Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"Shaun of the Dead" (2004)
Two London slackers (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) must step up to protect their friends when a zombie apocalypse rages through the city. Their survival plan? Go to the pub and wait for it to blow over.
A very funny British horror comedy that deals out gore and laughs in equal measure. "Shaun" has deservedly become a cult classic in the years since its release.

"Sanitarium" (2013)
This anthology-style horror flick ala "Tales From The Crypt" is set in a mental institution, and tells the tales of how three particular patients arrived there. An artist is driven to murder by his own creations, a kid deals with his abusive parent by dreaming up a demon, and a doomsday prepper, locked in his own underground bunker, slowly loses what's left of his mind. The second segment is probably the best one, though they're all cool and creepy in a "Twilight Zone" kind of way. Robert Englund, Lacey ("Party of Five") Chabert, Lou Diamond Philips, and Malcolm McDowell appear to give this indie a little bit of star power. Not a must-see, but entertaining enough for a single night's viewing.

[RCMerchant]

EVEN HITLER HAD A GIRLFRIEND (1991)

A lonely overweight peeping Tom slob watch's porn, eats junk, tries hopelessly to get a date, whines about his miserable life, and blows all his money on hookers. This guy is so pathetic it's almost-almost- funny.
Title comes from when our hero is looking at a picture of Hitler and Eva Braun in a magazine causes him to moan- "Oh, maaan." Alternates between oddly funny to downright depressing. Grade Z exploitation is a must see for BAD movie nuts (like us).

The lead Andy Scott was later shot while working at a conveniance store.

[Trevor]

EVEN HITLER HAD A GIRLFRIEND (1991)
The lead Andy Scott was later shot while working at a conveniance store.

Yikes 

[Rev. Powell]

EVEN HITLER HAD A GIRLFRIEND (1991)

A lonely overweight peeping Tom slob watch's porn, eats junk, tries hopelessly to get a date, whines about his miserable life, and blows all his money on hookers. This guy is so pathetic it's almost-almost- funny.
Title comes from when looking at a picture of Hitler and Eva Braun in a magazine causes him to moan- "Oh, maaan." Alternates between oddly funny to downright depressing. Grade Z expliotation is a must see for BAD movie nuts (like us).

The lead Andy Scott was later shot while working at a conveniance store.

It's sort of a must-see.

[RCMerchant]

^ You've seen it?
I watched the sequel- the HITLER TAPES (1994) which is dam near unwatchable.

[lester1/2jr]

Maximum Overdrive - I can't believe I'd never seen this. Enjoyable, if a little silly, Stephan King adaption about how a comet flies over the Earth and this ends up making cars and other machines super sentient. "We made you!!" - a doomed truck stop waitress yells at some tyrannical big rigs.

Forget Steven Guttenberg: Emilio Estevez is the classic 80's actor. Between this, Breakfast Club, and Repo Man it's a wonder he hasn't run for president or something. The love interest chick is hot, even though she seems a little taller than him and of course being this era there are some great massive explosions. Why were the forces of evil so intent on menacing this one particular place in the middle of nowhere? I DON'T KNOW but I certainly don't care either

5/5

[M.10rda]

THE FOG (1980):
Repeat viewing of the John Carpenter, uh, classic. I was just going to play the opening w/ John Houseman for students, then an unexpected field trip robbed me of 75% of one class on Monday, so I played the first and last 20 minutes on a seasonal whim.

Often there are debates on this site about when Carpenter started to jump the shark. Recently PRINCE OF DARKNESS took some shots. Lots of folks like IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS but I've always felt like the 90s were one continuous nose-dive for John. Amidst the legendary streak of DARK STAR, ASSAULT ON P16, HALLOWEEN, ESCAPE FROM NY, and THE THING, we all tend to overlook that THE FOG is kind of a....... huge dud!

It looks great (Dean Cundey on the freaking job here), it sounds great, and it has a cool cast. Fatal flaw the first, though: Carpenter must've read too many reviews praising HALLOWEEN for its extremely long, slow, action-light build-up (to an admittedly taut climax) and declared "HOLD MY BEER!", then perversely committed to making a hyperminimalist follow-up where literally nothing happens (mostly in broad daylight) for 50 whole minutes. I showed my class just the opening 19 and final 20, and they were in no way confused by anything we skipped.   I'll also insist that not a single member of the cool cast - not Barbeau, Holbrook, Atkins, Curtis, or Leigh - had any idea whatsoever what they were running away and cowering from or why during those last twenty minutes. They all just stagger from door to window, staring offscreen with stunned expressions, sometimes flailing halfheartedly at a disembodied arm. No real terror, no sense of stakes. The old lady's (presumed) death is bungled in the sort of mishandled editing that predicts the later mangling of the restaurant axe attack from ITMOM. Then there's one more counterintuitive shock-kill at the end, but the rest of the ensemble just wanders off unaffected. Mist notwithstanding, the climax is all wet.

FWIW, non-discriminating high schoolers who haven't seen tons of horror movies but would rather watch movies than do work thought it was fine, though nothing special. In this one regard, they're a little too kind!
2/5

A minor supporting character is named "Dan O'Bannon" though, so that's worth a chuckle.

[Jim H]

Saw 1-9

Phew, we watched all of these in about a week.  I'd seen 1-3 before, but none of the others.  Super fast:

1 - Decent concept and well made, I like it.  The closest to being an actually good movie.
2 - Not great, but still entertaining
3 - Getting sillier, but a decent concept
4-7 Progressively sillier and more ridiculous.  7 is really bad but also fun bad, visually looks like a TV movie or something, and has some really bad acting.  Very gory.
8 (AKA Jigsaw) - Much better production values and visual direction, but still very silly.
9 (Spiral) - Bad, and in writing terms is arguably not even a Saw movie.  Chris Rock is a bad actor, why is he the lead again?

Also here's an amazing image of Tobin Bell from Saw 7, where he needs to look younger in flashback.

[lester1/2jr]

In Search of Dracula (1974) - Christopher Lee hosts this interesting and colorful documentary about the real Vlad as well as the phenom of Bram Stoker's creation. As everyone knows to some extent or other, Vlad the Impaler was a horrible guy who, well, impaled a lot of people. One time a dinner guest complained about the odor of the impaled victims, so Vlad responded by having him impaled but on a higher position so he didn't have to smell the massive odor of insane death. There are some short reenactments and so forth. It led into a documentary on Bela Lugosi that I'm watching now. Tubi wins again

5/5

[lester1/2jr]

Lugosi: The Curse of Dracula (1984) - Forrest J Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and literary agent to many sci fi authors, is the host of this informative, well paced, if a little cheap looking documentary. There's a ton of old film and interview footage. Lugosi was a big actor in Hungary and eventually made his way to the US, where he played Dracula and was typecast therein as a villain. He had a lot of success, including tons of letters from horny female fans, but always wanted to play other sort of roles and couldn't. He fell on hard times at the end and, as we all know, ended up at the bottom of the totem pole working with Ed Wood Jr.

Lots of old clips and perspective from people who knew and cared about him and his legacy.

5/5

[RCMerchant]

^ I have that on vhs. 

[RCMerchant]

In Search of Dracula (1974) - Christopher Lee hosts this interesting and colorful documentary about the real Vlad as well as the phenom of Bram Stoker's creation. As everyone knows to some extent or other, Vlad the Impaler was a horrible guy who, well, impaled a lot of people. One time a dinner guest complained about the odor of the impaled victims, so Vlad responded by having him impaled but on a higher position so he didn't have to smell the massive odor of insane death. There are some short reenactments and so forth. It led into a documentary on Bela Lugosi that I'm watching now. Tubi wins again

5/5

Just watched that on Tubi too! 

[RCMerchant]

Maximum Overdrive - I can't believe I'd never seen this. Enjoyable, if a little silly, Stephan King adaption about how a comet flies over the Earth and this ends up making cars and other machines super sentient. "We made you!!" - a doomed truck stop waitress yells at some tyrannical big rigs.

Forget Steven Guttenberg: Emilio Estevez is the classic 80's actor. Between this, Breakfast Club, and Repo Man it's a wonder he hasn't run for president or something. The love interest chick is hot, even though she seems a little taller than him and of course being this era there are some great massive explosions. Why were the forces of evil so intent on menacing this one particular place in the middle of nowhere? I DON'T KNOW but I certainly don't care either

5/5

The mousy girl in the Volkswagon- (why didn't the Bug go crazy? It's the only car in the movie that didn't) did the voice of Bart Simpson years later!

[zombie no.one]

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES

Not sure why I'd never seen this. brilliantly weird and unique. kind of a slasher at hearr

[lester1/2jr]

RC- frankly I can see why she didn't make it as a regular actress