Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

8 Miles High (2008) - amateurish but heartfelt true story depiction of life of German hippy model groupie. She joins a commune, bangs the Rolling Stones then goes to India to be exotic. For such a colorful, decadent story it really lacks verve and style, more like a stage play compared to, say "The Doors". 2.5 / 5

If you really like the 60's you should check it out

[Rev. Powell]

THE HOUSE OF LAST THINGS (2013): A hot housesitter, her douchey boyfriend, and her slow brother watch the house of a classical music critic and his depressed wife while they vacation in Italy; strange things happen. This serious but slightly overambitious straight-to-DVD psychological horror throws the audience into confusion pretty quickly with a parade of mysterious symbols (balloons, apples, golf balls), but (almost) everything gets sorted out by the end. 3/5. Jack would like bouncy blonde Lindsey Haun (so did I!).

[Alex]

I was feeling rather mean tonight so I made the wife wath Halloween... 3.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Cyborg" (1989)

Cyborg Trailer	Small | Large

Jean-Claude Van Damme beats the crap out of a bunch of people in this ultra cheap, mostly plotless post-apocalyptic action flick. J.C.V.D. made a few decent movies back in the day, but this wasn't one ov them.

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched a pretty atrocious vampire movie called TWILIGHT HUNTER.  A construction crew uncovers a cross and a stake buried on the grounds of a church and one of the workers pulls the stake out of the ground.  That night a beautiful female vampire with amnesia crawls out of the hole in the ground, and has various adventures in the process of remembering who and what she actually is.  Pretty forgettable, actually.

[indianasmith]

LHO was an interesting film from Sweden, distributed in the USA under the IFC label.
A reclusive ham radio operator suffering from tinnitus after the death of his wife and teenage son is experimenting with sound waves that might relieve his misery when he stumbles across a combination of frequencies that render the human brain remarkably susceptible to persuasion. At first he uses this newfound power to get jiggy with the neighbor's pretty wife while making her husband think he is the greatest guy on earth, but he gets bored with that rather quickly and tries other variations - making them rob banks for him, or convincing the husband that he is actually the son while the neighbor's wife becomes his June Cleaver-esque love mate.  But that gets boring too, so he sends them back next door while he researches broader applications for his powers, all the while arguing with the ghost of his wife, whom it turns out he murdered by pulling the brake line on her car - not realizing his son would be riding with her.  Eventually, he takes his special frequency on the radio, and uses it to bend all of mankind to his will . . .

This was a bit slow, and I would not have minded seeing more of the pretty neighbor, but overall a pretty interesting look at an age old question: What would we do if we could cause anyone we met to do our bidding without question?

[Jack]

Children of the Corn 5: Fields of Terror (1998) - some fairly uninteresting characters go out in the country and encounter an obnoxious 12 year old who runs a cult of a dozen or so hayseeds. Meh, I watched it to the end, which at least had a marginally cool idea. Otherwise it's just another instantly forgettable sequel in a "This has got 8 sequels?  You've got to be kidding me..." franchise. 2.5/5.

Legend of the Sandsquatch (2006) - Z grade junk about a girl and her friends who go out to the desert to look for her grandpa who's disappeared. Her punk rock boyfriend and his friends follow them out to surprise them. The creature itself was pretty cool actually, but everything else about this was kind of laughable. Real school project type stuff. Gotta give them credit for at least trying though. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"City of the Walking Dead," aka "Nightmare City" (1980)

"NIGHTMARE CITY" English Trailer- New HD transfer

Umberto Lenzi's legendary ultra-cheez Spanish/Italian "Dawn of the Dead" wanna- be is still one of the best bad zombie movies ever made. The script/plot is a nonsensical muddle, the performances are wooden, the effects suck, and the English dubbing is howlingly awkward, but the non-stop action is so batsh*t insane that you can't help but love this flick.

I popped this one on last night to celebrate the news that gore makeup guru Tom Savini is trying to get a "Nightmare City" remake off the ground!

[indianasmith]

We had another snow day today, so I stayed up late last night and watched 2 more films!

THE CULLING (2014) Five friends are on their way to the South by Southwest music festival when they run into a little girl in the parking lot of a diner who begs them to take her home.  They do, and then her parents show up and invite them to stay and have a brew or two.  But then the girl's mom cuts her leg chopping some wood for the fire they are sitting around, and so Dad runs her to the ER, about an hour and a half away.  The little girl begs to stay home with her new friends, and so the five reluctantly agree to hang out till her folks get back.

But then weird stuff starts going down, and they realize that neither the little girl nor her parents were what they seemed to be . . .

This one was actually not bad - a little tame overall, but enjoyable. 3.5/5

MISS MEADOWS starred the ever-perky Katie Holmes (still quite hot in her late 30's!) as a sweet, polite, cheerful first grade substitute teacher with a dark little secret - she is a vigilante, taking out rapists, murderers, and child molesters with a .25 pocket pistol.  Most folks don't know about her pastime, and the fact that she strikes up a romance with the local sheriff helps her keep things swept under the rug - until the violent ex-con down the street figures out what she has been up to.

Loved this movie - it was like MARY POPPINS meets DIRTY HARRY.  5/5

[Jack]

Ghostkeeper (1981) - two girls and a guy are snowmobiling and get stranded at a lodge which is shut down and inhabited only by a woman caretaker and her son, who's "around here somewhere". Turns out he's a psycho killer This is about as slow moving as it's possible to get; 99% of it is people sitting around talking, or occasionally walking around. At least the theme music is good, it sets a nice mood, and the scenery in the snowy mountains is beautiful. The two girls are okay characters but the guy is the most self-centered a-hole imaginable, and he seemed to suffer some mental breakdown at the end; or maybe he shot up some heroin. Or maybe the director shot up some heroin. Anyhow, 2.5/5.

Madhouse (1974) - Vincent Price stars as a horror film star who comes out of retirement to film some more movies featuring his old character, Doctor Death. But soon people around him start turning up dead - is Price gong nuts and killing them without remembering it, or is someone else trying to frame him? This seemed like more of a crime whodunit than anything to do with horror really. Can't say I was a big fan, the plot is predictable and it just didn't keep me very interested. Natasha Pyne was really cute as Price's assistant though. 3/5.

[alandhopewell]

The Crawling Hand (1963): Something unseen overtakes an astronaut on a space mission and his capsule is detonated in space. Later a young medical student named Paul (Rod Lauren) and his girlfriend Marta (Sirry Steffen),  while frolicking on the beach, stumble across the astronaut's severed hand. For some unknown reason, the student later returns and retrieves the hand and brings it back to his boarding house where he hides it until it comes back to life to strangle the living and possess his mind.

This is one of those true bad movie classics, a movie so bad it borders on being good. It's inept in practically every way be it the writing, certainly the hammy acting and overacting, the ridiculousness of the script and plot. Look out for numerous familiar bad movie character actors/actresses including a bit role for Allison Hayes as the astronaut's love interest, Alan Hale (Skipper from Gilligan's Island) as the town Sheriff, Peter Breck, Kent Taylor, and Richard Arlen. Swedish Steffen seems to have been only cast for her looks as she certainly can't act and Lauren's performance almost calls to mind performances in Dwain Esper's Maniac (1934) as does some later scenes involving cats and the hand. Surprisingly enjoyable on a bad movie level although it's a little slow getting started. On a bad movie scale, I'd give this ***1/2 out of ***** stars. (For regular moviegoers, it's probably a * or ** star film).

     I would recommend these for a perfect hat-trick....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMDDl7A33uU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6BxzcuEkow

     With possibly this as an alternate....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn5GoJyP-f4


Circus of Fear (1966): Following the trail of criminals responsible for an armored vehicle bank heist and murder, detectives end up scoping out a circus when stolen loot begins to get spent in the area nearby. Eventually our story takes an even darker turn when even more murder victims turn up all getting killed by a circus knife thrower's knife. We meet a bunch of possible suspects including the hooded lion tamer Gregor (Christopher Lee), midget Skip Martin as Mr. Big, a jealous knife thrower named Mario (Maurice Kaufmann) whose girlfriend Gina (Margaret Lee) might know a bit too much, struggling circus owner Barberini (Anthony Newlands), nosy Carl (Heinz Drache) whose a little too interested in Gregor and his family especially his niece Natasha (Suzy Kendall)? Is it the weird Manfred (Klaus Kiniski), earlier connected with the heist, who keeps lurking around the circus? Yes this is basically a crime film, a whodunnit set in a circus.

This one runs through many predictable cliches one expects from a mystery. There are red herrings aplenty, comic relief, and lots of suspects. Overall I found this one to be a bit of a mixed bag: I liked the camerawork and cinematography especially in the opening scenes, there are hints here too as to what's going down if one really pays attention. However the back story here proves much too convoluted, the opening feels like an action movie or fast-paced heist film but we soon see the pace come to an almost dead stop once we get to the circus setting, the circus stock footage is much too obviously stock footage, and every character seems to spend considerable time smoking. The final conclusion proves rather anticlimactic too and the big reveal is kind of a letdown. *** out of ***** stars.

Teenage Monster (1958): On the outskirts of a small Western town, a meteor crash affects a young boy named Charles leading him to turn into a full fledged monster (he looks rather like a scarred caveman/werewolf) with a penchant for killing just seven years later. His mother Ruth (Anne Gwynne) tries to discourage his horrible behavior and pretty much keeps him locked up in his room as she knows the town are on the hunt after the monster/killer.

This is another one of those so bad it borders on being good bad movies. I really enjoyed it. Sure it was completely over the top ridiculous especially Charles as a young teenager looking like an hulking caveman of sorts (the make-up was actually done by the legendary Jack Pierce who obviously didn't have the budget to do something truly remarkable here) who talks and whines like a combination whiny kid/dog. The introduction of a greedy waitress named Kathy (Gloria Castillo) to the plot takes this in an even darker direction as she tries to manipulate and control young and naive Charles for her own twisted ends. This was pretty much a Western/Monster on the loose film. The storyline element of a mother hiding her deformed son actually had some potential but not with what we see presented on screen here although Gwynne arguably manages to rise above the material at times with her performance and Castillo steals the show in her villainous role. Surprisingly enjoyable trash. On a bad movie scale, I'd give this **** out of ***** stars. (On a regular movie scale, it's a * or ** star film)

[Jack]

Battleship (2012) - aliens come to earth and land in the Pacific off the shores of Hawaii in their enormous machines. It's up to the Navy to blow 'em up real good    This was fun and stupid with big budget special effects. Pretty girl in it too. Characters could have been better but oh well. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"THEM!" (1954)

Them! 1954 Movie Trailer

Nuclear bomb tests in the New Mexico desert spawn a new breed of giant mutant ants -- which then set up shop in the sewers of Los Angeles -- in this '50s sci-fi classic. Lots of fun!

[alandhopewell]

     THIS THING OF OURS (2003)

     Interesting indie mobster flick; yep, that's James Caan, among other recognizable faces from the genre. Another "10-films-for-$5" Wal-Mart purchase.

This Thing Of Ours

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Swarm" (1978)

The Swarm (1978) - Trailer

Irwin "Master of Disaster" Allen's box office winning streak came to an end with this late 70s turkey in which an all star cast (includes Henry Fonda, Michael Caine, Olivia De Havilland, Fred MacMurray and Richard Widmark) battles a lethal horde of African killer bees. Much unintentional hilarity ensues.