Recent viewings

[claws]

The Dark (1979)

Female TV Reporter teams up with the father of a murder victim, and together they try to track down a serial killer who's been decapitating and mutilating people every night in L.A. Soon enough a psychic who receives visions gives confusing advice, and two eager cops investigating complicate matters.

Sci-Fi Horror that seems to be a bit all over the place, plot-wise. This movie went through a few changes (from Serial Killer flick to intended Zombie flick to altered in post-production Evil Alien flick) and the outcome appears rushed, as many scenes had to be cut or edited while adding new footage. Not perfect but entertaining, the mutant killer looks creepy and they took some time for character development including blooming romance. 3.5/5

Shock (1977)

Woman moves with new husband and her little son from a previous marriage into an old house. Soon enough the boy gets possessed by the spirit of his dead father and all sorts of paranormal things start to happen.

Nearly flawless Italian horror done right, including the slightly obnoxious but still charming Euro-kid character with at times unintentional funny dubbing. Lots of creepy scenes and moody atmosphere plus Daria Nicolodi giving above average performance as a woman on the edge. 4.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

PLUS ONE (+1) (2013): Doppelgangers crash the party of the year. Not a bad premise, but an adolescent execution. 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Garfield Gets Real" (2007)- in this awkward CGI toon, the famed comic strip cat accidentally stumbles out of the printed page and into the "real" world. Then he and his dog buddy Odie have to find their way "home" before their strip gets permanently cancelled.
My 7 year old enjoyed this one but anyone older than that will probably find it a tough slog. The tone is shrill, the animation sucks and it's packed with unfunny new characters. Avoid! !

[fulci420]

Homefront (2013) A former DEA agent (Jason Statham) starts a new life in a small town with his young daughter. However their dreams of riding horses and living peacefully are threatened when meth kingpin Gator Bodine (James Franco) begins to harass the family. It's fairly predictable what happens from here but solid pacing and all around good performances make it enjoyable. While not as outrageous as his turn in Spring Breakers Franco makes for a memorable villain here.

Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for this one as a Rambo sequel and it does feel very much like the kind of action movie that was popular in the 70's and 80's. If anything i kind of wish that this was made back in the day with Stallone in the starring role. There was a sense of fun and willingness to be cheesy in those classic action movies that is lacking today. Statham is fine but lacks that unique spark that stars like Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Charles Bronson brought to their work. This is a fine action movie that shows that Stallone is a solid screenwriter but it's predictability and somewhat uninspired direction make it a forgettable film.

[Rev. Powell]

3 WOMEN (1977): Wide-eyed Pinky (Sissy Spacek) latches onto delusional Millie (Shelly Duval) until an accident causes a radical personality shift. Fascinating, subtly unnerving psychological mystery that provides a bridge between PERSONA (1966) and LOST HIGHWAY (1997). 5/5.

[claws]

Aftershock (2012) (Blu-ray)

An American (Eli Roth) on holiday in Chile traveling with two local dudes hook up with three vacationing young women. While visiting a night club there's an earthquake causing (naturally) death and destruction. Now the six must fight their way to safety, followed by a group of murdering thugs and an approaching tsunami.

Uneven disaster-horror lacking smarts which is usually found in any Eli Roth script. The set up is very much like Hostel but instead of torture porn the viewer gets a dose of wretched disaster porn. Apparently they went overboard with the violence and gore, and the MPAA slapped the movie with an NC-17 rating. For the theatrical release they had to tone it down to an R-Rating.
The only sympathetic character is played by Eli Roth, the rest I didn't care for. Anyway, this could have been much much better. Something good did come out of this however, Roth used most of the cast and crew for his own movie The Green Inferno, also set in Chile. Rating: 2.5/5

[fulci420]

Office Killer(1997)Attempting comedy and horror while completely failing at both this was really bad. You've got your meek constantly bullied office worker who flips her wig and starts bumping off various people and then hangs out with them in her basement. She even kills some girl scouts, are you laughing yet? I guess director Cindy Sherman (a famed NYC photographer who has thankfully stayed away from film since) thought it would be because there's nary a joke or thrill for the excruciating 80 minutes. With serious pace issues at that short a length its not surprising that Mirimax deemed this unreleasable.

Thursday(1998) Director Skip Woods would go on to have quite the writing career in hollywood (Swordfish, X men Origins, Good Day to Die Hard) but it all started with this
Tarantino rip off. Thomas Jane is trying to start a new life for himself but when old pal Aaron Eckhart shows up everything goes to hell. Turns out Tom Jane is not too pleased when Eckhart leaves a suitcase of heroin in his house (and then promptly leaves to go on a drive) so he puts it all down the garbage disposal. A bunch of wackos then proceed to come by the house and try to find the heroin.

Almost never do I take points off a movie for implied racism/sexism, but here its so in your face that it leaves quite a distasteful taste in your mouth. Every female is a "b***h" and every black person is a "n****r" in this terrible screenplay in which everyone is always screaming. Really you take out the stereotypes and the Tarantino rips and you would probably have 20 minutes tops. I think Aaron Eckhart does a good job as the villain but go watch "In The Company of Men" if that's what your looking for.

Bloody Birthday(1981)A lunar eclipse causes three kids born on the same day to become killers. Read about this movie on websites like this for years but never got around to seeing it till the other day. Watched it with a friend and we had a great time laughing all the way through it.

Got to love the sheer variety of weapons this little freaks use to menace the town (everything from ant poison to junkyard cars/fridges). Crucial for any killer kids movie the children do a great job in really making the audience want them to be killed.

[Jack]

Doomsday (2008) - the entire population of Scotland is wiped out by some new virus, but England manages to build a wall and successfully keep the virus from entering their country. Until now... Luckily satellite imagery shows that a few people are still alive in Scotland so an elite team of commandos is sent in to try and find a cure. Pretty much every review of this says it's a mash-up of Escape From New York, The Road Warrior and Resident Evil, and that's exactly what it is. They sometimes insert plot elements that don't really make any sense, simply because they were in those other movies. It can't decide what tone it wants to go with either; for quite a while it will be completely serious and believable but every once in a while it switches to over-the-top cheesiness that destroys your suspension of disbelief rather rudely. It was pretty entertaining overall though. Rhona Mitra does a very good job with her lead commando character and other than a few stumbles, the action moves along at a decent pace. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Time After Time (1979) - Not a Cyndi Lauper biopic, instead it's a sci fi romance thriller (not really most of those things) that's a bit of a misfire. HG Wells builds a time machine in his basement which his friend who turns out to be Jack the Ripper takes into the future. (note: Why does Jack send the thing BACK into time so Wells can chase him?) Wells goes to San Francisco and does just that. Ripper murders some whores and Wells falls in love wit a boring woman.

The problem with this movie is it can't decide if it wants to be R, PG, or G. Most of the time it's between the last two. All sorts of hilarious and entertaining things could happen that would blow a 19th century person's mind in then modern day SF but we don't really see any of them. It's well written, logical and well acted but it's boring. I wasn't expecting a Something Weird adventure but so much time is taken with him getting to know the future lady and her loving his old fashioned Britishness and blah blah blah. if ever a movie needed a kick in the ass this was it.

It wasn't horrible though and is not a half assed effort, just not super entertaining. 3/5 some might rate it higher

[FatFreddysCat]

"Josie and the Pu$$ycats" (2001) - in this wacky satire of the music industry, a struggling all girl rock band (led by the cute-as-a-button Rachael Leigh Cook as "Josie") is plucked from obscurity and groomed for instant superstardom by a major record label with sinister purposes.

Based on the long running Archie comic series and 70s cartoon show, "Josie" gets some good jabs in at the practice of advertising/product placement in pop culture, and believe it or not some of the Pu$$ycats' songs are actually pretty rockin' stuff!

[Javakoala]

Zombie Hunter--2013

Some movies just try too hard to show how hip they are. This movie should be Exhibit A. The only thing I enjoyed was Danny Trejo, and he seemed to be ad-libbing most of his lines. All of the characters were annoying, especially the stripper-type lady. It's sad when you feel a sense of elation when a character that you are supposed to care for dies.

Most of the dialogue came from quotes from far better films. The mega zombies were copied from the Resident Evil games. The CGI was almost as bad as what I could do with 2 hours of training...ugh, almost as bad as Sucker Punch. I couldn't take it seriously or as a send-up of these kinds of movies.

And how is it that, after civilization is wiped out, there are always apparent tons of cigarettes to be had? I don't get it.

[lester1/2jr]

Bright Lights Big City - This was one of those movies like Fatal Attraction that you used to see at video stores all the time. It's not as good as FA though, not by a long shot. It wasn't as bad as, say, Streets of Fire but it was pretty disappointing. It's basically Michael J Fox taking an acting class for nearly 2 hours. The sets are corny, it has none of the energy of New York City, the nightclubs, stock market any of that stuff. MJF is too nice for this role. Keifer Sutherland does an adequate job as his coke snorting buddy, Phoebe Cates looks good but is only in it briefly. the best actor is probably the kid who plays his younger brother and he's in it for even less time.

There are a couple okay scenes here and there and it's not awful but "never rises to the occasion" pretty much covers it. "mildly engaging" finishes the job 3/5

[fulci420]

Picked up a book at the library about Asian Horror/Cult films which made me realize that aside from a few titles I have not really seen many of these movies at all. Thankfully almost all of the movies mentioned are on youtube, so I decided to check some out starting with...

Evil Dead Trap (1988)After recieving a snuff video in the mail a reporter and her crew go out to the location (an abandoned factory filled with creepy blue lighting) to investigate. The directors clearly did their horror homework for this one as it's absolutely packed with homages/rip offs of the directors that came before. The lighting, music and atmosphere is pure Dario Argento. The gore is all close up intensity ala Lucio Fulci ie lots of eyeball abuse. Added to the mix we have some hyper kinetic camerawork a clear nod to Sam Raimi's approach to the medium. All of these elements combining with an utter weirdness that only Asian cinema can deliver surely equals a classic right?

Well yes and no. Every mention of this film I have read in various books on horror have pretty much showered it with praise which certainly affected my expectations. In terms of sheer style this movie is a 10. The filmmakers basically picked and chose through other directors bag of tricks and created a visually fantastic work. The murder scenes in the first 45 minutes are some of the best that the genre has to offer. Despite all of these I find myself very much underwhelmed and that is due to what happens outside of those marvelous horror setpieces. This movie has severe pacing issues and is far too front loaded. There are some neat sets and weird things that happen in the second half but they are dwarfed by the strength and dense going on's of those first 45. Although its a criticism I find lazy I must go to what I felt and that's that i just felt bored for the most part. For every great 5 minutes of wonderful Argentoism's there are 10 of mundane inane discussions and generally wandering around aimlessly. Not to say that Argento's film don't suffer from the same problems but overall I feel this is a stylishly fantastic but overall overrated picture.

Evil Dead Trap [ 死霊ã�®ç½  ] Sub Eng

[Rev. Powell]

Picked up a book at the library about Asian Horror/Cult films which made me realize that aside from a few titles I have not really seen many of these movies at all. Thankfully almost all of the movies mentioned are on youtube, so I decided to check some out starting with...

What's the name of the book? This one got me into the genre but it's a bit older and out-of-date:

[Rev. Powell]

THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS (1984): A female serf is spurned by her lover, becomes a fortune teller, and tells the czar how he can rebuild the eternally crumbling Suram fortress. Extremely stylized retelling of a Georgian folktale full of visual poetry and mystical interludes; fans of Alejandro Jodorowsky will appreciate it. 4/5.