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DR. BUTCHER M.D. (1980)

Hilarous cannibal zombie movie which brought nothing new to the genre, even at this early stage of the genre, but lotsa gory fun. The boat motor in the face scene is a stand out.

I had it on VHS way back when, so it was a fun reminder of those days.



It's on the PLEX Rocku TV channel.

NEW YORK RIPPER (1982)
Fulci is just as gory and a lot more sleazier in this confusing movie about a serial killer in NYC (me home town!) who- yes- talks in a Donald Duck voice. Why? Watch this nasty mess to find out if you have the stomach.

2 of my absolute favourites here  

NYR is without doubt my fav Fulci movie

DR B MD (or ZH) is my favourite 'zombie movie' if it can even be called that?

I just rewatched Mad Max. 
Like a rough draft for the Road Warrior, which is vastly superior. 

I also watched Insidious: The Last Key.  Have to say I don't really care for this series very much, but my wife likes them so here I go.  All of them are badly written with bad characters and the same jump scare setups over and over.  You'll occasionally get some decently creepy scenes, buts also really unclear what the rules of the setting are, like you have no idea what's going on.  For my money, the other James Wan involved spooky series, The Conjuring, especially the first one, is a lot better.  You understand what is happening much better, the creepy parts are built up to and set up, the jump scares are more effective, and the characters especially are MUCH better written. 

A lot in the above that I can get behind! 

I saw ROAD WARRIOR (and probably THUNDERDOME) first as a kid, then MAD MAX, and was also very disappointed. I did revisit it a couple years ago and liked it much more than I had originally. but it is often slow and thin. The good bits are very good, however. And of course eventually it allowed Miller to make FURY ROAD. 

I often think I'm in a minority (in many ways, but among those) in that I find almost nothing to like about the INSIDIOUS films and also find THE CONJURING universe highly overrated. I do agree that the CONJURING-propers (not ANNABELLE, THE NUN, etc) are better written and better acted, but I don't find them scary in the least. I skipped the first two INSIDIOUS entries for about 5 years until I felt inundated w/ reviews calling one or both "the scariest film of" etc etc. So I pulled the trigger. O BROTHER! Who are these people who get frightened by these movies? Not prolific horror viewers, I guess. There is that one, single famous jump scare of the demon face OTS in the first movie that is reasonable legit, though not remotely as scary as similar moments in multiple David Lynch films. Really, as a shock technician, James Wan is an amateur!

I just rewatched Mad Max.  Had been ages since I saw the original film.  Opinion hasn't changed a whole lot.  It's worth a watch, but with its one foot in reality and character stuff...  Just doesn't work as well as the sequels.  Good villain, some memorable scenes, good action sequences, great ending, but a lot of the storyline barely exists, character motivations are thin, it's weirdly underwritten, it's just very rough.  Like a rough draft for the Road Warrior, which is vastly superior.

I agree with you on this take. And something else that happened to me when watching it, although I may be wrong because it was a long time: didn't you felt like the movie wasn't post-apocalyptic enough? At one point they even go to an ice cream store, for example. If you skipped the first "explanation" of the background the whole movie may as well take place in some random modern city with lots of crime.

I haven't seen it in a long time, but my impression is Mad Max takes place just as civilization is collapsing and barely hanging on; by the time of Road Warrior some years later, things have totally gone to anarchy. I don't think Mad Max was meant to be post-apocalyptic, but pre-post-apocalyptic. I liked that time period, in some ways its more interesting than the post-apocalyptic world.

Indeed Rev, civilisation hasn't actually fallen until the second movie.

Wow, that's some nostalgia. Hadn't listened to this one since I was a teenager. It actually holds up. Bonus material (demos and live tracks) is nothing special. 

I just rewatched Mad Max.  Had been ages since I saw the original film.  Opinion hasn't changed a whole lot.  It's worth a watch, but with its one foot in reality and character stuff...  Just doesn't work as well as the sequels.  Good villain, some memorable scenes, good action sequences, great ending, but a lot of the storyline barely exists, character motivations are thin, it's weirdly underwritten, it's just very rough.  Like a rough draft for the Road Warrior, which is vastly superior.

I agree with you on this take. And something else that happened to me when watching it, although I may be wrong because it was a long time: didn't you felt like the movie wasn't post-apocalyptic enough? At one point they even go to an ice cream store, for example. If you skipped the first "explanation" of the background the whole movie may as well take place in some random modern city with lots of crime.

I haven't seen it in a long time, but my impression is Mad Max takes place just as civilization is collapsing and barely hanging on; by the time of Road Warrior some years later, things have totally gone to anarchy. I don't think Mad Max was meant to be post-apocalyptic, but pre-post-apocalyptic. I liked that time period, in some ways its more interesting than the post-apocalyptic world.

The film of AMERICAN PSYCHO could not be any more different from the book, imo. In terms of tone. I found the book intensely downbeat, claustrophobic, and extremely dark… the film was more like a borderline parody?

Oh don't get me started. Okay, you got me started. The novel is one of my favorite books - yes, extremely dark, downbeat, claustrophobic, far more graphic and sadistic than the movie, and yet also much, much, much funnier....... perhaps apropos to the recent conversation about Kubrick's use of humor in CLOCKWORK ORANGE. (Kubrick would've been an ideal director for AMERICAN PSYCHO, actually...)

The element that permits levity amidst the horrific violence is one I suspect even Mary Harron (oy) might've overlooked: in the novel (SPOILER), Patrick Bateman is not a prolific serial killer and in fact has likely harmed exactly no one, at least physically. (He does say some unkind things to his girlfriend, but she's no peach herself.) Rather the novel is a pretty comprehensive and profound illustration of a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote which accompanies the early editions iirc: "...Our own rejected thoughts... they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." Patrick Bateman is a sad, desperate, lonely, frustrated man, but only a threat to himself. Maybe that explains why women (or I, a male reader) could feel sympathy or even affinity for Bateman. I don't have much in common w/ him but I have felt sad, desperate, lonely, and frustrated, and have been a threat only to myself. Sometimes ladies actually go for that! Bateman's  girl next door assistant Jean in the novel (Chloe Sevigny onscreen) still likes him at the end.

Also he's Christian Bale in the movie! That never hurts w/ the ladies. I would alter nearly every aspect of the film to closer resemble the book - except Bale. Bale is perfect - or close enough - and since he's onscreen nearly 100% of the time, his virtuoso work carries the project. It's every other element surrounding him that could use a complete rethinking or (minimally) a tonal adjustment.

(There's a confession of a sort for y'all!)

I just rewatched Mad Max.  Had been ages since I saw the original film.  Opinion hasn't changed a whole lot.  It's worth a watch, but with its one foot in reality and character stuff...  Just doesn't work as well as the sequels.  Good villain, some memorable scenes, good action sequences, great ending, but a lot of the storyline barely exists, character motivations are thin, it's weirdly underwritten, it's just very rough.  Like a rough draft for the Road Warrior, which is vastly superior.

I agree with you on this take. And something else that happened to me when watching it, although I may be wrong because it was a long time: didn't you felt like the movie wasn't post-apocalyptic enough? At one point they even go to an ice cream store, for example. If you skipped the first "explanation" of the background the whole movie may as well take place in some random modern city with lots of crime.

One of the rare South African horror genre films, banned for many years and sourced from a unique 35mm print.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNd8igxGm_A	Small | Large

It might be taken down soon.

[The Mean One.]

The Mean One.

A similar sort of concept to the recent Blood & Honey Winnie the Pooh movie, although one that is much better. If nothing else it can at least claim some level of understanding of its source material.

"An Eye For An Eye" (1981)
A San Francisco cop (Chuck Norris) embarks on a mission of vengeance to bring down the Chinese Triad gang who killed his partner.
A pretty standard "Dirty Harry" style action flick, Chuck was still learning how to act so his performance is typically wooden but the stunts and action sequences are on point. Not a top drawer Chuck flick, but worth checking out.

Andrew published my review of it for us on here: my first published work.