Li, Mark Wahlberg and Skeet Ulrich were all up for the role, but it belongs to Stephen Dorff. You kind of have to respect a bad guy so evil that he keeps the hero’s mother a vampire for decades.

Actually, all of the vampires are great here, even in the minor roles for Donal Logue, Udo Kier (who has been in the vampire films Blood for Dracula, Spermula, Die Einsteiger, Modern Vampires, Shadow of the Vampire, Dracula 3000 and Bloodrayne) and Traci Lords. Director Stephen Norrington (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) was supposed to play Morbius the Living Vampire, but the part was cut.

N’Bushe Wright also makes a great partner for our hero as Dr. Karen Jenson, as she works to determine a cure for Blade’s vampirism. But hey — he’s the Daywalker. He pretty much will always be a vampire determined to kill all the others.

How cool is it that Marvel’s first big movie success came from a side character from the 1970’s Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan The Tomb of Dracula series? Sadly, while those creators got a “based on characters created by” credit, they didn’t make any extra money. Such is how comics has always screwed creators.

David Wechter (The Malibu Bikini Shop, Midnight Madness) and Bruce Kimmel (The Creature Wasn’t Nice) wrote their first draft of this film eight years before it was made. The success of Scream led to Miramax bringing Kevin Williamson on board to rewrite the dialogue and Robert Rodriguez to direct.

The result is a very hip for the 90’s remix of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that stars plenty of gorgeous teen actors like Elijah Wood, Usher, Josh Hartnett, Clea Duvall and Jordana Brewster.

The teachers are all taken over by the time the movie begins. Coach Joe (Robert Patrick), Miss Burke (Famke Janssen), Principal Drake (Bebe Neuwirth), Mrs. Olson (Piper Laurie), Mr. Fulong (Jon Stewart) and even Nurse Harper (Salma Hayek) are all soon transformed into the carriers of a “cephalopod-specific parasite called a mesozoan.”

Becca remembers that when this movie came out that it was part of a Tommy Hilfinger promotion, even featuring a character named Venus who was only in the commercials and the clothing promos. Whatever it takes to get your movie made.

There’s also a scene that’s a homage to Carpenter’s The Thing, but this time involving doing drugs. Another interesting thing is that each of the teens has a counterpart in The Breakfast Club. Stan (Shawn Hatosy) is Emilio Estevez’s jock character Andrew Clark, Delilah (Brewster) is Molly Ringwald’s Claire Standish, Zeke (Hartnett) is Judd Nelson’s John Bender, Stokes (DuVall) is Ally Sheedy’s Allison Reynolds and Casey is obviously Anthony Michael Hall’s Brian Johnson. So who is Marybeth (Laura Harris)? Do you want me to spoil the movie for you?

Of all the 90’s and 00’s sequels we’ve covered this week, I’d say the first two Urban Legend films were the best. Admittedly, that’s a low bar to trip over. But at their heart, they have more in common with the giallo than making fun of the formula of slashers.

I have a fondness for urban legends, as I was obsessed by the books of folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, from whom I learned that so many of the stories that came by way of a friend of a friend weren’t true and merely our way of moving legends of the past into the modern era.

This film was written by the late Silvio Horta, who was still working as a perfume spritzer at Nordstrom while he was trying to get into Hollywood. He’d eventually be the head writer and executive producer on Ugly Betty, the American version of the telenovela Yo Soy Betty, La Fea.

The film starts with the “The Killer In the Backseat” coming true as Michelle (Natasha Gregson Wagner) is murdered, despite the best efforts of a Brad Dourif cameo as he tries to warn her. While that’s happening, Paul (Jared Leto), Parker (Michael Rosenbaum),  Natalie (Alicia Witt) and Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart) are discussing a variant of the “Hatchet Man,” which in this movie is all about a series of murders that happened in their school’s Stanley Hall.

Michelle’s murder is quickly hushed up by Dean Adams (John Neville, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) and security officer Reese Wilson (Loretta Devine), Damon (Joshua Jackson) tries to console Natalie, who is disturbed by the murders, but after she rejects his attempt to aardvarking, he’s killed outside the car. All she knows is that he never comes back, just like “The Boyfriend’s Death.”

Danielle Harris shows up as Natalie’s roommate Tosh, who spends much of the movie flimp-flopping before she’s murdered and a note is left behind, which is “The Roommate’s Death.” That’s when Natalie tells Brenda that Michelle and she were once close, but caused an accident after driving without their headlights and chasing the first person who flashed their brights — a long-standing “gang initiation” urban legend. while that’s happening, Paul discovers that Stanley Hall was real and only one person survived: Professor Wexler (Robert Englund), who has already spoke about urban legends with the students, showing them how the Pop Rocks and soda story didn’t murder Little Mikey.

After “The Slasher Under the Car” takes out the dean — oh yes, I forgot “Bloody Mary” was used as well — we also get the “Love Rollercoaster” death story (as Tara Reid’s character Sasha is murdered while doing her radio show), “The Microwaved Pet” and stories of kidneys being stolen while their owner is still alive. By the end, the murders in this movie have taken on a life of their own and thus, become urban legend.

Director Jamie Blanks wanted to make I Know What You Did Last Summer that he directed a mock trailer for the project. After losing out, he made this film as well as Valentine, which is another very, very late to the game slasher that is way better than you’d think. He also made the remake of Long Weekend. It was scored by Christopher Young, who also did the music for The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Hellraiser, Trick or Treat, The Gift, The Grudge, Drag Me to Hell, Sinister and many more movies.

If the school in this movie looks familiar, that’s because it was also the setting for Killer Party. It’s the University of Toronto, in case you were wondering. If you look closely at the Latin motto of the school, it translates as “The Best Friend Did It,” which makes sense at the end of this movie, which has a well-done closing.

You can get this on blu ray from Shout! Factory.

Written by Trey Callaway instead of Kevin Williamson (who was busy with writing  Dawson’s Creek, The Faculty, Halloween H20 and Scream 3 while directing Teaching Mrs. Tingle), this sequel takes the survivors of the first film — Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) — and places their relationship in peril with Julie away at college and their lives all over again when her roommate Karla (Brandy) wins a vacation to Bahamas, despite getting the trivia question wrong.

If you think, hey, this is all a trap, now you know why a hook handed killer has never menaced your life. At least I hope.

This film has more in common with the inspiration for Lois Duncan’s original I Know What You Did Last Summer, as a new boy comes between everyone. That woudl either be Will (Matthew Settle) or Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer).

The funniest part of this for me is that Jack Black has a cameo — before Jack Black became a thing — as a stoner that works on the vacation island. His part is every drug reference in movies ever, a totally unbelievable part, all played by someone who would soon be on the A-list. Speaking of cameos, look, there’s Jeffrey Combs! And hey! They’re watching Curse of the Demon, making you wish you could shut this movie off and watch that superior movie!

Somehow, director Danny Cannon was still permitted to make movies after Judge Dredd. He’d follow this film — which was a big success — with work on CSI, Gotham and Pennyworth.

This is also one of three — maybe four — movies that i watched over this young adult week where someone was trapped inside a tanning bed. How did this trope show up in so many films? Who was first? Man, now I have something new to write about.

Teenager Eleanor Crane goes to visit her uncle Peter in a remote Eastern European village, and receives an unexpectedly cold welcome from the villagers, who are plagued by a deadly curse. That’s because Peter just so happens to be a werewolf.

Director Jeff Burr had plans to make an entire series of movies based on the Universal monster films, with only this movie and Frankenstein Reborn ever getting made. However, there were posters designed for the Dracula and Mummy installments, as Full Moon wanted an entire series they were going to call Filmonsters!

Burr would also co-direct Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy and direct the fourth and fifth Puppet Master films, as well as Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Stepfather II. Plus, he was also the director for From a Whisper to a Scream.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Yes, Ivan Reitman, the same man who made Meatballs, made this movie.

What can I say nice about it?

Harrison Ford did all his own flying?

That this was shot on the same island as the 1976 King Kong?

Temuera Morrison and Ford are in this movie yet never meet in any of the Star Wars movies?

Umm…

Robin Monroe (Anne Heche) is a New York fashion editor whose boyfriend Frank (David Schwimmer) takes her on a South Pacific vacation, but the plane of Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford) crashes and hijinks, as I always say, ensue.

Sometimes, I watch movies like this just to make my wife happy. It makes me wonder what she sees in me, you know? I’m such a horrible grump, sitting here writing about movies that I don’t even care about while she watches true crime shows and I hope I’m doing the best that I can in this marriage.

Originally, the film was intended to make Anne Heche into a sex symbol. After she showed up on a red carpet with Ellen DeGeneres, Touchstone Pictures fired her, but Harrison Ford got her hired back.

Saturday Night Live regulars Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon, Mark McKinney and Colin Quinn all came together to try and make a movie out of what had once been, until now, a five-minute sketch about two guys dancing to Haddaway’s “What Is Love.”

John Fortenberry has been an editor for eight years at producer Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video before making this film.

Steve and Doug Butabi (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) are two brothers who spend most of their lives dancing, getting rejected and trying to get into the Roxbury, a famous Los Angeles nightclub.

It may be a simple film, but a great cast is along for the ride, like Loni Anderson and Dan Hedaya as their parents, plus Dwayne Hickman (Dobie Gillis!), Richard Grieco, Jennifer Coolidge (who was in nearly early late 90’s comedy, it seems), Michael Clarke Duncan and Chazz Palminteri.

In his book Baby, Don’t Hurt Me, Kattan claimed that he was pressured by producer Lorne Michaels to have sex with Amy Heckerling so that she would direct the film. He must have held out, because she only produced it.

That said, Kattan also claims that Will Ferrell didn’t speak to him again until the 23rd season of Saturday Night Live due to his relationship with Heckerling. Kattan alleged that Ferrell said “I got all your messages, but I didn’t call you back because I didn’t want to talk to you.”