Recent viewings

[Jack]

The Invisible Ray - Starring Boris Karlof and Bela Lugosi.  About a scientist who discovers "Radium X", an element that allows him to immediately build a death ray, and with a bit more research, it can also cure just about any known ailment.  Unfortunately, the scientist was irradiated during its discovery, and now he glows in the dark and anything he touches dies.  His mind also goes a little coo-coo, and he gets it in his head that other scientists stole his discovery, and someone else stole his wife! 

Pretty good overall.  The one special effect was vastly superior to anything you'll see in today's CGI movies - he turned the death ray on a large boulder and the thing just fell to pieces.  Plot moved along nicely, characters were fleshed out nicely, quite interesting really.  Now I've got to add the Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi DVD collections to my wishlist   

[trekgeezer]

I've been downloading a lot of public domain stuff from archive.org.


The Killer Shrews (1959) - A scientist on an isolated island experimenting with the metabolism of the small rodents unleashes a horde of giant shrews. Once the shrews have devoured all the other food on the island they start coming after the humans.

Enter cargo ship Captain Roscoe P. , huh, I mean  Thorne Sherman (James Best).

This is pretty straight forward drive-in fare.  The shrews are just dogs with a piece of shag carpet on their backs. A shrew head with big gnarly teeth does most of the damage.

The big treat for me was watching Ken Curtis (Fetus from Gunsmoke) as a mean tempered alcoholic SOB (he's responsible for the shrews getting loose).



Dementia 13 (1963) - The new American wife of the oldest son of an Irish matriarch, watches her husband die of  a heart attack while they're in a row boat on the local pond. Realizing that if his family finds out he's dead, she won't get any inheritance when the old lady croaks. So she dumps him overboard and tells the family he went to New York on business.

When she learns of the old lady's obsession with her the death of her young daughter seven years before, she starts plotting her demise. Little does she know the little girls accident wasn't one and the killer doesn't want anyone snooping around the pond.

This one is Psycho with a bit of a twist. It also benefits from being directed by Francis Ford Coppola when he was under the tutelage of Roger Corman.



The Snow Creature (1954) - A couple of botanists are looking for new plants in the Himalayas and end up getting taken hostage by their Sherpa guides who force them go on a Yeti hunt with them.  When they catch the creature, the two scientists get the upper hand and keep the Sherpas from killing him.

They ship the Yeti back to the US in a big glass doored fridge. Their only problem is the Immigration service won't let them have the Yeti until they determine if it's human. Of course,as any good movie monster does, the Yeti gets tired of sitting around and breaks out causing all kinds of chaos. He seem to have predilection for human women.

This movie was directed by the famous director Billy Wilder's brother, W. Lee Wilder who was also responsible for the Phantom from Space.



The Wild Hogs (2007) - John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William Macy are all middle aged guys who ride Harleys and call themselves the Wild Hogs.  Travolta's supermodel wife leaves him and his business goes bust, so he convinces the others to go on a bike trip to the west coast.

On the way they have several goof misadventures and run afoul of a real biker gang lead by Ray Liotta.

This was a mildly entertaining movie with a few very funny parts. Whether you like it or not may be dependent on your age.

[RCMerchant]

 My halloween viewing has been exhausting!!!
 >TONIGHT I'LL POSSESs YOUR SOUL -Coffin Joe...a weird GREAT MOVIE!!! A lot of people don't like coffin Joe...I LOVE HIS WORK!!!
..CREATURE From the HAUNTED SEA-a cheezy Roger Corman comedy...-I really enjoyed it!!! In fact,I thought it much better than LITTLE SHOP of HORRORS...but not as good as BUCKET of BLOOD.
.PIT and the PENDULUM-Vinnie and co. in my favorite Poe/AIP flick. My brother Mike used to torment me with this movie. We had an old room in a house back in 1969...when I was a wee geek of 7...he threw me in it, leaned into the door and quoted,in his best Price imatation-"NO ONE SHALL EVER ENTER THIS ROOM AGAIN." Which,of course,threw me into a fit of pure terror!
.The HAUNTING- I own this movie...and,as a tradition, watch it every Halloween Eve...if you have never read the book by Shirly Jackson...dammit whattaya waitin' for?!?!?


 Some choice scences of COFFIN JOE horror!

 [youtube=425,350]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznbTrNetV0
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[Torgo]

Jurassic Park.  *** out of ****.
I hadn't watched this one in a few years as it used to be in the laser disc player when I worked at Circuit City in the mid 90's.  I got sick of the movie and as a result haven't watched it too much since then.  It still holds up quite well particularly in the CGI department.  Some of the stuff with the kids still grates on my nerves, but it's not quite annoying as what they did with Jeff Goldblum's daughter character in the sequel.  The T-rex sequence is still amazing.  While I know that a lot of people hated the 3rd movie, I felt that at least they trimmed off most of the fat and gave people what they wanted, people running from and getting eaten by dinosaurs for 90 minutes.   

1941   **1/2 out ****.
I have the extended cut on DVD and while the movie is still a complete mess, it's a glorious mess at that.  Way too long and filled with lots of scenes that go nowhere, the movie still manages to entertain due to how over-the-top it is at about every moment. This movie is LOUD as well.  Watch this on a cranked sound system and bug your neighbors!  A mammoth and terrific cast gets overwhelmed by the non-stop clutter going on around them, but they make do with what they were given.    Treat Williams has never been better, Ned Beatty is hilarious and Slim Pickens is his usual great self.  John Belushi appears to have been coked out in all of his scenes which adds to his normal lunacy.

[CheezeFlixz]

1408
Not bad.

Knocked Up
Riot!

Aliens Gone Wild
Meh it's ok

[HappyGilmore]

The Toxic Avenger- ** out of ****.  Probably higher than most would give it.

[Rev. Powell]

COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984).  A girl on the verge of puberty has a nightmare in which she is Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf is a wolfman.  Featuring a good performance by Angela Landsbury as a fussy, prudish grandma.   Early Neil Jordan arthouse werewolf pic is full of great images and a none too subtle sexual coming-of-age subtext.  Some dog-for-werewolf shots.  4 out of 5.

MERLIN'S MYSTICAL SHOP OF HORRORS (MST3K VERSION):  Ernest Borgnine relates two rejected Twilight Zone scripts to his grandson, linked for some reason by Merlin the Magician.  The movies bad but not that laughable by itself, and the riffing and host segments seem to lack inspiration.  Still, no MST3K episode is worse than a 3 of 5.

THE SCREAMING SKULL (1958):  Like all neurotic wealthy women in bad movies, Jenni leaves the sanitarium and marries with a man whose previous wife died under mysterious circumstances.  They move to his isolated mansion in the country where he plans to scare her to death by placing skulls in the cabinets.  Precitable and tedious; the filmmakers offered a free burial to anyone who died of fright while watching the movie.  They were too smart to offer the same deal to anyone who died of boredom.  1 of 5.

[CheezeFlixz]

Major Payne - seen it a dozen times and I still bust up every time I watch it. Great goofy film.

[HappyGilmore]

Major Payne - seen it a dozen times and I still bust up every time I watch it. Great goofy film.

My favorite part is the "Little Engine that Could" story.

[Pilgermann]

Just watched Ruby.  It's far from flawless, but it's a decent film except for an atrocious and abrupt ending that was added in by one of the producers.

This trailer is beyond misleading and has a handful of spoilers:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De7es8HMevw

[Torgo]

COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984).  A girl on the verge of puberty has a nightmare in which she is Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf is a wolfman.  Featuring a good performance by Angela Landsbury as a fussy, prudish grandma.   Early Neil Jordan arthouse werewolf pic is full of great images and a none too subtle sexual coming-of-age subtext.  Some dog-for-werewolf shots.  4 out of 5.

That's a great flick. One of my personal favorites. I don't think that it's come out on DVD yet has it? I know that they just go around fairly recently to releasing The Butcher Boy on DVD.

EDIT: My bad. I just checked on Amazon.com, and Company of Wolves is on DVD though it's a bit pricey. I just ordered it nonetheless.

http://www.amazon.com/Company-Wolves-Sarah-Patterson/dp/B00006G8H3/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1194664407&sr=1-1

[Torgo]

Y Tu Mama Tambien   ***1/2 out of ****.
Excellent coming-of-age film from Mexico also doubles as a sort of travelogue along Mexico's lesser seen areas.  The acting is great and the film while sexually explicit never seems dirty or exploitative of its cast.   Some critics/viewers have issues with the "twist" at the end of the film in terms of what happens to the female lead but if you go back and pay attention to early scenes with her it completely makes sense as to why she makes the choices in the movie that she does.

 

[hellbilly]

Sam's Lake (2005) - Independent Slasher that got some sort of festival buzz. I bought the R2 and was a bit underwhelmed. Technically it's not a bad movie - gorgeous scenery and location that reminded me of Friday The 13th. The build up is interesting and well made but the second act kind of falls flat. Still, better than the usual Slasher crap out there. ***/*****

Fragile (2005) - Ally McBeal doing horror? Why yes, and great it was. Since I'm a sucker for good ghost stories taking place in old creepy hospitals this one won me over right from beginning to end. Calista Flockhart was great as the last-minute replacement night nurse investigating bone-breaking shenanigans in the children's ward. ****/*****

Ils (Them) (2006) - Amazingly effective terror flick done with so little. Highly recommended! *****/*****

[Jack]

the filmmakers offered a free burial to anyone who died of fright while watching the movie.  They were too smart to offer the same deal to anyone who died of boredom.  1 of 5.

I remember in the MST3K version of that, Servo requested and received a free coffing from the film makers.  Good stuff!

[HappyGilmore]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit- Still holds up after all these years.  Good stuff.  Bob Hoskins rocks.

Mallrats- Better than people give it credit for.  Granted, it's not as good as Smith's films Clerks or Chasing Amy, but it's better than people give it credit for.