If there's one movie that depicts Trick or Treating in a horrifying way, it's this movie. There's actually not one tale here, but I'd guess 3 or 4 of them all wrapped up together and happening all on Halloween night. What's especially cool is that they all happen in the same town and at the same time, so if you are watching carefully you can see bits and pieces of the other tales in the background while watching one of them, and more importantly, they are all interlinked, so none of them feel seperate in any way.
It starts out with a couple coming home from a party or something. They walk up to their front door and the woman, adorable as she is, immediately starts whining about having to take down all the decorations. Apparently, she hates Halloween. Yea, why are all the hot ones total bitches? I don't know. So the husband wants some tail, and the women finally tells him to go inside and put on "the tape" while she takes down all the Halloween decorations and puts out the Jack-o-Lantern. The husband warns her not to put it out until morning, because it's tradition, but she ignores him, and while he's inside watching the, ah, "Nature Special," she's taking down the fake ghosts and various decorations and BAM! She's brutally murdered.
And that's just in the first few minutes. And Anna Paquin's innit! She's cute in a country girl next door kinda way. This movie was made before she starred in the True Blood series, and since she's been in multiple horror productions, I'm keeping my eye on her.
This movie has all things Halloween. Murderers, Vampires, Werewolves, Trick or Treating, awesome acting, there's even murdered kiddies! You sure don't see that in every movie. I've had it on DVD since last year, and I'm going to watch it every Halloween from now until there's no such thing as DVD players. Hopefully I can raise my kids on horror movies and they will like this movie as much as I do. Nothing like raising your kids right, I always say.
So that's it for my 31 days of Halloween movie reviews. I regret not being able to review a few movies, like The Fog, or the actual Halloween series, which would have been nice but I haven't managed to see an entire Halloween movie all month. Maybe next year! :-)
Speaking of killer movie series, I want to weigh in on the whole "Who is the greatest killer" in the movies thing. They've done Freddy Vs Jason, and frankly, I wanted to review the three great staples in horror movie villains in honor of this time of year, ranked by where they come in the list.
# 3 - Freddy Krueger. Freddy was a child molester while alive. The townspeople found him, killed him, and burned his remains in an old furnace. Since then, he mostly kills the people that live on Elm Street, can only kill them while they sleep, only kills them one at a time after a long period of toying with them, and generally has little or no contact with the realm of the living. Occasionally, the living can even beat him in his own realm of dreams, and sometimes he isn't powerful enough to actually kill anyone, unless it's by talking them to death. Nowadays they don't even make movies about him, and if the townspeople were brave enough to kill him, well he can't be that scary. I mean, his trademark is an orange and green sweater and one funky glove, so unless you are scared of bad fashion, only the kiddies have to worry about this one. Current status: Substanceless, forgotten ghost.
# 2 - Jason Voorhees. Jason was a, shall we say, mentally challenged kid while alive, who grew into a murderer who stalks the woods around Camp Crystal Lake and kills naughty campers after they killed his mother. He was even resurrected from the dead at one point and became even more unstoppable, but drowning him in Crystal Lake usually makes him quiescent for a few years until the movie producers want more money. His actual life was ended by a small boy with a machete, but his undead life continues. The only people who usually have to worry about this one are campers near Crystal Lake who smoke pot, drink a lot, or have wanton sex with a fellow camper. He usually wears a hockey mask to disguise his disfigured, now rotting, face. Current status: mostly unstoppable drowned zombie.
# 1 - Michael Myers. By most accounts, Michael Myers was a typical boy from a typical suburb who at the age of like 8 or something, decided to just murder his entire family with a kitchen knife for no particular reason. Rob Zombie tried to remake him into a boy from a broken home who just snapped, but the other two killers on our list didn't even start killing until they became adults, so this kid must have been seriously evil at birth to start with. Michael Myers will sit patiently for years in an insane asylum until he hears a vague rumor of any surviving member of his family, and will then carve a bloody swath through the countryside, slaughtering everything in his path on his way to try and kill them, stopping frequently to murder entire stations full of police or just to kill randomly along the way. He's silent, sneaky, fast, and half his kills are in the back, because you almost never see this guy coming. He's been shot repeatedly by entire police forces, stabbed in the eyes, blown up, burned, and still he keeps coming. Nothing even slows this guy down. He's never even been killed, to my knowledge, and not only does he not stay in a specific area (except perhaps Haddonfield, Illinois), but this sonofabitch will come into your home and kill you in your sleep, and then kill your neighbors just for living next door to you. Plus, he wears William Shatner's pasty white face! You can't get more terrifying than that. Current status: Unstoppable killing machine, probably waiting in an asylum somewhere for word on his next of kin so he can track them down and kill them on the next Halloween no matter where they may be.
Well, there you have it. My thoughts on all things horror, at least until i come up with new thoughts. Happy Halloween everybody! :-)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
October 30 - Night of the Creeps
There aren't many zombie-alien-invasion-undead-slug-detective-thrillers out there nowadays... come to think of it, I've never even heard of one. Besides this movie, that is. This one wasn't made by Roger Corman, nor hammers studios, but dammit, it has one thing going for it. It was made in the 80's, and by Thor's hammer, they knew how to make movies back then. I may sound like your grandpa right now, but I was alive way back in the 80's, and dammit, I know what I'm talking about!
Night of the Creeps starts in 1959. 1959 was not a very good year. In 1959, Officer Cameron joined the police force. In 1959, his girlfriend dumped him for a frat boy, whom shall henceforth be known in this blog as "Deadmeat." In 1959, a mental patient escaped from the local psycho ward. In 1959, a meteor crashed to the earth, and frat boy Deadmeat and officer Cameron's ex-girlfriend went to investigate. Deadmeat finds the "meteor," a crystalline cylinder filled with writhing black space-worms. One of them breaks out of the cylinder and launches itself into deadmeat's mouth, and that's the last we see of Deadmeat, at least for a while. And finally, that year, Officer Cameron killed said escaped lunatic, after that psycho axe-killer hacked Officer Cameron's ex-girlfriend to death with an axe.
Flash forward 27 years. It's now 1986, and Detective Cameron (Tom Atkins) is called to the local college on a case. Two fraternity pledges, whom Detective cameron refers to as "Spanky and Alfalfa," try to join a frat to impress a girl (Jill Whitlow). Unfortunately, the prank they are supposed to pull involves thawing a cadaver out of a cryogenics experiment at the local science lab. A cadaver who has been on ice since 1959. A cadaver who, while his name may have been something else while he was alive, is known to you and I by another name. We affectionately call him... Deadmeat.
I'm not going to say another word. This movie's awesome. There's aliens. There's zombies. There's escaped lunatic axe murderers. There's detective work. There's nudity. There's even an old japanese janitor that keeps repeating the phrase "screaming rike banshees." Now I ask you. What other movie do you know of that has an old japanese janitor that walks around saying "screaming rike banshees" and cackling hysterically? Yea, I thought the list might be a bit short. This movie even has Dick Miller in it!
I really love watching this movie. I love the atmosphere. I love the humor. I love the characters. I love the aliens. I especially love Jill Whitlow. Oh yes. She may be one of the hottest damsels in distress I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them. When I saw this movie, I immediately identified with "Spanky," otherwise known as Jason Lively, the actor who plays him. I'm not sure if he's related to Robin Lively, the actress? They both have red hair, and I think there's a resemblance.
Anyway, I identified with him because he saw Jill Whitlow and wanted to marry her. Much of the humor in this movie, and even though it's not a comedy, there is a lot of it. Spanky says he wants to marry her, and Alfalfa says "I'm sorry, this may come as a shock to you, but you have to talk to her first." And there's even the line on the DVD case... Detective Cameron is at the sorority and the busload of frat boys arrives. Detective Cameron says "Good news and bad news, ladies. Good news is, your dates are here." And a sorority girl asks "What's the bad news?" Detective Cameron replies "They're dead."
Fun movie, and definitely passes the rewatchability test. Check it out! Got it on DVD from amazon. Only one night left! Join me tomorrow for a review of Trick R Treat, starring Anna Paquin! :-D
Night of the Creeps starts in 1959. 1959 was not a very good year. In 1959, Officer Cameron joined the police force. In 1959, his girlfriend dumped him for a frat boy, whom shall henceforth be known in this blog as "Deadmeat." In 1959, a mental patient escaped from the local psycho ward. In 1959, a meteor crashed to the earth, and frat boy Deadmeat and officer Cameron's ex-girlfriend went to investigate. Deadmeat finds the "meteor," a crystalline cylinder filled with writhing black space-worms. One of them breaks out of the cylinder and launches itself into deadmeat's mouth, and that's the last we see of Deadmeat, at least for a while. And finally, that year, Officer Cameron killed said escaped lunatic, after that psycho axe-killer hacked Officer Cameron's ex-girlfriend to death with an axe.
Flash forward 27 years. It's now 1986, and Detective Cameron (Tom Atkins) is called to the local college on a case. Two fraternity pledges, whom Detective cameron refers to as "Spanky and Alfalfa," try to join a frat to impress a girl (Jill Whitlow). Unfortunately, the prank they are supposed to pull involves thawing a cadaver out of a cryogenics experiment at the local science lab. A cadaver who has been on ice since 1959. A cadaver who, while his name may have been something else while he was alive, is known to you and I by another name. We affectionately call him... Deadmeat.
I'm not going to say another word. This movie's awesome. There's aliens. There's zombies. There's escaped lunatic axe murderers. There's detective work. There's nudity. There's even an old japanese janitor that keeps repeating the phrase "screaming rike banshees." Now I ask you. What other movie do you know of that has an old japanese janitor that walks around saying "screaming rike banshees" and cackling hysterically? Yea, I thought the list might be a bit short. This movie even has Dick Miller in it!
I really love watching this movie. I love the atmosphere. I love the humor. I love the characters. I love the aliens. I especially love Jill Whitlow. Oh yes. She may be one of the hottest damsels in distress I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them. When I saw this movie, I immediately identified with "Spanky," otherwise known as Jason Lively, the actor who plays him. I'm not sure if he's related to Robin Lively, the actress? They both have red hair, and I think there's a resemblance.
Anyway, I identified with him because he saw Jill Whitlow and wanted to marry her. Much of the humor in this movie, and even though it's not a comedy, there is a lot of it. Spanky says he wants to marry her, and Alfalfa says "I'm sorry, this may come as a shock to you, but you have to talk to her first." And there's even the line on the DVD case... Detective Cameron is at the sorority and the busload of frat boys arrives. Detective Cameron says "Good news and bad news, ladies. Good news is, your dates are here." And a sorority girl asks "What's the bad news?" Detective Cameron replies "They're dead."
Fun movie, and definitely passes the rewatchability test. Check it out! Got it on DVD from amazon. Only one night left! Join me tomorrow for a review of Trick R Treat, starring Anna Paquin! :-D
Friday, October 29, 2010
October 29 - Re-Animator
I've mentioned H. P. Lovecraft in several other reviews so far. I'm not sure when he wrote this little gem, but it turned out to be a pretty damn good movie. I first saw this one in my late teens, and though it probably didn't jumpstart my lust for monster movies, it certainly did wonders for my interest in oral necrophilia! Erm. Ahem. Well, on to the review.
Herbert West is a new student at Miskatonic University. He has some odd ideas about the reanimation of dead tissue, not unlike our dear and frequent friend to the horror movie blog, Baron Frankenstein. We first find Herbert reanimating a deceased cat, a favored pet of his new roommate, Dan. Dan is dating the dean's daughter, Megan. Megan is being stalked by Dr. Hill, an eminent neurosurgeon, who is close friends with the dean. And thus we have our love quadrangle. Because what is love, really, but a four sided two-dimensional representation of our true feelings for one another? But enough about interdimensional quantum lovemaking.
Megan takes an instant dislike to West, whom she finds rather creepy (as i am sure she finds the much older Dr. Hill), but West strikes me as more of a dedicated and friendly individual. Much like our eminent Dr. Frankenstein, West is always on the lookout for someone to assist him in the laboratory, and in this case, he finds that person in Dan. After demonstrating the effect of his purely chemical reanimating agent on Dan's beloved but dead cat, Dan agrees to work with West. Of course, he first attempts to go to the dean about West's work, and is simultaneously disbelieved, belittled, and evicted from medical school. After such rough treatment by the dean, it's no wonder Dan agrees to work with West on reanimating dead things.
After a little accident in the morgue during a reanimation experiment, and a subsequent fracas involving Dr. Hill, well, let's just say there's a bunch of extraordinarily violent and unusually coordinated (as a group, not individually) bunch of zombies running about, and it's up to West and Dan to rescue Megan from the evil clutches of the maniacally obsessed and smelly Dr. Hill! :-o
I love watching this movie. The performances put in by Jeffrey Combs and the other actors are pretty first rate if a bit over the top, and there's nothing like a good nude scene involving a reanimated severed head and a naked co-ed. Oh yea yea, I know, if you've seen one, you've seen them all, but this, the one in this movie, is the first! I think. Well, i've never seen it in another movie, so I can't say for sure, but it may be the only one I've ever seen.
I haven't seen this movie in years, but it certainly stands up to the rewatchability test. I had purchased a DVD of this movie some time ago, but alas, the movie is so damn good, someone actually made off with my copy. Yes, that's how good this movie is, people will steal it from you just to watch it. Or maybe they made slow sweet DVD love to it using the interdimensional quadrangle position. Either way, they had more fun with it than I did. Come to think of it, I don't know if I even unwrapped it from the plastic. Well, at least it's protected from interdimensional VD.
Herbert West is a new student at Miskatonic University. He has some odd ideas about the reanimation of dead tissue, not unlike our dear and frequent friend to the horror movie blog, Baron Frankenstein. We first find Herbert reanimating a deceased cat, a favored pet of his new roommate, Dan. Dan is dating the dean's daughter, Megan. Megan is being stalked by Dr. Hill, an eminent neurosurgeon, who is close friends with the dean. And thus we have our love quadrangle. Because what is love, really, but a four sided two-dimensional representation of our true feelings for one another? But enough about interdimensional quantum lovemaking.
Megan takes an instant dislike to West, whom she finds rather creepy (as i am sure she finds the much older Dr. Hill), but West strikes me as more of a dedicated and friendly individual. Much like our eminent Dr. Frankenstein, West is always on the lookout for someone to assist him in the laboratory, and in this case, he finds that person in Dan. After demonstrating the effect of his purely chemical reanimating agent on Dan's beloved but dead cat, Dan agrees to work with West. Of course, he first attempts to go to the dean about West's work, and is simultaneously disbelieved, belittled, and evicted from medical school. After such rough treatment by the dean, it's no wonder Dan agrees to work with West on reanimating dead things.
After a little accident in the morgue during a reanimation experiment, and a subsequent fracas involving Dr. Hill, well, let's just say there's a bunch of extraordinarily violent and unusually coordinated (as a group, not individually) bunch of zombies running about, and it's up to West and Dan to rescue Megan from the evil clutches of the maniacally obsessed and smelly Dr. Hill! :-o
I love watching this movie. The performances put in by Jeffrey Combs and the other actors are pretty first rate if a bit over the top, and there's nothing like a good nude scene involving a reanimated severed head and a naked co-ed. Oh yea yea, I know, if you've seen one, you've seen them all, but this, the one in this movie, is the first! I think. Well, i've never seen it in another movie, so I can't say for sure, but it may be the only one I've ever seen.
I haven't seen this movie in years, but it certainly stands up to the rewatchability test. I had purchased a DVD of this movie some time ago, but alas, the movie is so damn good, someone actually made off with my copy. Yes, that's how good this movie is, people will steal it from you just to watch it. Or maybe they made slow sweet DVD love to it using the interdimensional quadrangle position. Either way, they had more fun with it than I did. Come to think of it, I don't know if I even unwrapped it from the plastic. Well, at least it's protected from interdimensional VD.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
October 28 - Humanoids from the Deep
Another Roger Corman flick like last night's horror film, this one turned out not to be as good as I remembered, but I been wanting to re-watch it for some time now. Humanoids from the Deep (released as Monster internationally) was a film I saw way back in the early 80's, back when guys in rubber suits constituted the scariest movie monsters, or at least the cheapest, and I thought there was more going on in this film.
Basically, there's this little town called Noyo, probabbly in the pacific northwest, I would guess. Noyo is a fishing community, but the salmon are starting to become scarce, and there is talk of a cannery being opened in the town. The local indian population is against the cannery, and most of the townspeople are for it. There's also a local salmon festival coming up, and the one-sherriff town is suddenly being plague by dead animals, mostly dogs, and a few disappearances. The sherriff's a bit clueless, so it's up to a locally well-liked fisherman to find out what's going on.
While he's investigating, there's an outbreak of racial violence between the local racists (led by Vic Morrow, who was famously killed on the set of a movie several years after this), and the local indian population, which further confuses the issue and disguises the attacks by the Humanoids from the Deep. I think the entirety of the movie takes place within a span about 24 to 48 hours, so the townspeople are pretty much caught unawares and by the sheer numbers of these things popping up out of the water. And the fisheries biologist from the cannery company knows more than she is letting on...
Men in rubber suits were a staple of monster movies back in the day. Sure, it seems a bit hokey by today's standards in special effects, but Return of the Living Dead, which revolutionized the concept of how quickly zombies could move, was done pretty much the same way, with even less makeup. These rubber suits are fairly well done, and there's a lot of blood and nudity in this film to make up for any shortfalls in the acting or plot.
Interestingly enough, this movie was originally made by a student of Roger Corman's, but Mr. Corman thought the film lacked sufficient blood and gore, and after she finished production on it, he ordered another director to reshoot and add some scenes. The result was a more gory flick with more nudity in it, and the original director apparently never worked with Corman again after this. The end result looks fairly seamless, and when I saw this in my teens it seemed like an awesome movie.
Nowadays I have a few problems with it. Like first of all, why are the creatures' brains exposed to the open air? What sort of evolutionary advantage made them like that? It seems far too easy to bash them in the head with something, knock off some brain matter and have the critters die. in one scene, creatures bust upwards through wooden docks, and you'd think their brains would get squished with a open skull like that, but apparently not. Two, I could have sworn I saw Vic Morrow get killed by a creature at one point, but he seemed to be alive in a scene later on, and we never really find out what happened to him. Also, there's a concerted attack by the creatures, and they are running around killing and raping indiscriminately, and the local fisher-hero is spewing gasoline into the water to try and stop them... when they are already on land? What? Why? I only saw one or two of the beasties die from the fire, and yet there's an indian running around with a rifle shooting them at will and saving people's lives. Why is our fisher-hero being such a dumbass while people are dying?
Still, the movie was pretty decent if you like B monster movies, and if you haven't noticed by now, I do. :-) I would have reviewed Piranha (the old version) tonight, but as it turned out, I didn't have sufficient time to watch both movies. I am SO looking forward to this weekend! Monster movies all weekend long, a Minecraft update coming on halloween, and CANDY on top of everything else! :-D I'm going to be in a chocolate coma by monday...
Basically, there's this little town called Noyo, probabbly in the pacific northwest, I would guess. Noyo is a fishing community, but the salmon are starting to become scarce, and there is talk of a cannery being opened in the town. The local indian population is against the cannery, and most of the townspeople are for it. There's also a local salmon festival coming up, and the one-sherriff town is suddenly being plague by dead animals, mostly dogs, and a few disappearances. The sherriff's a bit clueless, so it's up to a locally well-liked fisherman to find out what's going on.
While he's investigating, there's an outbreak of racial violence between the local racists (led by Vic Morrow, who was famously killed on the set of a movie several years after this), and the local indian population, which further confuses the issue and disguises the attacks by the Humanoids from the Deep. I think the entirety of the movie takes place within a span about 24 to 48 hours, so the townspeople are pretty much caught unawares and by the sheer numbers of these things popping up out of the water. And the fisheries biologist from the cannery company knows more than she is letting on...
Men in rubber suits were a staple of monster movies back in the day. Sure, it seems a bit hokey by today's standards in special effects, but Return of the Living Dead, which revolutionized the concept of how quickly zombies could move, was done pretty much the same way, with even less makeup. These rubber suits are fairly well done, and there's a lot of blood and nudity in this film to make up for any shortfalls in the acting or plot.
Interestingly enough, this movie was originally made by a student of Roger Corman's, but Mr. Corman thought the film lacked sufficient blood and gore, and after she finished production on it, he ordered another director to reshoot and add some scenes. The result was a more gory flick with more nudity in it, and the original director apparently never worked with Corman again after this. The end result looks fairly seamless, and when I saw this in my teens it seemed like an awesome movie.
Nowadays I have a few problems with it. Like first of all, why are the creatures' brains exposed to the open air? What sort of evolutionary advantage made them like that? It seems far too easy to bash them in the head with something, knock off some brain matter and have the critters die. in one scene, creatures bust upwards through wooden docks, and you'd think their brains would get squished with a open skull like that, but apparently not. Two, I could have sworn I saw Vic Morrow get killed by a creature at one point, but he seemed to be alive in a scene later on, and we never really find out what happened to him. Also, there's a concerted attack by the creatures, and they are running around killing and raping indiscriminately, and the local fisher-hero is spewing gasoline into the water to try and stop them... when they are already on land? What? Why? I only saw one or two of the beasties die from the fire, and yet there's an indian running around with a rifle shooting them at will and saving people's lives. Why is our fisher-hero being such a dumbass while people are dying?
Still, the movie was pretty decent if you like B monster movies, and if you haven't noticed by now, I do. :-) I would have reviewed Piranha (the old version) tonight, but as it turned out, I didn't have sufficient time to watch both movies. I am SO looking forward to this weekend! Monster movies all weekend long, a Minecraft update coming on halloween, and CANDY on top of everything else! :-D I'm going to be in a chocolate coma by monday...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
October 27 - The Evil
Hammer films may have made a bunch of horror movies for period of 20 years, but just about everyone who does horror (or any kind of) movies nowadays got their start working with Roger Corman. He's produced hundreds of movies, worked with just about all the big stars and directors back when they were cobbling together stage sets when they were in their teens, trying to make it big, and if I'm not mistaken he's been producing movies for about 50 years or so. So it comes as no surprise to me that he's done some of the best horror films out there. Piranha, for instance, is getting the 3D makeover, but the original movie was done by Roger Corman back in the 70's. If hollywood ever decides to actually LOOK for new ideas, they need only ask Roger Corman if he's got any spare projects he doesn't have time to make.
Tonight's film, The Evil, was done in that period between the 70's and 80's when everyone was doing horror films, not just the crappy actors who needed bit parts to break into blockbusters like nowadays. The Evil starts out pretty decently, and just gets better from there. It's obviously a quality piece of work, and keeps you engrossed from beginning to end.
It begins with a caretaker heading into an old mansion. I forget his name, so we're just going to call him Deadmeat. Yes, he's one of THOSE, the character whose sole purpose in the film is to be the first victim of whatever beastie is going to get the ball rolling. So caretaker deadmeat starts sweeping up, hears noises, and heads down into the basement to find out where the sound is coming from. Becoming more and more scared as he goes, deadmeat finally tracks the noise to the old furnace, and gingerly opens the door to peer inside and find... nothing but cold ashes. Greatly relieved as the noises stop, deadmeat is about to close the door to the furnace when a blast of fire bursts forth and consumes him. And so the mansion claims it's first victim.
Next, we see why the caretaker has gone into the place. It seems a prominent psychologist (Richard Crenna!) is going to open a sort of halfway house for mental patients there, and a bunch of his assistants, former students and people he's helped over the years are all coming up to the place to clean it up and open it for business. Of course, before that can happen, they need to get the wiring up to par, so there's also an electrician and his team there setting up a generator and putting in some work lights, since apparently, the place hasn't had anyone in it for at least 50 years, and it's a hundred years older than that, having been built by some guy named Vargas back around the end of the civil war. Apparently, the indians avoided the area because it stank of sulphur and they thought there were evil spirits all through the area...
Why oh why does nobody ever listen to the indians when they tell you the ground is bad news? Stupid white man.
I'm not going to give away any more of this movie. It's excellent and fast paced, and the only problem I had with it was the end parts, where they explain what's causing all the ruckus. That and there was no actual nudity despite every girl in the movie being quite attractive. But other than that, pretty good stuff.
Roger Corman did a ton of other movies, probably even some of the other ones I've already reviewed, and probably some of the ones I'm going to review in the future. Nice part is, unlike Hammer films, which is mostly defunct at this point, good old Roger is still pumping out movies. You go Roger! Make those B movie cult classics! I love em!
Tonight's film, The Evil, was done in that period between the 70's and 80's when everyone was doing horror films, not just the crappy actors who needed bit parts to break into blockbusters like nowadays. The Evil starts out pretty decently, and just gets better from there. It's obviously a quality piece of work, and keeps you engrossed from beginning to end.
It begins with a caretaker heading into an old mansion. I forget his name, so we're just going to call him Deadmeat. Yes, he's one of THOSE, the character whose sole purpose in the film is to be the first victim of whatever beastie is going to get the ball rolling. So caretaker deadmeat starts sweeping up, hears noises, and heads down into the basement to find out where the sound is coming from. Becoming more and more scared as he goes, deadmeat finally tracks the noise to the old furnace, and gingerly opens the door to peer inside and find... nothing but cold ashes. Greatly relieved as the noises stop, deadmeat is about to close the door to the furnace when a blast of fire bursts forth and consumes him. And so the mansion claims it's first victim.
Next, we see why the caretaker has gone into the place. It seems a prominent psychologist (Richard Crenna!) is going to open a sort of halfway house for mental patients there, and a bunch of his assistants, former students and people he's helped over the years are all coming up to the place to clean it up and open it for business. Of course, before that can happen, they need to get the wiring up to par, so there's also an electrician and his team there setting up a generator and putting in some work lights, since apparently, the place hasn't had anyone in it for at least 50 years, and it's a hundred years older than that, having been built by some guy named Vargas back around the end of the civil war. Apparently, the indians avoided the area because it stank of sulphur and they thought there were evil spirits all through the area...
Why oh why does nobody ever listen to the indians when they tell you the ground is bad news? Stupid white man.
I'm not going to give away any more of this movie. It's excellent and fast paced, and the only problem I had with it was the end parts, where they explain what's causing all the ruckus. That and there was no actual nudity despite every girl in the movie being quite attractive. But other than that, pretty good stuff.
Roger Corman did a ton of other movies, probably even some of the other ones I've already reviewed, and probably some of the ones I'm going to review in the future. Nice part is, unlike Hammer films, which is mostly defunct at this point, good old Roger is still pumping out movies. You go Roger! Make those B movie cult classics! I love em!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
October 26 - The Creeping Flesh
I've talked about Hammer studios movies before, so I won't go into how great they are again, but it seemes every time I think I've seen all the pairings between Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, I find another one.
I remember seeing the beginning of the Creeping Flesh years back, but for some reason I never caught the ending. Crackle.com came through for me again since I've run out of DVD's for my little movie review experiment, but I currently have more on the way, so tomorrow night shouldn't be a problem. Well, I have one DVD left, but I am saving it for Halloween night. Or perhaps during the day, doubtless Halloween night will probably be a busy one. I'd say I was scarping the bottom of crackle'com's barrel to come up with this one if the movie wasn't so good, but you just can't go wrong with a hammer horror flick.
Peter Cushing stars in this one as Emanuel Hildern, a scientist researching the origins of man. So, something of a bioarchaeologist then, if I'm allowed to make up professions at random. On one of his recent expeditions, he unearths a huge skeleton of a malformed humanoid beast of some kind. At first thinking it some form of early caveman, he takes it back to his lab and tries to research the history of the people of New Guinea, where he found the thing. Noticing the skeleton is a bit grimy, he washes off a finger to get a closer look at the multi-jointed, large fingers, and immediately, flesh begins to grow back over the exposed bone. Emanuel immediately chisels the living finger away from the rest of the skeleton, and begins experimenting on it.
Emanuel discovers some interesting things about his new find. Basically, the blood cells from the now-living flesh surrounding the finger bone are parasitic in nature, and will invade and destroy the normal cells of the living host and take it over. Also, he finds out from the history of the people of New Guinea that the "Evil One's" bones will be exposed to the "tears of the sky god, and evil will once again walk the land." Or something to that effect. So basically the doc figures out that exposing the skeleton to water or rain is what makes the flesh grow back, and if the whole skeleton gets exposed to rain, then the Evil One from the New Guinea legends will walk again. Needless to say, the good doc doesn't want this to happen, and tries to make an antiserum from the blood and injects it into a monkey to test it, hoping he can somehow cure the world of all evil. After waiting a bit, he tests some of the monkey's blood and it appears his antiserum is working!
Meanwhile, the doc has this daughter who he keeps a virtual prisoner inside his home. Basically, the girl's mother went batshiat insane and he's worried that contact with the outside world will make her go the same way as her mother, so he's told her for years that her mother is dead. However, he's recently found out from his brother, James (Christopher Lee), who runs an asylum, that the girl's mother has truly died, and the girl finds the paperwork about her death and freaks out about it a little, understandably so. Unfortunately, the doc thinks the girl is going insane, too, and injects her with his evil antiserum. Again unfortunately, the serum is not a success, and only delays the evil infecting the host, so he's actually infected his daughter with evil. She goes a bit crazy, and she's brought to James' asylum, where James discovers her blood is infected with something and realizes it has something to do with Emanuel's work. Always envious of Emanuel's brains, James finds out it has something to do with Emanual's latest find, and tries to steal the skeleton during a thunderstorm... :-o
This movie was made in 1973, towards the end of hammer studios reign as kings of horror, but from what I hear, recent efforts are ... shall we say, resurrecting Hammer studios from the ashes to return and terrify us again? ;-) At least, that's what I hear.
I should have some really good movies to review the next few days, what with Halloween weekend coming up and my new DVD's coming in, so I am going to have to narrow it down to five final choices and review one each night.
I remember seeing the beginning of the Creeping Flesh years back, but for some reason I never caught the ending. Crackle.com came through for me again since I've run out of DVD's for my little movie review experiment, but I currently have more on the way, so tomorrow night shouldn't be a problem. Well, I have one DVD left, but I am saving it for Halloween night. Or perhaps during the day, doubtless Halloween night will probably be a busy one. I'd say I was scarping the bottom of crackle'com's barrel to come up with this one if the movie wasn't so good, but you just can't go wrong with a hammer horror flick.
Peter Cushing stars in this one as Emanuel Hildern, a scientist researching the origins of man. So, something of a bioarchaeologist then, if I'm allowed to make up professions at random. On one of his recent expeditions, he unearths a huge skeleton of a malformed humanoid beast of some kind. At first thinking it some form of early caveman, he takes it back to his lab and tries to research the history of the people of New Guinea, where he found the thing. Noticing the skeleton is a bit grimy, he washes off a finger to get a closer look at the multi-jointed, large fingers, and immediately, flesh begins to grow back over the exposed bone. Emanuel immediately chisels the living finger away from the rest of the skeleton, and begins experimenting on it.
Emanuel discovers some interesting things about his new find. Basically, the blood cells from the now-living flesh surrounding the finger bone are parasitic in nature, and will invade and destroy the normal cells of the living host and take it over. Also, he finds out from the history of the people of New Guinea that the "Evil One's" bones will be exposed to the "tears of the sky god, and evil will once again walk the land." Or something to that effect. So basically the doc figures out that exposing the skeleton to water or rain is what makes the flesh grow back, and if the whole skeleton gets exposed to rain, then the Evil One from the New Guinea legends will walk again. Needless to say, the good doc doesn't want this to happen, and tries to make an antiserum from the blood and injects it into a monkey to test it, hoping he can somehow cure the world of all evil. After waiting a bit, he tests some of the monkey's blood and it appears his antiserum is working!
Meanwhile, the doc has this daughter who he keeps a virtual prisoner inside his home. Basically, the girl's mother went batshiat insane and he's worried that contact with the outside world will make her go the same way as her mother, so he's told her for years that her mother is dead. However, he's recently found out from his brother, James (Christopher Lee), who runs an asylum, that the girl's mother has truly died, and the girl finds the paperwork about her death and freaks out about it a little, understandably so. Unfortunately, the doc thinks the girl is going insane, too, and injects her with his evil antiserum. Again unfortunately, the serum is not a success, and only delays the evil infecting the host, so he's actually infected his daughter with evil. She goes a bit crazy, and she's brought to James' asylum, where James discovers her blood is infected with something and realizes it has something to do with Emanuel's work. Always envious of Emanuel's brains, James finds out it has something to do with Emanual's latest find, and tries to steal the skeleton during a thunderstorm... :-o
This movie was made in 1973, towards the end of hammer studios reign as kings of horror, but from what I hear, recent efforts are ... shall we say, resurrecting Hammer studios from the ashes to return and terrify us again? ;-) At least, that's what I hear.
I should have some really good movies to review the next few days, what with Halloween weekend coming up and my new DVD's coming in, so I am going to have to narrow it down to five final choices and review one each night.
Monday, October 25, 2010
October 25 - The Blob
Back in the 80's, there was a whole slew of good monster movies, and every major star was getting in on the action. The Blob was made back in 1988, when Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith were at the height of their movie careers, and Kevin Dillon was the coolest thing since pez dispensers. I think Kevin Dillon was even elected President at one point. I could be wrong, my memory of the 80's is a little hazy. Well it was either him or Arnold Shwarzenegger, one of the two. Nowadays, Shawnee Smith is doing bit parts in The Grudge 3, and no one knows who Kevin Dillon is. I think he handed me my Double Down from KFC the other day, and I went "Was that Kevin Dillon?" but then I opened my Double Down and forgot all about him.
So Kevin, otherwise known as Flagg in this movie (no, he's not the guy from the Stand), is a bike-riding rebellious young teen just short of his 18th birthday. We first see him trying to jump his motorcycle across a broken bridge over a ravine, but his bike is having engine troubles and he ends up face-planting into the ravine. Some old guy collecting tin cans has a cackle over it, and then Flagg hitches a ride back into town to get some ratchets to fix his bike. Flagg is the classic 80's anti-hero, leather-jacket-wearing, jeans-clad, and sporting such a coiffed and feathered 80's hairdo that Farrah Fawcett was probably jealous at the time.
Meanwhile, the homeless old man, who had a good laugh over Flagg taking a dive into the dirt, nearly gets his head seared off by a falling meteor. He goes to investigate and finds this purple-pink gelatinous slime that quickly gloms onto his hand and begins eating away the flesh. The old guy runs off into the woods to find his hatchet so he can cut off his hand and scares the shit out of Flagg, who watches him take a whack at his own hand with the hatchet, but the first blow fails to cut the hand off clean and the slime just slides up his arm to cover the wound and absorb the spurting blood. Flagg chases after him, trying to help him, but the old guy runs into the road and gets clipped by a car driven by Shawnee Smith's boyfriend, who has assumed the title of "Deadmeat" for this movie. Deadmeat is a high school quarterback, Shawnee's a cheerleader, and Deadmeat and Flagg have an instant disliike for each other. But Shawnee's cheerleader sensibilities prevail, or maybe it was her high school cheer-girl body, and they combine their powers to form VOLTRON, Defender of the Universe! Errrr... wait, no no. They all get in the car to get the old guy to the hospital, yea. There's no Voltron in this movie, dammit. So Flagg leaves them to admit the old guy, and the old guy is finally devoured by the slime while the asshole doctor is somewhere jerking off, and then Deadmeat quickly follows him into the abyss of death.
After that, it's every man, woman and child for itself as the slime devours everyone and everything in its path, and begins growing at a geometric rate! :-o I'm not sure what that means but Geometry sounds like math and whenever math and monsters are involved, shit just got serious. It's up to Flagg to rescue everyone with his fancy motorbike while not getting a hair out of place!
Shawnee Smith, meanwhile, gets to slog her way through a sewer. Why did the 80's hate women so much?
This movie, while being a typical 80's monster movie, benefitted by the late 80's return to the important values of making good goddamn movies, and there's no shortage of special effects here. In fact, I am pretty sure whatever money was left after making sure Kevin's hair was perfect went towards making the monster look good. There's only one scene that looks a little hokey and seems badly done, when Flagg and Shawnee are in a diner and the slime drags the short-order cook through a drainpipe. The view goes from the drainpipe bulging to the slime flowing across the ceiling after Kevin and Shawnee with almost no indication of how it got up there, and it looks pretty obvious that the actors and the slime aren't in the same shot. Other than that, the rest of the movie goes off without a hitch.
Needless to say, I've seen this movie before. It passes the rewatchability test, but barely. I could certainly go without seeing it again for a good few years, so hopefully by next Halloween I have a better DVD collection. Crackle.com managed to get its act together enough for me to view this one on their website, and damned if they didn't remember how far I got watching it this afternoon and pick up where I left off this evening, so whatever they are doing it seems to be working. Still, I ordered some DVD's to make up the rest of the week just in case AMC or TCM fail to show anything really spooky in the next week.
Five days to go! :-)
So Kevin, otherwise known as Flagg in this movie (no, he's not the guy from the Stand), is a bike-riding rebellious young teen just short of his 18th birthday. We first see him trying to jump his motorcycle across a broken bridge over a ravine, but his bike is having engine troubles and he ends up face-planting into the ravine. Some old guy collecting tin cans has a cackle over it, and then Flagg hitches a ride back into town to get some ratchets to fix his bike. Flagg is the classic 80's anti-hero, leather-jacket-wearing, jeans-clad, and sporting such a coiffed and feathered 80's hairdo that Farrah Fawcett was probably jealous at the time.
Meanwhile, the homeless old man, who had a good laugh over Flagg taking a dive into the dirt, nearly gets his head seared off by a falling meteor. He goes to investigate and finds this purple-pink gelatinous slime that quickly gloms onto his hand and begins eating away the flesh. The old guy runs off into the woods to find his hatchet so he can cut off his hand and scares the shit out of Flagg, who watches him take a whack at his own hand with the hatchet, but the first blow fails to cut the hand off clean and the slime just slides up his arm to cover the wound and absorb the spurting blood. Flagg chases after him, trying to help him, but the old guy runs into the road and gets clipped by a car driven by Shawnee Smith's boyfriend, who has assumed the title of "Deadmeat" for this movie. Deadmeat is a high school quarterback, Shawnee's a cheerleader, and Deadmeat and Flagg have an instant disliike for each other. But Shawnee's cheerleader sensibilities prevail, or maybe it was her high school cheer-girl body, and they combine their powers to form VOLTRON, Defender of the Universe! Errrr... wait, no no. They all get in the car to get the old guy to the hospital, yea. There's no Voltron in this movie, dammit. So Flagg leaves them to admit the old guy, and the old guy is finally devoured by the slime while the asshole doctor is somewhere jerking off, and then Deadmeat quickly follows him into the abyss of death.
After that, it's every man, woman and child for itself as the slime devours everyone and everything in its path, and begins growing at a geometric rate! :-o I'm not sure what that means but Geometry sounds like math and whenever math and monsters are involved, shit just got serious. It's up to Flagg to rescue everyone with his fancy motorbike while not getting a hair out of place!
Shawnee Smith, meanwhile, gets to slog her way through a sewer. Why did the 80's hate women so much?
This movie, while being a typical 80's monster movie, benefitted by the late 80's return to the important values of making good goddamn movies, and there's no shortage of special effects here. In fact, I am pretty sure whatever money was left after making sure Kevin's hair was perfect went towards making the monster look good. There's only one scene that looks a little hokey and seems badly done, when Flagg and Shawnee are in a diner and the slime drags the short-order cook through a drainpipe. The view goes from the drainpipe bulging to the slime flowing across the ceiling after Kevin and Shawnee with almost no indication of how it got up there, and it looks pretty obvious that the actors and the slime aren't in the same shot. Other than that, the rest of the movie goes off without a hitch.
Needless to say, I've seen this movie before. It passes the rewatchability test, but barely. I could certainly go without seeing it again for a good few years, so hopefully by next Halloween I have a better DVD collection. Crackle.com managed to get its act together enough for me to view this one on their website, and damned if they didn't remember how far I got watching it this afternoon and pick up where I left off this evening, so whatever they are doing it seems to be working. Still, I ordered some DVD's to make up the rest of the week just in case AMC or TCM fail to show anything really spooky in the next week.
Five days to go! :-)
Sunday, October 24, 2010
October 24 - Jennifer's Body
I had thought at one point I actually did review Jennifer's Body already, and I hate to repeat myself. But after looking through my blog, I don't see any actual reviews about it. I know I've mentioned it enough times, but since I am short on time today, and I actually did watch this movie again last night after midnight, I've got a movie to review! Yay!
Let's start with the basics before I get into how great this movie is. High school. Two girls, Jennifer (Megan Fox) and "Needy." One is popular, one is a bit nerdy. Perhaps I am stating the obvious when I say "Needy" is the nerdy one. I don't know who the actress who plays Needy is offhand, but she's great in this movie. Also the narrator of the story, Needy states that "sandbox love never dies." Which apparently explains why these two so completely different girls are BFF's. Or, one is a dominating, controlling sex addict, and the other is so short on male company that she lets Jennifer tell her what to do and gets a sexual thrill out of it. I'm going with option 2, since the narrator of the story is obviously in lust with Jennifer. Not to mention just about everyone else in this story is in love with Jennifer too.
Okay, so. Jennifer decides that she wants company to visit a local bar to see this new band play. So of course Needy is dragged along, and Needy makes a great show of not being a lust-puppy for Jennifer's desires, but it's terribly obvious that Needy is the bottom in this relationship and Jennifer is the top. I mean, her nickname is Needy, for crying out loud. So Needy and Jennifer get to see the band play, and they are underage high school girls, so how they even got into this bar is beyond me (no, i've never heard of fake ID's), but Jennifer is apparently banging a police academy cadet so maybe he helped. I think someone slipped some rohypnol into Jennifer's drink, because she's a little out of it, and next thing you know, the bar's on fire. Needy gets Jennifer out of the bar, but the band, Low Shoulder, manages to make it out too and the lead singer convinces Jennifer to come along in their van. I don't know about you, but getting into a van with an all-boy emo band is terrifying in and of itself. But Jennifer is a girl so she's probably safe. Or is she?
Not long later, after Needy gets home, and is freaking out over Jennifer getting into the van with the obviously creepy band after barely surviving a fire, Jennifer arrives at her house. She's disoriented, covered in blood, can barely speak, and is terribly, terribly HUNGRY. But then she vomits black oily stuff all over the floor, scares the bejeesus out of Needy, and takes off. Needy is all discombobulated over the whole thing, but the next day in school, Jennifer shows up for class and appears perfectly fine. Needy is confused, she knows what she saw, but Jennifer's perfectly normal... OR IS SHE? :-o
What follows then, and I'm going to spoil it for you because this movie is awesome no matter how many times you watch it, is basically this. Jennifer was sacrificed in a ritual by the emo boy band, who thought she was a virgin (come on, I didn't even buy that one, but then, they all seem gay so maybe their experience with girls is limited) but since she was not a virgin, a demon just took over her body. Now the band got what it wanted, the demon sort of got what it wanted, and Jennifer, well, Jennifer wants to eat boys. So, boys start disappearing, and turning up looking like "lasagna with teeth" after Jennifer is done feeding on them. I'm not giving away the end, but Needy finds out what happened to jennifer, and the rest of the movie is Needy and Jennifer facing off in a no-holds-barred, girlfriend-eat-girlfriend grudge match of truly epic proportions! :-o
I know, this movie has Megan Fox in it, and according to the internet, she can't act. As we all know, if it's on the internet, it must be true, which can mean only one thing. She actually IS a lesbian-sex-crazed, demon-possessed bitch. because I totally believed her in this movie. Seriously, maybe she can't act, but she can certainly play a lusty, sensual girl who likes to play with men's minds. And girls' minds. As Jennifer herself says "I go both ways." Or, something to that effect.
The rest of the movie is just as awesome. The relationship between the characters is perfect, the banter is excellent, I don't even remember if there was nudity in this movie, and Jennifer is the most frighteningly horrifying monster of all time... OF ALL TIME!!! By which I mean, she's a girl! :-o Ick. Girls have cooties.
The only thing I DON'T like about this movie, is the whole starting-at-the-end-and-telling-the-story-from-there tactic. Yea, it kind of works in this movie, but honestly, it just distracts you from the flow of the movie as you try and figure out that everything is a flashback, it's just kind of annoying, but doesn't really detract from the4 overall value.
And then, just when you think the good parts are over, they hit you over the head with LANCE HENRIKSON! :-o Goddamn Lance Henrikson made a cameo at the end. W. T. F. Lance goddamn motherfucking monster movie god Henrikson. I love the man. I want to have his hairy yeti thong babies. And I'm a guy. Errr, anyway, great actor.
I've seen this movie a half dozen times already, and IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER. It's like being Beetlejuice and watching the Exorcist! Only without the humor part! Yea! What does that mean, you ask? I have no fuckin idea. It's just that awesome that I've lost the ability to form coherent thought.
Let's start with the basics before I get into how great this movie is. High school. Two girls, Jennifer (Megan Fox) and "Needy." One is popular, one is a bit nerdy. Perhaps I am stating the obvious when I say "Needy" is the nerdy one. I don't know who the actress who plays Needy is offhand, but she's great in this movie. Also the narrator of the story, Needy states that "sandbox love never dies." Which apparently explains why these two so completely different girls are BFF's. Or, one is a dominating, controlling sex addict, and the other is so short on male company that she lets Jennifer tell her what to do and gets a sexual thrill out of it. I'm going with option 2, since the narrator of the story is obviously in lust with Jennifer. Not to mention just about everyone else in this story is in love with Jennifer too.
Okay, so. Jennifer decides that she wants company to visit a local bar to see this new band play. So of course Needy is dragged along, and Needy makes a great show of not being a lust-puppy for Jennifer's desires, but it's terribly obvious that Needy is the bottom in this relationship and Jennifer is the top. I mean, her nickname is Needy, for crying out loud. So Needy and Jennifer get to see the band play, and they are underage high school girls, so how they even got into this bar is beyond me (no, i've never heard of fake ID's), but Jennifer is apparently banging a police academy cadet so maybe he helped. I think someone slipped some rohypnol into Jennifer's drink, because she's a little out of it, and next thing you know, the bar's on fire. Needy gets Jennifer out of the bar, but the band, Low Shoulder, manages to make it out too and the lead singer convinces Jennifer to come along in their van. I don't know about you, but getting into a van with an all-boy emo band is terrifying in and of itself. But Jennifer is a girl so she's probably safe. Or is she?
Not long later, after Needy gets home, and is freaking out over Jennifer getting into the van with the obviously creepy band after barely surviving a fire, Jennifer arrives at her house. She's disoriented, covered in blood, can barely speak, and is terribly, terribly HUNGRY. But then she vomits black oily stuff all over the floor, scares the bejeesus out of Needy, and takes off. Needy is all discombobulated over the whole thing, but the next day in school, Jennifer shows up for class and appears perfectly fine. Needy is confused, she knows what she saw, but Jennifer's perfectly normal... OR IS SHE? :-o
What follows then, and I'm going to spoil it for you because this movie is awesome no matter how many times you watch it, is basically this. Jennifer was sacrificed in a ritual by the emo boy band, who thought she was a virgin (come on, I didn't even buy that one, but then, they all seem gay so maybe their experience with girls is limited) but since she was not a virgin, a demon just took over her body. Now the band got what it wanted, the demon sort of got what it wanted, and Jennifer, well, Jennifer wants to eat boys. So, boys start disappearing, and turning up looking like "lasagna with teeth" after Jennifer is done feeding on them. I'm not giving away the end, but Needy finds out what happened to jennifer, and the rest of the movie is Needy and Jennifer facing off in a no-holds-barred, girlfriend-eat-girlfriend grudge match of truly epic proportions! :-o
I know, this movie has Megan Fox in it, and according to the internet, she can't act. As we all know, if it's on the internet, it must be true, which can mean only one thing. She actually IS a lesbian-sex-crazed, demon-possessed bitch. because I totally believed her in this movie. Seriously, maybe she can't act, but she can certainly play a lusty, sensual girl who likes to play with men's minds. And girls' minds. As Jennifer herself says "I go both ways." Or, something to that effect.
The rest of the movie is just as awesome. The relationship between the characters is perfect, the banter is excellent, I don't even remember if there was nudity in this movie, and Jennifer is the most frighteningly horrifying monster of all time... OF ALL TIME!!! By which I mean, she's a girl! :-o Ick. Girls have cooties.
The only thing I DON'T like about this movie, is the whole starting-at-the-end-and-telling-the-story-from-there tactic. Yea, it kind of works in this movie, but honestly, it just distracts you from the flow of the movie as you try and figure out that everything is a flashback, it's just kind of annoying, but doesn't really detract from the4 overall value.
And then, just when you think the good parts are over, they hit you over the head with LANCE HENRIKSON! :-o Goddamn Lance Henrikson made a cameo at the end. W. T. F. Lance goddamn motherfucking monster movie god Henrikson. I love the man. I want to have his hairy yeti thong babies. And I'm a guy. Errr, anyway, great actor.
I've seen this movie a half dozen times already, and IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER. It's like being Beetlejuice and watching the Exorcist! Only without the humor part! Yea! What does that mean, you ask? I have no fuckin idea. It's just that awesome that I've lost the ability to form coherent thought.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
October 23 - Cat People
I was going to save this one til next weekend but I find myself running a bit short on DVD's. Since it's the full moon, a werewolf movie would have been perfect right about now but I didn't have any left. Cat People will have to suffice.
Back in the days when women were women and men were... jungle... cats... the ancient tribes revered the Cat People, a race of mystical were-cat-people type thingymabobbers. Yea, there wasn't a lot of background on them, all you see is a tribeswoman being led to a tree where a big black leopard is hanging out, and then we are looking into Nastassia Kinski's eyes.
Which... are pretty spectacular, by the way. Nastassia Kinski was big back in the 80's when this was made, but I'm not sure why exactly, might have been ice skating, gymnastics or some olympic sport like that there. I think the only qualification she needs is that she is totally freakin hot, or at least, that's the only one I need to know about. She had a whole string of movies back in the 80's and early 90's, but I haven't seen her in anything lately.
Nastassia is apparently one of these cat people, on her way to meet her brother (Malcolm Mcdowell) in New Orleans. This is pre-Katrina New Orleans, becauuse most of the movie is set at the zoo. In fact, after meeting her brother at the airport, she doesn't see him for a few days, and ends up meeting the curator of the New Orleans zoo, who takes a liking to her and offers her a job at the gift shop.
The curator isn't the only one who likes her, apparently, since a female member of the zoo staff (Annette O'Toole) takes her out sightseeing and asks a lot of personal questions about her love life. Come to think of it, just catching her in shorts and hip waders while I'm typing this, I'd have hit on her too. I'm not really sure how a woman can look sexy in hip waders, but she manages to make it look easy. Of course, one day at the zoo a staff member (Ed Begley Jr) is mauled by a big black jungle cat, and voila! Irina (Nastassia Kinski) has her brother back again... who also hits on her. Yikes! Being goddamn attractive is one thing, but when you are so freakin hot your own family is hitting on you, it might be time to, I don't know, wear baggy clothing, or something.
It's around this time the police become interested in her brother... pardon me... Nastassia Kinski nude scene... god what an ass she has... I remember it must have been gymnastics she did because she has one finely toned body there... Oh it's over, I can think again. Yea, so... The police become interested in her brother because there's been a black panther being seen around the city mauling folk and he apparently has a criminal record involving cats or something. So the police check out Irina but she seems fine and they suggest she go live somewhere else while they are looking for her brother. It's at this point in the story that Irina goes to stay at the curator's... well, I guess i can best describe it as a swamp cabin? Yea, so, Irina has a dream, gets all hot and bothered, wanders into the woods, disrobes and eats a bunny. This woman is definitely not a vegatarian, DO YOU GET ME???? I've never been so turned on in all my life.
So yea, I'm not going to mention any more about Nastassia there because I'd probably just leave a puddle of drool on the keyboard and they generally don't function too well under those conditions.
You know, Malcolm Mcdowell actually plays the sanest person in this movie. I mean, let's think about it. Sure, he kills, wants to mate with his sister, and spends most of the movie on the run from the police, but here's the problem. He's one of them there Cat People thingamajigs. Every time he gets horny, he turns into a raging jungle cat, and can't turn back unless he eats someone or makes love. So he ends up going from one woman's bloodied corpse to another until he finds the one woman he can turn into a panther with and NOT maul to death... his sister. Makes sense he'd put the moves on her, you know what I am saying? A man, just like a jungle cat, has needs!
This movie is pretty decent. The music's good, the actresses are hot, the plot's coherent, and did I mention Nastassia Kinski naked? Plus, how horrifying is it not to be able to have sex without someone dying? I mean, I know the french call orgasms Le Petit Mors (The Little Death) but this is taking it a bit far!
Back in the days when women were women and men were... jungle... cats... the ancient tribes revered the Cat People, a race of mystical were-cat-people type thingymabobbers. Yea, there wasn't a lot of background on them, all you see is a tribeswoman being led to a tree where a big black leopard is hanging out, and then we are looking into Nastassia Kinski's eyes.
Which... are pretty spectacular, by the way. Nastassia Kinski was big back in the 80's when this was made, but I'm not sure why exactly, might have been ice skating, gymnastics or some olympic sport like that there. I think the only qualification she needs is that she is totally freakin hot, or at least, that's the only one I need to know about. She had a whole string of movies back in the 80's and early 90's, but I haven't seen her in anything lately.
Nastassia is apparently one of these cat people, on her way to meet her brother (Malcolm Mcdowell) in New Orleans. This is pre-Katrina New Orleans, becauuse most of the movie is set at the zoo. In fact, after meeting her brother at the airport, she doesn't see him for a few days, and ends up meeting the curator of the New Orleans zoo, who takes a liking to her and offers her a job at the gift shop.
The curator isn't the only one who likes her, apparently, since a female member of the zoo staff (Annette O'Toole) takes her out sightseeing and asks a lot of personal questions about her love life. Come to think of it, just catching her in shorts and hip waders while I'm typing this, I'd have hit on her too. I'm not really sure how a woman can look sexy in hip waders, but she manages to make it look easy. Of course, one day at the zoo a staff member (Ed Begley Jr) is mauled by a big black jungle cat, and voila! Irina (Nastassia Kinski) has her brother back again... who also hits on her. Yikes! Being goddamn attractive is one thing, but when you are so freakin hot your own family is hitting on you, it might be time to, I don't know, wear baggy clothing, or something.
It's around this time the police become interested in her brother... pardon me... Nastassia Kinski nude scene... god what an ass she has... I remember it must have been gymnastics she did because she has one finely toned body there... Oh it's over, I can think again. Yea, so... The police become interested in her brother because there's been a black panther being seen around the city mauling folk and he apparently has a criminal record involving cats or something. So the police check out Irina but she seems fine and they suggest she go live somewhere else while they are looking for her brother. It's at this point in the story that Irina goes to stay at the curator's... well, I guess i can best describe it as a swamp cabin? Yea, so, Irina has a dream, gets all hot and bothered, wanders into the woods, disrobes and eats a bunny. This woman is definitely not a vegatarian, DO YOU GET ME???? I've never been so turned on in all my life.
So yea, I'm not going to mention any more about Nastassia there because I'd probably just leave a puddle of drool on the keyboard and they generally don't function too well under those conditions.
You know, Malcolm Mcdowell actually plays the sanest person in this movie. I mean, let's think about it. Sure, he kills, wants to mate with his sister, and spends most of the movie on the run from the police, but here's the problem. He's one of them there Cat People thingamajigs. Every time he gets horny, he turns into a raging jungle cat, and can't turn back unless he eats someone or makes love. So he ends up going from one woman's bloodied corpse to another until he finds the one woman he can turn into a panther with and NOT maul to death... his sister. Makes sense he'd put the moves on her, you know what I am saying? A man, just like a jungle cat, has needs!
This movie is pretty decent. The music's good, the actresses are hot, the plot's coherent, and did I mention Nastassia Kinski naked? Plus, how horrifying is it not to be able to have sex without someone dying? I mean, I know the french call orgasms Le Petit Mors (The Little Death) but this is taking it a bit far!
Friday, October 22, 2010
October 22 - Dagon
Inspired by the H. P. Lovecraft novels, this particular movie takes the "squid-like" descriptions of the "Great Old Ones" from those novels and goes one step further. Two couples are sailing along the coast of Spain when a sudden storm wrecks the boat against the reef. The older couple are injured and stay aboard the barely floating sailboat, and the younger couple head to shore in the liferaft to try and get some help.
The little town of Imboca seems deserted, but the couple find a priest just as the storm begins to intensify. Leading him to the docks, the priest helps them find a friendly fishermen to take the man out to the wreck while the woman stays ashore to find the police. The man gets to the wrecked sailboat, but there's no trace of the older couple. Heading back to town, he heads to the hotel, where the priest says the woman is going to call him. But what few townsfolk he can find in the steady rains are acting very oddly...
There's no werewolves, vampires or undead in this movie, but it's still a monster movie nonetheless. I don't want to spoil anything in the movie, because it's pretty good. Solid B-movie acting, nudity, monsters, ancient demons, you really can't go wrong with this one. The atmosphere in the movie is awesome. It really sucks you in from beginning to end.
I first saw this movie on SciFi (SyFy now) amazingly enough, and of course they deleted the nude scenes and blurred half the movie, but hey, it was good enough for me to order it on DVD anyway! :-D Seen it a few times now and it's still pretty good.
Interestingly enough, this movie was done by the same people that made Reanimator, and although I'd have loved to watch and review that movie before this one, I seem to have misplaced my copy of it. In case you don't know, Reanimator was set at the imaginary Miskatonic University, and the main hero of this movie wears a sweatshirt for almost the entire movie that says MISKATONIC on it, which I thought was funny.
Full moon tonight! Werewolves must be out prowling. ;-)
The little town of Imboca seems deserted, but the couple find a priest just as the storm begins to intensify. Leading him to the docks, the priest helps them find a friendly fishermen to take the man out to the wreck while the woman stays ashore to find the police. The man gets to the wrecked sailboat, but there's no trace of the older couple. Heading back to town, he heads to the hotel, where the priest says the woman is going to call him. But what few townsfolk he can find in the steady rains are acting very oddly...
There's no werewolves, vampires or undead in this movie, but it's still a monster movie nonetheless. I don't want to spoil anything in the movie, because it's pretty good. Solid B-movie acting, nudity, monsters, ancient demons, you really can't go wrong with this one. The atmosphere in the movie is awesome. It really sucks you in from beginning to end.
I first saw this movie on SciFi (SyFy now) amazingly enough, and of course they deleted the nude scenes and blurred half the movie, but hey, it was good enough for me to order it on DVD anyway! :-D Seen it a few times now and it's still pretty good.
Interestingly enough, this movie was done by the same people that made Reanimator, and although I'd have loved to watch and review that movie before this one, I seem to have misplaced my copy of it. In case you don't know, Reanimator was set at the imaginary Miskatonic University, and the main hero of this movie wears a sweatshirt for almost the entire movie that says MISKATONIC on it, which I thought was funny.
Full moon tonight! Werewolves must be out prowling. ;-)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
October 21 - 30 Days of Night
There are pretty much three common monsters for horror movies. One is zombies. Two is werewolves, and three is vampires. 30 Days of Night is, of course, about vampires, who have, shall we say, an acute allergy to daylight. I typically find vampires the least attractive of the undead, mainly because they're "cute" versions of zombies. I mean, really. Cute zombies? If you're going to be an undead beastie, just be honest and go for the brains. Let's be serious here... if you're a vampire, you sleep in a coffin, are cold as death and probably smell like soiled granny panties, so why bother trying to look suave and cultured? Embrace your undeadness and stop pretending already!
So this movie is set in Barrow, Alaska. I think they were trying to go for the whole "The Thing" feel, setting it in Alaska like that, or maybe they did it just because nobody thought to set vampires into alaska before, capitalizing on the whole "darkness all day during winter" thing. In any case, this movie kind of runs a little slow for the first 20 minutes or so, trying to build the suspense. On the last day before the month-long night in Barrow, all the satellite phones in town are stolen and burned. The sherriff and his deputy wonder who did it, whether it was a prank or what, but any Sherriff worth his salt would have figured something was up right away. Come on, all the spare sat phones? Obviously someone's trying to cut off the town. But not this sherriff! Obviously they picked Eben (Josh Hartnett) because he looks good in a badge, not for any real talent at the job. Later on, as the less hardy residents leave town for the month-long period of darkness, a bunch of dogs are killed, and a helicopter is wrecked. This doesn't really build the suspense any, since ol' Sherriff Eben just shrugs it off like it's a normal day on the job for a few dozen dogs to be brutally hacked to bits and all the phones in town to get burned up right before the town is completely cut off for the winter. Eh, damn kids nowadays, right? Course, Eben is currently having wife trouble, and his wife is a goddamn gun-packin hottie, so maybe he's a bit preoccupied since he hasn't been getting any in a while, who knows?
So once night falls, the snow comes, and people begin dying. First to go is the guy at the weather/power/communications station at the edge of town. An old, fat, balding man, who I kind of identified with at first, is brutally cut down and beheaded, and they stick his head on a pole in the middle of the damn road. The vampires just surrounded him and tore out his throat and blood was everywhere in the snow and congealing and pooling and oh god it was so horrible, horrible I tell you! HORRIBLE!!!! :-o
Yea, I had to try and build the suspense up somehow.
There are several things I like about this movie. One, the setting and atmosphere are pretty solid. There's darkness, there's snow, there's blizzards, there's reasons why the town is cut off, and everything looks pretty realistic. There's a lot of blood when one of the vampires rips out a throat, and it stays frozen in the snow. Two, the vampires are easily recognizable as vampires and have mostly the same traits, but they feel odd enough that they kind of stand out, even against other vampire movies I have seen. Three is that, aside from the first 20 minutes of the movies, the rest of the movie is a constant brawl as the surviving town residents fight against the vampires and try not to die.
There's a few things I don't like about this movie. Josh Hartnett badly plays an asthmatic sherriff, for one. Two, the vampires apparently have little social structure or intelligence, poor discipline, and a distinct lack of foresight after apparently hunting humans for years, because they make a lot of mistakes. Three, those first 20 minutes are interminable. They pretty much focus exclusively on Sherriff Josh and the townsfolk, and honestly, these people are so boring, I was kind of cheering on the vampires. And I don't even LIKE vampires.
Not a bad movie overall. There's some good suspense once things get going, and the fighting is pretty brutal. I mean, for a vampire movie. We're not talking brutal fighting like Knights, with Kris Kristofferson or anything (that movie has so much brawling and martial arts it's like one big cage match, even though the movie isn't that good), but still there's a lot of fighting going on around town. Maybe it's because I really don't give a crap about the characters, but I didn't mind seeing them killing each other off. It passes the RW test, or the Re-Watchability test, at least.
I ordered this movie on DVD so I could watch it while on a recent camping trip, so I've seen it a couple times now. I chose it tonight because they're forecasting snow in the morning! :-o That, and I'm down to only a few DVD's left. AMC and TCM are showing horror pretty consistently now though, so I don't think I'll have a problem making it through the month. :-) We're in the home stretch! Two weekends to go! :-D
So this movie is set in Barrow, Alaska. I think they were trying to go for the whole "The Thing" feel, setting it in Alaska like that, or maybe they did it just because nobody thought to set vampires into alaska before, capitalizing on the whole "darkness all day during winter" thing. In any case, this movie kind of runs a little slow for the first 20 minutes or so, trying to build the suspense. On the last day before the month-long night in Barrow, all the satellite phones in town are stolen and burned. The sherriff and his deputy wonder who did it, whether it was a prank or what, but any Sherriff worth his salt would have figured something was up right away. Come on, all the spare sat phones? Obviously someone's trying to cut off the town. But not this sherriff! Obviously they picked Eben (Josh Hartnett) because he looks good in a badge, not for any real talent at the job. Later on, as the less hardy residents leave town for the month-long period of darkness, a bunch of dogs are killed, and a helicopter is wrecked. This doesn't really build the suspense any, since ol' Sherriff Eben just shrugs it off like it's a normal day on the job for a few dozen dogs to be brutally hacked to bits and all the phones in town to get burned up right before the town is completely cut off for the winter. Eh, damn kids nowadays, right? Course, Eben is currently having wife trouble, and his wife is a goddamn gun-packin hottie, so maybe he's a bit preoccupied since he hasn't been getting any in a while, who knows?
So once night falls, the snow comes, and people begin dying. First to go is the guy at the weather/power/communications station at the edge of town. An old, fat, balding man, who I kind of identified with at first, is brutally cut down and beheaded, and they stick his head on a pole in the middle of the damn road. The vampires just surrounded him and tore out his throat and blood was everywhere in the snow and congealing and pooling and oh god it was so horrible, horrible I tell you! HORRIBLE!!!! :-o
Yea, I had to try and build the suspense up somehow.
There are several things I like about this movie. One, the setting and atmosphere are pretty solid. There's darkness, there's snow, there's blizzards, there's reasons why the town is cut off, and everything looks pretty realistic. There's a lot of blood when one of the vampires rips out a throat, and it stays frozen in the snow. Two, the vampires are easily recognizable as vampires and have mostly the same traits, but they feel odd enough that they kind of stand out, even against other vampire movies I have seen. Three is that, aside from the first 20 minutes of the movies, the rest of the movie is a constant brawl as the surviving town residents fight against the vampires and try not to die.
There's a few things I don't like about this movie. Josh Hartnett badly plays an asthmatic sherriff, for one. Two, the vampires apparently have little social structure or intelligence, poor discipline, and a distinct lack of foresight after apparently hunting humans for years, because they make a lot of mistakes. Three, those first 20 minutes are interminable. They pretty much focus exclusively on Sherriff Josh and the townsfolk, and honestly, these people are so boring, I was kind of cheering on the vampires. And I don't even LIKE vampires.
Not a bad movie overall. There's some good suspense once things get going, and the fighting is pretty brutal. I mean, for a vampire movie. We're not talking brutal fighting like Knights, with Kris Kristofferson or anything (that movie has so much brawling and martial arts it's like one big cage match, even though the movie isn't that good), but still there's a lot of fighting going on around town. Maybe it's because I really don't give a crap about the characters, but I didn't mind seeing them killing each other off. It passes the RW test, or the Re-Watchability test, at least.
I ordered this movie on DVD so I could watch it while on a recent camping trip, so I've seen it a couple times now. I chose it tonight because they're forecasting snow in the morning! :-o That, and I'm down to only a few DVD's left. AMC and TCM are showing horror pretty consistently now though, so I don't think I'll have a problem making it through the month. :-) We're in the home stretch! Two weekends to go! :-D
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
October 20 - Xtro
You may not have heard of Xtro. It's an older movie, and was a bit of a B-movie besides. I had some extra time tonight, so I thought about reviewing Resident Evil instead, but it wouldn't really be fair because I wasn't able to watch it in it's entirety tonight. Oh well, perhaps another night.
A young boy and his father are playing catch with the family dog in the english countryside at the beginning of Xtro. I'm not really sure where they came up with the title for this movie, but a light in the sky comes and takes the father. A year or two later, a meteoer strikes the countryside out near the place, and something crawls forth from the wreckage...
Meanwhile, the boy and his mother have moved on. The boy told his mother the father was taken, but the mother simply believes the father has run out on them, because again, who believes a child when they say such things? And they say children are honest. HAH! The mother has a new lover, and there's a nanny, played by Maryam D'Abo (who eventually became a bond girl), in one of her first roles. Let me just take a moment to say Maryam is pretty hot in this movie, and there's nude scenes. :-D
The mother arrives at school to pick up her son, and finds out the boy's father has reappeared out of nowhere and collected him. In a panic, she rushes home but finds him there quietly playing with their son Tony. Apparently, the father has no memory of where he's been, and the mom offers to put him up for the night, despite the objections of her new lover. There's a little tension between them all, and that's even before they find out there's been a series of murders leading from their country home to their city apartment...
AND THEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!!!! :-o
Yea, I'm not particularly impressed by this movie. Sure, technically it meets all my requirements, monsters, nudity, etc., but it really wasn't that great of a movie. There's a few interesting scenes, and again, the nude scenes are nice, but the majority of the movie is toys possessed by some alien senteience running about and killing folks. There's a bunch of weird, alien sort of things going on, and there's no explanation of why they do them or what happens with them or anything, plus everything that occurs happens in a sort of weird, disjointed sequence of events. It'd almost make sense to think the boy was actually fevered and what you are seeing is his nightmares, but it's even stranger than that. Plus, they kill off poor Maryam rather early after only a couple nude scenes and that's hardly a good way to show off her acting, errr, "talents." I ordered it on DVD since I remembered seeing it from my youth, but I can't really say it is worth seeing more than once or twice.
There were a few sequels, but if I remember correctly, they had nothing to do with these initial events and had a different premise entirely, so I'm not really sure why they were called Xtro 2 and 3, or whatever. I was also tempted to review Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, but, theorhetically, that's more of a sci fi movie than a horror, so I'm not sure if it really is appropriate for a horror movie review. :-( But hey, the weekend's coming! More horror movies on more channels. Heading into the home stretch! I'm sure I'll have more things on TV to review, and I'm saving special movies for Halloween weekend! :-D
A young boy and his father are playing catch with the family dog in the english countryside at the beginning of Xtro. I'm not really sure where they came up with the title for this movie, but a light in the sky comes and takes the father. A year or two later, a meteoer strikes the countryside out near the place, and something crawls forth from the wreckage...
Meanwhile, the boy and his mother have moved on. The boy told his mother the father was taken, but the mother simply believes the father has run out on them, because again, who believes a child when they say such things? And they say children are honest. HAH! The mother has a new lover, and there's a nanny, played by Maryam D'Abo (who eventually became a bond girl), in one of her first roles. Let me just take a moment to say Maryam is pretty hot in this movie, and there's nude scenes. :-D
The mother arrives at school to pick up her son, and finds out the boy's father has reappeared out of nowhere and collected him. In a panic, she rushes home but finds him there quietly playing with their son Tony. Apparently, the father has no memory of where he's been, and the mom offers to put him up for the night, despite the objections of her new lover. There's a little tension between them all, and that's even before they find out there's been a series of murders leading from their country home to their city apartment...
AND THEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!!!! :-o
Yea, I'm not particularly impressed by this movie. Sure, technically it meets all my requirements, monsters, nudity, etc., but it really wasn't that great of a movie. There's a few interesting scenes, and again, the nude scenes are nice, but the majority of the movie is toys possessed by some alien senteience running about and killing folks. There's a bunch of weird, alien sort of things going on, and there's no explanation of why they do them or what happens with them or anything, plus everything that occurs happens in a sort of weird, disjointed sequence of events. It'd almost make sense to think the boy was actually fevered and what you are seeing is his nightmares, but it's even stranger than that. Plus, they kill off poor Maryam rather early after only a couple nude scenes and that's hardly a good way to show off her acting, errr, "talents." I ordered it on DVD since I remembered seeing it from my youth, but I can't really say it is worth seeing more than once or twice.
There were a few sequels, but if I remember correctly, they had nothing to do with these initial events and had a different premise entirely, so I'm not really sure why they were called Xtro 2 and 3, or whatever. I was also tempted to review Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, but, theorhetically, that's more of a sci fi movie than a horror, so I'm not sure if it really is appropriate for a horror movie review. :-( But hey, the weekend's coming! More horror movies on more channels. Heading into the home stretch! I'm sure I'll have more things on TV to review, and I'm saving special movies for Halloween weekend! :-D
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
October 19 - The Dunwich Horror
Back in, oh the 50's, maybe... there was an author named H. P. Lovecraft who wrote some tales about ancient demons being unleashed by a book called the Necronomicon. The ancient demons, apparently a race of otherworldy beings, lay in wait in the darkness between worlds for someone to read the passages of the Necronomicon and release them to return and walk the earth as they did before the coming of man. There have been numerous movies, books and tv shows referencing his works, and tonight's movie is based off of them directly.
There's a family named Whately living in some small town somewhere, who apparently still worship these ancient demons. This movie starts out with the birth of twins to this Whately family, one fairly normal, the other.... not so much. Years later, the normal Whately twin is attending a lecture by a professor, a professor who is studying the Necronomicon. The Whately fellow wants the Necronomicon to perform a ritual, and he also needs a young woman. A young woman much like the good professor's assistant, whom he beguiles with a mix of charm, drugs and perhaps a bit of magic as well.
It's not long before she is an unknowning prisoner at his house, a house with a certain locked room upstairs, a locked room containing something... evil. Meanwhile, the professor is searching for her, and learning all he can about the Whatelys, when he finds out that someone has stolen the Necronomicon! :-o
This movie has a nice mix of things that I like in movies. Ancient demons? Check. Monsters? Check. Magic? Check. Nudity? Sort of a check. Apparently Sandra Dee has a nude scene in this movie, but you can't really tell. There is some other random nudity, however, so yea, I guess that counts as a check. Still a decent movie, made back in the days when a little lightning flash and a puff of smoke were state of the art special effects, but that just means the acting had to be good to make up for it. Not like nowadays, where they grab some teen who got kicked off an episode of survivor and make her the star next to a bunch of computer generated stuff just because they can get her cheap. Still, this is a good one, especially around the end parts. :-)
There's a family named Whately living in some small town somewhere, who apparently still worship these ancient demons. This movie starts out with the birth of twins to this Whately family, one fairly normal, the other.... not so much. Years later, the normal Whately twin is attending a lecture by a professor, a professor who is studying the Necronomicon. The Whately fellow wants the Necronomicon to perform a ritual, and he also needs a young woman. A young woman much like the good professor's assistant, whom he beguiles with a mix of charm, drugs and perhaps a bit of magic as well.
It's not long before she is an unknowning prisoner at his house, a house with a certain locked room upstairs, a locked room containing something... evil. Meanwhile, the professor is searching for her, and learning all he can about the Whatelys, when he finds out that someone has stolen the Necronomicon! :-o
This movie has a nice mix of things that I like in movies. Ancient demons? Check. Monsters? Check. Magic? Check. Nudity? Sort of a check. Apparently Sandra Dee has a nude scene in this movie, but you can't really tell. There is some other random nudity, however, so yea, I guess that counts as a check. Still a decent movie, made back in the days when a little lightning flash and a puff of smoke were state of the art special effects, but that just means the acting had to be good to make up for it. Not like nowadays, where they grab some teen who got kicked off an episode of survivor and make her the star next to a bunch of computer generated stuff just because they can get her cheap. Still, this is a good one, especially around the end parts. :-)
Monday, October 18, 2010
October 18 - Phantasm
If you've been paying attention, you've realized by now that I like the classics. And by classics, I mean movies that were made before the year 1990. Phantasm was made back in 1978. I was 8 years old back in 1978, and I didn't see this movie until I was in my late teens, but I can see 1970's influences all over it. This movie, much like Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, looks like it was written by someone on some serious drugs. Maybe even... maree ju wanna! :-o
The main protagonist of this movie is Mike. Mike is a 13 year old boy. Like most 13 year old boys, Mike is a little weird. Mike spends a lot of time following his older brother Jody around, not necessarily because he idolizes his older brother (which I think he does) but because Jodi is the only family Mike has left. Their parents died 2 years before the start of this film, and Jody's just back in town for his buddy Tommy's funeral.
While at the funeral parlor, Mike sees the mortician, a "Tall Man," (beautifully played by Angus Scrimm), lift up a heavy coffin with a body in it practically with one arm and toss it in the back of a hearse like it was nothing. A bit disturbed by this, Mike realizes there is something odd going on up at the enormous mortuary, and proceeds to investigate as only a 13 year old boy with no parental supervision can.
There's a bunch of funky characters in this movie. Firstly, the villain, the Tall Man, is an evil, lanky man who walks around wearing a suit and has the strength of ten men. Since he moves about in daylight, he can't be a vampire so what exactly he is, I have no idea. Scary? You bet he is. Nobody with a name like Angus Scrimm can be warm and cuddly.
Mike is a curious young boy with a knack for fixing car engines. Aside from following his brother around, his hobbies are consorting with psychics, driving a motorbike around the cemetary and stalking his older brother. He drives his brother's car like he was mario andretti, runs really fast, and when he gets really freaked out, he screams like a girl.
Reggie is Jody's buddy, the local ice cream vendor. As scary as it sounds for a nearly bald-headed man in his 30's, Reggie spends his time driving an ice cream van around town, selling frozen treats to kids, and playing the disbelieving friend to Mike and Jody's worries.
The dwarves, for lack of a better name, are the reconstituted dead that the tall man has been taking out of the coffins at the mortuary. They basically assist the tall man, and despite being like 3 feet tall, they weigh as much as whatever body they were reconstituted from. Think Jawas from Star Wars, only vicious and with a liking for hiding in the shadows and jumping out at people. These dwarves seem to be made when the tall man takes the bodies, transport them to some alternate desert world, and stuffs them into a metal barrel half their body length. Apparently when they get out of the barrel, they are mean little hooded dwarves. Also, when Mike gets a glimpse of the alternate world, the dwarves are there, stacking barrels or something, so obviously the Tall Man is either an alien or a supernatural parasite or something equally wacky.
The Spheres, I guess they are called, are little silver balls that go screaming through the air. If they slam into your forehead, a pair of hooked spikes implant themselves to hold the ball to your skull, and then it drills into your brain and generally kills you. Their hobbies include... well, they don't have hobbies. They just fly around and kill people. Like sharks... if, you know, sharks had wings, or something.
This movie is kind of scary in parts, if you watched it as a hormonal teen, or happen to be scared of the dark still. There is nudity in this movie, but I'm not sure a boob really counts. There was a sequel made in the 80's, I think, which was just as dark, just as scary, and had Reggie back again to rejoin the fun, as well as, of course, the Tall Man, Angus Scrimm. Mike is a bit older in the sequel, and there's a hot teen chick who joins in the fun.
Despite getting me halfway through the month, crackle.com is remaking it's website, making it nearly impossible to find horror movies on it now. I am going to have to make it through the rest of the month with just my collection of horror movie DVD's (like Phantasm) and what's available on cable TV. :-o Luckily we are almost in the home stretch! Less than two weeks to go...
The main protagonist of this movie is Mike. Mike is a 13 year old boy. Like most 13 year old boys, Mike is a little weird. Mike spends a lot of time following his older brother Jody around, not necessarily because he idolizes his older brother (which I think he does) but because Jodi is the only family Mike has left. Their parents died 2 years before the start of this film, and Jody's just back in town for his buddy Tommy's funeral.
While at the funeral parlor, Mike sees the mortician, a "Tall Man," (beautifully played by Angus Scrimm), lift up a heavy coffin with a body in it practically with one arm and toss it in the back of a hearse like it was nothing. A bit disturbed by this, Mike realizes there is something odd going on up at the enormous mortuary, and proceeds to investigate as only a 13 year old boy with no parental supervision can.
There's a bunch of funky characters in this movie. Firstly, the villain, the Tall Man, is an evil, lanky man who walks around wearing a suit and has the strength of ten men. Since he moves about in daylight, he can't be a vampire so what exactly he is, I have no idea. Scary? You bet he is. Nobody with a name like Angus Scrimm can be warm and cuddly.
Mike is a curious young boy with a knack for fixing car engines. Aside from following his brother around, his hobbies are consorting with psychics, driving a motorbike around the cemetary and stalking his older brother. He drives his brother's car like he was mario andretti, runs really fast, and when he gets really freaked out, he screams like a girl.
Reggie is Jody's buddy, the local ice cream vendor. As scary as it sounds for a nearly bald-headed man in his 30's, Reggie spends his time driving an ice cream van around town, selling frozen treats to kids, and playing the disbelieving friend to Mike and Jody's worries.
The dwarves, for lack of a better name, are the reconstituted dead that the tall man has been taking out of the coffins at the mortuary. They basically assist the tall man, and despite being like 3 feet tall, they weigh as much as whatever body they were reconstituted from. Think Jawas from Star Wars, only vicious and with a liking for hiding in the shadows and jumping out at people. These dwarves seem to be made when the tall man takes the bodies, transport them to some alternate desert world, and stuffs them into a metal barrel half their body length. Apparently when they get out of the barrel, they are mean little hooded dwarves. Also, when Mike gets a glimpse of the alternate world, the dwarves are there, stacking barrels or something, so obviously the Tall Man is either an alien or a supernatural parasite or something equally wacky.
The Spheres, I guess they are called, are little silver balls that go screaming through the air. If they slam into your forehead, a pair of hooked spikes implant themselves to hold the ball to your skull, and then it drills into your brain and generally kills you. Their hobbies include... well, they don't have hobbies. They just fly around and kill people. Like sharks... if, you know, sharks had wings, or something.
This movie is kind of scary in parts, if you watched it as a hormonal teen, or happen to be scared of the dark still. There is nudity in this movie, but I'm not sure a boob really counts. There was a sequel made in the 80's, I think, which was just as dark, just as scary, and had Reggie back again to rejoin the fun, as well as, of course, the Tall Man, Angus Scrimm. Mike is a bit older in the sequel, and there's a hot teen chick who joins in the fun.
Despite getting me halfway through the month, crackle.com is remaking it's website, making it nearly impossible to find horror movies on it now. I am going to have to make it through the rest of the month with just my collection of horror movie DVD's (like Phantasm) and what's available on cable TV. :-o Luckily we are almost in the home stretch! Less than two weeks to go...
Sunday, October 17, 2010
October 17 - Dog Soldiers
Again, this movie surprised me, for I first saw it on SyFy channel. Another werewolf movie, but this one is done exceptionally well in my opinion. At the time I had no idea who any of the actors were, and it looks like it was filmed entirely in england with all british actors. Well, some are scottish, but still, almost the same area.
Like many monster movies, this one showcases the monsters right off, but you can't really tell what they are at first. Mr and Mrs "Deadmeat" are camping in the woods in scotland (why does everyone who goes camping always die? I didn't realize camping was that dangerous), when something unzips their tent, yanks Mrs deadmeat halfway out before Mr Deadmeat can grab hold of her, and while Mr Deadmeat tries to keep her in the tent, Mrs Deadmeat is ripped or bitten in half. At the splash of blood, Mr Deadmeat lets go, Mrs Deadmeat is yanked out, and Mr Deadmeat is left to face whatever it is alone, but he's not alone for long...
Four weeks later, a team of soldiers is dropped into scotland on a training exercise. They're packing blanks, and worried about the latest soccer scores. While proceeding along the basic tenets of the training exercise, they discover a wrecked military camp. There's equipment, blood and guts everywhere, but no bodies. Searching through the wreckage, they discover a lone survivor, the commander of a team of special ops soldiers. He's badly wounded, and while they are trying to patch him up, he keeps screaming "There was only supposed to be ONE!"
What follows is a long, running battle while the team of soldiers attempts to escape the area while the beasts hunt them down. This movie has TONS of atmosphere. Everything is filmed in the deep woods of scotland, or at least it seems like it is. The rain, the wet, the damp, the darkness, it's all there. This movie makes you feel like you are just as cranky as the soldiers, and then when the mayhem begins, you feel just as scared. Music is absolutely minimal, only serving to highlight the action. I barely noticed it most of the time.
This movie certainly passes what I call the "rewatchability" test. I saw it on SciFi channel years back, I watched it again on a recent camping trip, and it's just as bloody exciting the third time around. I even liked it enough to order it on DVD, which is how I saw it today. Which is pretty good considering I had already seen the movie before I ordered it.
Another good thing about this movie is, it doesn't try to explain anything. It gives you enough of a reason why everyone is there, but it doesn't try to go into how the werewolves came about, or anything like that. It really slows things down when movies try to come up with alternate explanations about how werewolves or some other such monsters came to be, and when movies try to get too much into dialog like that it tends to ruin things.
No nudity in this movie, but the one female does tend to wander about in a flimsy t shirt at one point, and I saw nipplage! Ah, reminds me of the days back when I was watching Charmed and I swear they had the temperature turned WAY down on the set while they were filming because those ladies did nothing but wander around in tight sweaters with pointy nipples poking out. Oh well, good movie nonetheless. :-)
Like many monster movies, this one showcases the monsters right off, but you can't really tell what they are at first. Mr and Mrs "Deadmeat" are camping in the woods in scotland (why does everyone who goes camping always die? I didn't realize camping was that dangerous), when something unzips their tent, yanks Mrs deadmeat halfway out before Mr Deadmeat can grab hold of her, and while Mr Deadmeat tries to keep her in the tent, Mrs Deadmeat is ripped or bitten in half. At the splash of blood, Mr Deadmeat lets go, Mrs Deadmeat is yanked out, and Mr Deadmeat is left to face whatever it is alone, but he's not alone for long...
Four weeks later, a team of soldiers is dropped into scotland on a training exercise. They're packing blanks, and worried about the latest soccer scores. While proceeding along the basic tenets of the training exercise, they discover a wrecked military camp. There's equipment, blood and guts everywhere, but no bodies. Searching through the wreckage, they discover a lone survivor, the commander of a team of special ops soldiers. He's badly wounded, and while they are trying to patch him up, he keeps screaming "There was only supposed to be ONE!"
What follows is a long, running battle while the team of soldiers attempts to escape the area while the beasts hunt them down. This movie has TONS of atmosphere. Everything is filmed in the deep woods of scotland, or at least it seems like it is. The rain, the wet, the damp, the darkness, it's all there. This movie makes you feel like you are just as cranky as the soldiers, and then when the mayhem begins, you feel just as scared. Music is absolutely minimal, only serving to highlight the action. I barely noticed it most of the time.
This movie certainly passes what I call the "rewatchability" test. I saw it on SciFi channel years back, I watched it again on a recent camping trip, and it's just as bloody exciting the third time around. I even liked it enough to order it on DVD, which is how I saw it today. Which is pretty good considering I had already seen the movie before I ordered it.
Another good thing about this movie is, it doesn't try to explain anything. It gives you enough of a reason why everyone is there, but it doesn't try to go into how the werewolves came about, or anything like that. It really slows things down when movies try to come up with alternate explanations about how werewolves or some other such monsters came to be, and when movies try to get too much into dialog like that it tends to ruin things.
No nudity in this movie, but the one female does tend to wander about in a flimsy t shirt at one point, and I saw nipplage! Ah, reminds me of the days back when I was watching Charmed and I swear they had the temperature turned WAY down on the set while they were filming because those ladies did nothing but wander around in tight sweaters with pointy nipples poking out. Oh well, good movie nonetheless. :-)
Saturday, October 16, 2010
October 16 - Splinter
I try not to review Sci fi channel movies of the week, but sci fi (SyFy now) is the first place I saw this one, and boy was I surprised. Now normally sci fi has their little picture of a scenic hometown, and then the "monster" usually a comupter generated snake or something, starts crawling around and eating things, and so on. Sure, they are enjoyable enough, but certainly not what I would call a horror film. I don't know who wrote this one, or if it was indeed an actual scifi channel movie of the week, but since I haven't seen it everywhere else, I am assuming it was. Why is that so hard to believe, you ask? Let's just say this one stands out from the usual.
So it was with mild shock that I began watching Splinter one afternoon, much like this afternoon when I saw it for the second time. Unlike most sci fi films, this one doesn't start slow. There's no explanation of the where the bad things come from. Practically the entire movie is set at a gas station in the middle of a deserted road, and it's ten times better because of the restricted setting.
It's just your typical gas station, attended by your typical acne-faced teen hick. It's a quiet day in the sticks, apparently, because the attendant, who I am affectionately calling Deadmeat, sets up a lounge chair next to the gas pumps, sits down, and begins munching on a bag of chips. A sound in the brush behind him attracts his attention. Deadmeat yells into the brush that he has nothing, hiding the bag of chips in his hand. Yea, right, Deadmeat, like the raccoons can't smell those chips. So Deadmeat heads into the brush to find out what was making the noise, and finds a poor hungry little raccoon. A raccoon that rushes him, growling menacingly. A raccoon that is covered in spikes. A raccoon that launches itself at him...
Well, I didn't call him Deadmeat because he's the only survivor, you know.
So headed towards this gas station, now unattended, I might add, are two sets of people. One is a couple that is, shall we say, on the lam. A pair of backwoodsy type, hick-ish outlaws. Another is a strong-limbed, lithe, outdoorsy-woman, accompanied by a nerdy little man. Apparently they are celebrating their anniversary by camping, but can't get the tent up, so they decide on a hotel. However, they are flagged down by the backwoods outlaws, and forced into a hostage situation. Forced to drive at gunpoint, they hit something on the way, and while changing the flat tire it caused, the male outlaw, who I will now refer to as Pokey, gets a splinter in his finger. A splinter from the tire that ran over the... raccoon. A rather spiky-looking raccoon. Pokey notices that the tire itself, the one that hit the racoon, has spikes sticking out of it. Splinters of something, if you will. Splinters... that are... growing... :-o
Well, that's all I am giving away on that one. An otherwise excellent movie that had the misfortune of being owned by SciFi channel. I love the fact that the people who make it there have to rely on whatever they'd find inside a typical gas station/convenience store, and I love that there's absolutely no information of what caused the, shall we shall, vicious little splinters. I don't know who wrote or produced this one, but they did somethign right here. lol
No nudity in this one, but I would have loved to see the outdoorsy chick in the buff. She seems to have a preference for geeks, so I think I might have a chance! :-D
So it was with mild shock that I began watching Splinter one afternoon, much like this afternoon when I saw it for the second time. Unlike most sci fi films, this one doesn't start slow. There's no explanation of the where the bad things come from. Practically the entire movie is set at a gas station in the middle of a deserted road, and it's ten times better because of the restricted setting.
It's just your typical gas station, attended by your typical acne-faced teen hick. It's a quiet day in the sticks, apparently, because the attendant, who I am affectionately calling Deadmeat, sets up a lounge chair next to the gas pumps, sits down, and begins munching on a bag of chips. A sound in the brush behind him attracts his attention. Deadmeat yells into the brush that he has nothing, hiding the bag of chips in his hand. Yea, right, Deadmeat, like the raccoons can't smell those chips. So Deadmeat heads into the brush to find out what was making the noise, and finds a poor hungry little raccoon. A raccoon that rushes him, growling menacingly. A raccoon that is covered in spikes. A raccoon that launches itself at him...
Well, I didn't call him Deadmeat because he's the only survivor, you know.
So headed towards this gas station, now unattended, I might add, are two sets of people. One is a couple that is, shall we say, on the lam. A pair of backwoodsy type, hick-ish outlaws. Another is a strong-limbed, lithe, outdoorsy-woman, accompanied by a nerdy little man. Apparently they are celebrating their anniversary by camping, but can't get the tent up, so they decide on a hotel. However, they are flagged down by the backwoods outlaws, and forced into a hostage situation. Forced to drive at gunpoint, they hit something on the way, and while changing the flat tire it caused, the male outlaw, who I will now refer to as Pokey, gets a splinter in his finger. A splinter from the tire that ran over the... raccoon. A rather spiky-looking raccoon. Pokey notices that the tire itself, the one that hit the racoon, has spikes sticking out of it. Splinters of something, if you will. Splinters... that are... growing... :-o
Well, that's all I am giving away on that one. An otherwise excellent movie that had the misfortune of being owned by SciFi channel. I love the fact that the people who make it there have to rely on whatever they'd find inside a typical gas station/convenience store, and I love that there's absolutely no information of what caused the, shall we shall, vicious little splinters. I don't know who wrote or produced this one, but they did somethign right here. lol
No nudity in this one, but I would have loved to see the outdoorsy chick in the buff. She seems to have a preference for geeks, so I think I might have a chance! :-D
Friday, October 15, 2010
October 15 - The Mummy
Not many people are aware of Hammer Studios' contribution to the horror genre, but back in the late 50's, they managed to get the rights from Universal studios in Hollywood to remake the classic monster movies, such as Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy. The first horror movie they made was the Mummy, and finally, instead of reviewing one of the many remakes, I get to review the original! :-D
John (Peter Cushing) is on an archaeological dig with his father and uncle in 1895 when he injures his leg, stopping him from entering the tomb of Ananka, an egyptian princess who died millennia ago. His uncle and father do enter, however, and the father discovers the Scroll of Life, and reads the words upon the scroll. The uncle rushes back into the tomb to see what happened to John's father, and finds the father in a state of shock that lasts 3 years. After finishing at the tomb, John seals it and returns to england to put the mummified corpse of the princess in a london museum. 1898 comes, and after struggling to free the Mummy (Christopher Lee) an egyptian priest brings it to england and unleashes it upon those who desecrated the tomb of the princess! :-o
This apparently marks the first time the 2 main parts of Hammer film studios 2 decades of horror came together. Peter Cushing, who usually played the "van helsing" sort, and Christopher Lee, who usually played the monster. This film also marks the first time in human history that a single actor (Christopher Lee) played all three major classic film monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy. Hammer film studios made so many sequels to the first few movies that it took them well into the early 70's before they started winding down, in addition to making a score of other horror films based on various other legends, myths and magicks. I guess after 20 years of horror films, anyone could use a change of pace. Then again, I been watching them for 40 years and I have yet to get tired of them, so, what do I know?
The first to die in this film is John's father, who is recovering in an insane asylum when the Mummy breaks in and chokes him to death. The next to die is John's Uncle, who is killed right in front of John, leaving John the only remaining violator of Ananka's tomb. John fires several bullets into the Mummy, but the mummy shrugs them off as if they were mosquito bites. Can John discover the secret to stopping the unstoppable mummified undead creature before it kills him? :-o
I just realized, all the classic monsters are forms of undead. Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy, all undead. Interesting, isn't it? Humankind's most feared common memories are all reanimated dead things. The only classic horror film monster that isn't already dead is the Werewolf, who is representative of the loss of control, the loss of reason, the sheer animal madness that can affect us all from time to time. So is that all of man's fears in a nutshell? The fear of death, and the fear of the loss of reasoning? Or is that just one fear, with two mirrored aspects, the loss of consciousness, the loss of the self, whether brought on by death, that final long sleep, or by madness, that irrevocable loss of control, loss of the feeling of self, from which it is near impossible to return?
Makes sense to me. You didn't expect a movie review to give you the secret source of all your fears, did you? ;-)
John (Peter Cushing) is on an archaeological dig with his father and uncle in 1895 when he injures his leg, stopping him from entering the tomb of Ananka, an egyptian princess who died millennia ago. His uncle and father do enter, however, and the father discovers the Scroll of Life, and reads the words upon the scroll. The uncle rushes back into the tomb to see what happened to John's father, and finds the father in a state of shock that lasts 3 years. After finishing at the tomb, John seals it and returns to england to put the mummified corpse of the princess in a london museum. 1898 comes, and after struggling to free the Mummy (Christopher Lee) an egyptian priest brings it to england and unleashes it upon those who desecrated the tomb of the princess! :-o
This apparently marks the first time the 2 main parts of Hammer film studios 2 decades of horror came together. Peter Cushing, who usually played the "van helsing" sort, and Christopher Lee, who usually played the monster. This film also marks the first time in human history that a single actor (Christopher Lee) played all three major classic film monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy. Hammer film studios made so many sequels to the first few movies that it took them well into the early 70's before they started winding down, in addition to making a score of other horror films based on various other legends, myths and magicks. I guess after 20 years of horror films, anyone could use a change of pace. Then again, I been watching them for 40 years and I have yet to get tired of them, so, what do I know?
The first to die in this film is John's father, who is recovering in an insane asylum when the Mummy breaks in and chokes him to death. The next to die is John's Uncle, who is killed right in front of John, leaving John the only remaining violator of Ananka's tomb. John fires several bullets into the Mummy, but the mummy shrugs them off as if they were mosquito bites. Can John discover the secret to stopping the unstoppable mummified undead creature before it kills him? :-o
I just realized, all the classic monsters are forms of undead. Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy, all undead. Interesting, isn't it? Humankind's most feared common memories are all reanimated dead things. The only classic horror film monster that isn't already dead is the Werewolf, who is representative of the loss of control, the loss of reason, the sheer animal madness that can affect us all from time to time. So is that all of man's fears in a nutshell? The fear of death, and the fear of the loss of reasoning? Or is that just one fear, with two mirrored aspects, the loss of consciousness, the loss of the self, whether brought on by death, that final long sleep, or by madness, that irrevocable loss of control, loss of the feeling of self, from which it is near impossible to return?
Makes sense to me. You didn't expect a movie review to give you the secret source of all your fears, did you? ;-)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
October 14 - The Wolfman
Even a man who is pure of heart, and says his prayers by night, can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright...
I know that one by heart, you see. I'm a huge fan of the classics, and the Wolfman, with Lon Chaney Jr. (I think it was jr) is one of my favorites. Tonight I watched the remake of the old classic, starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. As many of you know, I am not a fan of remakes, and this one certainly doesn't replace that old one, and I'm not even going to call it a worthy successor, because the original is just too good. But this one is pretty decent.
Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) is a celebrated actor in london when he recieves a visitor. His brother's fiancee has come to request his help in finding her betrothed, who has gone missing. Initially reluctant to journey to his family estate to help find his brother, Lawrence changes his mind and takes the next train home, despite being estranged from his family since a very young age. On the train, he meets an old man (Max von Sydow!) who gives him a silver-handled cane with a wolf's head.
While too late to join the search for his brother, who was found slain by the roadside just before his arrival, Lawrence is asked by his brother's ex-fiancee to look into the cause of his death. While searching for answers, Lawrence begins to reacquaint himself with his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins), who sent him to an asylum when he was a boy after Lawrence saw his mother kill herself.
Lawrence visits the local gypsy camp, where his brother had been negotiating the prices for the local gypsy visits, and shortly thereafter the camp is attacked by a werewolf. Lawrence grabs a rifle and begins chasing after it, but is attacked in turn, and the werewolf is driven off. Lawrence, however, suffers a painful and bloody bite to the shoulder...
I'm certainly not going to give away the rest of this movie. Similar events happen to the original, but it's different enough that you can see the original, and then see this movie, and not know what will happen from one movie to the next. The atmosphere in this movie is just as good as the original, and this movie is even longer, drawing out the suspense and the hunt for nearly the entire length of the film.
I just love werewolf movies. They seem to epitomize the entire month of October, and especially Halloween, that barely contained urge for sweets that drives our kids out on the night of All Hallow's Eve to threaten adults with tricks in order to satiate their lust for treats. We dress them up in masks and costumes, and they troll through the night like vengeful Goblins, hunting down home after home and raiding them for loot, almost like the bloodlust of a werewolf in full bloom. And then the day after, at the start of november, they are simple children again, no longer beasts of the night, their needs taken care of for the next year, masks and costumes put away and hunger satisfied for now. Much like the human being a werewolf becomes after a night of feeding, their tummies ache and are full to bursting, and they regret the night before. Oh, do they regret...
Maybe for October 2011 I'll review 31 days of werewolf movies. :-)
I know that one by heart, you see. I'm a huge fan of the classics, and the Wolfman, with Lon Chaney Jr. (I think it was jr) is one of my favorites. Tonight I watched the remake of the old classic, starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. As many of you know, I am not a fan of remakes, and this one certainly doesn't replace that old one, and I'm not even going to call it a worthy successor, because the original is just too good. But this one is pretty decent.
Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) is a celebrated actor in london when he recieves a visitor. His brother's fiancee has come to request his help in finding her betrothed, who has gone missing. Initially reluctant to journey to his family estate to help find his brother, Lawrence changes his mind and takes the next train home, despite being estranged from his family since a very young age. On the train, he meets an old man (Max von Sydow!) who gives him a silver-handled cane with a wolf's head.
While too late to join the search for his brother, who was found slain by the roadside just before his arrival, Lawrence is asked by his brother's ex-fiancee to look into the cause of his death. While searching for answers, Lawrence begins to reacquaint himself with his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins), who sent him to an asylum when he was a boy after Lawrence saw his mother kill herself.
Lawrence visits the local gypsy camp, where his brother had been negotiating the prices for the local gypsy visits, and shortly thereafter the camp is attacked by a werewolf. Lawrence grabs a rifle and begins chasing after it, but is attacked in turn, and the werewolf is driven off. Lawrence, however, suffers a painful and bloody bite to the shoulder...
I'm certainly not going to give away the rest of this movie. Similar events happen to the original, but it's different enough that you can see the original, and then see this movie, and not know what will happen from one movie to the next. The atmosphere in this movie is just as good as the original, and this movie is even longer, drawing out the suspense and the hunt for nearly the entire length of the film.
I just love werewolf movies. They seem to epitomize the entire month of October, and especially Halloween, that barely contained urge for sweets that drives our kids out on the night of All Hallow's Eve to threaten adults with tricks in order to satiate their lust for treats. We dress them up in masks and costumes, and they troll through the night like vengeful Goblins, hunting down home after home and raiding them for loot, almost like the bloodlust of a werewolf in full bloom. And then the day after, at the start of november, they are simple children again, no longer beasts of the night, their needs taken care of for the next year, masks and costumes put away and hunger satisfied for now. Much like the human being a werewolf becomes after a night of feeding, their tummies ache and are full to bursting, and they regret the night before. Oh, do they regret...
Maybe for October 2011 I'll review 31 days of werewolf movies. :-)
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
October 13 - Pulse
I had started to watch each of several different movies tonight, but none of them really caught my fancy. I finally decided on Pulse, which is not the movie I thought it was, but still a pretty decent horror flick, so i was pleasantly surprised.
It starts out as a lightning strike hits a nuclear power station or something, causing a spike in the electricity, which then appears to travel down the power lines and into a residential area. You can't really see anything untoward going on, but since the camera is focusing on the lines from the station all the way down to a single house, you get that impression. At first I was wondering why it picked that particular house, but later on in the movie you find out it hasn't just targeted a single house, but seems to be spreading to multiple homes.
Anyway, there's a death in that house, and a guy who goes crazy and finally accidentally electrocutes himself while hacking the place to bits with an axe. A week later, a young boy arrives across the street to spend some time with his divorced dad. The kid seems to be the main character of this movie, and we follow him more than anyone else.
So this kid is sitting there watching a ballgame while his dad and his dad's new wife are out having a few drinks, and the TV begins to, shall we say, "malfunction." The kid turns it off, and there's almost a fire in the dryer before the dad gets home, and of course the dad blames the kid, because come on, who ever believes the kids when they say shit like "I didn't do it, it did it by itself?" Yea, right! So over the next few days, more and more little disasters seem to happen, almost resulting in the death of the kid, and finally the dad's girlfriend begins to catch on.
She checks with this electrician who is trying to fix up the house across the street, where the guy went crazy and died, and he tells her it's not the first house he's seen like that. He mentions the "voice in the wires" and says it's a signal, not a thing. He himself has gone back to wood stoves and kereosene lamps! And after that, well, she runs back to the house where the kid is and the problems just get really bad.
There is no nudity in this movie, though the dad's girlfriend has that semi-hot mom next door thing going on, and despite that, the movie builds suspense from beginning pretty much to the end. They don't bother to explain any more about what's going on, and I think that counts in the movie's favor. Who cares WHY it's happening? As the TV repairman says while repairing the TV "Look, you want me to admit it? I don't KNOW why it happened." And that's pretty much the theme of the entire movie, that technology has just run amok and nobody understands it. And frankly, if that was what some people were feeling back in 1988, I can't even imagine how they feel nowadays. lol
This movie is pretty exciting to watch, though, so despite the lack of exceptional acting or any nudity or even a tangible monster or alien, it's still pretty good. UNfortunately, I'm not even halfway through the month yet and I am running out of things to watch on crackle.com. :-( I'm going to have to start hitting my own meager collection soon and that's not going to last long! lol
It starts out as a lightning strike hits a nuclear power station or something, causing a spike in the electricity, which then appears to travel down the power lines and into a residential area. You can't really see anything untoward going on, but since the camera is focusing on the lines from the station all the way down to a single house, you get that impression. At first I was wondering why it picked that particular house, but later on in the movie you find out it hasn't just targeted a single house, but seems to be spreading to multiple homes.
Anyway, there's a death in that house, and a guy who goes crazy and finally accidentally electrocutes himself while hacking the place to bits with an axe. A week later, a young boy arrives across the street to spend some time with his divorced dad. The kid seems to be the main character of this movie, and we follow him more than anyone else.
So this kid is sitting there watching a ballgame while his dad and his dad's new wife are out having a few drinks, and the TV begins to, shall we say, "malfunction." The kid turns it off, and there's almost a fire in the dryer before the dad gets home, and of course the dad blames the kid, because come on, who ever believes the kids when they say shit like "I didn't do it, it did it by itself?" Yea, right! So over the next few days, more and more little disasters seem to happen, almost resulting in the death of the kid, and finally the dad's girlfriend begins to catch on.
She checks with this electrician who is trying to fix up the house across the street, where the guy went crazy and died, and he tells her it's not the first house he's seen like that. He mentions the "voice in the wires" and says it's a signal, not a thing. He himself has gone back to wood stoves and kereosene lamps! And after that, well, she runs back to the house where the kid is and the problems just get really bad.
There is no nudity in this movie, though the dad's girlfriend has that semi-hot mom next door thing going on, and despite that, the movie builds suspense from beginning pretty much to the end. They don't bother to explain any more about what's going on, and I think that counts in the movie's favor. Who cares WHY it's happening? As the TV repairman says while repairing the TV "Look, you want me to admit it? I don't KNOW why it happened." And that's pretty much the theme of the entire movie, that technology has just run amok and nobody understands it. And frankly, if that was what some people were feeling back in 1988, I can't even imagine how they feel nowadays. lol
This movie is pretty exciting to watch, though, so despite the lack of exceptional acting or any nudity or even a tangible monster or alien, it's still pretty good. UNfortunately, I'm not even halfway through the month yet and I am running out of things to watch on crackle.com. :-( I'm going to have to start hitting my own meager collection soon and that's not going to last long! lol
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
October 12 - The Brotherhood of Satan
I like to think that I've seen a lot of horror films, and I have, but I certainly haven't seen all there is. There were so many horror and monster films made back in the 80's that even if I devoted my life to seeing all of them, I'd probably fall short of watching them all. Unless maybe I cut looking at porn and masturbating out of my life, and honestly, I don't think there's anyone that dedicated to horror films to do that!
Tonight I picked a little known flick from oh, the 70's, I think it was, that I had found on crackle.com. The Brotherhood of Satan is about a family that gets sucked into a little town where bad things are happening. In the course of 3 days, 26 poeple have been slaughtered, and 12 children have vanished. The family has a young daughter, of the same age as the children who vanished. No trace of the children has been found. The sherriff is at his wit's end. The family decides that being in town is a bad idea, and decides to get out.
Driving along, the tire blows out. Turning around to make sure everyone is okay, they notice the daughter is missing. Gone. Vanished without a trace. Returning to town, the local priest expounds on his theory to the sherriff, the doctor, and the dad. There's a coven of witches hiding somewhere in town, and they've finally got the 13 children they wanted... but no one knows why. What follows is a heated search of the town, looking every place they can, before whatever is planned for the children goes down...
Satanic cults were huge back in the 70's and 80's, and featured in a whole bunch of horror movies. Come to think of it, they still pop up in horror movies all the time. There does turn out to be a cult in this movie, but honestly, the children are tons creepier than the cultists. There's a bit of a surprise ending going on, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
This movie seemed to flow pretty well, and while the acting was good, there weren't exactly any stars shining brightly in this. The guy playing the head cultist really got into his part, and there were some decent special effects... for the 70's. lol
I would say, if you are a fan of horror films, this one is worth watching once. If you don't like horror films, well, yea, you probably aren't going to enjoy this one all that much, unless of course, you enjoy cheesy 70's atmosphere. I enjoy both, so I liked it. :-)
Tonight I picked a little known flick from oh, the 70's, I think it was, that I had found on crackle.com. The Brotherhood of Satan is about a family that gets sucked into a little town where bad things are happening. In the course of 3 days, 26 poeple have been slaughtered, and 12 children have vanished. The family has a young daughter, of the same age as the children who vanished. No trace of the children has been found. The sherriff is at his wit's end. The family decides that being in town is a bad idea, and decides to get out.
Driving along, the tire blows out. Turning around to make sure everyone is okay, they notice the daughter is missing. Gone. Vanished without a trace. Returning to town, the local priest expounds on his theory to the sherriff, the doctor, and the dad. There's a coven of witches hiding somewhere in town, and they've finally got the 13 children they wanted... but no one knows why. What follows is a heated search of the town, looking every place they can, before whatever is planned for the children goes down...
Satanic cults were huge back in the 70's and 80's, and featured in a whole bunch of horror movies. Come to think of it, they still pop up in horror movies all the time. There does turn out to be a cult in this movie, but honestly, the children are tons creepier than the cultists. There's a bit of a surprise ending going on, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
This movie seemed to flow pretty well, and while the acting was good, there weren't exactly any stars shining brightly in this. The guy playing the head cultist really got into his part, and there were some decent special effects... for the 70's. lol
I would say, if you are a fan of horror films, this one is worth watching once. If you don't like horror films, well, yea, you probably aren't going to enjoy this one all that much, unless of course, you enjoy cheesy 70's atmosphere. I enjoy both, so I liked it. :-)
Monday, October 11, 2010
October 11 - The Return of the Living Dead
Before I get into the review for today's movie, I want to remind everyone that it's International Coming Out Day. So if anyone out there is still in the closet, why not come out? There's good food out here! lol Seriously, to anyone in the LGBT community, you have my heartfelt support. I am not gay, bisexual, nor transgender, and frankly I still get a little freaked out inside if gay/bisexual/transgender guys hit on me, but that's because I am straight, and it's nothing against you guys. I hope you get all the rights you are looking for, and equal treatment under the law, and for the hate crimes to stop. Just because I am heterosexual, doesn't mean I am weird. :-) Of course, I AM weird, but it's not because I am heterosexual. lol
Now for the movie! Return of the Living Dead! HOLY CHRIST MAN! Best zombie movie ever. Seriously. Shut up, I don't even want to hear your arguments. As far as zombies go, this movie is THE SHIT. The zombies in this movie are fast-moving, intelligent, vicious fuckers that will tear the brains from your head and eat them before you can say HOLY SHIT IT'S A DEAD MIDGET! It's true. The only things worse would be demon-possessed zombies, and those kinds of zombies are one in a bajillion. These things, every one of them, thinks like a rabid, ravenously hungry cannibal intent on EATING YOUR BRAAAAAIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! :-o
This movie came out in 1985, and unlike the other zombie movies you may have seen, the zombies in this movie are not caused by a virus, voodoo, demons or supernatural events. No, in this movie, it's good, old-fashioned government incompetence that does it. Many of you guys are nodding your heads, thinking, Yep, if there's going to be a zombie apokyclipse, those boneheads in washington are sure to cause it. Yea, I agree. So here's what's going on...
Apparently, there was some chemical the army was using some years back. I forget what exactly they had intended the effects of the chemical to be, or what they were using it for, but an unintended side effect was discovered. It reanimated dead tissue. Needless to say, the army/military/whatever branch of the government was responsible for the experiments, tried to bottle up all the chemical into steel barrels and dump it somewhere safe. Unfortunately, a few of the barrels accidentally got delivered to a medical supply house in the middle of nowhere, and proceeded to sit there for about 14 years or so.
So Freddy, practically the first person we meet in this movie, is a new hire at this supply house, and his new boss is leaving for the day, leaving him in the care of his supervisor. So after the boss leaves, Freddy and his sup get to chatting, and the sup feels the need to show off the barrels to the new guy. Oh, the folly of humanity. So Freddy is all googly-eyed over the barrels with dead things inside and asks if the chemical that causes them to reanimate is secure inside the barrel. So his sup tries to convince him how sound the barrels are, and of course the seal breaks and the chemical sprays out like a gas under pressure.
Meanwhile, Freddy's buddies, a bunch of weirdo whackjobs who are nonetheless just cruising around looking for a good place to party, arrive across the street to wait for Freddy to get out of work, since Freddy ALWAYS knows a good place to party. So while they are waiting for Freddy to get out of work, they decide to party in the cemetary across the street...
Yea, some of you are already going "NO... OH GOD NO..." Yes. Yes. It's as bad as it sounds. I'm not going to go into any more of the movie, because there's very little of it that seems to slow down or drag, and it only lasts 91 minutes to start with, so it's pretty jam-packed with action. Hell, it inspired 3 actual movie sequels and 2 or 3 sci-fi movie of the week sequels, so it had to be a pretty decent premise to start with, and this movie started it ALL. That whole zombies going after brains thing? That was ALL from this movie. At least I think it was. Don't quote me on that. Or you can, but if anyone ever provides me with evidence to the contrary I am going to say you told me that and blame you for all of it. This movie also inspired one of the greatest love stories I have ever seen, Return of the Living Dead 3. No, shut up, for zombie movie aficionadoes (I have NO idea how to spell that word), the third movie in this series was beautiful and so heartbreaking... I fuckin CRIED man. Tears were rolling down my face at the end. People who don't like monster movies who can watch that movie and NOT cry, and call ME heartless, are the biggest hypocrites I have ever seen. (sniffs) Shut up. I have a cold.
There IS nudity in this movie. There's a scene rather early on, in the graveyard, starring a certain Linnea Quigly. Those of you who know anything about monster movies, your eyes just lit up. No, I don't care if you are a straight female, you got a little turned on when you watched her take off everything but her legwarmers and dance on top of the sarcophagus to heavy metal music, I know you did, because I was fapping like I'd just discovered how. And, since I was about 15 when I saw this movie, I probably had just discovered how. lol Linnea Quigly was a b-movie scream queen back in the 80's, and although I think this was one of her first movies, she was being referred to in certain circles as the next Jamie Lee Curtis back int he late 80's. Of course, it didn't quite turn out that way, and nowadays you can say Linnea Quigly and people look at you and go "Who?" Ah, well. She had a kickin' arse and the rest of her was pretty hot too. I mean, seriously, she literally spends the majority of the movie naked. I know you don't usually hear that outside of porno flicks, and maaayyybe some of the nudity is not necessary for the plot, but who cares? There's nothing like a scene where the zombies are chasing a bunch of people and you catch sight of a hot naked female ass in the middle of the group of people running for their lives. We need that scene in every movie, of any kind, I don't care if it's a sandra bullock romantic comedy, the sight of a hot naked female ass being chased down a hall just gets my blood pumping, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Anyway, awesome movie, cult classic, watch it and be thrilled, scared, turned on and amused all at once, because this movie does it all. Return of the Living Dead 2 was okay, but was almost a parody of this movie since it had the same two main actors back and the same thing happened to them and they made a comment like it felt like it had all happened to them before, and that just ruined the movie for me. But oh well. Return of the Living Dead 3 was TONS better, had a completely different cast, and like I said... best love story of all time. "Gone with the Wind" wasn't even close to the love in that movie. "9 1/2 Weeks" was 30 seconds of the missionary position by comparison. But seriously, go watch it for yourself and find out. But, uh, Return of the Living Dead was an awesome horror film, and again, Return 3 was more a love story, so it doesn't really count as horror. Oh well. Maybe I'll review it for Valentine's Day! lol
Now for the movie! Return of the Living Dead! HOLY CHRIST MAN! Best zombie movie ever. Seriously. Shut up, I don't even want to hear your arguments. As far as zombies go, this movie is THE SHIT. The zombies in this movie are fast-moving, intelligent, vicious fuckers that will tear the brains from your head and eat them before you can say HOLY SHIT IT'S A DEAD MIDGET! It's true. The only things worse would be demon-possessed zombies, and those kinds of zombies are one in a bajillion. These things, every one of them, thinks like a rabid, ravenously hungry cannibal intent on EATING YOUR BRAAAAAIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! :-o
This movie came out in 1985, and unlike the other zombie movies you may have seen, the zombies in this movie are not caused by a virus, voodoo, demons or supernatural events. No, in this movie, it's good, old-fashioned government incompetence that does it. Many of you guys are nodding your heads, thinking, Yep, if there's going to be a zombie apokyclipse, those boneheads in washington are sure to cause it. Yea, I agree. So here's what's going on...
Apparently, there was some chemical the army was using some years back. I forget what exactly they had intended the effects of the chemical to be, or what they were using it for, but an unintended side effect was discovered. It reanimated dead tissue. Needless to say, the army/military/whatever branch of the government was responsible for the experiments, tried to bottle up all the chemical into steel barrels and dump it somewhere safe. Unfortunately, a few of the barrels accidentally got delivered to a medical supply house in the middle of nowhere, and proceeded to sit there for about 14 years or so.
So Freddy, practically the first person we meet in this movie, is a new hire at this supply house, and his new boss is leaving for the day, leaving him in the care of his supervisor. So after the boss leaves, Freddy and his sup get to chatting, and the sup feels the need to show off the barrels to the new guy. Oh, the folly of humanity. So Freddy is all googly-eyed over the barrels with dead things inside and asks if the chemical that causes them to reanimate is secure inside the barrel. So his sup tries to convince him how sound the barrels are, and of course the seal breaks and the chemical sprays out like a gas under pressure.
Meanwhile, Freddy's buddies, a bunch of weirdo whackjobs who are nonetheless just cruising around looking for a good place to party, arrive across the street to wait for Freddy to get out of work, since Freddy ALWAYS knows a good place to party. So while they are waiting for Freddy to get out of work, they decide to party in the cemetary across the street...
Yea, some of you are already going "NO... OH GOD NO..." Yes. Yes. It's as bad as it sounds. I'm not going to go into any more of the movie, because there's very little of it that seems to slow down or drag, and it only lasts 91 minutes to start with, so it's pretty jam-packed with action. Hell, it inspired 3 actual movie sequels and 2 or 3 sci-fi movie of the week sequels, so it had to be a pretty decent premise to start with, and this movie started it ALL. That whole zombies going after brains thing? That was ALL from this movie. At least I think it was. Don't quote me on that. Or you can, but if anyone ever provides me with evidence to the contrary I am going to say you told me that and blame you for all of it. This movie also inspired one of the greatest love stories I have ever seen, Return of the Living Dead 3. No, shut up, for zombie movie aficionadoes (I have NO idea how to spell that word), the third movie in this series was beautiful and so heartbreaking... I fuckin CRIED man. Tears were rolling down my face at the end. People who don't like monster movies who can watch that movie and NOT cry, and call ME heartless, are the biggest hypocrites I have ever seen. (sniffs) Shut up. I have a cold.
There IS nudity in this movie. There's a scene rather early on, in the graveyard, starring a certain Linnea Quigly. Those of you who know anything about monster movies, your eyes just lit up. No, I don't care if you are a straight female, you got a little turned on when you watched her take off everything but her legwarmers and dance on top of the sarcophagus to heavy metal music, I know you did, because I was fapping like I'd just discovered how. And, since I was about 15 when I saw this movie, I probably had just discovered how. lol Linnea Quigly was a b-movie scream queen back in the 80's, and although I think this was one of her first movies, she was being referred to in certain circles as the next Jamie Lee Curtis back int he late 80's. Of course, it didn't quite turn out that way, and nowadays you can say Linnea Quigly and people look at you and go "Who?" Ah, well. She had a kickin' arse and the rest of her was pretty hot too. I mean, seriously, she literally spends the majority of the movie naked. I know you don't usually hear that outside of porno flicks, and maaayyybe some of the nudity is not necessary for the plot, but who cares? There's nothing like a scene where the zombies are chasing a bunch of people and you catch sight of a hot naked female ass in the middle of the group of people running for their lives. We need that scene in every movie, of any kind, I don't care if it's a sandra bullock romantic comedy, the sight of a hot naked female ass being chased down a hall just gets my blood pumping, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Anyway, awesome movie, cult classic, watch it and be thrilled, scared, turned on and amused all at once, because this movie does it all. Return of the Living Dead 2 was okay, but was almost a parody of this movie since it had the same two main actors back and the same thing happened to them and they made a comment like it felt like it had all happened to them before, and that just ruined the movie for me. But oh well. Return of the Living Dead 3 was TONS better, had a completely different cast, and like I said... best love story of all time. "Gone with the Wind" wasn't even close to the love in that movie. "9 1/2 Weeks" was 30 seconds of the missionary position by comparison. But seriously, go watch it for yourself and find out. But, uh, Return of the Living Dead was an awesome horror film, and again, Return 3 was more a love story, so it doesn't really count as horror. Oh well. Maybe I'll review it for Valentine's Day! lol
Sunday, October 10, 2010
October 10 - The Thing
John Carpenter, unlike Rob Zombie, knows how to make a good horror film. This one was technically a remake, inspired by "The Thing From Another World," a movie from the 50's, which is also very good and I highly recommend it. In fact if I see it again before Halloween I'll probably review it anyway. But although I am generally against any sort of remake, Joh Carpenter rewrote everything here, and there's the feel of the original movie without it feeling like a remake at all. So, completely the opposite of The Omen remake (which actually had the same exact lines as the original, just spoken by different actors... sad, huh?)!
In this movie, a team of researchers is goofing off at the South pole (in between doing important research, no doubt) when they hear shots from outside. A norwegian helicopter is chasing down what appears to be a sled dog, firing shots at it and throwing explosive grenades at it. The team of americans goes out to see what's going on as the helicopter lands, and one of the norwegians attempts to throw a grenade at the dog in a last ditch effort to stop it from reaching the americans, but he drops it and it destroys the helicopter and all but one of the norwegians. The last one, armed with a rifle, chases after the dog, which reaches the americans and begins licking one of them. The norwegian shouts a warning in norwayegianese or whatever they speak there, but no one understands him. The norwegian opens up with the rifle, hitting one of them in the leg, and they scatter, but he's apparently only interested in killing the dog, walking past them to chase it down. Finally, one of the americans draws a pistol and downs the norwegian with one shot.
Obviously this presents a mystery to the team, and like scooby doo and his friends, they get in the mystery machine (in this case, a helicopter) and chase it down. Unfortunately for them, the dog turns out to be, shall we say, not what it appears to be, and there's just no help coming in the middle of a blizzard at the south pole, so it's up to them to handle it themselves! :-D Oh, joy.
I know everyone has probably seen this already, but I'm still not going to give away any more, because the movie is that good. Go and watch it again if you don't believe me. Go on, do it. Right now. I'll wait. See? See how great it is?
Of particular note in this movie are Wilford Brimley, starring as the team's biologist. Yes, the diabeetus guy! He's also infamously linked on the internet to a masturbating walrus, but that's just mean. Funny, but mean. I saw old Wilford in a bunch of movies back in the 80's and he's an experienced actor even if he has fallen on hard times lately. He's actually very good in this movie, and plays his part awesomely.
Starring as the main protagonist (that's "hero" to those of you who don't know writer-speak) is Kurt Russell as the team's helicopter pilot. This movie came out in 1982, and it's amazing to see the changes in Kurt from his Disney film days back in the 70's. He's bearded, drunk half the time, and an actual ass-kicking bad ass in this movie. When he holds a stick of dynamite and says he's going to blow himself and everyone else up if they touch him again, I believe him! That's some ballsy shit right there. Then, a mere two years later, he stars in Overboard with Goldie Hawn as a hick handyman, and looks completely different. This guy has some serious range to his acting abilities! I can't wait to see him in something else, but I'm sure he's ridiculously rich nowadays and certainly doesn't have to work much.
There's a bunch of other actors in here who are good and consistent character actors, and they do their jobs excellently here, but none of them really got famous off this movie except maybe Kurt and Wilford. There probably should have been a sequel, and if this movie got made nowadays, there WOULD be, but back then movies were just better, and movies like this one were so damn good that the thought of a sequel would only have depressed everyone. I mean, HOW could you possibly live up to the expectations? In any case, since Hollywood is SO out of ideas lately, I have heard they are in fact making a prequel to this movie, showing the events that occurred at the norwegian base just prior to the start of this movie. Which, is closer to the events of "The Thing From Another World." So, in essence, a prequel to a remake which will still be a remake. Wow. I really hope the movie turns out well, but I won't keep my expectations high on that one.
Definitely no nudity in this movie, but still a good movie. It was all guys, so nudity would have just been a drawback, anyway. And come on, who wants to see Wilford Brimley naked except maybe another walrus? lol
In this movie, a team of researchers is goofing off at the South pole (in between doing important research, no doubt) when they hear shots from outside. A norwegian helicopter is chasing down what appears to be a sled dog, firing shots at it and throwing explosive grenades at it. The team of americans goes out to see what's going on as the helicopter lands, and one of the norwegians attempts to throw a grenade at the dog in a last ditch effort to stop it from reaching the americans, but he drops it and it destroys the helicopter and all but one of the norwegians. The last one, armed with a rifle, chases after the dog, which reaches the americans and begins licking one of them. The norwegian shouts a warning in norwayegianese or whatever they speak there, but no one understands him. The norwegian opens up with the rifle, hitting one of them in the leg, and they scatter, but he's apparently only interested in killing the dog, walking past them to chase it down. Finally, one of the americans draws a pistol and downs the norwegian with one shot.
Obviously this presents a mystery to the team, and like scooby doo and his friends, they get in the mystery machine (in this case, a helicopter) and chase it down. Unfortunately for them, the dog turns out to be, shall we say, not what it appears to be, and there's just no help coming in the middle of a blizzard at the south pole, so it's up to them to handle it themselves! :-D Oh, joy.
I know everyone has probably seen this already, but I'm still not going to give away any more, because the movie is that good. Go and watch it again if you don't believe me. Go on, do it. Right now. I'll wait. See? See how great it is?
Of particular note in this movie are Wilford Brimley, starring as the team's biologist. Yes, the diabeetus guy! He's also infamously linked on the internet to a masturbating walrus, but that's just mean. Funny, but mean. I saw old Wilford in a bunch of movies back in the 80's and he's an experienced actor even if he has fallen on hard times lately. He's actually very good in this movie, and plays his part awesomely.
Starring as the main protagonist (that's "hero" to those of you who don't know writer-speak) is Kurt Russell as the team's helicopter pilot. This movie came out in 1982, and it's amazing to see the changes in Kurt from his Disney film days back in the 70's. He's bearded, drunk half the time, and an actual ass-kicking bad ass in this movie. When he holds a stick of dynamite and says he's going to blow himself and everyone else up if they touch him again, I believe him! That's some ballsy shit right there. Then, a mere two years later, he stars in Overboard with Goldie Hawn as a hick handyman, and looks completely different. This guy has some serious range to his acting abilities! I can't wait to see him in something else, but I'm sure he's ridiculously rich nowadays and certainly doesn't have to work much.
There's a bunch of other actors in here who are good and consistent character actors, and they do their jobs excellently here, but none of them really got famous off this movie except maybe Kurt and Wilford. There probably should have been a sequel, and if this movie got made nowadays, there WOULD be, but back then movies were just better, and movies like this one were so damn good that the thought of a sequel would only have depressed everyone. I mean, HOW could you possibly live up to the expectations? In any case, since Hollywood is SO out of ideas lately, I have heard they are in fact making a prequel to this movie, showing the events that occurred at the norwegian base just prior to the start of this movie. Which, is closer to the events of "The Thing From Another World." So, in essence, a prequel to a remake which will still be a remake. Wow. I really hope the movie turns out well, but I won't keep my expectations high on that one.
Definitely no nudity in this movie, but still a good movie. It was all guys, so nudity would have just been a drawback, anyway. And come on, who wants to see Wilford Brimley naked except maybe another walrus? lol
Saturday, October 9, 2010
October 9 - Cujo
This isn't the first time I've reviewed something Stephen King wrote, and it probably won't be the last. I remember reading my first Stephen King book at the age of 7 after borrowing a book from my older sister. I'd been watching her read Christine over a week or so, and she'd finished it and moved onto The Stand, and I picked up Christine and asked her if I could read it. She said "It's scary." with a warning look in her eye. I nodded, opened the book, and have been reading Stephen King on and off for 33 years. I just wanted to thank him before I get into the review. Thanks, Stephen King. I'm a 40 year old, 250-pound man and I'm AFRAID OF THE DARK!!!! THANKS A LOT!!! >:-(
I've seen a lot of movies about monsters, and read lots of books about them, but I think there's a special kind of fear reserved for the one kind of monster that can actually get you... The REAL ones. In this case, there's a monster dog involved, not a mutant one, not one possessed by a demon, not one experimented on in a lab, not a werewolf in disguise... Nope, just an ordinary, oversized, happy, fun-loving old doggy... who has been infected with RABIES. It takes a unique kind of sick, twisted mind to take man's best friend and turn him into a terrifyingly lethal engine of destruction, and Stephen King, that warped, fevered old bastard, has such a mind.
The movie starts out by showing you Cujo, a big St. Bernard, chasing a bunny rabbit through a field. Cujo never quite catches up to the rabbit, and the rabbit flees down a hole under a stump or soemthing, and Cujo, big mutt that he is, stuffs his head into the hole and unleashes a resoundingly powerful round of barking that angers a bunch of bats. Which then bite him. Oh, we're not talking like a swarm of bees here, they don't maul him by the dozens or anything. Nope, just one little bat nips Cujo's poor little nosy and that's all it takes. The virus has spread to a new host. At least, I think it's a virus.
Oh, Cujo doesn't turn right away. Much like in humans, and yes, rabies can infect humans and runs a similar course, Cujo just shrugs off the bite and returns to his home, a lonely barn at the end of a road with owners who fix cars, feed him, play with him, and give him nice quiet dark places to sleep in. Quiet dark places, like under the porch stairs, for instance.
I'm sure everyone has seen this film by now, so I'm just going to go ahead with a full review of it. Basically, this guy in advertising and his wife and son are going through some problems. The wife is having an affair, the kid is scared of monsters, and the guy's ad campaign is sunk when the cereal he's selling causes internal bleeding, or what looks like it, when too much red dye is used in the cereal and kids are shitting and pissing red. Yea, disaster for anyone, right? So in the midst of all this, the ad guy has to run off to a meeting with his bosses to try and save the ad campaign. His wife, meanwhile, has to run their crappy little pinto up to the local repairman... who happens to have a pet dog named Cujo. Oh yes, I love it when a plan comes together.
Cujo, meanwhile, has gone on a two-person killing spree, ending the life of the mechanic and his neighbor by tearing them apart, and is certainly not pleased when the lady's pinto drives up and stalls. Cujo attacks almost immediately, and the woman and her son are forced to hide in the car for the next three days while the baking sun dehydrates them and Cujo both. After several failed attempts to start the car, make it into the house and otherwise get out of their present predicament, a cop car pulls up to the house, but a holstered gun is no match for a rabid angry dog, and the cop suffers a violent, bloody death. Shortly thereafter, the woman's son suffocates in the back seat of the car, and in a state of panic, the mom runs out of the car to the house... where Cujo is waiting. The mother manages to get ahold of a nearby baseball bat before Cujo gets to her, and beats the dog senseless with it, but the bat breaks and Cujo leaps onto her, only to be impaled by the broken bat handle. The mother grabs her son, gets him into the house and manages to revive him, just in time for Cujo to attack again! :-o
My only problem with this movie is that it spends an awful lot of time focusing on the clueless ad guy, his faithless slut of a wife, and the chickenshit little kid. Yea yea, I know, Stephen King's strength lies in his ability to depict real people in unreal situations, but dammit, I don't really care about these people. The acting is good, though, and the movie builds up for almost it's entire length, and there's few if any other characters. There's probably a lot more going on in the book, and I remember reading it when I was younger (not that I remember it now), but I didn't really identify with anyone in this movie. Still, aside from the commercials I had to put up with because it was on a damn commercial-loving channel, it wasn't a bad movie at all.
In fact, it's movies like this that remind me why I can't keep pets. Well, that and I can't even take care of a plant without killing it. I'm not a very good nurturer, okay?
I've seen a lot of movies about monsters, and read lots of books about them, but I think there's a special kind of fear reserved for the one kind of monster that can actually get you... The REAL ones. In this case, there's a monster dog involved, not a mutant one, not one possessed by a demon, not one experimented on in a lab, not a werewolf in disguise... Nope, just an ordinary, oversized, happy, fun-loving old doggy... who has been infected with RABIES. It takes a unique kind of sick, twisted mind to take man's best friend and turn him into a terrifyingly lethal engine of destruction, and Stephen King, that warped, fevered old bastard, has such a mind.
The movie starts out by showing you Cujo, a big St. Bernard, chasing a bunny rabbit through a field. Cujo never quite catches up to the rabbit, and the rabbit flees down a hole under a stump or soemthing, and Cujo, big mutt that he is, stuffs his head into the hole and unleashes a resoundingly powerful round of barking that angers a bunch of bats. Which then bite him. Oh, we're not talking like a swarm of bees here, they don't maul him by the dozens or anything. Nope, just one little bat nips Cujo's poor little nosy and that's all it takes. The virus has spread to a new host. At least, I think it's a virus.
Oh, Cujo doesn't turn right away. Much like in humans, and yes, rabies can infect humans and runs a similar course, Cujo just shrugs off the bite and returns to his home, a lonely barn at the end of a road with owners who fix cars, feed him, play with him, and give him nice quiet dark places to sleep in. Quiet dark places, like under the porch stairs, for instance.
I'm sure everyone has seen this film by now, so I'm just going to go ahead with a full review of it. Basically, this guy in advertising and his wife and son are going through some problems. The wife is having an affair, the kid is scared of monsters, and the guy's ad campaign is sunk when the cereal he's selling causes internal bleeding, or what looks like it, when too much red dye is used in the cereal and kids are shitting and pissing red. Yea, disaster for anyone, right? So in the midst of all this, the ad guy has to run off to a meeting with his bosses to try and save the ad campaign. His wife, meanwhile, has to run their crappy little pinto up to the local repairman... who happens to have a pet dog named Cujo. Oh yes, I love it when a plan comes together.
Cujo, meanwhile, has gone on a two-person killing spree, ending the life of the mechanic and his neighbor by tearing them apart, and is certainly not pleased when the lady's pinto drives up and stalls. Cujo attacks almost immediately, and the woman and her son are forced to hide in the car for the next three days while the baking sun dehydrates them and Cujo both. After several failed attempts to start the car, make it into the house and otherwise get out of their present predicament, a cop car pulls up to the house, but a holstered gun is no match for a rabid angry dog, and the cop suffers a violent, bloody death. Shortly thereafter, the woman's son suffocates in the back seat of the car, and in a state of panic, the mom runs out of the car to the house... where Cujo is waiting. The mother manages to get ahold of a nearby baseball bat before Cujo gets to her, and beats the dog senseless with it, but the bat breaks and Cujo leaps onto her, only to be impaled by the broken bat handle. The mother grabs her son, gets him into the house and manages to revive him, just in time for Cujo to attack again! :-o
My only problem with this movie is that it spends an awful lot of time focusing on the clueless ad guy, his faithless slut of a wife, and the chickenshit little kid. Yea yea, I know, Stephen King's strength lies in his ability to depict real people in unreal situations, but dammit, I don't really care about these people. The acting is good, though, and the movie builds up for almost it's entire length, and there's few if any other characters. There's probably a lot more going on in the book, and I remember reading it when I was younger (not that I remember it now), but I didn't really identify with anyone in this movie. Still, aside from the commercials I had to put up with because it was on a damn commercial-loving channel, it wasn't a bad movie at all.
In fact, it's movies like this that remind me why I can't keep pets. Well, that and I can't even take care of a plant without killing it. I'm not a very good nurturer, okay?
Friday, October 8, 2010
October 8 - Fright Night 2
I seem to be reviewing a lot of sequels lately, but aside from the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween 2, I don't really have a problem with it, for it allows me to review not only the sequel, but mention the original movie besides.
Tonight I had a choice between Hammer film Studio's Plague of the Zombies and Fright Night 2, and despite the fact that I hadn't seen Plague of the Zombies before, it really didn't grab me at the beginning, so I abandoned it in favor of Fright Night 2. There was also a series of Aliens movies on another channel, but it had commercials on that channel, and given a choice between uninterrupted horror movie pleasure and a series of stupid ads designed to annoy the shit out of me rather than buy a product (at least it seems that way to me), I'll take the uninterrupted horrorific pleasure every time.
A look at Fright Night 2 wouldn't be complete without at least a mention of Fright Night, the first movie of this series, of which there are, unfortunately, only 2 movies that I am aware of. Fright Night, in this series of movies, is the name of a television show hosted by Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowell), the "fearless Vampire Killer." Peter Vincent is an older actor who starred in a bunch of movies about slaying vampires, and now hosts a show every friday night where he replays one of his older movies. A huge fan of Peter's show is a high school student named Charlie Brewster (william Ragsdale), is having some girlfriend trouble, and during a little lover's spat, he notices that the new neighbor who moved in next door isn't quite what he appears to be. A short investigation by Charlie reveals that the new neighbor is, in fact, a vampire, but unfortunately for Charlie, the vampire becomes aware of Charlie as well, and Charlie goes to the only person he can think of for help... Peter Vincent. I won't go into that movie too much since it's exceptional in and of itself, so I'll just move on to the next one.
Fright Night 2 reunites William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowell again, but introduces a host of new characters as well. Charlie's at college now and has a new girlfriend, played by Traci Lind. On a side note, Traci Lind was getting a lot of work in hollywood around the time she did this movie, and is incredibly hot as well, but apparently gave up acting some time in the late 90's, which is quite a shame. Anyway, Charlie begins having a series of strange dreams about a seductive woman (Julie Carmen) in his dorm room at night, and this again causes some girl trouble for poor Charlie. While Charlie is trying to juggle college classes and smoothing things over with his girl, all while attending therapy sessions to get him over the shock of the last movie, he begins to feel a bit ill. Daylight begins to feel glaringly bright to him, and he has a nasty cut on his neck... :-o
I won't give away any more of the movie, because it is not only good but funny in spots, much like the first one. What I find funny is how, no matter what the characters have gone through in the first movie, the people in the sequel never believe them. In Jaws 2, for instance, despite Sherriff Brody having had extensive experience with sharks, no one believes him when he thinks there is another. It is the same with this movie, even Peter Vincent says it, "Charlie, such a thing can't possibly happen again." Well dammit Peter, guess what? You're WRONG! lol
The vampires in these movies are certainly evil, and the hero and heroines are attractive enough, but what I think glues these movies together is the screen presence of Roddy McDowell. He plays the aging actor Peter Vincent with grace and skill, and at one point, after having fled from the sight of the vampire in Fright Night 2 (he is only a cowardly actor in these films, after all), he stops to soothe his nerves in a pub, and while having a beer, a large man says to him "I know I've seen you before... what do you do for a living?" Despondent and sad that he has left his friends to face the evil alone, he quietly sighs "Vampire Killer." The man says "What?" Peter says again, with a look of confusion on his face, as if realizing what he's saying, "Vampire Killer." The large man laughs, and Peter gets right up in the taller man's face, and says "Is there something wrong with your hearing, friend? I said... I... kill... Vampires!" and strides from the bar to do battle with the vampiric evil, his courage replenished.
Yes. Beer can do that.
Tonight I had a choice between Hammer film Studio's Plague of the Zombies and Fright Night 2, and despite the fact that I hadn't seen Plague of the Zombies before, it really didn't grab me at the beginning, so I abandoned it in favor of Fright Night 2. There was also a series of Aliens movies on another channel, but it had commercials on that channel, and given a choice between uninterrupted horror movie pleasure and a series of stupid ads designed to annoy the shit out of me rather than buy a product (at least it seems that way to me), I'll take the uninterrupted horrorific pleasure every time.
A look at Fright Night 2 wouldn't be complete without at least a mention of Fright Night, the first movie of this series, of which there are, unfortunately, only 2 movies that I am aware of. Fright Night, in this series of movies, is the name of a television show hosted by Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowell), the "fearless Vampire Killer." Peter Vincent is an older actor who starred in a bunch of movies about slaying vampires, and now hosts a show every friday night where he replays one of his older movies. A huge fan of Peter's show is a high school student named Charlie Brewster (william Ragsdale), is having some girlfriend trouble, and during a little lover's spat, he notices that the new neighbor who moved in next door isn't quite what he appears to be. A short investigation by Charlie reveals that the new neighbor is, in fact, a vampire, but unfortunately for Charlie, the vampire becomes aware of Charlie as well, and Charlie goes to the only person he can think of for help... Peter Vincent. I won't go into that movie too much since it's exceptional in and of itself, so I'll just move on to the next one.
Fright Night 2 reunites William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowell again, but introduces a host of new characters as well. Charlie's at college now and has a new girlfriend, played by Traci Lind. On a side note, Traci Lind was getting a lot of work in hollywood around the time she did this movie, and is incredibly hot as well, but apparently gave up acting some time in the late 90's, which is quite a shame. Anyway, Charlie begins having a series of strange dreams about a seductive woman (Julie Carmen) in his dorm room at night, and this again causes some girl trouble for poor Charlie. While Charlie is trying to juggle college classes and smoothing things over with his girl, all while attending therapy sessions to get him over the shock of the last movie, he begins to feel a bit ill. Daylight begins to feel glaringly bright to him, and he has a nasty cut on his neck... :-o
I won't give away any more of the movie, because it is not only good but funny in spots, much like the first one. What I find funny is how, no matter what the characters have gone through in the first movie, the people in the sequel never believe them. In Jaws 2, for instance, despite Sherriff Brody having had extensive experience with sharks, no one believes him when he thinks there is another. It is the same with this movie, even Peter Vincent says it, "Charlie, such a thing can't possibly happen again." Well dammit Peter, guess what? You're WRONG! lol
The vampires in these movies are certainly evil, and the hero and heroines are attractive enough, but what I think glues these movies together is the screen presence of Roddy McDowell. He plays the aging actor Peter Vincent with grace and skill, and at one point, after having fled from the sight of the vampire in Fright Night 2 (he is only a cowardly actor in these films, after all), he stops to soothe his nerves in a pub, and while having a beer, a large man says to him "I know I've seen you before... what do you do for a living?" Despondent and sad that he has left his friends to face the evil alone, he quietly sighs "Vampire Killer." The man says "What?" Peter says again, with a look of confusion on his face, as if realizing what he's saying, "Vampire Killer." The large man laughs, and Peter gets right up in the taller man's face, and says "Is there something wrong with your hearing, friend? I said... I... kill... Vampires!" and strides from the bar to do battle with the vampiric evil, his courage replenished.
Yes. Beer can do that.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
October 7 - Evil Dead 2
It's one thing to discuss the older classics, starring the likes of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, but it's another thing to watch one of the truly good cult classics, like Evil Dead 2. This movie launched the careers of such greats as Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, who apparently co-produced this movie, and is truly a pleasure to watch. Or, err, maybe pleasure is the wrong word. lol
The movie starts out with Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend heading up to this deserted cabin in the woods to have a weekend alone together. Ash is playing the piano for his girlfriend, who is dancing around the cabin, and then Ash decides to grab some champagne. He finds an old tape recorder and plays it, and the voice on the tape describes a find by an archaeologist and his family of an old book, the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, or the Book of the Dead. Apparently they'd recovered it from an old castle, and transported it to the cabin to decipher it. Then the archaeologist reads the words directly from the book, and that apparently summons some ancient evil to the cabin. Apparently the archaeologist and his wife were taken by the evil, because they aren't in the cabin, and the voice on the tape reading the book summons something to the cabin, because Ash's girlfriend is taken through the cabin window with a crash! Ash runs into the other room and out into the woods, looking for his girl, but she has been turned into a demonic zombie! :-o She attacks him but he manages to behead her with a shovel, and buries her in the woods.
Trying to flee, he is attacked by some demonic force that slams him into a tree and turns him into a demonic zombie as well, but the rising sun turns him back into himself as the evil spirit flees back into the shadows from whence it came. Ash passes out in the woods, and wakes up near sunset, knowing he has to flee the woods before dark, but the only bridge into the area has been destroyed as if by the hand of god, turning it into a twisted mass of charred metal. Ash panics as the sun sets, driving back to the cabin and trying to flee the demonic spirit chasing him.
As Ash hides in the cabin from the spirit in the woods, he hears the piano playing in the other room, and looks out the window to see the headless body of his dead girlfriend climb out of her muddy grave and begin to dance around in the forest, her head rolling along to join up with her body. It turns out to be just a nightmare for Ash, but when he wakes, he is attacked by the head, and then the body, and is finally forced to dismember the rotting pieces of his dead girlfriend with a chainsaw while they continue to try and attack him and simultaneously begging him to stop with the plaintive voice of his dead girlfriend.
Elsewhere, the archaeologist's daughter arrives at a nearby airport with the missing pages of the Necronomicon, intent on heading up to the cabin to help decipher the book with her father. She runs into a snag at the destroyed bridge, where she and her boyfriend meet a helpful hick and his girl who known a backwoods trail up to the cabin. They set off in the dark to find it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... erm, cabin... Ash is finally caught by the spirit and it inhabits his hand, turning it into a demon possessed limb out to destroy him. Ash fights his hand, but trying to fight a possessed limb with one hand proves too much. After knocking him unconscious by slamming dishes into his head over and over, the hand drags Ash's unconscious body across the floor towards a meat cleaver, but Ash wakes up, grabs the chainsaw he used to dismember his girlfriend, and lops off his evil hand, probably inspiring the movie Idle Hands (with Jessica Alba) some years later, and forcing him to turn to "the stranger" for comfort for the rest of his life, no doubt.
In shock from blood loss and the continuous attack on his sanity by the events of the past day, Ash is in the den for one of the scariest and yet funniest scenes in the entire movie. As he darts his gaze this way and that, looking for the source of the next demonic attack, an elk's head trophy on the wall turns to him and begins to laugh. Ash, his sanity already tottering along the knife edge of lunacy, leaps headlong into the abyss of despair and begins to laugh himself, triggering laughter from everything in the room.. lamps, cabinets and books begin shuddering with uncontrollable guffawing, and Ash, unable to control himself, laughs along with them. I can't even describe how insane this scene is, and yet I began to laugh along with it, perhaps stepping over that line into madness myself, if only for a few brief moments, at least hopefully...
I'm not going to give away the rest of the movie, but suffice it to say, they all meet up at the cabin to do battle with the shadowy evil unleashed in that forest, and Ash survives to star in the sequel, Army of Darkness, also an excellent movie. There's no nudity in this movie either, but dammit, it's good enough without it, and for me to say a movie is good enough without nudity, well, that's goddamn saying something! This movie was not only one of my favorites, but I don't think i will ever forget the first season of the show Charmed, where there's a pair of detectives on a stakeout watching the three witches who starred in that show, and one of them turns to the other detective and asks "What was your favorite movie as a kid?" and the other guy says "Evil Dead 2."
I highly recommend this movie, but I had to turn again to my personal library of DVD's to find something to watch. Still, we're a quarter through the month, so between tomorrow night's AMC horror fest a thon, and the rest of the month's horror movies as well as my own personal collection, I should be okay. Hopefully I can review something from AMC's line of movies tomorrow night. I will of course, include science fiction horror as well as monster movies in my reviews. Horror is a broad topic, and one man's bad horror flick is another man's comedy of errors, as in the case of Jason X. :-)
The movie starts out with Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend heading up to this deserted cabin in the woods to have a weekend alone together. Ash is playing the piano for his girlfriend, who is dancing around the cabin, and then Ash decides to grab some champagne. He finds an old tape recorder and plays it, and the voice on the tape describes a find by an archaeologist and his family of an old book, the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, or the Book of the Dead. Apparently they'd recovered it from an old castle, and transported it to the cabin to decipher it. Then the archaeologist reads the words directly from the book, and that apparently summons some ancient evil to the cabin. Apparently the archaeologist and his wife were taken by the evil, because they aren't in the cabin, and the voice on the tape reading the book summons something to the cabin, because Ash's girlfriend is taken through the cabin window with a crash! Ash runs into the other room and out into the woods, looking for his girl, but she has been turned into a demonic zombie! :-o She attacks him but he manages to behead her with a shovel, and buries her in the woods.
Trying to flee, he is attacked by some demonic force that slams him into a tree and turns him into a demonic zombie as well, but the rising sun turns him back into himself as the evil spirit flees back into the shadows from whence it came. Ash passes out in the woods, and wakes up near sunset, knowing he has to flee the woods before dark, but the only bridge into the area has been destroyed as if by the hand of god, turning it into a twisted mass of charred metal. Ash panics as the sun sets, driving back to the cabin and trying to flee the demonic spirit chasing him.
As Ash hides in the cabin from the spirit in the woods, he hears the piano playing in the other room, and looks out the window to see the headless body of his dead girlfriend climb out of her muddy grave and begin to dance around in the forest, her head rolling along to join up with her body. It turns out to be just a nightmare for Ash, but when he wakes, he is attacked by the head, and then the body, and is finally forced to dismember the rotting pieces of his dead girlfriend with a chainsaw while they continue to try and attack him and simultaneously begging him to stop with the plaintive voice of his dead girlfriend.
Elsewhere, the archaeologist's daughter arrives at a nearby airport with the missing pages of the Necronomicon, intent on heading up to the cabin to help decipher the book with her father. She runs into a snag at the destroyed bridge, where she and her boyfriend meet a helpful hick and his girl who known a backwoods trail up to the cabin. They set off in the dark to find it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... erm, cabin... Ash is finally caught by the spirit and it inhabits his hand, turning it into a demon possessed limb out to destroy him. Ash fights his hand, but trying to fight a possessed limb with one hand proves too much. After knocking him unconscious by slamming dishes into his head over and over, the hand drags Ash's unconscious body across the floor towards a meat cleaver, but Ash wakes up, grabs the chainsaw he used to dismember his girlfriend, and lops off his evil hand, probably inspiring the movie Idle Hands (with Jessica Alba) some years later, and forcing him to turn to "the stranger" for comfort for the rest of his life, no doubt.
In shock from blood loss and the continuous attack on his sanity by the events of the past day, Ash is in the den for one of the scariest and yet funniest scenes in the entire movie. As he darts his gaze this way and that, looking for the source of the next demonic attack, an elk's head trophy on the wall turns to him and begins to laugh. Ash, his sanity already tottering along the knife edge of lunacy, leaps headlong into the abyss of despair and begins to laugh himself, triggering laughter from everything in the room.. lamps, cabinets and books begin shuddering with uncontrollable guffawing, and Ash, unable to control himself, laughs along with them. I can't even describe how insane this scene is, and yet I began to laugh along with it, perhaps stepping over that line into madness myself, if only for a few brief moments, at least hopefully...
I'm not going to give away the rest of the movie, but suffice it to say, they all meet up at the cabin to do battle with the shadowy evil unleashed in that forest, and Ash survives to star in the sequel, Army of Darkness, also an excellent movie. There's no nudity in this movie either, but dammit, it's good enough without it, and for me to say a movie is good enough without nudity, well, that's goddamn saying something! This movie was not only one of my favorites, but I don't think i will ever forget the first season of the show Charmed, where there's a pair of detectives on a stakeout watching the three witches who starred in that show, and one of them turns to the other detective and asks "What was your favorite movie as a kid?" and the other guy says "Evil Dead 2."
I highly recommend this movie, but I had to turn again to my personal library of DVD's to find something to watch. Still, we're a quarter through the month, so between tomorrow night's AMC horror fest a thon, and the rest of the month's horror movies as well as my own personal collection, I should be okay. Hopefully I can review something from AMC's line of movies tomorrow night. I will of course, include science fiction horror as well as monster movies in my reviews. Horror is a broad topic, and one man's bad horror flick is another man's comedy of errors, as in the case of Jason X. :-)
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