Recent viewings

[Jack]

Rites of Spring (2011) - some losers kidnap a rich guy's daughter to hold her for ransom. Meanwhile a psycho kidnaps a couple of other girls so he can apparently feed them to the even bigger psycho he's got living in his barn. Complications ensue. Didn't care for this much, the victims were too underdeveloped to by sympathetic, the perpetrators weren't interesting, and the ending was a complete non-climax. I guess enough stuff happened to keep it from getting too boring. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Turner and Hooch" (1989) Tom Hanks is a compulsive neat-freak cop who is forced to take in a huge, slobbery dog - the only witness to its master's murder - in this funny "buddy" action comedy. We recently lost our dog so the ending didn't go over very well with my kids, but up till then they were enjoying the flick. Honestly, if I had known that [SPOILER ALERT]Hooch gets shot and killed at the end[/SPOILER ALERT] I wouldn't have let them watch it...

"The Battered Bastards of Baseball" (2014) Netflix documentary about the Portland Mavericks - an independent pro baseball team that took Oregon by storm in the early 70s. The team was owned by actor Bing Russell (father of Kurt Russell), and their roster was made up of an interesting mix of has-beens and never was'es including one time Yankee legend Jim Bouton. An entertaining doc about a forgotten piece of baseball history.

[FatFreddysCat]

"We're The Millers" (2013) Jason Sudeikis is a low level dope dealer who hires three fellow losers to help him pose as an "all-American family" so he can smuggle an RV full of weed into the U.S. from Mexico. Naturally, many wacky hijinks ensue. This raunchy slapstick comedy was funny as hell and Jennifer Aniston (as the fake "Mom") was, as always, "SssssssMOKIN'!"

[Rev. Powell]

LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960): An amoral businessman, his neglected wife, and a straight-laced lawyer emerge from a scuba diving trip to discover that everyone else on the planet is dead. This cheap post-apocalyptic adultery drama manages to be even less interesting than the other movie Roger Corman shot back-to-back with the same cast and Puerto Rico locations, THE CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA. 1/5.

RIFFTRAX LIVE: GODZILLA: Roland Emmerich's GODZILLA is dumb even by the standards of monster movies, plus the casting is weird---Matthew Broderick as an action movie lead? Unfortunately, the riffers didn't seem to be able to put this one over the top, making it just an average night out making fun of a really bad movie. 3/5.

[Jack]

Demonic (2005) - Claws' favorite movie    Some kids get stuck in the woods and are attacked by naked nymphos. I guess there are worse fates. This really is a terrible movie; the lead female is okay but the other one is a cast iron b***h straight out of the bowels of hell and the three guys could be left out of the movie completely and nobody would notice. The plot was okay. Lead babe was oddly sexy, so...3/5.

[claws]

 

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched THE BUNNYMAN MASSACRE.
Wow,  I know low-budget horror movies tend to be  mean-spirited and misogynistic, but good grief!
In the first five minutes, Bunnyman attacks a school bus and kills a bunch of kids - I mean
pre-teen KIDS! - with a chainsaw, then kills three campers on his way home from the bus.
Out of 10 principle victims of the signature bunny-costume-wearing hideously burned killer,
NINE were women - all of them camping in the woods - the only guy was killed with a shotgun
early on (while having sex in a tent with his girlfriend).  A few of the women were killed outright;
the rest were kidnapped and tortured to death by Bunnyman and his friend Joe for no other
reason than grins and giggles.  No explanation of who Bunnyman was or where he came from
(this is a sequel but the original was pretty forgettable, at least I've forgotten it).

First of all, how often do groups of women go camping in the woods without any guys?
Secondly, how long can people go missing from the same general region before someone notices?
Why would a sheriff spend five minutes TALKING to a guy with a rifle about shooting him before
actually doing it?

One curiosity I noted - Joe's tourist trap was labeled THE AUDIE MURPHY HOTEL AND GENERAL STORE,
and featured a picture of Murphy in uniform, wearing his Medal of Honor, inside the store.  Murphy is
my hometown hero, and while I am sure the plug was intended as a homage of some sort, to put his
image in a film this awful was frankly insulting to his memory!

[lester1/2jr]

Schizo (1976) - This was alright, which is a little better than okay in my book. It was actually sort of good.

British grind house/ drive in (less nasty/ crazy grindhouse)  style horror movie. It's strength is probably the fact that the killer guy always seems to be in the next room so you can never relax. The lead actress is pretty and occasionally nude but they dress her up in some dowdy unsexy clothes. just throw her in a red dress or swimsuit guys its not hard.

Schizo (1976)

I liked the sexual tension between the husband and the best friend and how it p**sed the main character off. There was also a really good seance scene. IN general though it's pretty much just a regular horror movie that I would have stayed up till 2 am watching when I was 13 and been pretty satisfied with.

British people probably thought this was amazing. it's not but it's worth seeing if you're a horror buff which we all are it would appear


3.75/5

[Jack]

Skeeter (1993) - oversize mosquitoes attack people in a small town. This was a fun little bit of cheese, with likable characters and enough plot to keep things moving. Had a nice B-movie sense of humor too. 3.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980): A crew of filmmakers goes into the Amazon jungle, torments a primitive tribe, and then gets the tables turned on them. The irony of this disturbing movie is that it posits that modern society is more savage than the primitive cannibals, then proves it by filming sadistic scenes of real animal killing. Unique, and effective at times, but utterly reprehensible. 1/5.

[lester1/2jr]

wrong 5/5

[dean]

wrong 5/5

Is that the Quieten Dupiex 'Wrong'?  If so the trailer looked bananas. 

[Mofo Rising]

Zombie Holocaust (1980)

or Zombi Holocaust or Zombi 3 or Dr. Butcher, M.D. or...

I'm sure many of you are familiar with this film. For those who are not, this is strictly for those who thrill to low-budget Italian knock-offs. It's sole difference is that it includes not just zombies, but cannibals as well. Seems there has been a rash of cannibalism in New York hospitals. After discovering that it is a certain tribe of Malaysians who are responsible (what are they doing in New York?), a team of doctors/anthropologists/reporters/hangers-on head down to the island to find out what the heck is going on. There they meet another doctor who assists them in finding the island. Once there, the cannibal attacks go down forthwith. However, they have an unlikely savior in the form of, you probably didn't guess it, zombies. Too bad these zombies also represent a less immediate danger than the cannibals. The sinister secret of the island will be revealed in the grand finale, as will the naked body of our lead female protagonist.

It's all pretty typical of the genre. Some fun moments of gore and nudity, highlighted by the odd nature of the story. There are also some moments that just made me laugh in their inanity. The arm popping off the mannequin as it falls to it's death, only to be reattached when it cuts back to the actor. The anthropologist proclaiming "all primitive tribes practiced cannibalism, without question." (Note: It's not cool to proclaim any extant people as "primitive.") The ancient relic that fits a certain nubile actress to a T... but then I've said too much.

Also, is it just me or does the island doctor look and sound like a taller version of Harvey Keitel?

3 out of 5. I liked it.

[indianasmith]

Over the last 2 nights I watched TOM HOLLAND'S TWISTED TALES, a 2 hour collection of vignettes from horror legend Tom Holland.  Some were good, some were bad, most mediocre, but I was moderately entertained.  The next to last entry was best - a girl tried to summon a demon in order to communicate with her dead sister, but got the pizza guy instead. Or did she?
The Vampire Dance Club was the weakest entry, and the haunted tablet story was pretty good.  Overall, a mixed bag, but worth the rental.

[JaseSF]

The Gods Must be Crazy (1980): A Kalahari bushman named Xi (N!xau) discovers a mysterious object fallen from the sky (in reality a Coca Cola bottle) which he finds brings unwanted evil into his tribe. He decides he will get rid of the thing by throwing it off the end of the world and sets out on a journey where he meets up with a bumbling scientist named Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) and his friend/jack of all trades Mpudi (Michael Thys) and a newly arrived school teacher named Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo) not to mention a band of would-be revolutionaries lead by the Communist sympathizer Sam Boga (Louw Verwey). Much chaos ensues.

At first, one begins to think they are watching some type of documentary with this film that is until we are introduced to the characters of Andrew Steyn and Mpudi and Kate Thompson. That's when the humor really takes off. The best bits involved Steyn and his malfunctioning jeep and he treks through the jungle setting not to mention Steyn being an absolutely klutz around women particularly the lovely Ms. Thompson. Also entertaining is the reactions and opinions expressed by the bushman and what he encounters in the supposedly more civilized world. Very enjoyable fun little ride of a film (but I'm not completely sure as to whether all the details presented are truly accurate or exaggerated). I really love this one so I'm giving it ****1/2 out of ***** stars.