In a world overrun by film sequels, our trusty reporter viewed over a dozen Part III movies in hopes of answering the unasked question: "Are Part IIIs really different from Part IIs or Part VIs?"
______________________________
People are always asking each other, "If you were marooned on a desert island, what books or records or movies would you want to bring along with you?" Excuse me for asking, but why do people always assume that they're going to get a choice? Why don't people realize that if they're unlucky enough to be stranded on a desert island, they're probably also going to be unlucky enough to be stranded there with a bunch of books by Norman Vincent Peale, a bunch of records by ABBA and Kenny Rankin and the Bee Gees, and a bunch of movies starring Kay Lenz and Jan-Michael Vincent? The first thing that people unfortunate enough to get marooned on desert islands have to get through their thick heads is that room service is no longer available.
The desert island we will be discussing today is a tiny sand bar lost amid a vast but remote archipelago in the Tasman Sea, several thousand miles off the coast of nowhere. For the purposes of this article, try to imagine that you are trapped on this island, that you realize that you are never, ever going to be rescued, and that the only things you have to entertain you are a VCR, a TV and a stack of movies that are Part III in a series where you haven't already seen Parts I and II. The $64,000 question then: Is it worth spending your time watching these movies, or should you just find some shade somewhere and lie down and die?
The answer to this question is not as obvious as it would seem. For, although on the surface it would seem that Part IIIs are usually the last and worst installments in series that were never very good in the first place, this is not entirely true. The Exorcist III is better than Exorcist II: The Heretic, just as Jaws 3-D is better than Jaws 2. This does not mean that Jaws 3-D and The Exorcist III do not suck--they do; it merely means that when we talk about how badly they suck, we must be very careful to remember that even though they suck, they do not suck as much as the films immediately preceding them. Jaws 2 and Exorcist II really suck. Or, as they like to say on ESPN, Jaws 2 and Exorcist II suck big time. As opposed to ESPN. (This sort of Jesuitical nitpicking can be very helpful in wiling away the hours on a desert island.)
It is also important to remember that there have been several Part IIIs that were actually fairly decent movies. Return of the Jedi (Star Wars III) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Raiders of the Lost Ark III) were both pretty entertaining, as was Alien3. Unfortunately, because everyone saw one or more of the early installments in these enormously popular series, we will not be including them in our Desert Island Collection. The same goes for Back to the Future Part III, The Godfather, Part III, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Psycho III and Poltergeist III, as well as The Return of the Secaucus 7 III, which one studio has had the gall to market as Peter's Friends. Our investigation will be limited to Part IIIs where the person trapped on the desert island did not see Part I or Part II.
For the purposes of this article, that person will be me, and since I am not now, nor have I ever been a moron (though once, in a momentary lapse of reason, I did suggest that Keanu Reeves could act), I will now state that I have never seen Rocky or Rocky II, Rambo or Rambo: First Blood Part II, Lethal Weapon or Lethal Weapon 2, The Karate Kid or The Karate Kid, Part II, Police Academy or Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, or any of the Is or IIs laying smooth the path for Angel III, Deathstalker III, Stepfather III, Howling III, Basket Case 3, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, Goodbye Emmanuelle (Emmanuelle 3) or Child's Play 3. And, shocking as it may seem to some readers--let's say the Siskels and Eberts at Sing Sing and San Quentin--I have never seen Silent Night, Deadly Night or Silent Night, Deadly Night Part II, either.
There are two questions that quickly pose themselves in a rigorously scientific investigation such as this. First, do movies that are Part III make sense in and of themselves, or do you have to have seen Parts I and II to understand what is going on? In other words, is Deathstalker III, like Shakespeare's Richard III, a free-standing work of art that can be understood and appreciated on its own merits without any familiarity with the events that transpire in its two predecessors? Or is it just another pile of shit?
Second, is there something about all Part IIIs that links them with all the other Part IIIs, something that sets them apart from Part IIs, Part IVs or Part VIIIs? And if there is something unique about Part IIIs that makes them different from Part IVs or Part VIIIs, is this unique feature something that also makes them better? Put another way: Is the uniqueness of Part IIIs, as opposed to the uniqueness of Part VIIs, something that will make you happy to have them in your permanent--and final--video library as you sit there awaiting death on that godforsaken desert island of yours, or is it something that's going to make you wish you were stranded on a desert island with nothing but a VCR, a TV and a bunch of movies that were Part V or Part VIII in a series where you hadn't already seen Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII? If you can see what I'm driving at.
To answer these questions, let's take a closer look at the world of Part IIIs, or what film historians refer to as mundus cinematicum tertium partibus.
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of Part IIIs. The first group consists of films that are the direct descendants of Part Is, and are thus the latest, and hopefully the concluding, installments of epic sagas where there is some kind of unifying vision. The Godfather, Part III, Alien3, Rocky III, Child's Play 3, The Stepfather III and Police Academy 3: Back in Training all fall into this category, either because they were all directed by the same gasbag director, because they all feature the same ensemble of fabulously talented performers who appear again and again, or because they all maintain a consistently low level of cinematic excellence. In short, because they are films so bad that it would take a sage with the intellectual subtlety of Solomon, Ptolemy, Galileo and Bill Moyers rolled into one to tell whether Steve Guttenberg was worse in Police Academy 3 than he was in Police Academy or Police Academy 2.
The second group consists of films that are only a distant cousin, a barely recognizable niece, or the bastard grandchild--twice removed by marriage--of the original movies. Included in this group are properties such as Jaws 3-D, Howling III, The Exorcist III and Amityville 3-D--films that bear little or no thematic or qualitative relation to the films that launched the series in the first place. In short, films that bite the big one.
By and large, Part IIIs are relatively easy to tell apart from Part Is and Part IIs. In high-class Part Is, when the credits roll at the end of the film, you tend to see a lot of names like Brando, Hitchcock, Spielberg and Pacino. By Part II, you're already venturing into Danny Aiello and Harry Dean Stanton territory, and by Part III you've got Sofia Coppola on your hands. A similar thing happens in low-budget, trashy Part IIIs. While The Howling, which is set in California, includes names like John Sayles and Patrick Macnee in the credits, by the time you get to Howling III, you're seeing names like Imogen Annesley and Dasha Blahova at the top of the bill, and instead of taking place in California, the film is shot in the Australian outback, where it's cheaper to make werewolf movies, because you can hire authentic Australian townies to play the lead roles and thus save on all that makeup. As a form of shorthand, it is best to think of this brand of Part IIIs--low-end Part IIIs--as funeral urns in which are interred the ashes of actresses who used to be on "Three's Company."
Another way to look at it is this: If you turn on the TV set and a movie featuring Gregory Harrison appears on the screen, you are probably still in the relatively safe DMZ of Part IIs. On the other hand, if you tune in a movie and the names Mitzi Kapture, Tedra Gabriel, Leigh Biolos or Edward A. Warschilka Jr. appear anywhere near the top of the credits, you are probably well across the border into Part III-land and might even be way out there in the dreaded Part V-ville. This is also true if the words "Directed by Frank Henenlotter," "Special appearance by Martin Kove," or "Richard Roundtree as Lt. Doniger" appear in the credits. And if Jerry Weintraub's name turns up anywhere, five will get you 10 that you're deep into Part III territory. At which point, there is only one thing to do: For God's sake, get out of that house!!!!
The most astonishing thing I discovered in my survey of 13 Part III movies was the staggering thematic unity that linked the films. For example, Lethal Weapon 3, a relatively high-budget affair, deals with the wacky exploits of members of the Los Angeles Police Department and has a lot of car chases and explosions. Similarly, Police Academy 3, a relatively low-budget movie, deals with the wacky exploits of members of a big-city police department and has a lot of car chases and explosions.
Other common themes abound. Basket Case 3 depicts authority figures (cops) getting eaten by monsters; Howling III depicts authority figures (cops) getting eaten by monsters; and Puppet Master III depicts authority figures (Nazis) getting eaten by monsters. And that's not even mentioning the garbage man who gets eaten by his own truck in Child's Play 3 or the repressive parent who gets eaten by a wood-chipper in Stepfather III.
Another unifying thread in Part III movies is the ubiquity of foiled retirement plans as a major thematic element. In Lethal Weapon 3, Danny Glover plays an aging cop, a scant eight days away from retirement, who is tired of his violent past and just wants to sit back and take it easy, but who gets talked out of it by a wisecracking buddy with whom he goes way back. In Rambo III, Sylvester Stallone plays an aging commando who is tired of his violent past and just wants to sit back and take it easy, but who gets talked out of it by a wisecracking buddy with whom he goes way back.
In Rocky III, Sylvester Stallone plays an aging boxer who is tired of his violent past and just wants to sit back and take it easy, but who gets talked out of it by a wisecracking buddy with whom he goes way back. And in Basket Case 3, some guy you never heard of plays a mass murderer who is tired of his violent past and just wants to sit back and take it easy, but who gets talked out of it by an old buddy with whom he goes way back: a mutant pustule that was attached to his chest at birth, but which got surgically removed against the will of both parties in Part I. This repugnant creature, the hapless moviegoer eventually learns, is actually the mass murderer's disturbed, non-identical twin brother, a Siamese twin who happens to be a large, viscous growth. And you thought your family was dysfunctional.
There are many other themes that appear over and over again in Part III movies:
--_ In Child's Play 3_, a cute little kid named Andy is pursued by a serial killer that everyone else mistakes for a harmless toy. In Stepfather III, a cute little kid named Andy is pursued by serial killer that everyone else mistakes for a harmless stepfather.
-- In Rocky III, a short Italian-American who cannot fight is depicted as the greatest boxer in the world. In The Karate Kid III, a short Italian-American who cannot act and cannot fight is depicted as the greatest teenage karate champion in Los Angeles.
-- In Rocky III, Sylvester Stallone plays a champion whose aging mentor refuses to work with him anymore because his protege has gone soft and will get himself annihilated by a challenger who is a million times more talented than he is. In The Karate Kid III, Ralph Macchio plays a champion whose aging mentor refuses to work with him anymore because he has gone soft and will get himself annihilated by a challenger who is a million times more talented than he is.
-- In Rocky III, Sylvester Stallone makes a fool of himself in an L.A. gym before achieving catharsis on a California beach and whipping the piss out of his opponent. In The Karate Kid III, Ralph Macchio makes a fool of himself in an L.A. gym before achieving catharsis on a California beach and whipping the piss out of his adversary.
Other than that, the pictures have nothing in common.
Part IIIs are also characterized by a predilection for mutants that suddenly and unexpectedly emerge from parts of the human body which most viewers would probably prefer that they not emerge from, at least not while the family is huddled around the TV set eating Chinese. In Howling III, which is as fine a film about the ecological threat posed to the Australian marsupial werewolf community by a cynical, environmentally callous, totally unsympathetic public as has ever been made, the vastly underrated Imogen Annesley gives birth to a cuddly werewolflet that explodes from her loins and then crawls up her lower abdomen and wriggles into a pouch cleverly concealed in her stomach. Charming. This is pretty much the same thing that happens in Basket Case 3, where a horrible monstrosity suddenly squirms loose from a deformed woman's stomach, and then is followed by 11 siblings. Hey, the more the murkier.
The unorthodox lifestyles and dearth of interpersonal skills that typify these horrid monstrosities invariably result in their being persecuted by close-minded humans. Indeed, this leads to another theme that unites most Part III movies: that werewolves, sharks, psychopathic puppets and serpentine mutants suddenly exploding out of a female's bowels only appear to be monsters to unsophisticated observers, when in reality they are our friends. This is the theme of Jaws 3-D, in which perky marine biologist Bess Armstrong pleads with environmentally insensitive Sea World owner Lou Gossett Jr. to refrain from killing a great white shark that may have eaten one of his employees, because Science will benefit from studying it. It is also the theme of Basket Case 3, where the director seems to feel that if the rest of us would only refrain from prejudging the hideous mutants around us, we would probably come to like them, to accept them, and perhaps even to invite them into our homes to work off the books as nannies. In other words, to know, know, know them is to love, love, love them. Even if they do appear to be nothing more than festering carcasses of putrefied hog excrement.
This conciliatory theme is repeated in Puppet Master III, a film contending that the Third Reich might never have been toppled were it not for the intercession of a crack squadron of short, homicidal, anti-Nazi puppets. (Actually, the puppets are far more believable in their roles as enemies of the Gestapo than is Melanie Griffith, cast as an American spy working behind enemy lines during World War II, in Shining Through. I am willing to believe that there were short, wooden creatures active in the anti-Nazi underground in Berlin during the Second World War; I am even willing to believe that some of them are still on the CIA payroll. But I am not willing to believe that there have ever been any women like Melanie Griffith active in any anti-Nazi movement anywhere. Though, if the U.S. did use spies who talked like Chatty Cathy back in the '40s, this might explain why it took us so long to win the war.)
The theme of the Misunderstood Monsters Among Us also surfaces in Howling III, whose message is: If the rest of us will only back off and leave the Australian marsupial werewolf community in peace, its members will probably end up doing what other normal people do: going to Hollywood to get jobs in the movie business. The only movie in which weird creatures, given to unprovoked, sadistic outbursts resulting in extensive carnage, are treated unsympathetically is Child's Play 3, in which the murderous toy who goes by the name of Chucky is basically depicted as a sick fuck.
Are there any other themes that unite the various Part IIIs that I watched? Yes. Rambo III, Rocky III, Lethal Weapon 3, The Karate Kid III, Child's Play 3 and Police Academy 3 all revolve around white leading men (Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, Steve Guttenberg) or white leading boys (Ralph Macchio, Justin Whalin from Child's Play 3) who have ethnic sidekicks (Sasson Gabai from Rambo III, Carl Weathers, Danny Glover, Pat Morita, Jeremy Sylvers from Child's Play 3, Bubba Smith). Police department vehicles get destroyed in Lethal Weapon 3, Angel III and Police Academy 3, while unscrupulous businessmen who will do anything for a buck, even if it means endangering the lives of small children, appear in Child's Play 3, Lethal Weapon 3, Angel III and Jaws 3-D. Moreover, Lethal Weapon 3, Angel III, Basket Case 3, Rambo III and Rocky III are all movies in which the bad guys have a lot of facial hair. This is also the case in Howling III, where the murderers have a lot of facial hair because they are, in fact, werewolves.
The prototypical Part III is an extremely violent film in which a tough but likable black man wants to retire from his job but is talked out of it by his white partner because evil men with mustaches or ponytails are endangering the lives of our children, and the only way to stop them is to call in a lot of helicopters, wreck a lot of L.A.P.D. squad cars and set people on fire, but not before seeking advice from some old coot played by Burgess Meredith, Pat Morita or Richard Crenna. Whereas the second-most-prototypical Part III movie involves a foul mutation that, having sprung from the womb of its mother, usually with some help from Satan, is now finding it very hard to fit into normal society.
This answers the question of whether Part IIIs have certain unique features they all share with one another, other than the fact that they all suck. The next question is: Are Part IIIs in fact self-contained, free-standing, individual works of art that can stand on their own merits and be understood without having seen Parts I and II? Or do you have to backtrack and watch a bunch of earlier films starring Talia Shire to make any sense out of them?
The answer to this question is a qualified yes. While it is generally true that Part IIIs are unbelievably stupid movies that boggle the mind, they are usually not all that hard to follow, even if you haven't seen the unbelievably stupid movies that inspired them. Through the judicious use of flashbacks, dreams, old snapshots or prescient comments by Joe Pesci, the directors of Part IIIs usually make it fairly easy for the audience to get up to speed.
We thus return to the original question: If you happen to be stranded on a desert island with nothing but a VCR, a TV and a bunch of movies that are Part III in a series where you haven't already seen Parts I or II, is it worth watching the movies--or should you just lie down and die? The answer: Flip a coin. It's probably worth watching Child's Play 3, Stepfather III, Rambo III, Puppet Master III and Howling III for laughs, and since you know you're going to be dying anyway, it can't hurt to watch Rocky III and Lethal Weapon 3 first. Basket Case 3 I would advise against, however, because it is so disgusting that it will give you nightmares after you die. As for The Karate Kid III, Angel III and Jaws 3-D, no, I would not recommend postponing your death simply to watch them. Pull the fucking plug.
Police Academy 3 is the single case where I would make an exception: This movie is so bad it will make you glad that you'll soon be dead, glad that you'll soon be going to your eternal reward. Because once you get to Paradise, you'll realize what the term "eternal reward" actually means: a billion years in a place where there are no people like Bubba Smith and George Gaynes. And you'll also find out what they mean by the term "beatific vision": a place where as far as the eye can see there are no Steve Guttenberg movies, and, better still, no Steve Guttenbergs.
There is one other matter to discuss here. If you happen to be stranded on a desert island and the last Part III movie you still have left to watch is Deathstalker III, make sure that it's really Deathstalker III before you put it in the VCR. The night I set aside 86 precious minutes to watch Deathstalker do battle with Troxartes--the evil wizard and ruler of the Southland--while the winsome Princess Elizena looked on, I was really anxious to find out if Deathstalker would be able to protect the enchanted jewel, one of three which hold the key to the fabled city of Erendor. Imagine my fury and disappointment when the film came on and in the place of Deathstalker was a young, anemic Tim Robbins ogling a girl in a skimpy bikini through a telescope. Yes, the assholes at my local video store had put Fraternity Vacation in the Deathstalker III box, and I had to wait until the following day to find out how Deathstalker fared against the undead Warriors from Hell. (He fared okay.)
The moral: If you're stranded on a desert island and the only movies you have to watch are a pile of Part IIIs in series where you haven't seen Parts I or II, make sure that the people who maroon you on a desert island at least put the right flick in the box. Conversely, if you're cast adrift on a desert island where you have a VCR, a TV and a bunch of frat-house movies, make sure the people marooning you don't put Deathstalker III inside the Revenge of the Nerds box. Deathstalker III doesn't have any babes in underpants.
One final question many readers will want answered: After watching 13 Part III movies from series where I hadn't already seen Parts I or II, did I develop a sixth sense about these things enabling me to tell, just by glancing at the screen, whether I was watching a Part III, a Part IV or even a Part VII? Absolutely. The last day of my research, I had my wife load up a bunch of sequels on the VCR so I could guess whether they were Part IIIs. I watched five films and was right on target in four cases. Right off the bat I spotted Emmanuelle 5 as a Part V-er (if Yaseen Khan is in a movie, it has to be at least a Part IV), and I also hit a bull's eye with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, [Inside Out 4] and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. The only film that I struck out on was Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation, where the appearance of Maud Adams, star of Angel III, beguiled me into thinking I was watching Silent Night, Deadly Night III --Better Watch Out! But hey, nobody's perfect.
At this point, readers may find themselves wondering: If this guy went to all the trouble of watching Basket Case 3 and Puppet Master III, why didn't he go the whole nine yards and watch Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Critters 3, Ghoulies Go to College and Delta Force 3? The answer is simple: I still have standards. What's more, I think most readers of this magazine still have standards. I am willing to contemplate a situation in which one of Movieline's readers might be stranded on a desert island with nothing but a VCR, a TV and a bunch of movies like The Stepfather III and Rambo III. But I am not willing to contemplate a situation in which one of my beloved readers would be stranded on a desert island with nothing but a VCR, a TV and a bunch of movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Ghoulies Go to College. Anyone who would voluntarily watch movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Ghoulies Go to College actually deserves to be stranded in the middle of a remote, desolate, culturally petrified wasteland where there is nothing to do but watch movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Ghoulies Go to College, or die
I believe they call that place Los Angeles.
___________________
Joe Queenan wrote "Ham Radio "for the April Movieline.