Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

Still tryin' to kick this friggin' cold so it's been another "Stay inside and watch bad movies" kind of day...

"Boo" (2005)
A gang of college kids decide to spend their Halloween night exploring the ruins of an abandoned hospital, which legend says is haunted. You can probably guess how well things turn out for them.
Anthony "Sharknado" Ferrante directed this cheese-ball horror flick that trots out pretty much every scary-movie cliche you can think of, but it's all done in fun with plenty of atmosphere. It's junk, but at least it's fun junk.

"Dead End" (2003)
A bickering family (headed by Ray Wise as the Dad and the ever-dependable Lin Shaye as Mom) take a detour during their Christmas eve road trip to Grandma's, and end up on a seemingly never-ending back road, pursued by a creepy woman in white.
I didn't have high hopes for this one at first since the characters were SO unlikable that I wanted them all to die within the first five minutes, but it sucked me in once it started to get good. A pleasant surprise.

"Lake Alice" (2017)
A dreadfully dull Yuletide slasher about a family celebrating their holiday at a remote, snowy cabin, where they're targeted by masked maniacs. This flick obviously wants to be a tight home-invasion thriller ala "The Strangers" mixed with the "Scream" whodunit-slasher style, but it's so sluggish (I swear it was almost an HOUR before the first body dropped) that by the time the good stuff starts you won't even care who the killer is.
AVOID.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Cobra" (1986)

A super-tough L.A. cop protects a fashion model from a cult of axe wielding maniacs. Yes, that's the entire plot.
This cult classic was essentially a Sylvester Stallone vanity project - he wrote the screenplay, directed a large portion of it, and cast his then-girlfriend, Brigitte Nielsen, as the female lead. It's dumb as a box of rocks, but it's also a ton of shoot'em up, blow'em up fun!

[indianasmith]

ROLE MODELS - Two hard partying buddies are sentenced to spend 150 hours mentoring at risk youths in order to avoid going to jail.  One draws a shy LARP-ing nerd, the other a foulmouthed little pervert.  Neither guy is much of a role model, but they grow into the job in this raunchy, goofy comedy that I caught on HBO when I woke up at 4 AM yesterday and couldn't go back to sleep. 3.5/5

[claws]

Summer of 84 (2018)

A teenager suspects one of his neighbors might be a serial killer. He gets on the case with his friends.
Probably one of the most blatantly predictable movies ever made, so you get zero suspense. The teen actors are obnoxious and the movie isn't as smart as it pretends to be. The nostalgia factor is pretty low, consisting only of sleepovers and hide & seek kind of games in backyards. Since this is a low budget indie they couldn't license more than one song from the 1980s (Bananarama's Cruel Summer), and parts of the ending copies Silence of the Lambs. This movie is like a manual how not to do a horror movie set in the 1980s. Disappointing 2/5.

[Rev. Powell]

THE FOREST OF LOVE (2019): A group of young filmmakers make a movie about a con-man they suspect of being a serial killer, but he turns the tables on them when he offers to produce the film, then turns the production into a sadomasochistic cult of killers. Sion Sono's latest is full of references to other Sion Sono movies; it's masturbatory, obscene, ugly, beautiful, and fascinating. 3.5/5.

MISSING LINK (2019): A 19th century cryptozoologist and adventurer helps the last surviving Bigfoot relocate to the Himalayas to join his Yeti cousins. Sweet and funny 3-D animation from Latika studios in an outside-the-box setting. 3.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

HEART + KNIFE (2018): A killer is picking off actors in a gay porn troupe; the alcoholic lesbian director tries to figure out what's going on. Basically a queer modern giallo delivered with strange style; unfortunately, neither the story nor the symbolism ultimately come together satisfactorily. 2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

GREENER GRASS (2019): Housewife Jill has a perfect suburban life, until one day she gives her baby away to a friend out of politeness, then decides wants her back when her other child turns into a dog. A lot of this suburban satire plays like it was the last sketch cut from an SNL episode for being too experimental and peculiar. It's not uproarious, but neither is it boring. 3/5.

[Rev. Powell]

RIFFTRAX: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE: Just because your movie stars Christopher Lee as Sherlock Holmes doesn't mean it isn't full of plot holes, contrived clues, padding, and a lack of action and flow. The riffers here were second stringers--Bridget Nelson and Matthew Elliott---and they do a competent job even though their lines don't always sound natural, and the volume of jokes is less than usual. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

I Spit on Your Grave (2010) - a valiant effort, but this just isn't the country it was in 1978. The cast are too soft to convey that kind of savagery and darkness, even with the elaborate torture thingies 3/5

[Rev. Powell]

BUNUEL IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE TURTLES (2019): Animated film chronicling the making of Luis Bunuel's third movie, the Surrealist documentary "Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan" ("Land Without Bread") about a poverty-stricken region of Spain. The low-frame animation is perhaps not the greatest, but it's interesting and informative portrait of a very complicated artist, with some light, brief Surrealist dream sequences; those who come in with some knowledge of Bunuel, Dali, and the Surrealist movement will get more out of it than novices will. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rapture-Palooza" (2013)
Left behind on Earth after the Rapture, a young couple (Anna Kendrick of "Pitch Perfect" and John Francis Daley) attempts to adjust to their bizarre new reality. Their attempt to find a "new normal" is complicated when they meet The Beast Craig Robinson) himself, who wants to take Anna as his bride.
A strange, frequently raunchy comedy that gets by mainly due to the deadpan performances of its excellent cast, esp. the cutie-pie Kendrick.

[Gabriel Knight]

DARK STAR (1974)

In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.

All right, this is some crazy movie. Honestly, there isn't much of a plot, it's just a bunch of situations patched together. Still, it's great fun, the effects are hilariously bad yet charming, especially that alien thing that my girlfriend, just like Pinback, thought it was cute and said "it was just playing around", while I considered it a homicidal menace.

Really cool music and a great 70's atmosphere, enjoyable in all fronts. The ending is just madness, loved it. As always, Carpenter delivers the goods. 8/10 

[indianasmith]

PSYCHO III (1987) Anthony Perkins directed this by-the-numbers sequel to the original PSYCHO in which he reprises his role as Norman Bates, released after 26 years in a psychiatric hospital and running his mother's old hotel again.  A troubled young woman and a mercenary drifter show up needing rooms, and Norman's old habits show that they die hard . . . like his victims.

This was a mediocre film, spiced up by a bit of nudity and more explicit gore than the original, worth watching once. 3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

IN MY ROOM (2018): A German man wakes one day to find that everyone else in the world seems to have vanished. This extraordinary event is then dealt with in the most ordinary fashion imaginable (we watch as he starts a small farm all alone); it all ends up as the longest and lamest "...if you were the last man on earth" joke ever told.  2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Rutles: All You Need is Cash" (1978)

Before Spinal Tap, there was... The Rutles!

Eric Idle of Monty Python fame co-wrote, co-directed and co-stars in this mock "rockumentary" about The Rutles, a.k.a. "The Pre-Fab Four," Dirk, Stig, Nasty, and Barry -- the band who emerged from Rutland in the early Sixties and eventually took England - and then the world - by storm.
This laugh-a-minute, dead-on parody of the Beatles saga features tons of great gags, eerily Beatle-esque original songs by Neil Innes, and cameos by Michael Palin, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and even George Harrison himself.
Tons of fun for fans of Python, early SNL, and Beatlemaniacs.