Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

the MACHINE GIRL (2008)

A young Japanese school girl gets revenge on a Yakuzi gang that murdered her brother and cut off her arm. Her arm is replaced by a huge multi-barreled machine gun and she extracts a bloody revenge.
This movie is packed wall to wall with extreme cartoonish violence and lotsa blood gushing gore.
I loved it.

A classic

[lester1/2jr]

Alice in Wonderland (1915) - this restoration is on youtube and has a TON of ads, but I enjoyed it. It's ridiculously low budget, but based more closely on the book which is actually pretty clever and funny. It kind of has an Antrum/ Cigarette Burns type "cursed film" vibe too, but I seem to be doing okay.

There is some missing footage and Alice was apparently 16 years old which is a little old for Alice, but it works in a Something Weird sort of campy way.

1915 is way early so I say good job

4.5 /5

It's like a local children's theater production, probably filmed in some rich lady's garden

The Lone Wolf in London (1947) - the plot, about some military aircraft plans being stolen or something, gets pretty lost but the cast is funny as colorful so...not super compelling as a thriller/ mystery but has some fun comic stuff.

I liked especially the Irish cop who goes "this is the worst case I've ever worked on"

4/5 and the little girl who wants to be a gangster is funny

[RCMerchant]

^ Check out the old OZ films from the same era. Some creepy s**t.

[Rev. Powell]

Here's the 8 surviving minutes of the 1903 ALICE IN WONDERLAND for anyone who's curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA

KICK ME (2023): A mild-mannered guidance counselor from Kansas City, MO gets stranded in Kansas City, KS, one night, where he meets strange people (including an elderly jenkem-sniffer) and is chased by a vicious gang. It wants to be the AFTER HOURS of Kansas City; it's energetic and inventive, but more confusing and uneven. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors" (2020)
A cheap but watchable documentary that focuses on grindhouse horror films from the '70s and '80s. The format is simple - some gory clips from a cult classic are shown (usually from the trailer) and then someone who was involved with the movie (actor, producer, crew member, etc.) shares their memories of it. The films discussed include such old time video-store faves as Spookies, Blood Diner, Street Trash, and Basket Case, as well as better-known works like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Re-Animator, and even Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Some of the interviews look like they were conducted via Microsoft Zoom (!) but some cool behind the scenes stories are told and it's fun to see clips from so many "video nasties" collected in one place. Not a must see, but an OK time waster.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Collision Course" (aka "Kamikaze Detroit," 1989)
A decade before Rush Hour, a pre-Tonight Show Jay Leno and Pat "Mr. Miyagi" Morita did the East-meets-West mismatched buddy cop thing first in this serviceable-but-bland action comedy. Morita is a Japanese cop who's sent to Detroit to find a stolen engine prototype with the potential to change the automotive industry. Eventually he ends up partnering with Leno's wise-ass Detroit detective to solve the theft. Lots of car chases and crashes, shoot outs, fist fights, and explosions ensue.
Filmed in '86/'87, this movie sat on the shelf until an overseas theatrical release in 1989, and then it was dumped direct-to-video in the US in '92 to cash in on Leno's sudden notoriety as Carson's late night successor. Jay spent the rest of the decade trying to live it down. Unsurprisingly, he hasn't acted in a movie since.

[M.10rda]

Here's the 8 surviving minutes of the 1903 ALICE IN WONDERLAND for anyone who's curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA

Thanks, Rev - I've been watching horror movies for the past month and that clip might be the creepiest s**t of the season so far!

[Dr. Whom]

No One Will Save You (2023)

An anxiety ridden young woman who lives as an outcast in a small town has to contend with an invasion of very creepy but rather incompetent aliens.

The main gimmick of this movie is that there basically is just one actress who has just a single line of dialogue. This is not easy to pull off, as the actress literally has to carry the whole movie, without supporting cast, side-plot, romantic interest etc etc. Kaitlyn Dever, who I didn't know, succeeds absolutely.

Although I liked it, two things keep it from greatness for me
- Once they decided on the formula, it seems that they didn't really know what to do with it. This kind of movie works best when there is some clear goal, such as escaping, disarming the McGuffin or whatever. This movie doesn't have that and just sort of ends
- You'd think that if you go to all the trouble of interstellar travel to abduct people, you'd have more efficient procedures in place. The aliens score ten out of ten for creepiness, but seem to have no idea what they are doing.

[M.10rda]

This sounds cool, thanks for the review!

No One Will Save You (2023)
- You'd think that if you go to all the trouble of interstellar travel to abduct people, you'd have more efficient procedures in place. The aliens score ten out of ten for creepiness, but seem to have no idea what they are doing.

I've read and listened to a lot of reports of classic/mid-20th century (so, like, pre-Whitley Streiber/80s abduction wave) extraterrestrial encounters, and... you might be surprised how much of a Thing the clueless/inept E.T. was in that era. Aliens confused by pancakes, pouring coffee on their heads instead of drinking it, having Bud & Lou routines w/ earthlings, etc. It was a whole mood, I guess. Offbeat take for a new release!

[zombie no.one]

CREEPSHOW 2 (1987)

watchable cheese. the 3 stories are so basic in their premise and resolution. no twists, no surprises

I was very impressed at the fx for the blobby mutant oil slick in 2nd story 'THE RAFT', then found out in the extras it was just a plastic bag floating on the water  lol

[M.10rda]

WAXWORK (1988):
First viewing since probably '89 of this visible but not oft-discussed curiosity that, I dare to say, may deserve a reassessment! Adolescent me was drawn in by the outrageously gory preview photos in a Fangoria feature but then somewhat alienated by the film's offbeat tone (or, perhaps, its refusal to commit to being a serious horror movie). There are lots of things about WAXWORK I wasn't prepared to appreciate then, not least of which its haute couture-sporting, pompously posturing community college student protagonists/victims. Teenagers have never looked or acted like this anywhere outside of a Bret Easton Ellis novel or David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS, which was still 2 years off at the time of WAXWORK's release. Into the bargain there's PEAKS cast members Dana Ashbrook and David Warner, a very small man in a suit speaking in a very quirky/unidentifiable accent, and also a giant in a suit looking dazed and out of place... plus female lead Deborah Foreman looking strikingly like Laura Palmer in some close-ups. All of this is coincidental but had I only seen WAXWORK a year or so later I might've thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Zach Galligan (Billy from GREMLINS) plays the rich preppie a-hole lead, who pays his Latino maid to write his poli-sci essays. That subplot pays off in one of the film's biggest (of several legitimate) laugh-out-loud punchlines. WAXWORK is... as it turns out... actually an extraordinarily broad/absurdist comedy, written preposterously but mostly directed w/ such arch camp confidence that the film seems entirely aware of its own silliness, and generally leans into it hard. (Besides the students, WAXWORK also boasts a couple of the most 80s cop movie detectives to ever 80s cop in any 80s movie.) For all of its self-conscious humor, however, the early horror setpieces do work surprisingly well, particularly the truly grisly and sadistic vampire sequence... featuring gore FX that hold up to my memories of gazing at Fango in the supermarket all those years back... not to mention the devastating Michelle Johnson getting all bloody in a lace gown while fighting vampiric Kate Bush lookalikes. I'll also mention that Foreman's nice-girl-next-door has a rather unique arc where she rejects fratboy Galligan because she's secretly longing to be satisfied in a BDSM relationship(!).

Honestly I had a ball w/ this rewatch, barring two minor caveats: 1.) The film is not sophisticated enough to mediate serious conversations about consent (at the climactic point when Galligan must "save" an orgasmic Foreman from being whipped to death by the Marquis DeSade); and 2.) the final fracas really does collapse into underchoreographed chaos, a criticism I held when I was 12 and which still holds up today. First-time director Anthony Hickox has more ambition than craft, to be sure, yet I sort of appreciate that no one stepped in and told him to simplify his screenplay or rein things in, instead just letting him go balls-to-the-wall.
3.5/5
Highly entertaining if juvenile.

[RCMerchant]

Alice in Wonderland (1915) - this restoration is on youtube and has a TON of ads, but I enjoyed it. It's ridiculously low budget, but based more closely on the book which is actually pretty clever and funny. It kind of has an Antrum/ Cigarette Burns type "cursed film" vibe too, but I seem to be doing okay.

There is some missing footage and Alice was apparently 16 years old which is a little old for Alice, but it works in a Something Weird sort of campy way.

1915 is way early so I say good job

4.5 /5

It's like a local children's theater production, probably filmed in some rich lady's garden

[zombie no.one]

M.10rda I saw WAXWORK for the first time last month, agree with your overall assessment although it took me at least half the film to get used to the completely unrealistic tone, I'm generally not a fan of that OTT obviously fake acting style (reminds me of HOBGOBLINS!) but worth sticking with though. good fx

[lester1/2jr]

RC - Apparently it was only half the original film or something. No Humpty Dumpty

[zombie no.one]

NIGHTMARE AT NOON (1988)

Town water supply contaminated, makes residents turn into psycho zombies with green blood. very random but also predictably 80s in execution.