Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

Don't Open the Door - SF Brownrigg made this after the classic Don't Look in the Basement. That's the one where they're in a mental hospital and the one girl is a sex maniac and she takes her shirt off and the other crazy guy laughs at her. That's the scene I always remember anyway. It's not everybody's cup of tea but I always liked it and rented it along with Bloodsucking Freaks, The Master Killer, and Alien's Deadly Spawn as a teenager and don't regret it (maybe Bloodsucking Freaks I regret )

This is rated PG. You can make a PG horror movie if
1. it's called The Baby and you are simply using the pg rating to mess with people
2. your name is Alfred Hitchcock

This unfortunately falls in neither of those categories. I guess he was going for drive in instead of grindhouse here and it never quite gets anywhere though it tries. A pretty if not particularly interesting blonde goes to her ailing grandmothers house and an obscene phone caller starts calling. Gradually he does more and more calls and instead of leaving or leaving the phone off the hook she keeps answering the phone. It has those weird cheap colors like Don't Look in the Basement but it doesn't have any nudity or gore. The whole sicko pervert angle with the caller doesn't really work because it's PG. to paraphrase Lou reed Italians could have helped this bash.

not terrible but not really worth seeing 2/5

[claws]

Sci-Fighter (2004)

Jack (Don "The Dragon" Wilson) is trying to be a good father to his teenage breakdancing son Brad who likes to party. When he catches Brad drinking beer he grounds him for one week. In order to patch their shaky relationship, Brad's Grandfather creates a virtual reality fighting game for his son and grandson. When Brad tries to play the game he is taken over by a rouge virus leaving his mind trapped inside the game. Now Jack must enter the game in order to save his son. Along the way both must defeat many opponents.

"Kick his ass, dad!"

The virtual reality concept was already dated when this movie was released direct to video. Sci-Fighter is pretty bad in all regards - the few computer generated effects are as cheap as they come, and so are the fight scenes. The idea of casting real life but over the hill mixed martial arts fighters as villains sounded somewhat fun, in a campy opposite The Expendables kind of way, but they failed to make the best of it. Of course Don "The Dragon" Wilson gets to beat them all, including the obligatory musclebound end-level big boss. This was good for a few chuckles so my cheese rating shall be 3/5

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched MORTDECAI with Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow.

This movie is really bad, but funny at the same time.  Charlie Mortdecai is a rather dimwitted member of the British aristocracy who deals in the shady end of the art world.  He owes some 18 million pounds in back taxes and is given an opportunity by the government to earn his way back to solvency by tracing the whereabouts of a lost Goya painting that may or may not have the passcodes to all of Hermann Goering's old Swiss bank accounts scribbled on the back of it.  He sets off, accompanied by his randy manservant Jock, to retrieve the painting, restore his fortunes, and win back the affections of his lovely wife from the attempted seduction by the MI5 agent who is trying to steal her away.

This one was pretty fun overall but I can see why it flopped at the box office.  It tried to be too many things at once.

[Rev. Powell]

ID (2005): A mute man---who might be a beast, a Bodhisattva, or a god of murder---awakens in a woods and wanders to an urban pig farm where he encounters human cruelty and perversion. There is a serious, even spiritual, point to be made here about depravity and salvation, but the film doesn't treat it with the seriousness it deserves, and the ending goes off the rails even by ID's own lax standards. Written, directed and featuring the female lead from TETSUO, THE IRON MAN. 2/5.

[VenomX73]

The Midnight Hour 1985



High school friends, who unwittingly raise the dead on Halloween night.
Once the dead have returned, Pitchford Cove will never be the same again....or will it?

I really enjoyed it. I will watch it again for sure. Fun movie, sad ending though...

and yes, that's Geordi from Star Trek above lol.

[Jack]

The Hybrid (2014) - a group of paramilitary types are sent to a military base in Chechnya or someplace to infiltrate the underground facility where genetic experiments are being carried out. That pretty much never ends well, does it    I thought this was quite good; it's much more serious than the usual cheesy B movie we get from this setup, and the characters were decent, the plot intriguing and even intelligent, and it had some cool special effects. 4/5.

[JaseSF]

Nuns on the Run (1990): Brian Hope (Eric Idle) and Charlie McManus (Robbie Coltrane) dream of getting out of their life of crime. Suddenly they find themselves having no other choice when it's been reported to their boss that they want out. Now Brian and Charlie know that their old crime boss will want them wiped out so they make off with the latest loot, drug money they stole from a rival Asian gang known as the Triad. Now with everyone gunning for them, Brian and Charlie seek refuge in a place they believe no one will look for them, posing as nuns in an all woman institution.

This was a repeat viewing. I really enjoy this one. Idle and Coltrane are a hoot here. This moves at a fun, brisk pace and is surprisingly clever on some levels, brainless on others. A good comedy but there are some scenes that seriously stretch credibility. Still a whole lot of fun. ***3/4 out of ***** stars.

The Villain (1979): A villainous gun for hire named Cactus Jack Slade (Kirk Douglas) is hired by shady bank-owner Avery Simpson (Jack Elam) to ambush Miss Charming Jones (Ann-Magret) as she takes money from the bank back to her father. However a friend of her father's named Handsome Stranger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has agreed to accompany her back home and try and protect her along the way. However Cactus Jack's plans don't quite seem to work out as well as he hopes.

This is pretty much a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon. Think Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote with Handsome Stranger and Charming Jones playing the role of the Road Runner and Cactus Jack playing the role of Wile E. Coyote. This has some fun and funny moments, mostly in a silly way, but also gets repetitive in a hurry. Look out for an all-star cast in bit roles. My favorite bit was the ending twist with regards to whom Charming Jones prefers. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

Die Hard (1988): While invited to an office Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles, New York police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) suddenly finds the place under siege by what appears to be a terrorist group led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). He decides to use his wits and smarts to try and thwart the plans of the terrorist group and gain the attention of local authorities all the while hoping to keep the hostages, including his wife Holly Gennero (Bonnie Bedelia), alive.

This is a great guy movie. It's loaded with action, explosions, over the top stunts, and gunfire. It doesn't always ring true yet remains very suspenseful and tense. Willis is great in his lead role and Rickman makes a terrific lead villain to boot. There's also nice support from Reginald VelJohnson, of Family Matters fame, as police Sgt. Al Powell. Definitely an influential movie on many action thrillers that followed. **** out of ***** stars.

2012: Ice Age (2011): A series of volcanic eruptions in Iceland brings on an impending ice age and a fast moving humongous glacier develops crushing and swallowing everything in its path. One family, lead by father Bill Hart (Patrick Labyorteaux whose probably best known for JAG and Little House on the Prairie), tries to survive in the face of insurmountable odds and reunite with their daughter in New York.

Yeah this was pretty bad. It's clearly a rip-off of the plot from The Day After Tomorrow from The Asylum. The FX are in no way comparable and look pathetic next to the film it imitates. Still I feel it did get the family dynamic down better than that film did with Julie McCullough of Growing Pains fame as wife and mother Teri Hart, Katie Wilson as daughter Julia, and Nick Afanasiev as son Nelson. I actually liked that family dynamic. The rest is pretty bad but then so was the film it ripped off in many ways. Still I've seen far worse from the Asylum than this. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

Slaughter High - Not an A level horror movie but pretty fun. Don't expect a lot of extra effort as far as character development, dialogue, or funky soundtrack etc but it's better than a lot of stuff.

A very stereotypical nerd gets tormented by (relatively) cool kids at a high school. It's meant to be funny, but it's the type of thing that nowadays would be considered bullying and triggering and so forth. He ends up coming back and stalking them at the reunion. It's confusing because it's like are we supposed to laugh at the kid or not?  Anyway, the point of the movie is the tormentors being chased around the auditorium and the garage and the shop room and so forth.

There is suspension of disbelief required, but at the same time people are very determined when they're angry. It's not TOTALLY out of the question that someone would spend the decade after high school installing elaborate trap doors and stuff in the various class and locker rooms for the reunion is it? I don't think so.

The two least attractive girls are the ones who get naked. The most thought seems to have been put into the various pranks and killings. It's fun and has a good dark edge even if it's a sort of curious cross between a teen comedy and a teen horror movie. What if Revenge of the Nerds had been more literal and they had gone on a rampage? This is the next best thing here

4/5

[Jack]

Nemesis (1992) - in the future, people replace parts of their bodies with cybernetic parts. Turns out some actual cyborgs have cooked up a plan to get rid of (or maybe just enslave) the humans, and it's up to an LAPD detective to foil their plot. This was kind of fun in a cheesy '80s way. I swear they must have used 1,000 pounds of pyrotechnics for all the explosions. Plot was enough to keep things going, there were some hot babes, and unfortunately some bare man butt as well. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"A Fish Called Wanda" (1988)

http://youtu.be/dqAJUlSRCwo

Two Americans and two Brits pull off a major London jewel robbery and then spend the rest of the movie trying to screw each other out of the loot, with a love struck lawyer (John Cleese, who also wrote the screenplay) caught in the middle. This wacky heist movie is frequently mentioned as one of the funniest movies ever made; I don't think I'd go quite that far but I got a few chuckles out of it, plus it captures Jamie Lee Curtis at her absolute peak of smokin' hotness. I may have been expecting too much from "Wanda" after so many years of hearing nothing but raves. Oh well. (shrugs)

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Cannonball Run" (1981)

http://youtu.be/j2hGFN8NlLQ

Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise top an all star cast in a silly, virtually plotless comedy about a cross country auto race with a million dollar prize.  Roger Moore, Dean Martin, Farrah Fawcett, and Sammy Davis Jr. (to name just a few) join in the car-crashin' fun that appears to have been mostly made up as it went along.
I hadn't seen this movie in dog years and obviously it's aged terribly, but it's still a nice trip down memory lane, and my kids thought it was a hoot.

[etmoviesb]

The Miracle Fighters [1982] is the first movie of the trilogy that concludes with the Drunken Wu Tang flick reviewed by Mr. Borntreger himself.
The movie is nowhere as insane as the third one, this one is actually a interesting kung fu flick with even some touching moments. The very beginning was a little shocking to me, to the level of "am I watching the correct film?"
The special effect are indeed nice since and quite a bit of characters are sorcerors and so they mix kung-fu with interesting magic. The plot is a classic "stop the bad guy plans", but it works. Mainly because both the good guys and the bad guy are really powerful so both sides have clever plans how to win.

[Jack]

Blood Beach (1980) - with a title like that I was expecting babes in bikinis or something, but this is actually a serious movie, with beachgoers being attacked by some sort of monster which lives under the sand. John Saxon is the chief of police and despite his usual good acting job, his police department is so useless that it falls to a harbor patrol guy to solve the whole thing. Mr. harbor patrol also goes off on a dull romance with an old flame of his. Not exactly the most exciting thing in the world - I really though it was a made-for-TV movie judging by its sedate pacing - but it was perfectly watchable and when we finally get to see the monster it was pretty cool. 2.5/5.

[Trevor]

Dungeon Master / Rage War: I saw this early this morning and wondered why it took 7 directors to make it?  Oy.

[claws]

The Guest (2014)

Family is visited by an ex-soldier named David who was friends with their son who died in combat. The mother invites the young man to stay for a couple of days. Soon enough David provides a helping hand to everyone's problems: the Father gets a promotion, the teenage son stands up to bullies and the grieving mother finds comfort in the stories David shares about her dead son. Only daughter Anna is suspicious, at first, but David slowly gains her trust. When Anna witnesses odd behavior from David she makes a routine check call to the military, with devastating consequences ...
The Guest is a pretty cool homage/throwback to a few 1980s movies, mainly The Terminator (1984) with a healthy dose of Halloween (1978). Worth checking out 4.5/5