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Post by angilasman on Sept 16, 2010 21:06:21 GMT -5
But yeah, AMC is pretty much *the* channel to go to for Horror, and I believe they also do the 31 days of Oscar stuff too. (Or is that TMC)? That's TCM. AMC does something similar, though, at about the same time in February but with a bunch of movies they already show. Anything they have that's even been nominated, they'll show it. Coincidentally(?), TCM will be playing a lot of older horror films in October. There's even going to be a Hammer horror marathon on the 1st...hooray! Not just the 1st, they'll be doing Hammer Horror nights every friday in October.
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Post by Frameous on Oct 13, 2010 17:26:20 GMT -5
October is upon is now, and the horror movies have begun to roll. AMC is pretty much showing nonstop horror flicks from the 18th on. I took a peak at the schedule and it included all the staples: Jason, Mike Myers, vampires, zombies, and loads of Stephen King. Sure, they are edited for content and commercials, but they are still fun! Props to them for showing pretty much every Jason and Mike film, plus, what I believe to be a first, a showing of one of my personal favorites, Evil Dead 2! Our pals at TMC are mostly sticking to weekends to showcase the horror…that is until the evening of the 28th, where they are capping off our favorite month with a slew of great movies, all the way up until Halloween. There are the Universal classics, some Corman and William Castle mainstays, and a few more modern ones to boot. Keep you eyes peeled for you favorite showings. I personally have been trying to watch as many “new” horror films as possible (by new I mean things I have yet to see, no matter their age). So far I have seen: Splinter (2008) www.imdb.com/title/tt1031280/ Sick little indie horror film about a splintery parasite that attacks anything warm. Great performance from up and comer Shea Whigham. Fanatic aka The Last Horror Film (1982) www.imdb.com/title/tt0087592/ MST pal David Winters (Space Mutiny) brings us this sleazy little gem. The greasy Joe Spinell is re-teamed with Caroline Munro from Maniac (1980). It was shot during the ’81 Cannes Film Festival, and serves as somewhat of a time capsule. He is stalking her, trying to make his film, set to the tune of some horrible, and at times, kind of groovy repetitive disco rock tunes. The ending was ridiculous in a good way. Bad Dreams (1988) www.imdb.com/title/tt0094701/ Very derivative of the Elm Street movies, it still tries to pack a twist a the end. Nothing too groundbreaking here. Richard Lynch as the bad guy looks like a bar-b-que chicken. Best Worst Movie (2009) www.imdb.com/title/tt1144539/ Doc about Troll 2 (of Rifftrax fame). This was made by the little boy who starred in the movie, and features many of the stars (including the father, who comes off as a real nice guy who has embraced the poor quality of the film). When the director is brought to the states to see campy screenings of his movie, he is visibly pissed. But with a movie that bad, he should just sack up and have fun with it. A very fun watch overall. Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) www.imdb.com/title/tt1510985/ Exhaustive 4 hour documentary on the making of each Elm Street film, up to Freddy Vs. Jason. Extensive interviews with just about anyone they could find (from stars to production staff). For fans of Freddy (which I am, for good or ill), this is a treasure trove. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was pleased at the equal time given to all movies, despite their quality. Blood, Boobs, & Beast (2007) www.imdb.com/title/tt1010379/ Another doc, this one about cult filmmaker Don Doler, a self made horror director who has a strong cult following. Good fun, with the exception of the obvious tragedy that has shadowed his life (his wife died, his sister is mentally handicapped, he becomes her caregiver when their aunt passes on, he gets remarried, and then is diagnosed with cancer and dies in the end). Basket Case (1982) www.imdb.com/title/tt0083624/ I have been a Frank Henenlotter fan ever since I saw Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. I decided to fill the gaps of his career and started with his first feature. This is a twisted and very gritty horror/comedy that I found to be a blast. Duane and his hideously deformed twin brother Belial are out for revenge against the doctors who separated them against their will. Basket Case 2 (1990) www.imdb.com/title/tt0099108/ The sequel has a bigger budget and is more ambitious. Belial and brother are now taken into a house of freaks where they can live free. Freak lovemaking and violence ensue. Not as fun as the first, but still worthwhile. Bad Biology (2008) www.imdb.com/title/tt0974977/ Henenlotters latest effort is for adults only. While his movies have always been raunchy, this one is off the charts. Two sexually biologically altered people inadvertently meet and bad things happen. Featuring a monster penis a woman who gives birth to freakish children roughly 2 hours after any sexual encounter. Weird stuff. Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) www.imdb.com/title/tt1179056/ What a horse turd. This “re-imagining” of a modern horror classic is just a big budget bad movie. Even Jackie Earle Haley can’t save this one (and I really like him). I think the decision to revamp this was flawed from the getgo, because no one can play Krueger beside Robert Englund, there is just too much of him in that role to be replicated. The history is changed, the characters are one dimensional, and I found most of the actors really lame or just down right unpleasant. I did a brief write up in the Just Finished Watching thread if you care to hear anymore about these. 10 movies in 13 day is pretty good. I really need to get the lead out and watch more, I have a ton in the backlog. Lots of older films, a smattering of Hammer classics, and a handful of films I have been telling myself to check out for years.
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Post by Nuveena on Oct 13, 2010 23:58:15 GMT -5
^Nightmare 2010 is still on my list, and the documentary looks pretty cool. Those all sound pretty interesting, though.
I'm really, really excited for TCM's lineup. They have so many horror movies I've been meaning to see for a while, so my DVR will be busy...The Walking Dead, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Haunting, Poltergeist, The Mystery of the Wax Museum, 13 Ghosts, Mad Love, House on Haunted Hill...holy cow. Too much goodness. I kind of like that, for the most part, they're sticking to old school horror while AMC is a little more contemporary.
And I know it's TV, but Travel Channel has some interesting (but probably rigged) ghost/horror shows on their Bad Company weekend lineups...they're worth checking out.
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Post by Frameous on Oct 21, 2010 17:28:53 GMT -5
Hope everyone is rocking right along this Halloween season as I am. Between the new movies I have been watching, I have been listening to horror podcasts, playing AMC's Fright Fest in the background, and enjoying the sights of changing leaves and Jack-o- Lanterns on neighbor's porches. Next Thursday will bring the Rifftrax gang taking on House on Haunted Hill, meaning my two favorite loves of horror movies and riffing will come together in my favorite month of all time! This is shaping up to be a very memorable one for me I never really do Halloween parties (I can never find any that good anyway), but some family and friends are planning on having a marathon on Halloween night, while we eat, drink, and be scary. Here are my latest new views: Dolls (1987) www.imdb.com/title/tt0092906/This Stuart Gordon movie has been on my radar for years. It's a precursor to what we now know as the "killer doll" genre of horror, and was the direct ancestor of The Puppet Master series (both being a product of Charles Band). For years I saw the VHS cover in my local store, but never took the plunge. Well, I'm here to say it's a pretty bad movie. A collection of travelers are waylaid in a creepy doll maker's mansion. When the more evil guests start to do what they do best, the dolls come out to play. The acting is horrid, and the characters they are tasked to play are just as unappealing. This doesn't have any of the flair that Gordon's Re-Animator or From Beyond have (my two favorites of his). It seems that when he strays from Lovecraft stories, he's in dangerous territory. Hatchet (2006) www.imdb.com/title/tt0422401/This is a fun throwback to the 80s slashers, where a group of people become stranded on a haunted boat tour in the woods of the local legend, Victor Crowley. They soon realize that the legend is all too real, and massive amounts of NC-17 gore follow. This is filled with horror cameos and some decent humor to get us through the kills. Director Adam Green obviously has strong affection for the genre, and it shows. I was excited to see Hatchet 2 in all its unrated theatrical glory, but it was pulled from theaters a few days in. What a crock. Frozen (2010) www.imdb.com/title/tt1323045/This is another Adam Green film, yet is vastly different in tone from Hatchet's mix of humor and gore. Three friends find themselves trapped on a ski left after the resort shuts down for the weekend. Bad weather comes in, the sound of wolves can be heard, and frostbite begins to take its toll. It becomes clear that if they are to survive, a sacrifice must be made. A thin premise is pulled taught and there is much suspense to be had. I really enjoyed it. Green shows he can ratchet up the tension just as skillfully as he can let the blood and guts flow. Blood Diner (1987) www.imdb.com/title/tt0092669/Two nephews are commanded from their un-dead uncle (who is a brain with eyes in a bubbling jar) to construct a body made up of "tramps" as a vessel for the ancient Egyptian goddess named Sheetar. They must also create a "blood buffet" of tramp entrails and have a virgin to sacrifice to the goddess when the moon aligns with Jupiter, in order to bring her back to life. The nephews use their health food cafe as a front to pull all this off. This movie is as weird as it gets. A woman's head is breaded and fried, making her look a giant hush puppy, a nude aerobic workout group is mowed down by gunfire, characters constantly assault and kill innocent bystanders without consequence, and the plot takes a five minute break while one of the nephews tries his hand as an amature wrestler. While most of the humor is intentional, some of it is just bad acting and dubbing. Still, pretty fun, if you like this sort of thing. The Ruins (2008) www.imdb.com/title/tt0963794/A group of American tourists visit some Mayan ruins before wrapping up their vacation in Mexico. Once there, it become immediately clear the locals are keeping close watch on the site, and anyone who enters it is simultaneously doomed and viewed as infectious. We come to learn that a mysterious growth of vines covering the temple has a mind of its own, is capable of replicating sounds to trick its prey, and is intent on getting inside anything living and devouring it. This film makes good use of subtle CGI, keeps things suspenseful, and has some effective gore shots. Plus, it has Jenna Malone in a bikini, and that's alright with me. Alone In The Dark (1982) www.imdb.com/title/tt0083542/The standard slasher motifs are given a little tweak in this movie, New Line Cinema's first production. MST favorites Jack Palance and Donald Pleasence star with Martin Landau and Dwight Schultz (The A Team's Murdock). Palance and Landau escape the care of their equally insane doctor (Pleasence) along with two other psychos when a power failure allows them exodus from their state of the art electronic security system. They target their new doctor (Schultz) and his family, attacking by knife, fire, and crossbow. There is a twist ending, multiple deaths, some decent mood, and a few funny characterizations. Directed by Jack Shoulder, who did The Hidden, another effective genre flick. Death Spa (aka Witch Bitch) (1988) www.imdb.com/title/tt0099384What I assumed would be a standard slasher set in a health club turns out to be a haunting/possession. The ghost of the owner's dead wife is possessing her brother, who runs the supercomputer that controls all the gym equipment. People die in gruesome ways, a paranormal quack is brought in to get to the bottom of things, and the finale takes place at a Mardi Gras party where everyone bops to horrible music in costumes. This is one of the most laughable late 80s movies I have ever seen. Tragic clothes, big hair, lame dialog, and high fiving can all be had here. Worked more as a comedy for me, but it was clearly playing it for scares. Nice to see Ken Foree living it up in the 80s. Mortuary (1983) www.imdb.com/title/tt0087746/What I hoped would be a hidden gem turned out to be fools gold. All the elements for a good movie are there on paper. Set in a mortuary, early 80s, staring Bill Paxton (who I love), and the married duo of Christopher and Linda Day George (from one of my all time favorites, Pieces). Alas, it was not to be. While the direction is competent (not really a compliment, I know), the script sucks and suffers from an anticlimactic ending. The lead actress goes from being terrified one minute to fawning and happy the next. Crucial plot elements are dumped on characters and the audience as if they really don't matter, when they clearly do. I had been looking forward to this one for some time now, and was let down. Oh well. So that brings my total to 18. My thoughts can be found in I Just Finished Watching Thread. Kind of sad to think the month is already half over.
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Post by Drunken Fist on Oct 31, 2010 3:27:36 GMT -5
My girlfriend and I drove to a nearby town to see an outdoor horror movie marathon. Rather short for a marthon, as they only showed two films and a short film, but fun nevertheless. First, they showed the original Night of the Living Dead, which we watched not long ago, but it's always fun to see it again.
Next they showed the 1910 Thomas Edison-produced version of Frankenstein, which we watched at my house just this past week. It only runs about 12 minutes, and is obviously quite dated, but it has several points of interest. I find it fascinating that the shape and basic design of the monster's head is echoed in the 1931 Universal design, which itself inspired countless imitations, and dominates the popular conception of the character. Someone at Universal must have seen the film, or even had access to a print of it. It seems nearly impossible that Jack Pierce's makeup design wasn't partly inspired by the monster seen in the Edison film.
Last, they showed Nosferatu, my favorite silent film, and easily the best vampire film ever made. I must have seen it 30 or 40 times by now, and it never gets old. I can't think of another movie monster that inspires the same sense of dread and impending doom that Schreck's Count Orlok does.
It was interesting to see the audience react to a silent film; most people these days have never seen one. Aside from the guy who had set the whole thing up, my girlfriend and I were the only people there who had watched a silent film before. Everybody really dug the movies, especially Nosferatu. I was pleased to see so many people react favorably to it, particularly since so many of them were in their teens and early 20s. It seems that most people that age usually won't even give something like that a chance, but they all really enjoyed it.
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Post by TurkeyVolGuessnMan on Nov 4, 2010 19:26:38 GMT -5
I just watched Nosferatu for the first time this past weekend. I recorded it off TCM a few weeks ago and just now got around to watching it. While I won't claim it's the best vampire film ever made, like a lot of 'top vampire' lists I've seen, I will say it was much better than I thought it'd be. Especially for 1922. My only gripe is the font used makes it a little difficult to read at times. Mostly the sideways hearts for lower case a's and the lower case r's that had a weird line sticking out and up on the left side of it. Almost looked more like the number 4 than the letter r. That said, it will definitely be one I will watch each time it comes on.
I forgot to record Freaks this time. It's a creepy movie, but another one I like to watch when I know it's on.
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Post by Joker on Dec 22, 2010 20:22:14 GMT -5
Predators
A bunch of people are dropped into a jungle somewhere and realize that they're being hunted by a bunch of giant prismatically invisible alien hunters. But these prey are well skilled killers (except for a nebbish doctor) and it seems that they were brought here expressly for that challenge. A helpful lunatic helps them survive at one point, but the hunters are relentless. It gets pretty gory and the spookiest scene with Danny Trejo as a Mexican drug cartel thug gets ruined by a lack of silence. Sometimes silence can make things very stark and much more frightening and when you add a music sting it makes it terrible and defeats the suspense and tension. Otherwise it's a brutal sci-fi nightmare. Who would have thought that Adrien Brody could be such a badass?
The Horde
After a cop is murdered by a gang of killers his friends decide to go on a raid into the run down tenement where they're holed up to kill them all. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong and they get captured by the ruthless gang and their Nigerian leader brothers. Then something else happens as off in the distance explosions light up the city sky and suddenly a legion of flesh-hungry zombies floods down the highway and begins to infiltrate the building. Now the cops and criminals (along with a lunatic Vietnam vet) find themselves thoroughly up poopie creek in the same boat and must join forces to survive...if they can cooperate long enough to stay alive.
There's lots of macho posturing since this is mostly an action film with zombies. The only character who keeps it together the most is the no-B.S. female cop determined to get out of this dingy tenement alive. There is no real explanation about why the zombies are around and none of the heroes seem to be able to figure out you have to shoot 'em in the head even after they've done it a couple of times (maybe it's an expensive effect). The guy having a one man war against a horde of zombies on the roof of a car where the dead aren't really smart enough to crawl up there right away. The movie is pretty fast paced while they try to add character bits which is admirable for an action film.
SPOILER: There is a very irritating non-ending that reeks of someone running out of ideas. Maybe horror film writers should come up with the ending first then either write the story backwards from there or write a story where the ending fits at the end. I wish that bit had been different so that it was at least halfway satisfying.
Otherwise it's a good action horror film.
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Post by Joker on Dec 30, 2010 1:03:53 GMT -5
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Somewhere in Europe in the Middle Ages the Satan-worshipping sadistic Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) cruelly lords over the peasantry of his kingdom and has no problem exterminating them all when the deadly plague of the Red Death hits. He holes up in his castle with members of nobility for a night of perversion. A brave Christian young man infiltrates the castle to rescue his abducted fiance from the evil prince and it all seems pretty hopeless in the face of the careless decadence within the fortress walls until an unexpected guest arrives to meet the wicked people inside.
Some people will argue that Roger Corman is a terrible director, but I bring up this film to counter it. This is probably his best film and shows his talent as a director who uses psychadelic production design to elevate this B-movie to A-list quality. Price gives this film a powerful performance that elevates it even further and makes it the perfect classic horror film.
Night of the Creeps: Director's Cut (1986)
In 1959 a container from space crashed to Earth at the same time as an axe-wielding maniac escapes from a mental institution. A young man is infested with slugs that lay eggs in a human brain and make a person into a zombie and his body has been frozen since then. Two college kids unwittingly unleash the brain slugs in a prank gone wrong and a hard boiled detective (Tom Atkins) unravels this creepy mystery as he suddenly faces the dessicated corpse of the lunatic he thought he had stopped decades earlier. Things only get worse when a bus crash full of fraternity corpses becomes a horde of brain slug-infested zombies. It's the fun fusion of 50's B-movie sci-fi and 80's excess with Atkins stealing the movie as the cranky detective. "Thrill me."
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Post by Frameous on Jan 2, 2011 19:26:43 GMT -5
Night of the Creeps is an all time favorite of mine. I was very pleased with the long awaited DVD, it's packed full of extras. If you liked it, I would suggest Fred Dekker's follow up, The Monster Squad (another hall of famer for me).
Speaking of Dekker...
House IV: Home Deadly Home (1992)
I am a fan of the first two House films (the original from a story by Fred Dekker). While the second one is so goofy it's hardly a horror flick, the original is a blast. I can't say the same for the fourth installment. Roger Cobb (the likable William Katt) is back in this one, as the owner of yet another spook mansion (what are the odds?). It was bequeathed to him from a shaman, who tasked him with protecting a mystical spring that lies under the foundation. He dies in a car accident, leaving a widow and his wheelchair bound daughter. So, naturally, after being faced with such life changing events, they decide to uproot themselves and move into the run down haunted house. I guess the wife is a stress junkie. So the frightening visions begin, as does the pestering of Cobb's brother, who wants the house for himself. Why you ask? Because he needs to dispose of toxic waste in the Native American mystical spring (hows that for a heavy handed message?). His boss is a slumped over little person with a cartoon voice who pumps out copious amounts of his phlegm with some kind of suction device and force feeds it to his underlings. Yeah. In the midst of all this you get an undercover FBI agent, an innuendo happy plumber, a talking pizza, lots of tea drinking, and the most annoying pizza-gram song you will ever hear. I would say skip it, but I am a glutton for this kind of punishment.
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Post by Joker on Jan 7, 2011 21:00:23 GMT -5
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
What a mess. As much as Freddy became a joke after a while I'd still take the old Freddy vs. the other way he's portrayed here. They really sucked the joy out of watching a Nightmare film bay making him a vile child molester whom you hope is in constant pain from all of his burn wounds.
And the hell of it is that Freddy is always the draw in this franchise. The alternative is a bunch of boring teens - with the actress playing Nancy being dull as a beige room.
I thought it was quite silly when Nancy's mom was trying to have her daughter forget her horrible preschool experiences, but kept a photo from the time hidden for some reason. The kid getting arrested and being told to "Shut the f*** up," by the cops, but not being read his rights immediately so that he would eventually get let off due to that oversight by the police made me realize I was deep into the dumbass world of Michael Bay.
They could have made the part with the Asian kid with a vlog better. All they had to do was show successive videos of him looking worse and worse from no sleep and then have him doze off briefly, then wake up to shut off the camera. Then all they had to show was that there were no more posts for over a year instead of the blatant thing they did in the movie.
Oh, wait. It's a Michael Bay-produced film with a music video director helming it. There is no room for subtlety or scariness. Just violence and CGI gore so as to keep the kids watching from playing with their cell phones for a few minutes.
How something this bad can be made is no longer a mystery in our new money-driven charmless movie culture for teens.
They say they won't make a sequel, but the $110 million it made assures me differently. So get ready for more of your memories to be violated by these filmmakers like a scarred-up pervert groping you in a nightmare without end.
House (1977)
In Japan a bunch of high school girls go on vacation at an old inn in the remote countryside where a white-haired supposedly old woman waits with her cat for her lost husband who was killed in WWII. It appears that some she's some sort of cannibal or ghost and weird stuff begins to happen. A watermelon in a well turns into a scary severed head. A girl gets eaten by a piano. A white Persian cat that has been haunting one girl becomes the key to all of the Evil Dead-like insanity happening all around.
Menawhile, I was tripping - oh wait, that was just how psychadelic the film was. It's influence on Sam Raimi and by proxy Edgar Wright becomes apparent as the goofy horror starts to hit you like a clown throwing pies like a machine gun into your eyeballs. It's bizarre fun from Japan that plays out like an episode of Scooby-Doo on acid with gore and nudity thrown in for good measure.
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Post by Joker on Jan 8, 2011 23:04:40 GMT -5
Mirrors 2
In the first Mirrors Kiefer Sutherland gave a powerful performance as a burned out security guard in a movie that could have been frightening except for all of the insanely over-the-top gore which made it more outrageous than scary (I swear the one guy who cut his throat must have had blood pressure so high that it was about 500 PSI and could've peeled the paint off a space shuttle).
Instead of Sutherland we have Nick Stahl as Max Matheson, another burned out security guard who made a stupid mistake in his car during a storm that left his fiance dead and made him spiral into a drug and alcohol binge. He can also see things in mirrors and just got a job as head of security from his father (William Katt) because the previous Arch Hall, Jr.-looking guard was forced to chew a bunch of glass by his reflection in a possessed mirror from the original New York department store now moved to a new location in New Orleans. The reason why the mirror is there seems to only be to make a connection to the original, but it could have just been any random mirror since it's not demons this time, but a supernatural concept for vengeance.
Max begins to see the cliched ghost of a dead woman in the haunted mirror along with gory premonitions of the killings she commits for a flimsy reason that seemed pretty random and senseless. Meanwhile, two uninteresting homicide detectives are not doing a very good job of cracking the case and the sister of the dead woman is contacted by Max to help unravel the mystery. Lots of boring and redundant dialogue pads out the film's running time. An attack on Katt's character makes no sense in the long run and seems pretty silly (a pizza cutter, huh?)
I should have known something would suck when I realized that it was a direct-to-video sequel to a movie that bombed out at the box office. No Sutherland means you're stuck with a collection of dull characters who have to hold up a film that goes nowhere very slowly. It wears very thin after a while.
Day of the Animals (1977)
The big gaping holes in the ozone layer unleash radiation on the animals of Earth, turning all of them above 5,000 feet into killers. Unfortunately a bunch of people on a survival hike in the mountains find this out too late and wind up being killed off by the wildlife all around them. The late Leslie Nielsen plays a racist, arrogant guy who's brain gets affected by whatever virus is making nature go nuts and proceeds to bully and rape the people travelling with him, then has a crazed meltdown in a show of insanity. One of the darkest nature strikes back films ever as people face their own deaths and try to survive.
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Post by Frameous on Jan 9, 2011 14:29:00 GMT -5
Day of the Animals sounds like a good one, I will have to check it out. Shame to hear a good actor like Nick Stahl is slogging through direct to DVD dreck like Mirrors 2. Always liked him.
Cameron's Closet (1988)
Once upon a time I saw the beginning of this on my local TV station's Saturday Horrors and I always wanted to finish it. Almost 20 years later, I did. Verdict: Meh. It can't be the serious supernatural thriller it wants to be, but doesn't have enough over the top or unintentionally goofy moments to be a golden turkey. A little boy is used by his research scientist father to explore telepathy. Naturally, he has a gift for it. When the boy decides to play with a figure of an ancient demon, his powers allow for it to come into our world, via any closet the boy has at his disposal. Have you ever wanted to see Tab Hunter decapitated in hilarious fashion? Or see a Road House alum blown out a window after having his eyes melted? Maybe you dig chubby, middle aged, jowly guys bathed in sweat spouting exposition. Then this is the movie for you. Oh, and in case that's not enough, there is also a kill involving a brother/sister incestuous illusion in a shower (made all the better by the brother's out of work gay porn actor 'stache and gold chain ensemble). In the middle of all this is some mediocre make up effects from one time great Carlo Rambaldi.
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Post by Joker on Jan 15, 2011 23:39:24 GMT -5
Death Ship (1980)
A luxury cruise liner is hit by a rusty old German warship from WWII. When the handful of survivors from the wreck climb aboard the ancient vessel they find no one there. Then the boat begins to kill the survivors off one by one and the captain of the liner (George Kennedy) is seemingly corrupted by the influence of the haunted ship, eventually trying to finish the rest of the survivors to keep the ship going.
Nothing really frightening happens for a long time in this film, but when it does it hits like a sledgehammer to these characters' sanity. It's basically The Shining on an old Nazi warship that they suddenly find out is an interrogation ship full of moldering corpses. There is no anti-semetic stuff in the film, just Nazi propaganda. If that had been the ugliness from the boat under the surface that was driving people crazy it would have been more terrifying, but it's still okay. A gratuitous shower scene becomes gruesome when the water becomes blood and one guy suddenly falls into a net in the flooded hold filled with human remains. It could have been scarier is all.
Smash Cut
David Hess plays a mad film director whose latest movie is panned by critics and then his stripper girlfriend is killed in a car crash that he survives. Then he has an epiphany when making his newest flick when he decides to use her body in place of the shoddy special FX in his own film. Then he needs more so he goes out and begins killing people for the materials to make his films better and better. The stripper's sister (porn actress Sasha Grey) is a reporter who is looking for the dead woman and she gets a master private detective to find out who's killing all of these people as the maniac director prepares to have a screening of a newly found lost film that will kill everyone...
This Canadian film is an homage to the films of Hershell Gordon Lewis, the pioneer in gore films that were very light on story, but heavy on carnage. So this film is that along with several satirical touches skewering the film industry and pretentious artists. Hess is delightful as the nutty filmmaker who starts off pretty laconic and then gets much more manic as the movie goes on. Grey is not a very good actress at all and doesn't get nude (in case you were wondering) so she drags down the movie whenever she has to speak. It's a silly and gory mess if you like that sort of thing.
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Post by Frameous on Jan 24, 2011 17:25:36 GMT -5
I thought Death Ship was very underwhelming, much to my disappointment. And Smash Cut is on my queue, can't wait for a healthy dose of David Hess. He is always a blast to watch. If you haven't already, check out Hitch Hike or House by the Edge of the Park. Good down and dirty Italian fun.
The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009)
For those who haven't already heard about this gross out, a mad German surgeon kidnaps tourists and connects them, mouth to anus, into a human centipede. Having already done this with his three pet rottweilers, the doctor is ready for the big leagues. This movie is really all concept and no substance. Once the humans are joined, it has little to offer, and degenerates into showdown between the doctor, his victims, and the authorities. With the victims being a Japanese man and two Americans, and the villain a Josef Mengele-esque German, it appears the director is making a statement on World War II. But what is he trying to say? I suppose that statement, like the film itself, is all idea and no delivery. The joke is on the audience, though. Given its plot, people who are curious will watch it, despite its shortcomings. Just as I will no doubt watch the upcoming sequel, which promises to be less restrained.
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Post by Frameous on Jan 25, 2011 23:58:51 GMT -5
Happy birthday to Tobe Hooper. I know he ain't what he used to be, but I stand by him.
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
After hearing about this flick for some time, I finally got to check it out. What I discovered is a nice throwback to the likes of Creepshow and Tales From The Darkside. Four separate stories are intertwined in a small Ohio suburb on Halloween night. There is a homicidal teacher, a group of werewolves looking for party going victims, some kids out to spook a fellow classmate using the towns urban legend, and an old grump who gets his just desserts. The cast includes the wonderful Brian Cox and the lovely Anna Paquin. Not a bonnafide classic right out of the gates, but a good horror romp none the less. This had some release issues, no doubt due to writer/director Michael Dougherty and producer Bryan Singer suffering the backlash from their flop Superman Returns. Still, I think this movie will continue to have legs on DVD.
TerrorVision (1986)
Ho-ly sh/t I hated this movie. This is another title I passed over countless times at my local video store. Well, I wasn't missing anything, besides some mild aggravation and brain rot. What turns out to be a mutated intergalactic pet is jettisoned into space as pure energy and lands on earth in a suburban satellite dish. It manifests itself as a rubbery looking monster slathered in KY jelly. The family it terrorizes is the worst collection of hammy actors playing 80s charactures spouting lines like 'Holy tomatoes!' and 'Barf me out'. The parents are obnoxious swingers, and their daughter is a Madonna/Cindy Lauper wannabe with a heavy metal boyfirend who says dude a lot. Now, I love bad movies, but this one was intolerable. Charles Band's Empire pictures has much better crap to offer, and this movie is the epitome of their worst B movie cliches. Decent genre actors like Gerrit Graham, Mary Woronov, Jon Gries, and Diane Franklin deliver their worst performances, forcing the "humor" so hard down your throat you will start to gag. I would tell you to stay away, but I didn't. I even finished this turd, despite how much it irked me.
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