‘Popcorn’ had been on the horizon of my ‘To watch’ pile for literal years until fairly recently when a die hard fan of this 1991 slightly demented comedy slasher halted a live stream I was watching for a solid 5 minutes to passionately monologue about how underseen this thing was and how they considered it to be one of the greatest slasher movies ever made…That’s some pretty big talk, but they sold me on the pitch. So one Amazon halloween sale later, I checked it out. And…they wernt that far off the mark honestly.
Popcorn is a very affectionate tribute to ‘Gimmick cinema’ in all it’s various flavours, think of it as the midway point between Joe Dantes ‘Matinee’ and Rick Sloans ‘Blood Theater’ and your not a million miles off.
The film follows a group of film students who are looking to try and raise some cash to allow them to continue their film society and maybe even grease the wheels of getting a new production off the ground. After a couple of weeks of backing and forthing on what to do, they decide to host an all night ‘horror-thon’ showing 3 movies back to back (with bands!) that are all parodies of 50’s B-movie classics, and that all have some variation on an actual real world gimmick piece. ‘Mosquito’ for example features a giant mosquito that flies over the audience ala ‘House on haunted hill’ alongside it being in 3d, ‘Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man’ features a variation on ‘Percepto’ with audience members getting electrocuted in their chairs at key points in the film.
So far, so nostalgic, But things arnt quite as cheesy and cozy as it seems, when one of the students ‘Molly’ reveals that shes been experiencing psychadelic nightmares in which shes being hunted by a bearded man who wants her dead. While sorting out the reels for the movie night, they stumble on an incredibly short reel that isnt part of their featured evening. On playing it, it’s revealed to be ‘Possessor’ a thought lost movie made by the great experimental film director ‘Lanyard Gates’ who infamously ACTUALLY murdered his family at the end of the movie before torching the theater down, killing over 40 people.
Molly recognises the bearded man in ‘Possessor’ as the man in her nightmares, but things just arnt adding up, and with the main show starting imminently…the gang may find themselves in a LOT more trouble than they bargained for.
And I feel this film really kind of hit the sweet spot of being goofy enough that it was charming, but serious enough that it made the kills and drama feel worth investing in. While I will say that the tone on this DOES wobble from time to time, sometimes ending up TOO gnarley and sometimes ending up irritatingly goofy, it never quite completely falls over and on the whole manages to hold itself together across the full runtime.
The film is solidly paced, not quite as zippy as i’d like, but quick enough that I didnt get bored, wander off or start googling the actors, so I see that as a plus. The act structuring is solid with no real issues to report it knows when to change gears narrative wise, when to raise the stakes and when to let things slow boil. The characters have enough going on about them to keep the film feeling busy, but some of them do have a bit of an identity crisis, wherein I because they all acted kind of ‘samey’ it meant I sometimes lost track of who was who and who was supposed to be doing what.
That being said, balancing that out is some delightful dialogue which really hits the spot and I could see being very quoteable after a couple more watches.
The plot itself is very entertaining, a little bit trippy and the humour lands more than it fall for me personally. I did feel the ending was a little on the weak side, especially given how much it was bigged up across the runtime, but this is really more of a movie you watch to enjoy the ride rather than relying on the ending to deliver a wallop. With that said, had the ending been a bit more powerful, i’d honestly have very little to complain about with this thing.
The direction is fab, highly styalized and heavily reliant on coloured lighting, it reminded me a bit of ‘Creepshow’ in terms of how things were laid out. theres a clear vision on display here and I think despite the production changing directors about halfway through, this still surprisingly feels coherent to me.
The cine too is great, not only do the main theater moments pop with crisp and vivid colours and decent composition and blocking, particularly in the dream sequences where things get psychadelic to almost ‘Hasu’ (1977) levels…and thats not to mention that I feel they do a great job of the ‘retro movie’ sequences as well! with the scenes from ‘Mosquito’ in particular really managing to catch that ‘columbia pictures’ 1950’s/1960’s stylizastion. I honestly really loved this thing visually.
The editing is fine enough, I think the first couple of acts are stronger than the 3rd act. It feels to me almost like they shot diligently in the first 2 acts worth of scenes, but as the money and time started to run out, the need for ‘the essentials’ to be grabbed outweighed creative liberty. As a result some of the kills and the end sequence in particular do feel a bit rushed and confusing in places. but on the whole the editors here have managed to keep things on a decent footing and this edit breaths pretty fine for most of the runtime.
The performances are simultaineously some of the most memorable and best parts of this movie, while also being the weakest. On the one hand the delivery of the dialogue that our cast offer is hammy, WAY over the top and utterly delightful to sit through, their physicality is wonderful and it really does feel like the cast are throwing there all behind the picture. On the other hand, it really does feel like the cast are constantly throwing their ALL behind this picture…Even if their ‘All’ isnt really particularly great. expect moments of BEYOND stiff physical performance, line deliveries that are laughably awful in places and a near total lack of camera placement awareness (that last ones not their fault…it feels like a miscommunication with the director) I LOVE the performances in this thing, but if your averse to cheesy acting. this will not be your rodeo.
And the soundtrack is a mixture of Reggae and 90s style beat pop. predominantly because this film was almost entirely shot on location in Jamaica…I think it suits the film fine personally, I couldnt…nor would I want to imagine this thing having a fitting score, because the film itself is so demented in places, having the weird scoring almost feels complimentary to the other weird aspects.
‘Popcorn’ bombed at the box office, which is a real shame (that being said…thats what happens when you release your horror movie in early February!) I think had this come out around halloween time 1990/1991, it probably would have fared quite a bit better. It has developed a cult following over the years, and I can absolutely see why. With striking visuals, and interesting, campy and engaging plot. Some nice callbacks to the Atom age of film making and some bizarre performances and tones. ‘Popcorn’ feels like something rather special. I really quite enjoyed myself, and I can happily recommend you check it out. it’d probably pair quite well with something like ‘Blood Theater’ or ‘Phantom of the Ritz’.
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