RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[LilCerberus]

^Forgot to mention; I wanted to point out that I thought it was sincere, and the difficult to see black captions for the towns wanted me to send a shout out to an old friend who always said "I didn't like the font".....^

[M.10rda]

GORILLA AT LARGE (1954):
It's hard for me to think of a more stacked cast in the mid-50s slumming in a greater mediocrity (though I am open to suggestions). Thus I submit to you Anne Bancroft, Lee J. Cobb, Lee Marvin, Raymond Burr, and Cameron Mitchell... in a Man-In-Suit potboiler where characters are menaced (very very slowly) at an urban circus by either a killer in a gorilla suit or a real errant gorilla or possibly both. If GORILLA AT LARGE was produced by Fox or Paramount or MGM you'd think this was a one-fell-swoop revenge strategy against a bunch of contracted actors who'd p**sed off the studio chief - but no, it was made by "Panoramic Pictures"  so presumably that fly-by-night studio just threw buckets of money into the Sunset Strip and then brought out the nets to capture anybody who ran into the street to nab a few bucks.

Bancroft was a working ingenue on the verge of playing wives and fallen ladies, still years off from THE MIRACLE WORKER; she plays the star trapeze artist and looks good enough that she might still have been a stretch for short comedy writer Mel Brooks. (I dunno when they met but they married a decade later.) Burr, a few months before REAR WINDOW and a year and change before GODZILLA, is Bancroft's hubby and the owner of the circus. In his big scene, he (falsely) confesses to being the gorilla-suited maniac and then punches a plate of glass.    Cobb (within months of ON THE WATERFRONT) brings a lot of gravitas to his investigating cop role, but he's clearly bored by the project. (At one point he reclines sleepily at his desk and orders an underling to brief him on the case because he's "too busy".) Marvin had already played the heavy in THE BIG HEAT but has the smallest (and silliest) role of the bunch, as an absentminded patrolman who gets knocked out and locked in the gorilla's cage. That leaves Mitchell, historically the weakest actor of the toney bunch, to enjoy the most screen time, including tons of dialogue, some light action, and even a love triangle w/ Bancroft and another dame. I primarily know Mitchell from his (even much worse) flicks from the 70s and 80s, when he was a wizened silver fox  - plus lots of his early 50's credits are nearly invisible ensemble bits - so the full-color GORILLA AT LARGE is something of a revelation as it shows that young Mitchell (besides being only a serviceable actor) was also a weird-looking ginger.......  .......Yes, double-standard time: Redheaded women, hottest entities in all God's Creation, but as for Mitchell and many redheaded men.......  ...Makes sense now that Mitch worked a lot more when he turned gray.

There's lot of relationship drama and very little monkey-action. (The climax is just KING KONG on a tiny fraction of the scale.) Although shot and released in 3D, there's almost no attempt to exploit the format for funsies. All that said, I did enjoy the gorilla suit! It's one of the sumo-wrestler-sized ones, like in Ron Ormond's UNTAMED MISTRESS, but of a higher quality, and w/ pretty slick facial feature-articulation. In the movie's best/funniest moment, the escaped gorilla wanders the midway and gazes upon first some cheezy animatronic chimp robots, and then on some wholly uncool sambo-like dancing puppets.  The racist iconography is a bummer, but the disapproving look on the gorilla's face is priceless.       2.5/5

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Robotrix (1991)
https://youtu.be/5ScNL0rondU?si=2_GmYL-Mx1MqTVQs

A middle eastern prince goes frolicking in the pool with a group of nude women while a team of Asian policemen assigned to guard him watch..... The one policewoman on the team is put off & decides to step out.... A kidnapper gasses everyone in the pool, then shoots the policewoman on the way out......
Later, at a convention organized by the father of the prince, American & German android developers vie for a contract for a middle eastern android army.... Two androids get to fighting, things get out of hand, & a Japanese android comes in to save the day..... Then an evil mad scientist sends a video tape saying he's kidnapped the sheik's son, then transfers his mind into an android.....
This plot point is quickly forgotten until about an hour later.....
The dead policewoman's mind is put into an android..... Meanwhile, the police start looking for a man killing hookers.....

This one kept turning up in b-movie recommendations, had me thinking it was just going to be silly martial arts, but for the most part, was porn with jokes about misogyny & voyeurism set to a grating synth score, with no real plot....

[M.10rda]

RISE: BLOOD HUNTER (2007):
Madame wanted to watch this because she said she remembered really liking it 20 years ago. After it ended she admitted she might've just had a crush on Lucy Liu. That's a fine explanation, Liu looks great here and playing a butt-kicking vampire who hunts other vampires w/ a crossbow should have been a no-brainer home-run-outta'-the-park role for her. Unfortunately the film is complete nonsense. When you turn into a vampire do you instantly become a perfect marksman w/ a crossbow? What is the title even referring to? Those are just two of the questions you may ask during RISE: BLOOD HUNTER. (Should the colon in the title have been a comma instead, as RISE, BLOOD HUNTER might make more sense? There's a third question.)

Sebastian Gutierrez, the genius who gave the world SNAKES ON A PLANE, also w/d this less-overtly amusing clownshow. His brand of sloppy stylishness actually does occasionally recall Lynchian noir from LOST HIGHWAY, WILD AT HEART, et al, and there is a scene early on w/ party girls being stalked in a creepy house that is actually atmospheric, intense, and borderline scary (...in spite of the scene still defying all sober logic). To his credit, Gutierrez has also been partnered for 30 years w/ ultra-gorgeous Carla Gugino. She appears briefly here as a supporting vampire but honestly (based on Gugino's excellent work for Mike Flanagan) the film would have likely been better had Gugino played Liu's underwritten lead role.

For good or ill, the large and inexplicable cast is the most noteworthy thing about RISE. Michael Chiklis is 2nd-billed as a character with only two apparent attributes - "alcoholic" and "cop" - until the last 30 minutes of the film, which deliver a wholly unsupported left-field plot twist which depend upon us knowing heretofore unrevealed things about his relationship with his estranged daughter.  Character actor Julio Oscar Mechoso appears in the middle as "Vladimir Exposition", setting up expectation that his character will return by the end of the film (but he doesn't). Holt McAllany (from "Mindhunters") and Mako are vampires and Elden Hensen is a Renfield; Marilyn Manson (also briefly in LOST HIGHWAY, actually) appears pointlessly as a bartender and Nick Lachey  gets too much screen-time before (happily) getting his throat ripped out.  Most unnervingly, Robert Forster (!) appears in the first scene - and then never reappears! I suspect Forster enjoyed sub-sixty second cameos more than large roles - his 21st century credits are replete w/ "blink and you'll miss him" gigs.

Not offensively bad.    2.5/5    The pointless and oddly depressing CARRIE-esque final shot was probably setting up a franchise for Liu's character, lol.

[chainsaw midget]

Finally watched the Tom Cruise Mummy movie, and I can honestly say that out of all the mummy movies I've ever watched, this one has the most Tom Cruise in it.  The actress who plays the Mummy actually does a fairly good job and has a nice monster design, but she's got nothing script wise to work with.  Basically we have a scumbag unlikable hero that the figured the audience was just like automatically because he's Tom Cruise, despite the character having no redeeming value. We have a mummy who made a deal with the ultimate evil in order to gain the power to slit a baby's throat. She's revived in modern day with all sorts of super powers, and she wants to ... do something with a ritual... and Tom Cruise has to stop her because ... some reason probabaly. There's Monster Hunter SHIELD ran by the worst possible guy you could choose to put in charge of the operation. And Tom Cruise is trying to end his curse that does I don't know what because I have no idea why. And at the end of the movie he gains the powers of a mummy.

The whole thing feel like a two hour trailer for a series we never got... and like most trailers that means you get to see some cool scenes without anything that actually explains to you what's going on. 

[zombie no.one]

SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT (2025)

Accidental purchase, thought I'd bought the original.

switched off after barely 15 minutes. I just can't deal with the way so many new horrors are made. total non-atmosphere zones that all feel identical. murky green brown orange camera filters. mumbling voices. I give up.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Atom Age Vampire(1960)
https://youtu.be/C3FiQduQwYc?si=m1TMv96LD-K_BCvV

A stripper goes backstage to meet her boyfriend, But he announces he's breaking up because he's outgrown her career choice..... She gets in her car, gets blinded by an oncoming motorist & wrecks.... In the hospital, she finds out she's scarred for life....
Then an evil mad scientist sends his lovely assistant to recruit the girl for unorthodox beauty treatments....
The treatments work, but things get complicated, as the assistant loves the scientist, but the scientist falls for the stripper.....
The treatments start to wear off, so the scientist starts killing women to make more elixir....

the first half hour is okay, but starts to slow down after that.... The characters are written like they're out of some soap opera.... When the scientist starts killing, it runs more like a crime noir with a guy who turn into a mutant in lieu of putting on a mask.....

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
His Name Was King(1971)
https://youtu.be/e-W0QTHs_-c?si=mY7VBokVmVf-o6SZ

A group of wagons is rolling through the desert, when they come to an army checkpoint.... When one of the soldiers tries to investigate, he gets a pistol in the face, while another man offers him money... Smooth sailing, but the next checkpoint is a little more hard nosed with more men, but one of the wagons has a Gatlin gun....
Then roll opening credits, Where we're introduced to the protagonist, King.... King is a bounty hunter, who corners & dispatches four fugitives..... The brothers of one of the men swear vengeance, & start by killing King's brother & attacking his new wife.... So King swears revenge....
He rides off to the next town, where he gets in a gunfight with the brothers & their gang, then rides off to the next town, where an army officer gives him a heliograph, which he uses to report a stagecoach robbery to passing army patrols....
King gets captured while investigating, & learns the brothers are selling guns to Mexican bandits...
Meanwhile, back at the local army headquarters, King is being framed for stealing the guns & leading the patrol into an ambush.....

Drags most of the time, but the gunfights are okay.....

[zombie no.one]

SEA OF LOVE (1989)

based on the title and sleeve I thought this might be quite 'glossy' and slick, but it's visually unappealing. kind of scrappy and grubby / mundane looking and feeling...

Al Pacino plays Al Pacino. lost interest after about 30 mins with this one.
 Next!

[Trevor]

THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN ALIVE aka LETHAL WOMAN (1989)

1. Based on the story THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME by Richard Connell.
2. A mentor of mine photographed this.
3. I'd forgotten how crap this was 😳😳

[M.10rda]

SEA OF LOVE was hugely hyped in the day as Pacino's "comeback" after taking some time off to do theatre. He did have some great years/films in the 90s. I agree SEA OF LOVE is pretty meh, though.

[M.10rda]

72 HOURS (2026):
I don't think I've ever watched a Kevin Hart star vehicle before, not intentionally, just haven't been motivated. The trailer for this was funny enough that we decided we'd check it out. That's what trailers are for, I guess. Had we skipped it, we'd have missed a handful of legitimate laughs that aren't in the trailer, but I think we would've lived full and happy lives all the same.

Ala THE HANGOVER, Hart is a 40 year old "unc" who somehow ends up on a Bachelor Party weekend in Miami w/ four college-age guys for Reasons, they cheez off some drug dealers, and wackiness ensues. The very likeable Mason Gooding from HEART EYES and ADULT BEST FRIENDS (son of Cuba, whose wife must be a supermodel 'cause Mason's much better looking than his dad) is the groom; Ben Marshall from Please Don't Destroy (he was Conan O'Brien Jr in their movie) has good comic timing in a very underwritten buddy role; Marcello Hernandez (also apparently from SNL, I don't watch much) is the rather unlikable dude-bro of the group; and Kam Patterson (never heard of him) is occasionally very funny as a completely spaced-out polyglot. The drug cartel's chief lieutenant is played by a guy I thought was Nick Kroll doing Latino minstrelsy but it's a real Latino actor (yet the minstrelsy happens elsewhere nonetheless).

72 HOURS is essentially a Bad movie, taking place on a planet that resembles Earth but isn't Earth. The first subtle hint comes early on, when Hart's tough-talking neck-tattooed girlfriend remarks unironically that she's a finalist to be the chief of surgery at the Mayo Clinic. (I might aspirationally approve of that possibility, but it didn't assure me that the film was operating on Earth logic.) The big initial Jump-The-Shark moment is an entirely unmotivated and poorly staged fight scene where Hart is attacked by a guy who looks exactly like Snoop Dogg. Fortunately again, it isn't Snoop Dogg, it's the comedian Katt Williams, though where he's been for 20 years and why he's suddenly wrestling w/ Hart in this movie is never explained. Apparently the filmmakers knew the audience would be mystified and thus one of the college dudes exclaims "I think that's Katt Williams!" Whew, thanks for the clarification.

Oddly, the most cringeworthy subplot does finally pay off amusingly. See, every time Hart does cocaine  he becomes his split personality "Ricardo Montana"  who does a thick (and awful) Cuban accent  then threatens people and insists he's the new drug kingpin of Miami.    This is terribly unfunny but it does set up a couple of funny punchlines. The final one is the revelation of the (heretofore unseen) head of the drug cartel. SPOILER for those who actually think they will see 72 HOURS: the kingpin is played by Andy Garcia, who rebukes Hart at length for his cultural insensitivity. That's actually pretty funny.

Written by at least a couple of guys who have written better movies; directed by journeyman director Tim Story, who has made a couple of better movies but also several just as bad or worse.    2.5/5    Seems like the sort of thing that would've played theaters and made lots of money, though maybe it's making a lot of money on Netflix, though most of the Letterboxd reviews are bad but just because a movie is Bad doesn't mean it isn't a hit.  Ends w/ Hart looking directly into the camera and promising a sequel, then obligatory outtakes during the credits.             

[chainsaw midget]

Watch the two sequels to the Lost Boys.  One isn't very good, the other isn't that bad. 

The Lost Boys: The Tribe
This movie desperately wants to be just like the original, but lacks the charm, wit, and memorable characters that The Lost Boys had. It does have surfing vampires, though. Corey Feldman returns as Edgar Frog, but he really feels too old for the role he's playing, making it harder to buy him as this badass vampire hunter they want you to see him as.  Tom Savini has a small cameo at the beginning, but it feels completely wasted, as he's gone almost as soon as he appears. There are a few fun moments scattered throughout, but overall it feels like a generic direct-to-video vampire movie wearing The Lost Boys name.

The Lost Boys: The Thirst
This one is far superior. It's still not as good as the original, but it's genuinely enjoyable. It fully leans into its more over-the-top nature and embraces the fact that Edgar Frog is past his prime and not nearly as badass as he wants people to think he is. It does this without ever making him feel mocked or turning him into a joke. This time around, Edgar is trying to stop a massive vampire rave fueled by blood from the original head vampire, which is being distributed as a drug that transforms users into vampires. They even give Edgar a team of vampire hunters in this one and bring back The OTHER Frog brother.  The whole thing is over the top but the movie knows exactly what it is. While it never exactly reaches the heights of the 80s classic, it's a fun B-movie sequel and easily the better of the two follow-ups.