Recent viewings

[JaseSF]

Knowing (2009): M.I.T. professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) finds a mysterious link between a series of disasters and a list of numbers scrawled by a child on a piece of paper and placed in a time capsule 50 years ago when his young son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) receives said list in a special ceremony to pass the contents of the capsule on to kids fifty years in the future. Does this list actually predict several impending disasters or is John Koestler losing his grip on reality? Even worse, does the list in fact hold the key to predicting the end of the world?

There was some great potential in this film but ultimately it doesn't offer up anything truly original. It actually proves most memorable for its closeness to plane and subway train crashes although the FX don't always prove fully convincing. Cage gives his usual manic over the top performance and if you're a fan of Cage, you might get some enjoyment out of that (otherwise you probably won't). I could see the ending coming a mile away but did like some of the look, atmosphere, and design (some of its cinematography, the look of the Whisper people, the final scenes) involved but it's a relentless sad movie in so many ways, much more so than I think was the intention. Has its moments but ultimately disappoints. Still I'd give it ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

Five (1951): Following a catastrophic bomb that seemingly wipes out nearly all animal life on the planet, we watch five different survivors from different backgrounds and beliefs come together to try and survive the nightmarish aftermath. However and perhaps inevitably, characters begin to clash with one another particularly sensitive and thoughtful Michael (William Phipps), who wants to try and eke a quiet living farming what they can on a remote Californian mountaintop whose beliefs clash with elitist and decadent Eric (James Anderson) who seems to subscribe to fascist beliefs and envisions himself as the proper leader and wants to steal whatever they need from the cities nearby. In the middle of all this is Roseanne (Susan Douglas Rubes), a pregnant woman and Charles (Charles Lampkin), a black man.

This was a surprisingly good little film. It has a sort of claustrophobic feel to it at times despite being set mostly outside. The cinematography does recall some other black and white films of the era and the use of close-ups sometimes proves somewhat startling and haunting especially when we see unsettling images of skeletons where we expect to see people. The use of sound proves important here too as we hear haunting, almost ghostly sounds of warning sirens going off in the cities. The focus is much more on people interacting with one another here in the wake of what has happened. A very thoughtful film, definitely one of the earliest of its kind about an end of the world scenario. **** out of ***** stars.

[indianasmith]

PARANORMAL ISLAND (2015)  A college student attempting to debunk claims of hauntings gets a job as a bartender on a "haunted island" which is actually a working bar in the middle of a resort lake.  Everyone goes there to party, but when the bar shuts down at midnight, everyone, employees included, gets off the island as fast as possible because "bad stuff happens after hours."  OF COURSE he and his buds get stranded on the island after closing the first night!  Too bad you can't see any of the 'bad stuff' because it's TOO DARNED DARK TO SEE ANYTHING for the entire movie!  Zero plot, no likable characters, no decent scares, no gore, no nudity, not a single redeeming B-movie feature!  AVOID! 1/5

[dean]

Knowing (2009): M.I.T. professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) finds a mysterious link between a series of disasters and a list of numbers scrawled by a child on a piece of paper and placed in a time capsule 50 years ago when his young son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) receives said list in a special ceremony to pass the contents of the capsule on to kids fifty years in the future. Does this list actually predict several impending disasters or is John Koestler losing his grip on reality? Even worse, does the list in fact hold the key to predicting the end of the world?

There was some great potential in this film but ultimately it doesn't offer up anything truly original. It actually proves most memorable for its closeness to plane and subway train crashes although the FX don't always prove fully convincing. Cage gives his usual manic over the top performance and if you're a fan of Cage, you might get some enjoyment out of that (otherwise you probably won't). I could see the ending coming a mile away but did like some of the look, atmosphere, and design (some of its cinematography, the look of the Whisper people, the final scenes) involved but it's a relentless sad movie in so many ways, much more so than I think was the intention. Has its moments but ultimately disappoints. Still I'd give it ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

I enjoyed this one. Mostly because it was filmed partly at my old high school and it was a trip seeing all my old hangouts on a big screen American film.

[Jack]

Debug (2014) - some people go to a great big spaceship which has been out of service for some time; their job is to debug the computer system and then reboot the whole thing and get it ready for use again. But of course there's a killer AI program loose in the system which makes their job just a little bit harder. I thought this was pretty good, it had a moderately interesting plot, decent enough characters and good atmosphere. The ending was kind of meh, but overall a pretty enjoyable time. 4/5.

[Jack]

Mardi Gras Massacre (1978) - a guy in New Orleans is picking up hookers and sacrificing them to some Aztec god. It's up to the cops (one of whom starts dating a hooker) to stop him before Mardi Gras arrives and he sacrifices three more hookers. This was pretty fun, screwy as can be with tons of nudity (which I couldn't really get a good look at on the crummy YouTube video ). I enjoyed it though. 3.5/5.

Prom Night II (1987) - back in '57 May Lou was burned to death just as she was being elected prom queen. Flash forward 30 years and it's prom time again, and May Lou's spirit takes over the girl who's likely to be elected prom queen, and all heck breaks loose. This was pretty good, with plenty of plot and a fun premise. My big problem though was the main girl, who was just so uninteresting she got outshined by absolutely anyone else on screen. Oh well, still decent. 3.5/5.

[indianasmith]

LOST IN THE DARK - Set in 1984, this was a fun slasher/cannibal mutant hillbilly flick.  A group of kids steal a schoolbus on prom night, planning to drive out to a fishing cabin and spend a weekend drinking and partying.  When the bus runs out of gas, they find a big spooky farmhouse to spend the night in - but the house was once owned by the Joads, a family of cannibal murderers who all died in a shootout with the cops twenty years earlier.  Of course, Junior Joad somehow survived, and he is hungry for horny teenagers!  For the next hour or so we get to watch as Junior hacks, slashes, and bashes his way through our anxious adolescents.  Shot on film, this had the look and feel of all the classic 80's horror franchises, including every element except gratuitous nudity.  A very nice watch!  4.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

Crack Up (1946) - This was a pretty cool movie, a little twilight zone ish. It's mainly a crime story, but the fact that it takes place in the genteel world of art museums is a bit of a switch. usually it's a bank job or casino or something.

A curator of some sort I'm not exactly sure what he is, is in a train crash. When he comes to and tells everyone they are flabbergasted, but it turns out there was no crash. He is positive he was in a train that crashed though and sets out to prove it. along the way he discovers unsavory stuff going on and so forth. or does he?

It's not Memento but for 1946 this was a pretty complex idea. Michael Douglas would later make a fortune doing stuff like this which he richly deserves because they are cool ass movies. The lead didn't exactly look like someone who would exist in this universe but his blonde girlfriend was fairly pretty. Whoever the writer is I would be interested in checking out other stuff they did for sure

4/5

[Jack]

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990) - Mary Lou, the girl who was burned to death at the 1957 prom, is back from the grave once again and this time she falls in love with a football player, making all his dreams come true. She's even nice enough to kill anyone who causes problems for him, but of course he eventually gets sick of spending his evenings burying the bodies in the football field. This causes some problems in their relationship, putting Mary Lou in an especially foul mood. I remember liking this a lot the first time I saw it, there are a lot of comedy aspects that are integrated into it pretty well. Last night though it was just sort of meh, maybe because I knew all the jokes already. Oh well still rates a 3/5 I suppose.

[Rev. Powell]

THE PORNOGRAPHERS (1966): An "honest" pornographer struggles to support his landlady and lover, while clashing with her son, fighting his attraction to her 15-year old delinquent daughter, and being watched over by the vengeful spirit of the woman's dead husband, reincarnated as a carp she keeps in a fishbowl. A strange satire full of perversions bearing the sad message that "human beings are made this way." Japanese. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"House of Whipcord" (1974)

http://youtu.be/W95jMB4j8II
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This British exploitation flick is a strange, sleazy combo of the Gothic horror and women-in-prison genres. A free spirited French gal living in swingin' London is kidnapped and deposited at a remote, privately owned women's prison run by an insane fundamentalist female warden (who is quite obviously inspired by Mary Whitehouse, the UK's infamous moral crusader and censor of the era). Features lotsa whippings, torture, a couple of murders, hints of incest (!) and a fair share of T&A, which kept me interested for a while, but eventually things got dragged out just a bit too long. Fans of vintage trash should get a kick out of it anyway.

[Jack]

Terror Eyes (1989) - sort of a horror anthology, with the first story being an amusing redneck couple being given a book that tells about their lives - including the parts they haven't lived yet. It was by far the best of the three. The second had a guy who owed money to his bookie going through sort of a Groundhog Day thing with a bit of a Twilight Zone ending. It was fair. The third was just fast forward material. Should have probably turned it off after the first story. 2.5/5.

Wrong Turn (2003) - definitely one of the better inbred cannibal mutant hillbilly movies, about some kids who get stranded in the woods of West Virginia and end up as lunch. Decent characters, good atmosphere and excellent gore. 4/5.

[claws]

re-watch Almost Human (2013)

October 1987: wife and a close friend witness the abduction of her husband, who is sucked into a beam of bright light. He remains missing, and the wife moves on and is now in a new relationship while the close friend is plagued by the dramatic events - he endures nightmares and nose bleeding on a daily basis. Two years later the husband returns but he is only human on the outside. While searching for his wife he leaves a bloody trail of mutilated corpses behind.

Low budget, high ambitions. Well, that was the plan I suppose. Almost Human wants to be a homage to 1980s gory horror. The f/x are well done and there's absolutely no use of CGI, but the rest is sort of a mixed bag. There's a strong "amateur" and "Indie" vibe throughout reflected in cast and dialogue, though it gets points for its autumn rural setting. Nothing in the movie looks like it was shot in the 80s except maybe for one scene showing a vcr and vhs tapes. I dunno, in the end everything only partly delivered. I recall liking this more on my first viewing. 2.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: HERCULES: This week's experiment is the original Steve Reeves HERCULES movie (they covered several of the sequels before): Herc does some labors and joins Jason in the search for the Golden Fleece. This episode never really gets off the ground; the original HERCULES isn't that bad a movie, it's just that it's been edited here for time so that it makes no sense. There is a very strange and funny "Match Game" segment with Crow as Gene Rayburn turning existential in the face of death. 3/5.

[claws]

The Psychotronic Man (1979)

A married hairdresser named "Rocky" is having an affair but his nagging wife doesn't seem to mind. While driving home from work he takes a quick nap because you know, cutting hair all day long can be exhausting. When he wakes up his car is floating above the trees, a truly frightening experience for Rocky. His wife and his Psychiatrist suggest to lay off the booze but Rocky ain't drinking. When the seemingly still shaken hairdresser returns to the spot where his car was floating he is approached by a stranger who invites him into his house. In a fit of rage Rocky kills the guy with telekinesis. Soon enough cops are investigating and Rocky becomes a hunted man.

This was sooo weird. Somewhere between The Fury (1978) and Scanners (1980) lies The Psychotronic Man. This wasn't Ed Wood bad, more in the vein of Psychic Killer (1975) and bizarre enough to keep me interested. Lots of effort went in the soundtrack and score which I thought was pretty good/amazing. On the downside it is never explained why Rocky had these psychic powers. What really killed the movie was a dull 30 minutes car and foot chase montage in the end (though I loved the "Shaft" score ripoff music). My normal rating would be 1.5/5. My 'weird and wtf' rating is 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"K-9" (1989)

http://youtu.be/aUDhHe8GqGU
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Enjoyable - if a bit generic - action comedy with Jim Belushi as a lone-wolf narcotics cop (is there ever any other kind in movies?) who gets saddled with a new partner - a stubborn German shepherd police dog named "Jerry Lee" - in order to bring down a drug cartel. The dog is the best actor in the whole movie.

"Savage Island" (1985)

http://youtu.be/GszmuzIwe4c
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Tedious chicks-in-chains flick about a gang infiltrating a typically hellish third-world women's prison camp to steal a fortune in diamonds... or emeralds... or something. Rumor has it that this movie was actually stitched together out of leftover footage from two other prison-girl flicks, which might explain why Savage Island is seemingly plotless and simply stumbles from one poorly-shot action scene to the next. The girls aren't even much to look at. The best of the lot is Linda "The Exorcist" Blair, who gets top billing but she's only in this for about two minutes, tops. Ignore, delete, destroy.