So I finally figured out why this movie is called Wonder Woman 1984. That’s because it takes its inspiration from the pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero movies that are adaptions of the comics in name only. I’m looking at you, Supergirl, which came out in 1984*.

Yes, before superhero movies took over the world, we got movies like Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and the Spider-Man and Captain America TV movies (and Superman III and the Cannon Captain America too, while we’re at it).

In 1984, we were lucky if we got a great superhero film.

In 2020, we forgot what that time was like.

Directed by Patty Jenkins from a script she wrote with Geoff Johns** and Dave Callaham, based on a story by Johns and Jenkins, this is a movie that people have really hated with a passion. So many people have said that it’s campy, but they really have no idea what that word means. This is in no way the 1960’s Batman TV series. It’s not Barbarella. We could only dream that it could be a tenth of a percent as campy as Danger: Diabolik or Flash Gordon***.

It’s the very definition of a movie that has no idea what it wants to be, the story that it wants to tell or how the characters will learn or grow along the way. It only hamfistedly smashes plot points — Honesty is good! Lies are bad! — with all the subtlety of Obnoxio the Clown.

It all starts in the home of the Amazona, Themyscira, where a kid version of Diana Prince competes against the older Amazons and learns that cheating won’t get her anywhere. This is generally called foreshadowing, but again, this is a plot point hammered home so completely that even Bizarro would find himself saying, “Me not get it!”

We move to 1984, sixty-six years after we last saw our heroine in the last movie, and she’s spent the decades pining for Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who sacrificed himself to save everyone from a bomber filled with poison. Now she’s the senior anthropologist at the Smithsonian, working alongside the mousy Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig) when she’s not foiling robberies at malls that look so garishly 1980’s that Nightwing’s first costume would fit right in.

Trust me. I was in the 1980’s. I was eight when they started. Everything in here is exactly the 80’s marketing people think the 80’s are. Anachronism abounds to the point that I was expecting Rip Hunter to show up and ask Wonder Woman to fix things. “Diana! Operation Wolf came out in 1987, not 1984! Per Degaton is ruining everything! The Cro-Mags didn’t release The Age of Quarrel until 1986 and that kid already has the shirt! Cronos is destroying the time-space continuum! That man is walking a goldendoodle, which wasn’t bred until 1990! Monarch is back!”

That’s when this film’s McGuffin comes into play. The Dreamstone can give anyone their wish. Wonder Woman wants Steve back. Barbara wants to be Diana. And Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) wants it all.

Yes, Max Lord. The guy who was behind the Justice League International before coming back to kill off Blue Beetle and ruin the DCU for so many people in Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

While this isn’t a mainstream character, it doesn’t have to be. But the truth is, Wonder Woman 1984 is more Max Lord’s movie than it is Diana’s. He’s the one that takes the journey, who changes and becomes a better person at the end once he sees where his bad decisions have taken him. And much like 1984, the year when comic book movies had nothing in common with their print inspirations, he’s Max Lord in name only****. He’s more Donald Trump than L-Ron’s best pal, but that’s completely intentional.

Within a few days, Lord has pretty much ruined the world with wish after wish*****. Barbara has wished to become an apex predator, a term nobody used in 1984. And Diana has realized that Steve — in another man’s body that had sex with Diana without consent, which was a major issue with so many people and something that while upsetting is also something fictional with no way of happening in our reality and to be blunt, we got bigger things to be upset about in 2020 — shouldn’t be back from the dead.

And that’s pretty much it.

The biggest sacrifice — Steve going back to death — is made by Steve more than Diana. Barbara never gives up her wish, gets electrocuted and still lives. And Max actually comes out as the person who learns the most, telling his son that he is not a good man.

Maybe it’s the amount of horror and exploitation films that I watch on a regular basis, but movies are best between 66 and 75 minutes. This one goes near double that and I already told you the whole story in a few paragraphs. It drags. And drags. And then drags some more for good measure.

It also doesn’t have any real reason to be set in 1984 other than the title and “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood getting used in one scene. And yes, to be completely OCD, this movie takes place on the Fourth of July and that song was released until October 29 of that year.

It’s also a $200 million dollar movie that has effects that feel unfinished (just look at the kids turn into obvious dummies when she saves them), a final fight scene that makes the end of Ang Lee’s The Hulk look well lit and invalidates much of what we knew of Wonder Woman in Justice League, which claims that she was in hiding the whole time. As for those who claim continuity doesn’t work, the old DCU was the most continuity heavy universe ever. Ask Ambush Bug. And continuity is a major reason why the MCU works so well.

That said, Gal Gadot is fine as Wonder Woman, for all she is given to do. Kristen Wiig is playing Kristen Wiig and if you told me that this was the same character she was essaying in the Anchorman sequel, I would have believed you. And I guess Pascal is fine, but by the end of this movie, I was moved to ennui and struggling to say anything nice.

I mean, go back and watch that fight scene in the mall. It has almost sitcom level mugging in it. I mean, the worst part for me was when Steve is amazed by an escalator and a subway train. The first movie was set in London during the First World War and all of those things existed there at that time. Maybe Steve is just a moron.

There you go. I’ve spent more time figuring this movie out than it really deserved. Let’s get back to Jess Franco movies, people.

*But some really great comic films came out in 1984. One is based on a comic strip that not many people know called Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie and that would be the strangely great The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik Yak. The other two aren’t based on any comic book but get the tone perfect and those would be The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension and The Toxic Avenger.

**Who actually wrote some decent comics every once in a while, like DC’s JSA.

***Which is the answer to the question, “What are Sam’s two favorite comic book adaptions?”

****Just like how its mentioned that the Dreamstone comes from Dolos, The Duke of Deception, who was the first major challenge that Diana faced pst-Crisis.

*****One of those wishes is to get his company back from Simon Stagg, who we all know — I’m joking, like four or five of us know — is the father-in-law of Metamorpho.

By all rights, I should hate this movie, a semi-remake of Freaky Friday that instead subverts the source material by turning it into a slasher. But you know, it ended up hitting me the right way and I was behind it pretty much all the way.

Directed by Christopher Beau Landon — yes, the son of Michael — who wrote Disturbia — that’s not even a word — and several of the Paranormal Activity movies before directing the Happy Death Day films. If you liked those, well, this will definitely give you more of what those movies offered, this is set in the same universe — Landon said that, “They definitely share the same DNA and there’s a good chance Millie and Tree will bump into each other someday” — and was originally titled Freaky Friday the 13th.

Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton, Big Little Lies) is a teenager who has been tormented by bullies, both of the teenager and teacher* varieties. Meanwhile, the urban legend of the Blissfield Butcher continues, as he keeps killing her classmates. Now that he possesses a McGuffin called La Dola — an ancient Mayan sacrificial dagger — he looks to gain even more power. But when he runs into our heroine — her mother (Katie Finneran, who is great in this) has left her behind at a football game where all she gets to do is wear a beaver mascot costume — she battles the Butcher and when he stabs her, they end up switching bodies.

So yeah — this turns into a body swap comedy and you’d think, after the gory as hell open, this is where they lose you. But no — if anything, this gets way more fun.

Millie’s friends make for some of the best scenes in the film. Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich) have been with her through the worst parts of high school, so having their best friend in the body of a killing machine is just another trial to be endured.

Speaking of that killer, Vince Vaughn shines in this. There’s plenty of silly physical comedy, but also some really nice scenes like when he admits to the love interest that she left the note he treasures (body swap pronouns are a little hard) or when he has a moment with her mother while hiding in a changing room.

Landon — who wrote the movie along with Michael Kennedy — said that the film was influenced by the Scream series, along with Cherry Falls, Fright Night, Jennifer’s Body, The Blob and Urban Legend. There’s also a fair bit of Halloween in here, particularly the opening series of murders, and references to Heathers, Child’s Play, Creepshow, Galaxy Quest, Carrie, The Faculty, The Craft and Supernatural. There’s also a bottle down the throat kill that came directly from the 2009 slasher remake Sorority Row.

I had fun with this. Here’s hoping you do the same.

*The funny thing is that the teacher that is the worst to her is Alan Ruck, who knows a thing about bring bullied, what with playing Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

In Corpore is “a sensual, sex-positive exploration of contemporary relationships, shown through four anthological stories set in Melbourne, Berlin, Malta and New York.” It’s all about relationships, specifically what happens when love gives way to lust and commitment deals with infidelity.

Directed by Sarah Jayne and Ivan Malekin, this Australian film tells the stories of four couples who must deal with the consequences of suppressing desire or throwing caution to the wind. They made this movie when they were newly married as a way to openly discuss the definition of marriage and the boundaries of relationships.

I’ve never seen a sex-positive anthology before, so there you go. It’s a pretty interesting film that shows that no matter the label on a relationship, we often find ourselves dealing with the same issues. While there’s plenty of nudity and love making scenes, this isn’t explicit, if that’s a concern. It will, however, make you question the ways that we use love and sex in our lives and with the ones that are part of them.

You can learn more on this movie’s official Facebook, Instagram and web sites.

After being released from prison, Ted and his associates decide to rob Coven National Bank, later to find out that even more than a mob front, it’s really owned by Lucifer. Oh yeah — and all of the employees are witches who take the souls of the people who owe them money.

This is told through flashback from Ted, who is dead, as he deals with a young couple who mess everything up, as well as the devil (Mike Ferguson), who keeps having threeways and upsetting his wife Lilith. It’s kind of like a Satanic Pulp Fiction, I guess, with more of a silly sense of humor.

So yeah. The devil has a bank. He has marital problems. And he looks like a biker. So there’s a lot to come to grips with, I guess, but I feel like you can handle it.

You can learn more on the official Facebook page.

The Devil’s Heist is available on demand from Midnight Releasing.

A bunch of British kids decide to turn their class reunion into a day of fun on the paintball course. However, someone is packing more than paint-based ammunition and is ready to kill them all one-by-one in one of the few slashers I’ve seen that brings in the sport of, well, paintball.

The first full-length film by Darren Berry, who often works as a cinematographer, this film stars Katy Brand, Robert Portal, Cheryl Burniston, Lee Latchford-Evans, Lockhart Oglive and Natasha Killip. There’s even a cameo by Nicholas Vince, who played the Chattering Cenobite in the first two Hellraiser movies.

There’s an attempt at humor here, but it kind of fell flat to me. I did like the scene with a mine going off, as I didn’t expect the film to have the budget to handle that. Otherwise, your enjoyment of this will depend upon your love of slashers — mine is high, obviously — and your enjoyment of getting plugged with paintballs.

You can learn more at the film’s official site. It’s available on DVD and on demand from Uncork’d Entertainment.

While camping deep in the backwoods of Alabama. Dillon and Brenner Baker (Ellen Hollman, Love and Monsters) are hiking when they accidentally uncover an illegal drug and weapon lair. Before they can get away, a cartel captures and tortures them, killing Dillon. Well, you know what they said: they should have killed Brenner too.

That’s because she’s 1st Lieutenant Brenner Baker of the Army’s 75th Ranger Division. And as the title of this movie promises — an Army of One.

If you’re in the mood for a revenge movie, well, this one will certainly scratch that itch. Beyond starring Hollman, who will also be in The Matrix 4, it has Matt Passmore (The Glades), Stephen Dunlevy* (who was in Jigsaw and did stunts in Mad Max: Fury Road) and Kendra Carelli (Guardians of the Galaxy).

It’s directed by Stephen Durham, who wrote the script along with Hollman, David Dittlinger and Mary Anne Barnes**.

*Hollman and Dunlevy were also on the TV show Spartacus.

**All of these folks have worked together before on films like The Dark Within — which is pretty great — and Abbey Grace.

Army of One is available on demand and on DVD rom Uncork’d Entertainment.

The sequel to the movie The Rizen — this was originally The Rizen: Possession — this film follows a group of urban explorers who stumble upon the door to a NATO and the Allied Forces secret lab where the occult was used to attempt to win the Cold War. There’s also a military unit looking for those arcane powers, but some doors were better left unopened, right?

The strangest thing about this movie is that Adrian Edmondson — yes, Vyvyan from The Young Ones — shows up as its narrator. He’s not in it as much as the trailer would lead you to think, though. But still! Also, Sally Phillips from the Bridget Jones movie is in this too, which is another person I didn’t think that I’d ever see in a Silent Hill style movie about occult military experiments.

Life is weird, everyone.

You can learn more this movie at the official Facebook page.

The Facility is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.

High school cheerleader Molly (Isabella Alberti, Triggered) wakes up drugged, bound and gagged in the trunk of her boyfriend’s car before she runs into the forest of Hangman’s Hollow, only to meet an urban legend. That’s right — The Hangman is a deformed monster who lynches any man that comes on his property and keeps the women as his brides.

Backwoods is just about the circumstances that led our heroine into her predicament as it is about the slasher killer. Unlike the majority of shot for streaming dreck that’s clogging up Amazon Prime, this film has actual cinematography, color balancing and ideas, which puts it (severed) heads and shoulders above that crowd.

Most of the same cast and crew on this — including writer/director Thomas Smith and producer/writer/actress Erin Lilley — worked on 2019’s Demon Squad.

You can learn more from the Fighting Owl Films page, the makers of this movie.

Backwoods is available on demand now.