Popcorn (1991)

[Flack]

I don't have the free time I once had. I frequently find myself doing two or three things at a time. It's tough to find a few hours to focus on one specific task. I guess what I'm saying is, I appreciate a film that gives you the setup within the first five minutes and then lets it play out.

When the members of a university's film club discover they've once again been booted from their meeting space, the members decide to put on a fundraising marathon of horror movies. One of the members of the club, Maggie, has been having dreams involving a weird murderer, who turns out to be "Lanyard Gates," a former cult leader and avant-garde filmmaker who may or may have returned from the dead to seek revenge against the theater students.

And, go! As the film plays out, viewers will struggle to figure out "whodunnit" -- or in this case, "whosdoin'in" -- as Lanyard Gates is a master of disguise who, with this filmmaking and acting experience, has mastered the art of (apparently quickly) making latex masks that look exactly like other people. A couple of the deaths are pretty spectacular including an actor getting impaled by a gigantic mosquito prop, but in many cases the murders take place off screen in order to obfuscate the killer's identity, which kept Popcorn from succeeding at the box office. The parodies of gimmicky 50's films (like "The Tingler," which threatened to randomly shock members of the audience) is a fun throwback, and fans of that era, filmmakers, and fans of B-rate horror films will enjoy Popcorn.

Not everything here works. Believing how the killer is able to hide as well as operate from day to day takes huge leaps of faith, and there are a few things that gets thrown at the screen (like some supernatural elements) that, as the plot unfolds, simply couldn't have happened.

[Jizaboz]

I recall being a bit confused watching this when it first came out, but I did enjoy it.

Revisiting recently it's not outstanding but it still holds up.