Lance Henriksen

  • Nightmares (1983)

    Nightmares (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) As yet another horror anthology film, Nightmares remains in the honest average for the subgenre — uneven stories, some striking moments, a few notable cast members but a lack of cohesion that makes it little more than a collection of short films rather than a deliberate build-up to something bigger. The anthology film is distinctive for being the work of a single director Joseph Sargent rather than several ones, but its origin as a TV series pilot does explain some of the restraints in those segments. The first story is a dull retelling of the killer-in-the-back-seat urban legends, not really setting a promising note for the rest. The second tale is far more ludicrous, and concludes on seeing Emilio Estevez using an arcade laser gun to shoot at a creature escaped from a videogame — it’s silly stuff, but I liked the throwback to the early days of videogaming. The third segment is a more sombre Duel-inspired affair involving a faithless priest, played by Lance Henriksen, confronted with a pickup from hell (yes, you read that right), but it does conclude on a decent car stunt. Finally, the film wraps with a story in which a family confronts a rodent of unusual size in their basement, with Veronica Cartwright playing the mom. All stories work themselves up to a moral of some sort and are mild on the thrills, so that’s a contrast from some of the more gore-oriented horror anthology films out there. Still, you may forget Nightmares faster than you’d think.

  • Falling (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) As usual, it’s interesting to see what actors pick as material when they go for their first film as director. In Viggo Mortensen’s case, with his directing debut Falling, the stakes are even higher considering that he’s also writing the script, co-producing the film and starring in it. Aiming at low-key drama, the film features Mortensen as an airplane pilot dealing with a hideously ultraconservative father teetering on the edge of dementia. Lance Henriksen plays the father as a quasi-caricature of the worst possible person in the world made even worse by the onset of dementia — crudely intolerant of his son’s lifestyle and homosexuality, quick to lash out at everyone he sees, alternately confused and aggressive. It’s almost too good a portrayal: it certainly justifies the other characters washing their hands from him, makes the inevitable confrontation sweeter and softens an ending that could have been considered tragic if it had featured a nicer character. In terms of writing and directing, Mortensen does well — this is clearly a project for showcasing actors and dramatic situations with raw intensity, meaning that it’s not really meant for a wide audience. Still, it’s gracefully handled and in-between Mortensen and Henriksen (plus Laura Linney in a supporting role), there’s an interesting interplay between the actors. (Canadian cinephiles will laugh as how the film’s two proctologists are played in cameo roles by national filmmaking titans David Cronenberg and Paul Gross.) While there’s clearly a limited audience for this kind of unpleasant low-stakes drama, Falling does mark an honourable performance for Mortensen behind and in front of the camera.

  • Pumpkinhead (1988)

    Pumpkinhead (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) Considering my less-than-favourable opinions about 1980s slasher films, it’s not really an accident if I have mixed feelings about Pumpkinhead. A dark variant on the dead child vengeance trope of Pet Sematary, it features Lance Henriksen as a grieving father summoning a supernatural demon to hunt down those who have severely wounded his son. Much killing then ensues in slasher-like fashion, but Pumpkinhead avoids the bottom of the barrel in a few ways. Under the direction of makeup and special-effects legend Stan Winston, it’s a film that looks great and has some decent special effects for its time. It’s also significantly more nuanced about the unintended impact of vengeance than many movies of its decade, and literalizes that metaphor in an unmistakable way. On the other hand, it does fall into the “all you need is kills” narrative philosophy of slashers—the film’s plot takes a very long break during the second act, as the vengeful monster kills through a group of teenagers in evermore spectacular fashion. While plot does come back for a late-movie finish (making a point that vengeance is corrosive to the vengeful), there’s a solid stretch of the film that’s dedicated to special effects, makeup, blood and grand guignol violence. Still, you have to grade it on a curve: Compared to most other slashers of the decade, Pumpkinhead has a strong welcome supernatural element. Compared to many other cheap B-grade horror movies, it has much better special effects. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to put Pumpkinhead solidly into the middle tier of 1980s horror (a rather good decade, mind you)—not unforgettable, but not completely repulsive either. It somehow spawned an entire franchise.

  • Jennifer Eight (1992)

    Jennifer Eight (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2020) The 1990s were a good-to-great decade for thrillers, and while Jennifer Eight isn’t that good of an example of the form, it’s not without a strong atmosphere throughout. It does feature an interesting cast as well, what with a young Uma Thurman playing a blind woman targeted by a serial killer, Andy Garcia as a burnt-out police detective, Lance Henriksen as a policeman colleague and John Malkovich in a supporting turn as an FBI agent. The story has to do with the hunt for a serial killer, but as usual the film is more interesting for the details than the plot—the conclusion seems particularly disappointing in its rush to present something different. A touch too long at two hours, Jennifer Eight doesn’t really manage to wring all of the possibilities out of its premise and setting, but it’s a workable-enough thriller if taken at face value.

  • Monster Brawl (2011)

    Monster Brawl (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2013) This “film” isn’t any good, but at least it gets points for monster-movie homage, unorthodox narrative structure and cost-effectiveness.  A low-low budget Canadian production, Monster Brawl is less a movie than an attempt to put horror monsters into a 90-minutes wrestling brawl special: Eight monsters battle it out until only one is left, and everything else is context… which is to say filler.  Much of the filmmaker’s cleverness is spent stretching their reported 200,000$ budget to accommodate eight distinctive monsters and moody brawling pit.  (The graphic design work of the film is pretty good, though, as so is Lance Henriksen’s God-voiced video-game narration.)  Color commentators, either taken from the wrestling world or clearly inspired by WWE specials, add very little to the proceedings: While it’s fun to see Dave Foley in just about anything, he doesn’t get much to do but simulate inebriation and spout sports-commentator clichés.  The problem with Monster Brawl is that the fights are dull and everything surrounding them is even duller: The fleeting attempts at a narrative framework are undermined by a conclusion that cuts away without resolving anything or providing satisfactory closure.  The acting isn’t particularly good, although the make-up makes up for it somewhat.  With a decent budget and more imaginative writers, this could have been quite a bit better.  But failing that, and given the above, it goes without saying that if you’re not a fan of wrestling and/or monster-movies, then there’s little of interest in Monster Brawl.  Trust me; I’m one of you and I just checked on your behalf.