Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

Clash By Night (1952) - This depressing melodrama is noteable for 2 1/2 things. First Marilyn Monroe is in it. Second it's directed by Fritz Lang and the half is Barbara Stanwyck, who had been in movies going back to the pre code days and is just a little too old for the part she's playing here. It's one of those movies where you wish a missile would just land on everyone and end their misery.

grizzled and street smart as usual Stanwyck is a woman who's seen the world and comes back to her small port town because she has no other options. She takes up with a local fisherman but doesn't love him and is tempted by Robert Ryan who is a rather one dimensional method acting James Dean-style guy that ovulating woman want type. He's a big rebel because he talks walks around being a dick okay. Marilyn Monroe looks great but is just okay as a factory girl. There should have been a lot more of her and her boyfriend they were much less depressing than the main couple. Ryan seems like he's out of Stanwycks league. They do this sometimes in old movies. Theres one movie where a guy chooses Bette Davis over Marilyn Monroe which is really intriguing to consider.

I think this might have gone over better in Germany than here. It's a bummer of movie where people are humiliated and sad while other people are just walking around getting drunk and falling over. There's a TON of dialogue Stanwyck especially seems to express just about every emotion she has in a given scene. If you enjoy seeing people being emasculated and frustrated and slowly cooked over hot coals check it out. glad I saw it but wouldnt watch it again.

3.75/5 theres a good deal of depth in places but some weird casting and too torturous vibe

[indianasmith]

KRUEL (2014) - I expected this to be a low-budget cheesefest, based on the dude wearing creepy clown make-up on the DVD cover lurking behind a hot chick, and the fact that it was released by Brain Damage Films' cousin company, Midnight Releasing.  It turned out to be less of a horror film and more of a low budget murder/suspense flick with pretensions of being a "serious" movie.

Jo is a young college girl who is out on a date with her boyfriend Ben when he reveals that he has cheated on her, so she throws a fit and he takes her home, neither of them noticing the shadowy figure lurking outside the car listening.  As the story goes on, we learn that Jo is a nanny for a couple of young children who live a few blocks over.  The new ice cream man in town shows up a couple days later and scares one of the kids so badly that he refuses to buy ice cream thereafter; when Jo goes down to confront him he flirts with her in a very creepy way.

Not long after, Ben comes by while the kids are playing in the yard and asks to talk; they get in a huge argument and while she is distracted the younger of the two boys disappears.  The police think he fell in the river and drowned when they find his sneakers in the water's edge; the kids' mom blames Jo, and no one pays any attention to her suspicions that the ice cream man did it.

The rest of the movie is spent with her and Ben trying to prove that Willy, the creepy ice cream man, abducted the little boy, and eventually Ben is killed and Jo abducted by Willy, leaving her dad to try and find her.

This whole thing was well shot and had some pretty decent dialogue, but Lordy! it was slow.  There just wasn't enough blood or gore to call it a horror film; if not for about a two second boob shot it could have been shown on the Lifetime Network.  The director tried; it had some good moments, but it just dragged a bit too much in the middle. 3.5/5

[Jack]

Fear the Forest (2009) - some kids eventually go out to the woods for a camping trip, but a rather comical looking bigfoot attacks them and it's not long before we're down to the last girl. Then she gets captured by a couple of hillbillys who want to rape her, but bigfoot gets rid of them too. Then she gets captured by some other nutcase who's a serial killer - talk about a lousy week   She's the governor's daughter so we get lots of filler scenes with her dad doing press conferences and other totally irrelevant crap. This was real Z grade junk with bad acting and just bad everything. The lead girl was kind of cute at least. 2/5.



^ Bigfoot and little bigfoot.

[FatFreddysCat]

"3 Headed Shark Attack" (2015)

http://youtu.be/WK4TKbwJjRI
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Asylum/SyFy's follow up to "2 Headed Shark Attack" tells you everything you need to know in the title. A mutant triple-headed shark - the byproduct of massive oceanic pollution - chomps on a whole bunch of people at an undersea research station and then goes after a party boat packed with drunken twenty-somethings. Yup, that's it. Not even a late inning appearance by Danny "Machete" Trejo can save this one. At least the original "2 Headed Shark" film had Brooke Hogan in it to provide eye candy. This one is just pointless, plotless ultra violent junk.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox" (2013)

http://youtu.be/xe0JiobQ98o
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Another cool entry in the "JL" animated film series focusing on the Flash, who trips through the time barrier after a battle with Professor Zoom and winds up in an alternate reality where there's no Superman, Batman is even more dangerous and psycho than usual, and the entire world is threatened by a war between Aquaman's Atlantean kingdom and Wonder Woman's Amazons.  Nicely animated as usual with lotsa blasting and zapping.

[Rev. Powell]

DER SAMURAI (2014): A young policeman in a rural German area searches for a wolf that has been terrorizing the countryside, but his investigation leads him to a cross-dressing samurai instead. I have no idea what Der Samurai is supposed to symbolize, but I like the fact that Pit Bukoski plays the role like he's Klaus Kiniski's grandson. 3.5/5 (though I suspect many will find it annoying)

[claws]

Under the Skin (2013)

Easy prey: a young woman is luring and seducing men with the promise of possible sex at "her place" (abandoned house). Once inside there is no turning back - the men are held in some sort of bizarre suspended animation. Lost, irritated and overwhelmed by observing human behavior the woman meets an honest and friendly man who takes her in on a rainy day. It's the beginning of a change, with fatal consequences.
Slow burning Arthouse Sci-Fi Horror/Thriller starring Scarlett Johansson and a cast of Scottish men. You'll probably need to turn on subtitles to understand what they are saying. I know I did. Intersting movie quite trippy at times. 4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Zombie Shark" (2015)

Note: I know I usually post a video with each of my "reviews," but I couldn't do that this time...cuz this movie was so lame that SyFy didn't even bother to put its trailer on YouTube!

A trio of barrel-boobed Hooters waitress types and their dorky male friend head to a resort island for a weekend of fun, which is rudely interrupted by an escaped government project - a shark with the ability to regenerate itself every time it's been "killed." To make matters worse, any creature - human or shark - that gets bitten by this critter turns into a zombie as well. Yeah, I hate when that happens too.

Aside from "Mega Shark vs. Kolossus," SyFy's "Sharknado Week 2015" offerings have all been pretty dire thus far but "Zombie Shark" may be the bottom of the barrel. I can't say that for sure quite yet, though, because I haven't had time to subject myself to "Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf.". [:D]

[Jack]

I only made it halfway through Zombie shark.  The two lead females were major b***hes and the shark stuff was sooooooooo lame.

[lester1/2jr]

Ex Machina - more timely than Under The Skin, less ridiculous than Lucy. Might be excessively simple for those looking for something more escapist and action oriented, but if you are a sci fi fan it who enjoyed either of those you definitely need to see this as it appears most here have.

The setting gives a lot of indications about the movie itself: most of the action takes place at a house way out in the wilderness that one has to take a helicopter to. The nature is pristine and the house is simple but it's loaded with technology. The movie is the same way: the tone is very relaxed but the special effects are front and center. Specifically Ava the robot, who is created by mixing a real actress with computer stuff.

The real hook of the movie is how you buy Ava as a robot. They do a great job of building up the idea that by putting tons and tons of information into a computer you can make a person, basically. We've all heard stuff about the cerebral cortex and God and nature but what does it all mean really? We have this thing called the internet where they can suck up information from around the world and process it an analyze it. they can make programs to analyze the programs to analyze the programs and on and on. Most of us have probably encountered people who aren't very complex, it's not a big jump to think they could put something together that would be at least fairly close, maybe moreso with the brain and the responses than the skin or general appearence.

The problem though is as we see even in movies like the much less sophisticated Demon Seed (1977): once you give something enough human characteristics and qualities its going to seek the things humans seek. Since it has a billion brains or whatever, its probably going to be pretty good at it, too. Then what do you do? You're better off with your hand.

Sci Fi is what it is, there are only so many things it can say but if you don't think this is state of the art I'd like to see what is

5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

I only made it halfway through Zombie shark.  The two lead females were major b***hes and the shark stuff was sooooooooo lame.

Believe me, it didn't get any better in the second half. 

Unfortunately my Movie Watchers' O.C.D. demanded that I stick with it thru to the end, in spite of how awful the movie was.

[indianasmith]

THE UNWANTED (2014) A remake of the classic vampire film CARMILLA, set in the rural South, this was a fun and enjoyable movie that downplayed the vampire element somewhat.  Laura is a lonely country girl who works at a small town diner; she lives with her widowed father and is a serial cutter.  Carmilla is a redhead who rides to town on a bus, looking for information about her long-lost mother.  Laura's dad knows something but he isn't talking.  Meanwhile Laura, who has a hard time with relationships, develops a friendship with Carmilla that leads to them becoming lovers.  However, she can't get off without drinking some blood from her partner, something Carmilla doesn't seem to mind sharing in.  But Dad begins to suspect that history is repeating itself, as Carmilla's mother had seduced his wife years before, and he had exacted a bloody revenge.

This one was different, I'll give  it that.  Both girls were lovely, which made it easy to watch, but even at that, some of the blood drinking was uncomfortable to look at - becaue they weren't really vampires, just two very messed up young ladies.  I think. At any rate, a well-done, well-acted film.

[Jack]

Scream Park (2012) - some kids work at an amusement park which is being closed down. After their last night they decide to have a party, but then some mysterious masked killers show up and ruin their evening. This wasn't a bad little slasher at all, it really seemed like it could have been made in the '80s if not for somebody putting some crummy death metal on the boombox at one point.  The atmosphere was pretty decent, the characters weren't bad and the kills were at least somewhat creative. Pretty fun little movie overall. 3.5/5.

[Trevor]

Fear the Forest (2009)

 

[El Misfit]

Kung Fury, a throw back to the 80's kung fu movies as well as Sci fi, it just screams 80's.

http://youtu.be/bS5P_LAqiVg
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