Recent Viewings, Part 2

[pennywise37]

Terrified (2018) is that that awful and i mean truly awful Charles Band Film from a few years back or is that another one i'm thinking of ? honestly i hope it's another film to be honest. i really haven't been watching much movies since my tv shows are ending for the season

[indianasmith]

Terrified (2018) is that that awful and i mean truly awful Charles Band Film from a few years back or is that another one i'm thinking of ? honestly i hope it's another film to be honest. i really haven't been watching much movies since my tv shows are ending for the season

No, this is a Peruvian film, not a Full Moon production.

[Alex]

Tank 432.

When is a tank not a tank? When it is an APC. If you are trapped in said APC and the back door won't open, why not try one of the roof hatches? I am not an expert in APCs, but since tanks have escape hatches below, it strikes me as being very possible that other armoured vehicles would have them too.

Some mercenaries retrieving a couple of prisoners come across a farm where they find the decapitated bodies of other mercenaries. They run away from a figure dressed in an NBC* outfit, who doesn't get hit when they shoot at him and find an APC in a field. Deciding to rest up inside what is clearly not a vehicle in the best of conditions, they end up trapped inside when the door won't open to let them out. The fail to spot the multiple hatches in the roof, but after a couple of days trapped inside, they do manage to get the thing running, even as they die off one by one inside it.

Other than there is some sort of experiment going on, this film doesn't give a lot of answers. It looks like they rented a field off a farmer, filmed a movie there and got a few extra shots around his or her house. Most of the equipment they use is old gear the MOD stopped using years ago. I got the impression that it was a dystopian future, with small bands of merc's battling each other. No one remembers what they are doing, or why they are doing it, and while you get a few hints (like the name of the orange powder they keep finding everywhere), nothing is really laid out for you. The viewer can either go off their own assumptions or forget the movie and move on.



*Me, I'd have taken this as a major hint something funny was up.

[FatFreddysCat]

"PCU" (1994)
Tommy, a dorky high-school senior, arrives at Port Chester University for a weekend tour, and his host is "Droz" (Jeremy Piven), a seven-year senior and resident of "The Pit," the raunchiest party house on campus. Soon Tommy is caught up in helping the Pit gang fight battles on several fronts - against the University administration who wants to throw them off campus, a Yuppie fraternity called "Balls and Shaft" led by David Spade, and various other ultra-Politically Correct groups (Feminists, vegetarians, hippies, gays, etc.). Fortunately, a massive blowout party may be just what all these warring factions need to come together!
This underrated campus comedy is essentially "Animal House" updated for the grunge-rock era, but it's funny as hell, with great performances by Piven and future MCU mainstay and "Mandalorian" director Jon Favreau (as "Gutter," a grunge-rock dork with Layne Staley dreads). "PCU" went un-noticed during its theatrical run, but has become a cult item in the years since. It's actually kinda scary how it predicted our current hyper-sensitive "woke" society!

[indianasmith]

UNSHELTERED (2022)  Five college students trying to escape an incoming Florida hurricane run out of gas and wind up sheltering in a junkyard where a bunch of old planes are stored.  A masked killer begins stalking and killing them off one by one . . . this movie had its moments, but it kept going back and forth between "found footage," an interview with the police chief after the fact, and then traditional omnipresent third person camera work.   And then the end was . . . well, confusing and open-ended.  I wanted to like this movie, but the best I can give it is a 3/5

[Dr. Whom]

The Doomsday Machine (1972)

The movie starts with a spy cunningly diverting the attention of guard dog by throwing a cat over the wall. She then infiltrates the facility to discover that the Red Chinese (yes, them again) have developed a doomsday machine, they plan on using within 72 hours. At the same time a mission to Venus is being launched. The crew is hurriedly reshuffled to include women (with the obligatory female Russian scientist). They are sent on their way, the earth duly blows up, but, for reasons, not all seven  will be able to make it to Venus. Will mankind be saved?

Another potentially interesting idea that is completely ruined by the execution. It is hard to believe that this movie is from 1972, it feels more like 1962. For a movie that came out a full four years after 2001 A Space Odyssey, the general design and SFX are laughably bad. Dialogue doesn't rise above 1950s B-movie level, and the WTF ending is probably explained by lack of means to create a Venus set. It does seem that in the future, spaceships will have garish disco lighting.

[Rev. Powell]

THE MADS: A NIGHT OF SHORTS 7: Frank and Trace riff on another collection of vintage shorts, most of which are pretty forgettable. Once again, it's only about an hour of material and an hour of Q&A filler, with no guest this time. Not their best effort. 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Batman" (2022)
A mysterious killer known only as "The Riddler" is murdering Gotham City's most powerful people, leaving cryptic notes for the Caped Crusader at each scene, which he must decode before things escalate into a full scale terrorist attack on Election night.  
Robert "Twilight" Pattinson is the latest actor to step into the Bat-cape and cowl, and surprisingly he does a decent job in this gritty, almost too-dark detective thriller. I like him better in the Batman suit than when he's Bruce Wayne, who he plays as a mopey, emo douche. The action sequences are impressive but overall the movie is simply too damned long (just a hair under three hours!) so it eventually starts to collapse under its own weight. Not terrible, but I doubt I'll ever feel compelled to revisit it.

[indianasmith]

SHARKANSAS WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE - I watched this dreadful made-for-TV Jim Wynorski film for grins and giggles this evening.  The girls were pretty, and there was some decent character development, but other than that, this one had nothing going for it.  It could have been a golden bad movie had they gone for the R rating, amped up the violence, and sleazed it up in general.  As it is, it was just too boring to be entertaining. 2.5/5

[Alex]

SHARKANSAS WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE - I watched this dreadful made-for-TV Jim Wynorski film for grins and giggles this evening.  The girls were pretty, and there was some decent character development, but other than that, this one had nothing going for it.  It could have been a golden bad movie had they gone for the R rating, amped up the violence, and sleazed it up in general.  As it is, it was just too boring to be entertaining. 2.5/5

Kristi criticised that one on the basis that the bras the women were wearing were completely unrealistic for a prison. I am wondering how she knows what underwear is worn in a prison though.

[Rev. Powell]

DISCO GODFATHER (1979): The Disco Godfather (Rudy Ray Moore), who's also a retired kung fu cop, resolves to "attack the wack" and take down the local PCP cartel after his basketball star nephew trips out on angel dust. This ridiculous, dated piece of trash restored my faith in so-bad-they're-good movies. 4/5  at least on a bad movie scale.

[indianasmith]

IN THE TALL GRASS (2019) - Just stumbled across this one randomly on Netflix and was amazed at how good it was! 
A pregnant girl named Becky and her brother are driving through Kansas corn country when they stop at the edge of a huge field - you're never quite sure what kind of field it is; the grass is taller than corn and has no ears on it. Pausing a moment for Becky to throw up - you get the sense her pregnancy is not an easy one at all - they hear the voice of a lost child in the field calling for help. They go into the field to find the boy, and that's when the trouble starts . . .
I don't want to give away any more than that, but this is an incredibly creepy film with some standout performances.  HIGHLY recommended!  5/5

[Dr. Whom]

Terminal Island (1973)

Prison exploitation movie meets Lord of the Flies. The basic idea is that the state of California has abolished the death penalty and decided instead to maroon murderers on an island. When Carmen, a new prisoner, is brought to the island, she learns that there are two factions: a camp ruled by a tyrannical Bobby (Sean Kenney of Star Trek fame) with a pre-Magnum Roger E Mosley as his strong man, and a band of rebels, who fight a guerrilla war against Bobby. Also there is a doctor, played by an equally pre-Magnum Tom Selleck. Carmen falls in with the rebels, and together they plot to overthrow Bobby. The population of the island decreases rapidly.

This one is pretty boring: just a sequence of exploitation scenes, fights, some sexy stuff, and more violence. The plot wanders about: at first Carmen is set up to be the badass mama main character, but then she just fades into the background, and it becomes more of an ensemble piece of the rebel group. Actions and motivations are wildly improbable. It does contain a reverse strip tease, where a girl starts out naked in a lake and seductively puts her clothes back on again.
For some unfathomable reason, this movie is taken seriously by some.

[lester1/2jr]

Overdosed - documentary on a small town in West Virginia that gets deluged with pain pills via a shady doc who sets up shop there. He is clearly a total a***ole and makes himself out to be the victim as he was allegedly hooked too. The town is in ruins. Two women who try to pick up the pieces become pariahs because no one want to admit whats going on. One of them recalls seeing a girl give a BJ for 8 dollars. These used to be manufacturing centers now they are insane drug dens. 5/5

Something Weird - Somehow I'd never seen this. extremely ridiculous HG Lewis movie about a psychic who joins forces with a witch. There's no gore or nudity and even the LSD drugsploitation angle never really pans out, but it's very colorful and campy. sort of like Pink Flamingoes meets Ed Wood and I can't imagine higher praise than that! and of course, it's historically relevant as Something Weird is named after it. The sub plot with the police detective falling for the witch was actually believable and decently done, but pretty beside the point to the whole demented thing.  also 5/5

[Rev. Powell]

NEPTUNE FROST (2021): Set in an alternate-reality Rwanda, an escaped coltan miner teams up with an intersexed refugee to hack global information systems through their dreams. This Afro-surrealist feature is also a musical (and the music is its most successful element); there's almost too much to process here in this intellectualized film that deals with politics (global, local and imaginary), the intersection of technology and mysticism, gender identity, and more. 2.5/5.