Popcorn (1991) Movie Review
I was really unsure of this movie based on the poster. Good news is that the poster and the title have very little to do with the actual movie.
The film department decides to put together a horror movie night film festival to raise money for their department in the abandoned Dreamland theater. While going through an old film reel it plays a movie called "Possessor" which was made by Lanyard Gates before he went on to kill his whole family. Maggie (Jill Schoelen) discovers that this is the man she has been having weird nightmares about. During the festival the film department gets picked off one by one by a murderer who Maggie thinks is Lanyard Gates.
First of all, I applaud the creative premise. It's original, believable and sets up a fantastic atmosphere for the movie to take place in. This movie has so many things that I love about it like how the kids bring back gimmicks to their movie theater night. They hand out packs with rubber nose guards for the smell-o-vision movie and 3 dimension project-o vision glasses for the 3D movie. They also had a large giant mosquito that would fly over the movie theater as well as shocks put into the seats so when the person in the movie was being electrocuted than the audience would get shocks in their chairs.Also, I would pay a good chunk of money for that scream clock (when it screams, the movie starts). The scene where all the viewers are yelling in the theater and throwing popcorn at the screen reminds me of the opening scene in Scream 2 just as some of the characters remind me of characters in Scream (specially, Jamie Kennedy's character). I also have to mention how much I loved the music in the movie. In fact, I loved the song "Saturday Night at the Movies" so much that I bought it on iTunes from the original band. Fantastic song!
However, the movie seems to get sidetracked and focuses more on the films that they are showing in the theater rather than it's own plot. I was really into it until the midway mark when it started to lose momentum and go downhill. I didn't need to see between 5 to 10 minutes of each movie they were playing on the screen. A few clips would have been fine but they lingered on them for too long.
So was the killer Lanyard Gates or was it someone else? I don't want to give the ending away because this an unknown movie and more people should give it a watch. It had an original concept but in the end, it was badly executed. I think it's about time that someone gives this movie a remake!
Grade: C+
Check back tomorrow for a horror movie review from a 1974 title!
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