Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

After a string of winners - or at least, B-movies that were entertaining on one level or another - I finally struck a true clunker last night.
BONGO: KILLER CLOWN was a badly acted, confusing, and awful film from start to finish.  Basically, a teen mother leaves her 4 year old
son alone every night with only a TV clown named Mr. Jango to keep him company.  The kid turns into a psychotic killer named Bongo, out
to kill every person he gets his hands on by any means necessary.

The story is told in flashback form by a psychiatrist at a local asylum to two pretty young women (you get the idea they might be off-duty
orderlies or something).  Bongo is a foul-mouthed killer in badly done clown make up whose weapon of choice is a three-pointed martial arts
dagger known as a sai (normally wielded in pairs, he has only one and manages to use it to decapitate a woman in the first scene despite
the fact that sai HAVE NO BLADE!!!

The rest of the movie is a dinner party in an empty house with these four mental health workers recounting their experiences with Bongo, and
somewhere in the course of the evening he shows up and starts killing them off.  The kills are mainly him making stabbing motions at the camera
without ever getting any blood on himself or his weapon while giggling and saying "I'm a clown" over and over.  There are constant cutbacks
scenes to his mother telling him to go to bed and watch Mr. Jango on TV.  The mom is a skinny blond chick with tattoos and pierced nipples
who spends a good part of every scene posing in front of the mirror wearing only a pair of panties - a detail that was absolutely necessary to the
plot of the film (not!).

In short, this was a REALLY bad film.  2/5, and that's being generous.

[Jack]

Zombie Lake (1981) - watched this cinematic masterpiece again. We start out with 5 minutes of a naked girl swimming in a lake, until she's attacked by Nazi zombies. Then we get a long flashback explaining the origins of the zombies - French resistance fighters killed them at the end of WWII and dumped their bodies in the lake. Eventually a whole batch of naked girls show up and go swimming in the lake, with fairly predictable results. Finally the townsfolk team up to end the zombie threat once and for all. The makeup on the zombies is just laughable, looks like some of that green facial stuff that a woman would wear to bed at night. Just needed a couple of cucumber slices over the eyes to complete the look lol. The whole thing's really slow moving too. 2/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Zombie Lake is one of those euro movies where people who are shot grab their body and lie down like little kids playing cowboys and Indians. Thy used up all the budget for the underwater nude swimming shots.

All Hallow's Eve (2013) - This was a really pretty good low budget horror. There are 3 VIGNETTES which are intersped with a babysitter trying to put the kids to sleep. They have been trick or treating and one of them had this video tape in their bag so she puts it in and yadda yadda yadda. The first one is okay, the second one is better and the third one is really good. They don't have a lot of money so they have to use creativity and luckily they have some. The acting ranges from okay to good, the good being the little girl and the actress in the last best scene. The message gets across 4/5

[Jack]

Zombie Lake is one of those euro movies where people who are shot grab their body and lie down like little kids playing cowboys and Indians. Thy used up all the budget for the underwater nude swimming shots.

The zombies move like little kids on Halloween pretending to be Frankenstein's monster 

[JaseSF]

Warning from Space (1956): Observatory scientists investigate reports of flying saucers and later sightings of mysterious monsters seen in the same vicinity. Later they learn the aliens are actually trying to warn humanity of a doomsday collision of Earth with an approaching asteroid/planetoid.

This movie is interesting as an early Japanese style take on The Day the Earth Stood Still meets When Worlds Collide. It has some good moments and some really nicely executed special FX for the era. I liked Toyomi Karita as the singer/alien leader and felt the alien design was cool and original, not sure if said aliens would have very good mobility though. Sure the costumes do look a little goofy at times but there's some nice moments surrounding said costumes to make them seem more believably alien. However, the biggest problem with the plot in this one is that the aliens, called Pairans, disappear after warning humanity for a huge stretch of the film's running time only to reappear again at the very end. (Of course had they not disappeared the film wouldn't have lasted an hour and an half but the film sure does drag on after they leave the scene). One is left wondering why said aliens didn't take action earlier and just why they would let so much destruction go down on Earth before acting. Also the ending seems particularly unbelievable as there should have been ruins and devastation left behind in the wake of what went down in the film earlier. Wonder if DC Comics was influenced by this one with Starro? *** out of ***** stars.

The Phantom Planet (1961): Investigating the mysterious disappearance of several rocketships, Capt. Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks) is assigned a special mission to search for a mysterious "phantom planet" reported to be mysteriously sighted before rocketships disappear. Following a dangerous run-in with a meteor shower, Chapman finds himself forced to try and make an emergency landing on the mysterious "phantom planet" which holds even more surprises than he ever expected.

I rather enjoyed this one. It features lots of original ideas especially the main idea that beings existing on other worlds might not match our size, that they might be much bigger or in the case of this film, much smaller. It also features some original ideas such as using anti-gravity as a way to move an asteroid world through space. Some of the space walk scenes seemed far fetched and a stretch yet others proved rather effective and more convincing. There were some really nice touches to this one. I really liked the launching of the rocketship from the moon, the scene of the heroic astronaut lost in space was particularly moving and disturbing, and the goodbyes given towards the end. Dolores Faith does a nice job as Chapman's love interest Zetha and Coleen Gray is also memorable as Liara, another potential love interest. Also look out of Richard Kiel in a memorable role under a goofy costume as the Solarite in some scenes somewhat reminiscent of This Island Earth. An enjoyable escapist sci-fi adventure. **** out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Crimson (1973) - a gang of thieves robs a jewelry store but their leader (Paul Naschy) is shot in the head and left comatose during the escape from police. His henchmen find a doctor who replaces the damaged portion of his brain with a portion of another guy's brain, causing him to eventually go nuts because he's got two guy's personalities competing for control. I tried watching this Sunday and fell fast asleep; tried watching it last night and fell fast asleep. Rewound it and finally saw the ending. Sleeping was probably the better plan. I guess I was expecting some sort of twist or...something...to make the whole thing seem worthwhile. But the ending just left me feeling like I'd wasted 90 minutes. 2/5.

Night Skies (2007) - some people are driving through Arizona in a camper and they crash into a telephone pole, leaving them stranded. They're eventually attacked by aliens. I remember kind of sort of liking this the first time I watched it. Didn't care for it at all last night though. Ashley Peldon as the hot chick is the only bright spot in the whole movie. The main guy is an a-hole, the other main guy is a bumpkin, and the lead girl is just uninteresting. The whole alien thing just wasn't done in a way that made me think of anything except low budget movie makers trying and failing to make something scary and mysterious. 2.5/5.

[claws]

Night Skies (2007) - some people are driving through Arizona in a camper and they crash into a telephone pole, leaving them stranded. They're eventually attacked by aliens. I remember kind of sort of liking this the first time I watched it. Didn't care for it at all last night though. Ashley Peldon as the hot chick is the only bright spot in the whole movie. The main guy is an a-hole, the other main guy is a bumpkin, and the lead girl is just uninteresting. The whole alien thing just wasn't done in a way that made me think of anything except low budget movie makers trying and failing to make something scary and mysterious. 2.5/5.

I noticed that lots of mid-2000 B-movies I liked back then didn't stand the test of time on a rewatch, though it's only been a few years. I do need to spin Night Skies again because it used to be a minor favorite of mine as well.

[dean]

We are what we are 2013

Movie about cannibals upholding the tradition of the forefathers.  I think it was shot ok, but the ending was a bit all over the place.  Good slow paced thriller that failed to deliver by the end, right when you want things to amp up.

[Jack]

Safety in Numbers (2006) - some reality show contestants return to the island where the show was filmed for what they think is a reunion, but actually some psycho who got voted off the island is laying in wait to pick them off. Characters that I either didn't care about or was actually happy to see get killed, typical slasher plot - ironic title since all they do is split up - and an ending that flat out makes no sense...2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Invaders From Mars" (1986)

INVADERS FROM MARS TRAILER	Small | Large

Tobe "Texas Chainsaw" Hooper directed this reverent-but-bland remake of the 50s sci fi classic in which a kid discovers his parents and school mates are all slowly being assimilated by brain-stealing Martians. Technically well made with some cool creature designs but otherwise this is pretty lifeless stuff. Skip it.

[claws]

Skip it.

I don't think so 

Good timing though. There's a 3-Disc Collector's Blu-ray Edition of Invaders from Mars coming out in Germany this week. Expecting my copy to arrive on the weekend 



The set will also include the original version. How cool is that?

[FatFreddysCat]

^^ A 3 disc (!) collection of "IFM?" Hey, have fun.  I'll be over here watching this flick if you need me:

"Hard Rain" (1998)

Hard Rain (1998) Trailer	Small | Large

Underrated action flick set during a massive Midwestern flood. Christian Slater is an armored-car security guard trying to keep his truck's payload out of the hands of some thugs (led by Morgan Freeman in a rare villain role) who want to use the weather as cover for a robbery. A cool shoot-em-up that may be short on logic but is long on mayhem, has an unusual setting, a great cast and cool effects. Fun stuff. 

[Jack]

Age of Tomorrow (2014) - aliens invade earth and a few soldiers manage to teleport themselves to the alien's homeworld where they attempt to fight them. Another instantly forgettable cheapie from the Asylum. Uninteresting undeveloped characters, silly plot, ending was a confusing yawner. Whatever happened to the days when the Asylum would put hot babes in their movies because they knew that was the only reason anyone would watch them? 2/5.

[Rev. Powell]

THE DOUBLE (2013): A timid clerk (Jesse Eisenberg) named Simon James finds his vocational and romantic ambitions are being seized by a confident co-worker named James Simon, who looks exactly like him. Based on Dostovevsky, but the mood of this unsettling existential black comedy is much closer to Kafka (with plenty of nods to Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL). The dystopia feels familiar, but hauntingly so. 4.5/5.

[Jack]

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) - a beautiful woman who can grow big snake-like teeth is living in a rural community and occasionally nibbling on her neighbors. It's up to Hugh Grant, a couple of hot babes and some other guy to stop her. I really liked this, good characters, rather artfully filmed, and a somewhat interesting plot. Had a nice silly sense of humor about it too. 4/5.