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Showing posts from 2011

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) - Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski is a fantastic director, who has gone through some real shit. Unfortunately this "shit" has overshadowed his career. He has lived in exile from the United States in France for the past forty years, after fleeing the country in 1978 following sexual assault charges. Polanski has directed some real winners, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist, and 2010's The Ghost Writer, just to name a few. This movie on the other hand is not amazing. It is bland and it drags on. The sound is wretched. The comedy is forced. The best acting comes from Polanski himself and his former wife Sharon Tate. Yes, the same Sharon Tate that was murdered by Charles "Tex" Watson in the famous Charles Manson murders. I told you, Polanski has gone through some shit.  The Fearless Vampire Killers is a horror/comedy movie from 1967, that tells the story of a professor and his assistant (Polanski) who both study vampires. The two shack up in a small town in Transylva

The Relic (1996) - Peter Hyames

The Relic was recommended to me by some one over at thebetterboard.com, who says that this is one of their favorite horrors. So Techatomon this one is for you. This movie stars Tom Sizemore and Penelope Ann Miller (doing her best Dana Skully, impression) and they both don't do too bad of a job. That is saying quite a bit for Tom Sizemore, who hasn't been decent in anything since... well since this I suppose. I am not too familiar with Penelope Miller's work. However, she does well in this. This movie is about a evolutionary biologist (Miller) and police detective (Sizemore) that are both investigating a mysterious shipment from Brazil. The shipment was bound for a museum in Chicago, and when it arrives it is clouded in mystery. The boat that it arrives on is sans-living people, everyone that was on the ship has died. Now the museum that the shipment is being housed in is finding that people are dying left and right from something. What is killing people in the museu

Highway to Hell (1992) - Ate de Jong

I should have known before coming into this movie that it had a stupid concept. The movie couldn't even get the right Lowe brother. They got Chad Lowe of all people, Rob must have been too busy making Wayne's World . Highway to Hell is categorized as a horror comedy: its extremely cheesy and wonderfully under-acted. The movie has an awesome array of cameos the biggest being Ben Stiller and his father Jerry Stiller and both portray guys stuck in hell. Jerry Stiller is a cop and Ben Stiller is a cook.  Highway to Hell is a comedy about a girl, Rachel (Kristy Swanson) that runs away with her boyfriend Charlie (Chad Lowe) to get married in Las Vegas. Instead some Hellcop abducts Rachel and she is taken to hell. Charlie must save her so he takes to the open road on his way to hell to find his true love. From there even more cameos pop up: Lita Ford, Gilbert Godfrey, and Amy Stiller. The movie paints hell as the Mojave Desert where people are still operating jobs and living

The Birds (1963) - Alfred Hitchcock

Classics are always amazing, they may take sometime to build up, but they always have an amazing payoff. This is my first Alfred Hitchcock film. I have kind of steered away from them for some reason. It just so happens that the local theater down the street from me is playing The Birds for $3. So I popped on over there and got some popcorn and had an awesome time. The Birds is about a small town that gets over-run by vicious killer birds. There is no motive and there doesn't seem to be any resolution. The movie instead focuses on the exploits of a young socialite that falls instantly in love with the weirdly shaped "hero" of the movie. She creepily drops in on him while he is on vacation in Bodega Bay, CA. If anyone is keeping count, this is the forth horror movie that I have reviewed that is set on the Central Coast. Anyway, while she is "visiting/stalking" the seagulls, sparrows, crows, and other birds start going crazy nuts! They kill people left an

Pontypool (2009) - Bruce McDonald

Awhile ago I wrote a review on the movie Dead Air with Bill Mosley. That movie was really forgettable and got away from itself really quickly. It had to do with a radio DJ and his wacky morning crew that just happened to come to work when a zombie outbreak started. The movie plays up the terrorist angle a bit too much and shows what scares Americans (namely Corbin Bernsen). I thought I would never see another movie like this one... that is until I discovered Pontypool from the same year. This movie is far better than Dead Air. Pontypool is a movie that is shrouded in mystery from the beginning to the end. The film stars Steven McHattie as shock jock Grant Mazzy who takes the mic during an outbreak of some sort that is centered in their little town of Pontypool. Somewhere in Canada. Little is revealed about the actual incident. We are just aware that emotion and the English language play a part in this. The fact that you don't know what is going on propels this movie for

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - Samuel Bayer

This is a pretty movie. Its apparent from the start, that this remake of the 1984 classic, has a pretty good sized budget to work with. In fact the budget for this incarnation was $35 Million according to Wikipedia. The budget for the Wes Craven original, $1.8 Million. You don't always get a better movie if your budget is huge, look at Avatar. You just get a really pretty movie that looks polished and has flawless special effects. Again, see Avatar. That movie was nothing but flash. The story is unoriginal and weak... and don't try coming at me with this whole "Shut up man! Avatar proved itself!" shut up! The larger budget in this case makes the movie look too polished to be takes seriously. Why the hell are we caring about watching clones of the Twilight teens being chased by Freddy Kruger? Were not. This movie didn't need a budget of $35 Million. It feels wasted. Some of the appeal of the original came from watching the director be a director and figure sc

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - Tommy Lee Wallace

This is the most pointless movie ever put to film. Tommy Lee Wallace and John Carpenter should have steered clear away from this one. At least Moustapha Akkad was financially obligated to the movie. I can understand, more-so, what he was doing there. However, I can't piece together why anyone would go into this movie with such a horrible script. John Carpenter must have been high as a kite! Steven King came out and admitted that when he filmed Maximum Overdrive, he was blown out of his mind. Those guys had mucho bucks in the early eighties and blew it on the rich man's aspirin.  The plot is virtually un-recognizable. It just keeps going on with no end in site and no reason. The movie has to do with an evil CEO of a mask making company that plans on killing children with their masks. How? Well on Halloween, Silver Shamrock is going to air a commercial after the local channel plays Halloween (Yes, John Carpenter's original Halloween) on television. This commercial wil

Mans Best Friend (1993) - John Lafia

Mans Best Friend is a horror (comedy?) movie that is filled with uber-ridiculousness from beginning to end. The movie has a 90's made-for-tv kind of feel to it with campy humor and bad graphics. The film is trying to be original and succeeds in its quest. I haven't seen a good dog-horror film since Cujo, but this movie is no Cujo. The movie is about a dog that is "rescued" from a laboratory by two young twenty somethings that have something to prove to the world. This dog however isn't a big old cuddly doggy with rivers of slobber and a love that knows no boundaries. Nope, roll over Beethoven, this dog is a killing machine... literally. This dog has tons of genetically modified traits like expendable claws for climbing trees. Understands basic English and also understands the components of an Auto-mobile. This dog has metal eyes that probably do something cool, but the movie ran out of money. The dog can run upwards of 75 miles per hour. Finally, this

Hell Night (1981) - Tom DeSimone

Hell Night is a painfully fun eighties slasher film that doesn't have the most original plot, or even the best acting. However, this movie does have Linda Blair at the beginning of her eighties romp. She provides ALL of the acting in the film, with the other characters being portrayed by sub-par stand ins. This is the beginning of her movie career that capitalizes on her character acting in The Exorcist.  The movie takes place on Halloween night (i think) when the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity decides to team up with their sister sorority and put the pledges through HELL NIGHT. This entails having two girls and two guys stay the night in a creepy old mansion, while the senior members have sex and terrorize the pledges. Only someone is picking teens off left and right. The movie is un-original and the acting is sub-par. The best actress in the movie is Linda Blair and her best work was with The Exorcist. This venture just seemed lazy to me, just trying to ride on the Exo

Carnival of Souls (1962) - Herk Harvey

Independent horror movies from the 1960's have always intrigued me. Their solutions to problems both on and off the screen were always creative. The film-maker has to make his audience scream but can only do it with the limited amount of funds that was allocated to this guy by whatever flash-in-the-pan studio came his way. That meant that this type of director had to work harder to bring the story to life. He didn't have half of the money that Laurence of Arabia even paid their grips! Well... don't quote me there, but you get the idea. Carnival of Souls is about a woman that was the lone survivor in a terrible car accident. Who is strangely driven to investigate an abandoned carnival in her new town. She is constantly harassed and haunted by the specters of the other people that were in the accident with her and she slowly begins to lose her mind. This movie hits all of the places that it needs to, it is just plagued by the things that usually haunted cinema

Red State (2011) - Kevin Smith

The Westboro Baptist Church is a group of homophobic baptists that preach out of a congregation in Topeka, Kansas. They hold inappropriate signs at protests in some of the most sacred of venues; Gay Rights Conventions, Veterans Hospitals, Concerts, Sporting Events, High Schools, Jr. High Schools, Elementary Schools, and even Funerals. They are mostly known for the latter in that laundry list. You can almost be certain that when their leader Fred Phelps Sr. (and mouthpiece Shirley Phelps-Roper) caught wind that indie film director Kevin Smith would be making a horror film based on their church. They were angry. Red State is a horror movie that is based on the Westboro Baptist Church. There are some little differences, as the movie actually points out for you in a phone call. This group of hate-mongers actually kidnap "homosexuals" and kill them in front of their congregation as part of a big ritualistic thing. They also have a heavily guarded compound, and are ready to figh

Return of the Living Dead: Part 2 (1987) - Ken Weiderhorn

Return of the Living Dead Part 2, much like the original, does little to frighten you and more to make your roll your eyes. This parody of 80's Z Movies is so full of slapstick comedy and corny over-the-top acting that you can hardly take this movie seriously at all. Perhaps that is the point. The movie does little to add to the Z mythos that is floating around Hollywood. Instead, it lifts most of the plot points from the previous film. It looks like a higher budget and more thought out version of the original movie. It even brings back two actors from the first movie that sort of reprise their roles in this one. This movie follows the young Jesse Wilson, a young kid that lives in a newly developed housing project. While grab-assing with the local hooligans he finds a familiar looking barrel that is shrouded in mystery. While left in the protection of the local hooligans, the barrel is opened and zombie gas seeps out. Now Jesse, his sister, the cable-repair boy, and some h

The Ghastly Ones (1968) - Andy Milligan

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1983) - William Asher

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is an Exploitation Horror movie from 1983 and part of the Video Nasty catalog. You see, in England at the end of the seventies and into the early eighties there was this Video Nasty movement that banned certain movies from seeing the light of day. Since VHS was the only way to get your hands on one of these gems, they were being passed around like hotcakes. Illegal hotcakes. People actually spent time in prison. What a waste of time and money.  These movies aren't all wonderful, some of them are downright horrible. That is the appeal here though, when your mom tells you that you can't have something you always want it more. You always want what you can't have. So true.  Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (or Night Warning) is a strange Oedipus journey that deals with obsession, anti-homosexual views, and gruesome murder. The movie has copious amounts of blood supplemented with a late 70's soap opera storyline. The movie is c

When Harry Met Sally (1989) - Rob Reiner

Directed by Rob Reiner (Misery, This is Spinal Tap) and starring the knock-out, beautiful Meg Ryan (City of Angles) and the hilarious Billy Crystal. When Harry Met Sally is the greatest romantic comedy of all time. This movie has Billy Crystal in the one role that he was born to play; forget City Slickers, Analyze This/That, and Mr. Saturday Night. When Harry Met Sally gives Crystal all of the lines and hilarity that he was born to play. The dynamic between Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal should go down in history as one of the best; there was no point in the movie in which I was not rooting for them to make it. The movie is about this one thing... "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way". Harry (Crystal) says that in the beginning of the film and the entire movie follows this one thesis. Of course the movie follows the same romantic comedy dynamic that every romantic comedy does, this one however delivers on the goods. This

Waxworks (1988) - Anthony Hickox

Quintessential 80's horror classic crap movie. Those are the best 80's movies anyway right? Guys in blazers with the sleeves pushed up, collar's popped to the ceiling, girls wearing some sort of Madonna/Pat Benatar/Debbie Harry crossbreed of fashion; the movie acts as the perfect parody of what everyone left behind in the eighties. I couldn't take any of the characters seriously; they all act as caricatures of the stereotypical heroes and heroines from other eighties classics. It was fun. The movie is about a group of friends who get invited to "tour" an old Wax Museum late one evening. There is something off about this museum though. Could it be the fact that the group of friends were invited off of the street and they were told to come alone? Could it be that the owner has an extremely large butler named Lurch and an extremely small butler named Hans? Could it be that this Wax Museum is an obviously evil place with an obviously evil owner? Could it

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972) - Bob Clark

Bob Clark (A Christmas Story and Porky's) wanted to try his hand at the newly budding zombie movie craze that George Romero started with Night of the Living Dead. The result was nothing more than disastrous. Hey, at least the guy tried. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is an early seventies gore film, that deals with zombies without actually ever muttering the zed word. For an early horror movie they hit all of the main points. However, this movie suffers from being poorly written and horribly acted. The make-up is fair, but at times really lags and serves as the catalyst for most of the cheapness. In other words this movie is truly independent. The film is about a theater troupe that comes to a remote cemetery island to perform rituals to raise the dead. Things go awry when the dead actually does raise up and come after the group. The movie is really ridiculous. It is hard for me to put into words just what I actually think, but I know that I was unamus

Kongo (1932) - William J. Cowen

Kongo is a brutal and disturbing movie that pushes the limits of film from the thirties; it is a wonder that MGM allowed a movie with this kind of content to be released. By today's standards this movie is pretty tame, but in the context of the time in which it was made the images are shocking. The movie deals with all sorts of topics ranging from racism to drug abuse and the brutality of the death scenes stick with you. The movie is about a deranged and tyrannical man who runs a village in Africa with an iron fist from the security of his wheelchair. He keeps all those around him paralyzed with fear which he perpetuates by performing "magic tricks" like decapitating women and reanimating their bodies. He kidnaps the daughter of his rival, and then terrorizes her and a stranded doctor for most of the film. The treatment of race is a big issue here too which may be a reason why this movie is difficult to find on DVD or VHS. The maniacal madman constantly berate

IT (1990) - Tommy Lee Wallace

In 1990 magic happened. Horror Icon Stephen King and film director Tommy Lee Wallace had come together to create, what just might be, the scariest made-for-television movie of all time! This may seem a bit boastful. However you have to keep in mind that it had treated an entire generation of children to their newest fear of coulrophobia. Otherwise known as the fear of clowns. I'm sure there are several of you would cite this movie as the root of their nightmares. Like I had said above, this movie was aired on ABC as a two part mini-series. That means that it was coming on IT continues to be one of the best to film adaptations of King's work. I personally think that The Shining is the best with IT following closely behind. Pet Sematary  is somewhere after those two. While IT really is amazing. It also happens to run just a bit too long. It is also a victim of being limited by the technology of 1990. But none of these factors actually derail the picture. It's still