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Post by Joker on Aug 23, 2011 23:39:21 GMT -5
R-rated films are not necessarily failing because they're bad, it's just that the teens they sell them to in ads can't see them. In our post-Columbine society teens can't get into an R-rated film without an I.D. or a parent present. They're not readily accessible to them even as teens are the one group that shows up in large numbers for opening weekends. If they can't get in the films are not making money. The enforcement of the R-rating is killing box office business here in the U.S. The terrible irony for Hollywood is that they've driven kids away from theaters to watching R-rated stuff on YouTube, Netflix, or just on an illegal torrent site. Then they just watch everything on there. The home video market is dying out in favor of streaming so you'd think Hollywood would demand theaters to start just letting everyone in who has the money. Instead they just dumb down movies for a PG-13 rating and films in general get worse. It's like they think that R-rated films would mess you up mentally like some sort of artistic alcohol or tobacco. I've always been messed up and didn't need any film to warp my young brain. And on that note: Warning: Trailers contain violence, gore, brief nudity Hell of the Living Dead (1980)A deadly chemical leak at the Hope Centre in Papua, New Guinea contaminates the staff there and turns them into flesh-hungry zombies. A terrorist group holds an embassy hostage to try and expose the contamination and is roundly taken out by a paramilitary SWAT team that then goes to New Guinea on a secret mission. They meet with a tough female reporter and her cameraman boyfriend who are trying to break the story of the Hope Centre's contamination of the environment where native tribes are suffering from their dead coming back to attack them. The terrible secret of the Hope Centre project comes to light suddenly, but no one seems to care because that couldn't happen in a first world nation...right? Something is familiar early on in this film. It's the Goblin prog-rock Dawn of the Dead (1979) soundtrack that doesn't really fit the action onscreen. It turns out that's not the only stuff lifted for this film. Nature footage plays out to imply that these people are in the jungle (even though it was filmed in Spain). Footage from the mondo documentary Of the Dead (1979) is inserted to make it seem like the natives live in filth and add more realism to the gross-out factor. This involves real animal death and real human corpses for this Italian rip-off film. When that's not happening it's still fun as the insanity bleeds in. One SWAT guy plays dress-up and does a dance for some reason while another guy keeps having psychotic breaks and running into packs of the undead to unleash his rage. The last minute messeage of the film about what the industrialized world does to the poor rings hollow and matters little in this bizarre gutmuncher. I would suggest that you not eat while watching this flick unless you have an iron constitution. Otherwise, it's a fun gorefest in the Italian cheapjack tradition. Chiller Theatre (2004)Another doc about the Chiller Theatre Convention in New Jersey that makes it seem terribly dull. A lovely woman known only as Lauren interviews various guests there, but very few horror people. Some fans have cool costumes and you wind up learning just a little about Betsy Palmer's career in film before the first Friday the 13th. Julie Newmar is fiesty and has nothing new to promote so I liked her the best. Otherwise it's pretty dull stuff as there's a LOT of character actors there who are not from horror films specifically. The Troma team is there and Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman are there very briefly. Most of the interviews are boring. So what I learned was that not everyone is the most interesting person at Chiller Theatre's Con. Maybe they'll talk to more interesting people next time. I also learned that this was on YouTube (hopefully legally) so I wasted a space in my queue on Netflix with this for a very long time.
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Post by Joker on Sept 4, 2011 19:52:56 GMT -5
Warning: Trailers contain violence and gore The Ward (2011)A young woman named Kristen (Amber Heard) burns down an old house in 1966 Oregon and is processed into a mental institution where a few other young women are being treated for their various mental problems. As things get strange around the place a withered ghoul seems to be killing off the other girls in gruesome ways and no one seems to notice. Kristen begins to wonder who the mysterious Alice is who disappeared before she got there and why she can't remember anything before she burned down the house in the face of disturbing flashbacks of a young girl chained up and abused in there. John Carpenter directs this strange psychological nightmare with plenty of suspense and restraint (for the most part). The story builds and builds until the shocking twist ending. The ghoulish woman killing people is creepy until the writhing things beneath her skin are seen. Sometimes no CGI is better than lame CGI. At least it's an interesting and spooky thriller because of Carpenter's sensibilities. TrollHunter (2010)A trio of college documentarians sets out to get to the bottom of what's killing so much livestock in Norway. What appears to be a series of bear attacks leads back to a mysterious hunter living out of a run down camper and flashbulb-outfitted SUV. It turns out this man is Hans, a blue collar hero who makes a modest living hunting the real culprits behind the animal slaughter: giant trolls. Norway has a bad troll problem as the huge beasts are venturing out of their territories and wreaking havoc across the countryside. The government wants it hushed up and the idea of a camera crew following Hans around raises their ire, but Hans gets paid poorly and thinks the college kids can help him get a better deal on his pay if the world sees what he does. Some people have dirty and dangerous jobs. Hans is an expert hunter when it comes to finding these beasts which all seem to be 15-100's of feet bigger than him. Armed with flashbulb weaponry that will kill trolls he faces them down to no acclaim until now. A blood test of one troll reveals the terrible secret behind their rampage. The world has to know about these giant menaces - if the Norwegian government will let any of this information out at all... Using CGI in a found footage film seems pretty dodgy most of the time. Here it works well as Hans confrontations with trolls comes off like a big game hunter vs. elephants or dinosaurs. The movie isn't really scary as it's more of a monster mockumentary with a working-class hero who seems more like a superhero after a while. Hans puts on a suit of armor to get the blood sample from a giant troll beneath a bridge and gets tossed around like a G.I. Joe figure for his trouble. A lot of the movie seems lighthearted, especially when the team have to hide in the back of an old mine and the goofy looking giant trolls come in with one sitting near them and braying out a noxious fart right into their panicky faces. Overall, it's a good film about a lone hero versus tremendous threats.
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Post by Frameous on Sept 4, 2011 22:12:26 GMT -5
Been meaning to check those two out. I heard the twist in The Ward was not so great, but nothing could keep me from seeing a Carpenter outing.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)
Young Sally is shipped across country to her estranged father (Guy Pearce) and his younger girlfriend/business partner (Katie Holmes). They are knee deep in historical restoration on creepy old Blackwood Manor, and Sally's adjustment to her new surroundings is the least of their worries. The curious kiddie discovers a sealed off basement and is drawn by whispering voices to a furnace that's been bolted shut. With the promise of some much needed friendship, Sally opens the furnace and before you know it she's being menaced in the dark of night, items go missing, clothes are ripped to shreds, and the handy man is viciously attacked with his own toolbox. With a dad who's more concerned about loan extensions and making the cover of Architectural Digest, the child's tale of little creatures responsible for these recent misfortunes only result in fatherly ire. She does find some much needed maternal support from the "wicked step mother" she made no effort to connect with. Her intense interest in the history of the house she is decorating leads her to discover there is much more to the child's story. It seems these creatures must claim one life every time they are set lose, and their only weakness is bright light.
Once this flick get's going, the scares come at a brisk pace, all amidst some decent Gothic atmosphere. The performances are good all around, with Bailee Madison imbuing her adolescent character with depth and sympathy. There is so much I liked about this movie, I found myself puzzled when it was all over and I was unsatisfied. Truth be told, any horror fan can tell you this film hardly employs any archetypes or situations you haven't seen in a dozen other shockers. I suppose I was underwhelmed because this is a well made movie that honestly has nothing new to offer.
I did find this interesting, though: (from the Wiki) "This picture, which was developed with Miramax but in the wake of the division's closure will be released by FilmDistrict, was rated R despite filmmaker ambitions to the contrary."We originally thought we could shoot it as PG-13 without compromising the scares," Del Toro said. "And then the MPAA came back and gave us a badge of honor. They gave us an R for 'pervasive scariness.' We asked them if there's anything we could do, and they said, 'Why ruin a perfectly scary movie?'" Don't Be Afraid of the Dark was rated R by the MPAA for violence and terror."
Would it have fared better with a PG-13 rating? In its second weekend its estimated total is $16 million on a $25 million budget, and it dropped to number 8. I personally have to call bullsh/t on the R rating here. I don't recall one swear word, the violence was quite mild, and its scares were no more intense than, say, Insidious or The Last Exorcisim. Dare I say this movie could play on broadcast TV unedited (cable TV without a doubt). This all stinks of politics, meanwhile The Smurfs laugh all the way to the bank. I firmly believe in voting with my dollar, but when it comes to the movies, it seem the deck is stacked against quality or originality. The makers rightfully mistook the MPAA's hollow praise as a badge of honor, but I call it a slap in the face. Their inconsistencies once again muddle the financial future of the end product.
End rant.
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Post by Joker on Sept 10, 2011 21:04:27 GMT -5
Warning: Trailers contain violenge, gore, nudity, adult situations, and pretty much stuff that isn't work safe. Oh, and spoilers, too. Drive Angry (2011)Nic Cage is John Milton, a killer who escapes from Hell to hunt down the cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke) who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter. Picking up a beautiful young woman named Piper (Amber Heard) for the ride he cuts a path of death toward the cult, with the demonic Accountant (William Fichtner) in close pursuit. Running from the cops and straight into the line of fire of the cult planning to sacrifice his granddaughter to bring about Hell on Earth, Milton and Piper have to fight their way from a rock to a hard place... Action-horror films are a dodgy thing to watch. There's not much horror or suspense as the super-action is front and center always. Because this is a Patrick Lussier film there's lots of nudity for long periods of time (longer than most mainstream movies anyway). Other than that it has some pretty fake looking CGI at times (especially the hydrogen truck). Stuff blows up and bodies are flying around and that's all well and good in an action flick, but Hell is not as threatening as it should be and the cult seems pretty silly with a cliched leader. The fall of Nic Cage has made for some interesting films from him though. Because of him this is a more fun film. "I never disrobe before a gunfight." Slaughter High (1986)After a grueling humiliating practical joke on high school nerd Marty gets a bunch of pranksters in trouble they get revenge by giving him bad weed and sabotaging his chemistry experiment. Everything goes terribly wrong and Marty is left permanently disfigured and mentally cracks. Years later these people are in their 30s and get invited to a reunion at the now run down and abandoned high school. Someone sent them the invitations, but no one knows who until they're locked in and a jester-masked killer begins offing them in brutal fashion. The darkened, dingy hallways of the school become a slaughterhouse as the bodies pile up. Back in the 80's we had lots of these low budget slasher flicks. Why? Because they were the easiest ones to make. A formulaic plot makes this another unscary slog into goreland where only the killings will keep you awake. And the smokin' hot Caroline Munro as one of the reunited pranksters (even though she kind of sounds strange trying to pull off an American accent). She's very improtant to this plot with it's irritating characters. The gore is well done though with a literal acid bath, really bad beer, and a most unfortunately timed electrocution. The ending confuses the whole film though and makes you wonder what in hell just happened.
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Post by Joker on Sept 26, 2011 1:13:53 GMT -5
Warning: Trailers contain violence and gore We Are What We Are (2010)After the patriarch of a family in an especially poor part of some Mexican city dies suddenly at a mall it becomes the responsibility of his sons to go out and get someone for a ritual critical to the faily's survival by the next day. These people are cannibals and the older son Alfredo is trying to prove himself to his nagging mother. Meanwhile his sister and younger and more violent brother seem to be having an incestuous relationship and Alfredo has to deal with his own problems. Time is running out and these people's survival is put in more danger as a cop trying to make a name for himself is hunting them. This is mostly a dark melodrama about a family falling apart because of their reliance on a primitive ritual. It's not explained why these people have to eat human flesh, but since they're desperately poor it may just be the only way to keep from starving for them. Everyone's mental hangups seem to keep them from being effective predators. Alfredo seems to have homosexual tendencies he has to deal with while his sister Sabina seems to be the boldest of them all. There's no real laughs here as this story is deadly serious. At least its powerful and the performances are strong even though gore is kept to an effective minimum. Alucarda (1978)A beuatiful young woman named Justine (Susana Kamini) arrives at a convent to live there after her parents' deaths. Another young woman, Alucarda (Tina Romero) who already lives there immediately becomes fixated on her and falls in love. The two women meet a satyr-like man in the forest who seems to be some sort of satanic being and makes the two young women the possessions of the Devil (heard as just a hissing growl whenever he's around). The two women must have this evil exorcised from them by the priests and nuns (who look like they're swathed in bloody used bandages). A noble doctor believes that medical science is superior to their superstitions until this demonic influence becomes too dangerous to contain - and then is unleashed upon the convent by Alucarda... One thing about the repression of fundamentalist Christianity (in this case Catholicism) is that it is so intensely hammered into people that the terrible repression ruins their lives and the world around them. The convent is a bleak cave-like structure that seems more like a gothic nightmare from a Hammer film where a dangerous exorcism just makes things much worse. I didn't like the way the doctor, a man of reason, becomes some sort of Christian warrior in the face of evil during the Carrie-like finale. The eroticism from a satanic ritual seems like a welcome release from this repression. This seems like it's supposed to be kind of based on Dracula and Camilla fiction, especially the blood drenched ending, but it seemed like another really neat occult horror film to me.
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Post by Joker on Oct 1, 2011 19:14:08 GMT -5
The Barn of the Naked Dead (1974)
Three women on their way to be showgirls in Las Vegas get stuck in the desert when their car breaks down. A helpful stranger named Andre (Andrew Prine) takes them back to his ranch and they discover too late what Andre keeps in the old barn there. Several women are chained up in their for Andre to break mentally and dominate because of his abandonment issues from his mother leaving. As Andre makes them parade around like animals in the circus he thinks he's the ringmaster of in his own twisted mind the womens' manager searches for them. Even running out into the wasteland to get help is futile as some sort of scarred up thing is killing anyone it comes across. The key to all of their escape may be when Andre begins to think one of the showgirls is his returned mother...
Andrew Prine's over-the-top psychotic performance is the only good part of this film. For those who don't know Prine he was the guy in Riding with Death who yells, "This can't BE! You're DEAD!" As his delusions become more disturbing and his misogynistic agenda gets deadlier the movie picks up just a little and there's a scene of a woman running from a mountain lion that Rob Zombie copied in The Devil's Rejects (2005). Then we're back to the ridiculous idea that women chaned to posts in a barn can't escape. If two or more just dug the posts out of the ground they could take this loser with mommy issues down.
Highbrow director Alan Rudolph couldn't seem to overcome this obvious problem. Actually, in one scene a woman totally ignores a knife on a stovepipe that is so blatantly visible it might as well have had a neon sign pointing at it while she scrambled for some keys that Andre keeps losing. What the thing is stalking people outside on the wasteland winds up being a silly idea as well. At least there weren't lots of rapes like there would be if this film were made today. Thankfully Andre never has any libido of any kind. There are also no naked dead women in the barn.
Hybrid (1997)
After alien invaders destroy civilization a band of survivors roam the wasteland looking for food. They find a drifter looking for his son in the desert and find a research facility. They go inside to take shelter from an ion storm outside and settle in unaware that a genetically engineered hybrid creature stalks the halls, killing everyone it comes across. The hulking beast seems invincible and it would seem these people will have to find a way out...
Fred Olen Ray is a cruddy b-movie director who managed to not get one of his works on MST3K because of all of the nudity he throws in so guys won't doze off. A shower scene with the two female leads played by Brinke Stevens and J.J. North is the only good part. The rest is tedious and makes me want watch some of the low-budget sci-fi/horror flicks Roger Corman produced in the early 80's instead. Ray has since gone on to make lots of z-movie crap and softcore porn since. Well, when you make crappy films deliberately it's hard to screw up.
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Post by Satchmo on Oct 1, 2011 22:11:50 GMT -5
The Thing (1982)- Yeah, I know; it's weird that I've taken so long to see this. I won't really go in depth about this, as most of what everyone else has said about this movie is true. It's a solid, tense horror movie with good performances and fabulous special effects.
Also watched the trailer for the prequel coming out this month. Suffice to say, it looks less than impressive. First of all, couldn't they find a better title, other than just giving it the same title as the first one? Confusing much? Also, aren't the people in this prequel supposed be Norwegian? If so, why does only one character in the trailer speak with an accent? But mostly, this just looks like a predictable thriller that's high on gloss, small on tension. Time can only tell how good it will be, but I'll probably be skipping this one. I'll wait for Prometheus to see a prequel to a sci fi-horror classic.
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Post by Joker on Oct 4, 2011 2:13:18 GMT -5
I've pretty much given up on Hollywood making any good horror movie at this point as their standard of quality has fallen so far short that you have to lower your own standards to enjoy most of their output. In horror it's about buildup, atmosphere, and tension - things that the MTV-ruined crowd that Hollywood caters to over and over again haven't the patience for. I just wait for DVDs when it comes to horror since they only count on the teen opening weekend audience anymore. Warning: Trailers contain violence, gore, brief nudity, and spoilers on top of spoilers. Cropsey (2009)Two documentary filmmakers investigate the origin of the East Coast urban legend of Cropsey, an escaped maniac that stalks kids at summer camps (made famous in The Burning (1981). The reality winds up being much more disturbing. In 1972 Geraldo Rivera did a shocking expose on the deplorable conditions at the Willowbrook Mental Institution in Staten Island, NY. The deformed and retarded were simply dumped there by their families like dirty little secrets. A decade later the place was shut down, reduced to a crumbling bunch of buildings with dark tunnels beneath it where the homeless camp out. When a young girl is kidnapped and turns up dead on Willowbrook's grounds a former orderly named Andre Rand is charged and convicted for her kidnapping (but not murder). He seems like the kind of creep who would do this, living homeless in the woods around the buildings. Other disappearances are tied to him through what people beilieve is the case. This is what this doc is about: perception vs. reality. Rand was convicted by eyewitness testimony, a flimsy kind of evidence because the story changes with people based on emotion, level of sobriety, etc. When he comes up for release from prison it seems that he'll be convicted again because of his creep image. However, the filmmakers get stranger and stranger letters from the incarcerated Rand. His prosecution complex starts to sound like protesting too much. He also keeps cancelling interviews from his paranoia. A sudden revelation from a former minister then puts things in sharp perspective. I made up my mind at that point and it comes up late in the doc. Why wasn't this guy subpoenaed at the trial? And isn't Rand insane after witnessing the horrors of Willowbrook? Sometimes the most terrifying and disturbing things are completely real. Recommended. The Legend of 7 Golden Vampires (1974)A Chinese warlord (Shen Chan) seeks out Count Dracula in Transylvania to restore his seven golden-masked vampires and winds up destroyed and impersonated by the arch-vampire instead. Back in China Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is ridiculed by his students when he speaks the unbelievable truth about vampires' existence. One student believes him and with his brothers and sister accompany the vampire slayer and his son to the village being terrorized by the vamps and their horde of zombie slaves. This pre- Blade mash-up of Hammer gothic horror and Shaw Bros. martial arts action is a pure delight. The fights are well choreographed and spectacular and the miasma of evil from Drac's new Eastern pack of bloodsuckers is great. The whole movie works as these vamps are savage and many breasts are uncovered as blood is drunk (this became a new addition by Hammer after their classic films of the 50's and 60's). The only downside is that Dracula is played by John Forbes-Robertson instead of Sir Christopher Lee. When Drac leads an army this deadly Lee should have been there!
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Post by Satchmo on Oct 4, 2011 18:32:58 GMT -5
[quote author=joker10 board=movies thread=19331 post=955221 time=1317712398 The Legend of 7 Golden Vampires (1974)A Chinese warlord (Shen Chan) seeks out Count Dracula in Transylvania to restore his seven golden-masked vampires and winds up destroyed and impersonated by the arch-vampire instead. Back in China Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is ridiculed by his students when he speaks the unbelievable truth about vampires' existence. One student believes him and with his brothers and sister accompany the vampire slayer and his son to the village being terrorized by the vamps and their horde of zombie slaves. This pre- Blade mash-up of Hammer gothic horror and Shaw Bros. martial arts action is a pure delight. The fights are well choreographed and spectacular and the miasma of evil from Drac's new Eastern pack of bloodsuckers is great. The whole movie works as these vamps are savage and many breasts are uncovered as blood is drunk (this became a new addition by Hammer after their classic films of the 50's and 60's). The only downside is that Dracula is played by John Forbes-Robertson instead of Sir Christopher Lee. When Drac leads an army this deadly Lee should have been there![/quote] Ah, memories...
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Post by Joker on Oct 12, 2011 1:13:41 GMT -5
First Man Into Space (1959)
Lt. Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards) wants to be the first man into space and disobeys orders on mission, travelling into space, landing back on Earth, and then going to see his girlfriend instead of staying to be debriefed by military brass. His brother Commander Charles Prescott (Marshall Thompson) is incensed and makes Dan agree to follow orders. But Dan decides to hotdog it again and his craft runs into a cloud of something. The craft crashes back to Earth covered in some sort of substance, but Dan is gone. Then cattle start showing up mutilated. Then people show up dead with their blood drained. It appears that Dan was not killed as the military thought, but is now a crusty vampire.
This is one of those sci-fi/horror films with a surprising amount of gore and hard science fact. It's a bit silly at times, like when Dan drives around in a stolen car like a crusty carjacker. The ending saves the film as it gets heartbreaking and has a powerful statement about the advancement of scientific acheivement.
Killer Nun (1979)
In the stifled environment of a mental institution a nun confesses to terrible anger against some man who wronged her. As time goes on a nun recovered from a brain tumor, Sister Gertrude (Anita Eckberg), seems to be having nervous problems and is addicted to morphine. Then she kills someone in the midst of a weird hallucination and covers it up bay making it look like suicide. Tormented by guilt she lashes out at people and kills more of the patients who infuriate her. It doesn't help that her lesbian roommate is in love with her to a point where she enables this behavior. The new doctor (Joe Dallesandro) there becomes suspicious of this killer nun as the bodies pile up and time begins to run out for this cloistered woman.
This winds up being more of a character piece than a nunsploitation film. Eckberg is great as Sister Gertrude, who leaves the convent and gets a taste of normal life and sex in a powerful way. Then it's back behind the walls of the hospital as she becomes more selfish and self-destructive with her morphine addiction. A shocking twist at the end makes the movie even more impressive and strange.
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Post by Joker on Oct 19, 2011 19:35:19 GMT -5
Warning: Trailers contain disturbing images, violence, and gore. Probably not work safe I'm guessing. Naked Evil (1966)Someone is making Obi bottles (a glass bottle filled with grave dirt and crushed eggshells topped with feathers) which kill their recipients by consummating the curse when broken and kill their targets with black magic. The British police begin investigating a series of random deaths in London tied to Obis that leads back to an engineering school where young Jamaican men know of the voodoo practices where Obis are created in the old country. The creepy caretaker seems to be working on something in his basement shack next to the boiler and a local priest must exorcise the evil before the dean of the school is killed... This is one of thoise classy and clever psychological horror films where there isn't much gore or violence, just building tension as people's lives overlap in a deadly conspiracy where black magic is the murder weapon. Performances are excellent, but most horror fans these days would find this slow and boring. I liked it a lot because of the professionalism of production and British locations. There was a re-edit of this film with Lawrence Tierney called Exorcism at Midnight, but the disc from Netflix started to skip and not read so I took it as a sign to just turn off that version. Mystics in Bali (1981)A pretty young American woman gets her boyfriend to help her get in contact with a Leák (pronounced "lay-ack"), a powerful dark sorceress who will teach her the ways of black magic for a book she's writing. But after a while this young woman becomes the gruesome tool of the sorceress as a Pennangallan: her head comes off at night with organs hanging down to eat newborn infants right from the womb. Her boyfriend realizes that she's in over her head (so to speak) and gets help from a holy man to destroy the evil. It's more Indonesian coolness based on folklore with gory effects by El Badrun, the Indonesian Tom Savini/Stan Winston. Fireballs have a duel in the sky (with wires visible), the holy man goes through a Gandalf-like transformation, and the pretty face of a woman becomes a mask of evil. It seems like all of this weirdness is just to make a lot of gory stuff happen as the story is pretty weak. It's fun though and a neat to see another country's exploitation film.
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Post by Joker on Oct 22, 2011 1:27:38 GMT -5
Warning: Language, violence, gore, adult situations, spoilers The Zombie Diaries (2006)After an outbreak of bird flu in the rest of the world a team of documentary filmmakers leaves London to interview a farmer in the remote British countryside who had to cull all of his poultry. When they get there there's seemingly no one home. A phone call reveals that they can't go back to the city due to a quarantine and their car has broken down to boot. The break into the house and find the occupants upstairs, what's left of them anyway. Escaping into the countryside while dodging the mutilated walking dead the film (first-person video) switches to a band of survivors looking for food, then some people living in the farmhouse later who have to deal with one unstable member among them... The jittery camerawork will make you irritated after a while and the story just goes to pieces after the initial undead encounter of the doc crew. The survivors with an American sharpshooter amongst them ends in a pretty silly way and what becomes of the docco team and why there is an unstable member of the farmhouse group try to tie the film together when it would have just been more frightening if the doc folks had to find a way to contend with the outbreak themselves. This movie has a nasty twist, but could have been much more scary with one storyline. Sea of Dust (2008)A young doctor's apprentice named Stefan (Troy Holland) goes to ask for his girlfriend's hand in marriage, but her father disapproves and he leaves dejected. When he finds an unconcious woman in the woods he takes her to his mentor's house for treatment and the weirdness begins to creep into the countryside. Through near-death experiences he visits the Christian super-king Prester John (Tom Savini) a myth made flesh who plans on inflicting the suffering of Christ on mankind. Prester John's castle is full of the mutilated suffering damned and it would seem that this is mankind's inevitable fate as he's attacked by the minions of the king in the living world. The key to the destruction of the evil king may be in Stefan's own life choices if he lives long enough to make the correct one for mankind... Tom Savini is the best thing in this film as the terribly powerful Prester John. The dark divine power within him makes him a holy version of Dracula. The late Ingrid Pitt plays a traumatized servant in a very manic performance. Holland is not so interesting to watch which is a pretty bad thing since he's the lead. The gore is plentiful as brutal killings and torture seem to be the holy work of fanatics in a world with no devil. Science has to beat religion for this apocalypse to be defeated with a very dark ending that comes out of nowhere with a hero unstuck in time. The film at least has excellent production value and feels like a digitally shot Hammer film.
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Post by Frameous on Oct 23, 2011 1:58:37 GMT -5
The Unholy (1988)
Ben Cross is a priest who suffers a fatal fall while trying to talk down a suicidal jumper. When he survives, Archbishop Hal Holbrook assigns him to a local church where the past two priests were murdered. Que Ned Beatty as the cop who never closed those cases, because he feels compelled to warn Cross of his possible fate. After some poking around, the father meets a close confidant of the previous priest, a harlot who works at a seedy night club where they preform mock satanic rituals. She confides in him, all the while becoming sexually attracted to the celibate man of the cloth. She goes insane after throwing herself at him, her on again/off again boyfriend who owns the bar and preforms the rituals begs Cross for help against demonic forces, meanwhile Holbrook and Trevor Howard lay in wait to see if he can vanquish the priest hunting demon who haunts this church.
The plot unfolds amongst gauzy photography and quick cutting, and the whole thing drips that 1980s vibe horror fans like me find irresistible. Still, this film is only somewhat decent (another trapping of 80s horror fare). There is the flashy editing tricks I mentioned earlier, which feature some solid Bob Keen make up effects (the upside down disembowelment on the crucifix being a highlight). After reading an article with the film's director, Camilo Vila, I learned the editing I enjoyed so much was done after completion, against his wishes. He went on and on about how he had envisioned a film on par with Rosemary's Baby, but Vestron Pictures turned it into a travesty. While I respect his point of view, I can say with confidence no restructuring on his part would have made this film a destined classic. The big names show up for their obligatory scene or two, the camera work and production value are nothing special, and the direction lacks flair.
The entire reason I sought this film out is that its trailer was featured before my childhood favorite, The Monster Squad. I had a VHS dub (that served me well all those years when MS was out of print), which featured it. Time and again I would suffer this trailer, and it scared the living sh/t out of me. Like many things in adult life, I finally experienced it and was left underwhelmed. Anyway, here's that bitchin trailer:
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Post by pablo on Nov 6, 2011 18:34:26 GMT -5
I,Monster 1971 I've had a disinterested attitude concerning actor Christopher Lee prior to seeing this rustic gem from Hammer studios rival Amicus productions. He plays a doctor experimenting with behavior altering chemicals. Up until his first injections, Lee's character in the movie is a rather reserved, quiet man, who, when not seen putzing around in his laBORatory, also finds the time to stroll on over to his local gentlemen's club to discuss the fine points of morality and ethics with his fellow doctors, among them Peter Cushing, who clashes with Lee's outre philosophy. Dr. Marlowe(Lee): "Suppose that, just for a while, we could let loose the reins, fullfill our desires without restriction, without control. I think I might choose either." Dr. Utterson (Cushing): "Well surely the essence of civilization is the restriction of individual appetite by the individual himself for the good of all mankind." Back in the lab, Dr. Marlowe does indeed self-inject his experimental serum and it is here that I was awakened by the performance of Mr. Lee. His mannerisms, body language and facial expressions as he undergoes a transformation into a careless, violent beast was captivating. Cushing's Utterson is compationate and level headed in trying to help his friend whom he sees tumbling into the abyss. I describe this as an elegant tale of terror minus the gore that is now demanded from the modern day horror audience. This dvd, put out by one Retromedia company, comes with a grindhouse style trailer-quite fun to watch, and one of those pre-film "our feature presentation" intro's with the swirling circles and classic theme that Tarantino pinched for Death Proof if memory serves.
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Post by Joker on Nov 6, 2011 21:57:39 GMT -5
Warning: Trailers contain violenge, gore, adult situations, language Red State (2011)Three young dudes in high school hook up with an older woman (Melissa Leo) for sex through craigslist. When they show up they get drugged by the woman who takes them prisoner in a cult compound run by the hatful preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks). Cooper thinks that every problem in the world today can be directly traced back to homosexuality and these boys looking for illicit sex have to be killed. A damaged car leads the cops to the compound as the three teens fight to survive. That's when an ATF agent (John Goodman) is called in for a confrontation with the cult, who have an arsenal stocked for war. The violent standoff that follows leads to the government ordering everyone inside killed - men, women, and children. How can these guys survive the cult and the ATF outside? Can a movie only be good in the middle? The beginning and end of this film seem like the average Kevin Smith film with lots of cussing and irony, but the middle is action-packed and incredible. It's almost as if someone else directed it! Michael Parks has a very dark and powerfully performed poison sermon to his flock that winds up being a mesmerizing look at evil. The main lead of this film among the survivor teens is played by Kyle Gallner, whom I've begin to call Bizarro Robert Pattinson. He's not that charismatic, but at least there's lots of action. You'll like the middle of the film and that's enough to recommend it. The House of the Dead (1978)a.k.a. Alien Zone (?!!) A man tormented by guilt (John Ericson) by having an affair with a woman desperatly wants to get back to his hotel to call his wife and instead gets left in a strange mortuary run by a strange mortician (Ivor Francis). The old man shows him three bodies in coffins, each with a strange story behind their deaths. A hateful teacher is terrorized by someone in her house. A photography-obsessed man lures women to his house to kill them with a movie camera humming away capturing it all on film. Two of the world's greatest detectives meet in time for the American one having to solve a case to save his own life while his British competitor observes. An antisocial man is trapped in a building being terrorized by traps. People can have ugly personalities, but in horror films they appaently deserve to die for it. The guy playing the mortician is suitably creepy and the stories professionally done, but the flimsy reasons for the deaths here seem silly. If the world really worked like this there would be no one left: everyone is mean to someone sometime. The only really interesting thing about this film is actor Burr DeBenning, who played Dr. Ted Nelson in The Incredible Melting Man (1977) as the weird insane guy who kills women on film.
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