Recent Viewings, Part 2

[RCMerchant]

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (1982)
Typical Italian zombie flick. Pretty run of the mill until the end when our heroine gets her tounge ripped out and her eyeballs squeezed out of her head.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Jurassic Park III" (2001)
Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) sat out the previous "JP" movie but he's back for this third go-round, in which he gets shanghaiied into helping a couple find their child who's lost on Dino Island. As usual, lots of stunts, narrow escapes, and gory dino-munchings occur.
"JP III" is usually dismissed as the worst of the series, but I actually kinda like it. It's not as bloated or pretentious as Spielberg's entries, it's just a no-frills, fast moving action adventure/creature flick. Underrated and enjoyable.

[indianasmith]

JOJO RABBIT (2019)  Ten year old JoJo is finally old enough to join the Hitler Youth even as Germany is crumbling before the Allied onslaught.  He may be small, skinny, cowardly, and slow, but he has the help of a powerful imaginary friend - none other than Hitler himself!  However, his relationship with his BFF (Best Friend Fuhrer) becomes more complicated when JoJo discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic.

Beautifully filmed, wistfully sad and silly by turns, this coming of age wartime drama was nominated for Best Picture, and deserved it!  Powerful performances all around, I was completely sucked in.  5/5

[Rev. Powell]

5/5 would probably a good one to play the kevin bacon game with. remember stolen bible? it had the most degrees. rev powell found it I think

Heh. Yeah, STOLEN BIBLE was a crazy Nollywood movie. The absolutely insane trailer went viral and then they took it down.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Everly" (2014)
Salma Hayek has spent the past four years in forced servitude to a brutal Japanese crime lord. When her "boss" gets wind of her plans to escape, he sends wave after wave of hired killers to her apartment building. You can probably figure out how well that goes.
"Everly" may not have the most original plot, but it's a gloriously gory, ultra-violent non-stop shoot'em up that's kinda like a mash up of "Kill Bill" and "Die Hard." A more accurate title for this flick would've been "Bullets, Boobs & Lots of Blood," cuz Salma still looks hot even after she's been shot and stabbed a few times and spent half the movie covered in grime, gore, and gunpowder.

[lester1/2jr]

The Forgotten (2014) - more of an foreign indy than a horror movie. It succeeds well on the first score, much less so on the latter.

A dorky kid lives in what we used to call a squat with his Dad, a ne'er do well. His Mom is in a psychiatric institution and life would be pretty unbearable if he doesn't slowly befriend a hot waitress. It's an unlikely relationship to say the least, but the actress * (everyone is British btw) is definitely the high point of the thing.

There are mysterious scrapings and poundings coming from the apartment next door. What are these mystery sounds and how do they fit into the history of everyones lives??? This stuff is confusing and I didn't get the ending at all.

3.75 /5

enjoyed as a well acted, colorful indy not horror

* she was in Harry Potter and also the Blade runner remake

[FatFreddysCat]

"Truth or Dare" (2017)
A group of twenty somethings spend Halloween night playing "Truth Or Dare" inside a supposedly haunted house. This, of course, turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea, as it awakens an evil force which then follows them all home and makes them continue the ultimately-fatal "game."
Pretty standard direct-to-video horror junk with a few decently cringy, gory bits. One of the girls is played by Cassie "Sharknado" Scerbo, who can't act worth a damn but she has absolutely spectacular cleavage, so I had no complaints.

[JaseSF]

Some brief thoughts on some recent viewings:

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007): A zombie outbreak occurs on a plane. Who, if anyone, will survive? An action-packed zombie flick with some clever moments here and there, this film turns somewhat predictable and repetitive before the end. There are some fun moments featuring zombies in some unexpected places inside and outside a plane though.

The Stranger (1999): Weird, somewhat boring/somewhat pretentious film about a woman who suddenly finds her deeply buried memories/dreams/nightmares awakened along with her arguably repressed sexual desire after meeting a slightly pudgy pony-tailed stranger who mostly spouts arty nonsense.

Suck (2009): A struggling rock band suddenly finds their popularity starting to surge when their female bassist gets turned into an undead vampire. Best thing about this is its soundtrack with many familiar rock star faces appearing as part of the cast. Still this thing inevitably becomes sadly predictable and forgettable fare with few real surprises. In many ways, feels like some weird dragged out, strung together series of music videos featuring vampire and horror imagery.

Closet Monster (2015):When not  caring for/talking to his closest friend/pet hamster, a young teen boy comes of age struggling with sexual identity, artistic future plans, crazy dysfunctional parents, plus a desire to leave the limits of Newfoundland. Moments in this are really hard to sit through and watch. It really pushes the boundaries of discomfort into arguably the horror realm although it's never truly an horror film. At times tough to sit through but good performance by the lead.

Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010): A family of werewolf hunters comes across a new challenge - werewolves who can transform at will even without a full moon. In some ways, this feels like a TV series pilot but not quite (it is a TV movie). The leads prove somewhat more likable than I expected as did the lead villain Gabriel played by Stephen McHattie but this story seems to lack depth and the production and effects seems poorly done despite a clever concept.

[Alex]

Evils of the night. How this slice of 80's cheese escaped my notice until now I have no idea. Some famous actors and actresses slum it here, clearly not that interested in being in it. Plenty of naked women which sort of makes up for the death scene effects.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Heavy Metal Road Dog" (2016)
Lower-than-low budget rock doc that follows Chris Knudsen, the road manager and guitar tech for the all-girl tribute band The Iron Maidens, as they embark on a European tour.
Behind-the-scenes stuff like this can be fun if your subject has some good stories or at least some charisma, but Knudsen has neither. He shows all the personality of a wet mop as he tunes up guitars, consumes a lot of sausages and beer, gets lost in an Amsterdam train station, and navigates airport security. Watching paint dry is more exciting.
Maybe the filmmakers should have focused on the Iron Maidens instead -- they seem like a fun bunch of gals, though they don't really get to say much. Even more puzzling, you don't even get to hear any of their performances -- all the concert scenes are dubbed over with canned, generic widdly-widdly Euro power metal music. So what's the point?
In short: this is the least interesting rock doc I've ever seen
AVOID.

[Alex]

"Heavy Metal Road Dog" (2016)
Lower-than-low budget rock doc that follows Chris Knudsen, the road manager and guitar tech for the all-girl tribute band The Iron Maidens, as they embark on a European tour.
Behind-the-scenes stuff like this can be fun if your subject has some good stories or at least some charisma, but Knudsen has neither. He shows all the personality of a wet mop as he tunes up guitars, consumes a lot of sausages and beer, gets lost in an Amsterdam train station, and navigates airport security. Watching paint dry is more exciting.
Maybe the filmmakers should have focused on the Iron Maidens instead -- they seem like a fun bunch of gals, though they don't really get to say much. Even more puzzling, you don't even get to hear any of their performances -- all the concert scenes are dubbed over with canned, generic widdly-widdly Euro power metal music. So what's the point?
In short: this is the least interesting rock doc I've ever seen
AVOID.

I've met more than one backstage crew member who thought they were the star. Sounds like this doc is a missed opportunity.

[Rev. Powell]

MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (2020): Someone steals Yuta's temple offering of a squid, an octopus, and a crab, and soon giant versions of these three creatures begin terrorizing Japan; a squad is formed to combat the menace. A few amusing moments, but even granting the spoofy nature of the project, the extreme lack of budget proves disastrous. After building the goofy rubber seafood monster suits, there's not enough money left over to destroy the scale model cities. 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

I've met more than one backstage crew member who thought they were the star. Sounds like this doc is a missed opportunity.

Seriously, the whole time I watched it I kept thinking, "who the hell decided that THIS guy should be the focus of their documentary?" :D

[lester1/2jr]

terror from the year 5000 - this was mis-labeled as an Outer Limits episode. it's too silly for that, but If you can imagine a cross between campier Outer Limits ( say Corpus earthling) and Astounding She monster it would look exactly like this.

Scientist make a Tardis like time traveling machine in order to get artifacts from ancient history. They are so stupid though they program it backwards and get a weird statue from the future. They try to carbon date it but the carbon shows it like doesn't exist. Not long after that, a buxom future woman comes and wreaks havoc and everyone is forced to rethink the whole thing and figure out what to do.

Apparently this was a MST3K episode. I must have missed it. I didn't catch certain details like what was the point of the calcified cat in the suitcase at the bottom of the pond, but no matter. fun for all

5/5

[RCMerchant]

SHOCK WAVES (1977)




John Carradine is piloting a small cruise boat to-it never tells us where- when a WWII ship rises from the bottom of the sea and rams them. The folks on the boat get shipwrecked on an island inhabited by old Nazi Peter Cushing, and the island is overrun by Nazi zombies, and everyone dies except Brooke Addams. It's real disjointed- but the scary Nazi zombies made up for it. They live in the water- ! They surface and sink like sneaky alligators! And if you pull their tinted googles off they shrivel up and die. It's kinda like a slighter bigger budget ASTRO ZOMBIES.
Carradine and Peter are great- but don't get a lot of screen time.

http://youtu.be/XEXN4FLGtBk