Recent viewings

lester1/2jr · January 09, 2018, 12:44:33 PM

The Hills Have Eyes (old version) - if you're in a bad enough mood, which I was, this can really hit the spot. A family is going to silver mine ( ?) that they own or something out in the middle of nowhere in Vegas or California or something. Unfortunately for them, after their car gives out they bump heads with some insane road warrior type cave people. suspense of disbelief is how the Hell are thes people existing and no one happens to see them, kind of like Eegah or something. I'm reminded of a Pyschotronic review of a movie about killer skinheads "if real skinheads acted like this, there wouldn't be any left". I guess the world was a little bigger before cell phones and so forth though so who knows.

Once the stage is set it's a battle between the badly outmuscled normal people vs the horrible but flawed because they're so stupid and so forth weirdies.

Susan Lanier (who was also Bambi a back of the room sweathog on Welcome back kotter) was 30 but looks about 15

4.5 /5 good stuff and extra .5 for the off kilter morricone ish music, which is sort of avant funk or something

stine.greta · January 09, 2018, 08:44:23 PM

Quote from: lester1/2jr on January 09, 2018, 12:44:33 PM
The Hills Have Eyes (old version) - if you're in a bad enough mood, which I was, this can really hit the spot. A family is going to silver mine ( ?) that they own or something out in the middle of nowhere in Vegas or California or something. Unfortunately for them, after their car gives out they bump heads with some insane road warrior type cave people. suspense of disbelief is how the Hell are thes people existing and no one happens to see them, kind of like Eegah or something. I'm reminded of a Pyschotronic review of a movie about killer skinheads "if real skinheads acted like this, there wouldn't be any left". I guess the world was a little bigger before cell phones and so forth though so who knows.

Once the stage is set it's a battle between the badly outmuscled normal people vs the horrible but flawed because they're so stupid and so forth weirdies.

Susan Lanier (who was also Bambi a back of the room sweathog on Welcome back kotter) was 30 but looks about 15

4.5 /5 good stuff and extra .5 for the off kilter morricone ish music, which is sort of avant funk or something

It seems like I need to see this movie all over again as the recent one sucks.

Rev. Powell · January 10, 2018, 10:15:39 AM

MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (2001): A pair of interviewers talk to an iconic retired Japanese actress, and find themselves absorbed into her unreliable, fantastic flashbacks. It's something like an anime CITIZEN KANE, but with ninja battles and a trip to the moon. 4/5.

Rev. Powell · January 11, 2018, 11:11:53 AM

ONE-EYED MONSTER (2008): At a porn shoot in a remote cabin, an alien possesses Ron Jeremy's penis and sets about killing cast and crew. A five-minute joke stretched out to feature length, and most of the stuff the audience wants to see happens off-screen. There's barely any nudity and you don't see the "monster" until the last act. Not enjoyably bad. 1/5.

AoTFan · January 11, 2018, 11:13:25 PM

A Monster Calls

A young boy whose mother is sick with cancer makes several doodles of a giant tree-like monster when suddenly said monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) appears. The monster tells him he'll visit him three nights and tell him a story each time, and on the fourth the boy will have to tell "his story". When the monster disappears (along with the damage the creature caused) the boy assumes it was all just a dream, until the next night when the monster shows up again...

A very wonderful and underrated film. Lewis MacDougall gives a terrific performance as a young boy who's forced to deal with way than a child his age should have to. I highly recommend it.

Rev. Powell · January 12, 2018, 12:44:24 PM

VAMPIRES IN HAVANA (1985): A vampire develops a formula that enables blooduckers to walk about in the sun; rival gangs of vampires from Europe and Chicago travel to Cuba to try to obtain it by force. Very crudely animated, like an underground comic, but we have so few films from Castro's Cuba, and the fact that one of them is a sexy adult vampire cartoon is amazing enough to make this a curiosity worth seeing. 3/5.

lester1/2jr · January 13, 2018, 01:27:36 PM

The Window (1949) - this is the one where the kid sees a murder and no one believes him because he's always making up stories. the Peter and the Wolf thing but it's got noir atmosphere with murder and everything is in these endless tenements and so forth. basic but good

4/5

FatFreddysCat · January 13, 2018, 06:40:01 PM

"Paganini Horror" (1989)

A struggling all-girl rock band discovers an unpublished piece by the Italian composer Paganini - aka "The Devil's Violinist," who allegedly sold his soul to Satan in exchange for his talent - and records it. While shooting a music video for the track at Paganini's former home, it awakens the spirit of the demonic musician, who doesn't take kindly to copycats taking credit for his work. Splattery murder and mayhem ensues.

This entertainingly cheesy slice of Italian rock-horror schlock (directed by Luigi "Starcrash" Cozzi) has a couple of pretty girls in it and features some decent gore but everything else (acting, dialogue, etc) is totally Z-grade. Good for a few laughs but not much else.

FatFreddysCat · January 13, 2018, 09:17:23 PM

"Graveyard Disturbance" (1987)
Lamberto "Demons" Bava directed this made-for-Italian-cable turkey about five teens who take up a creepy old innkeeper's dare to spend the night in some catacombs beneath the cemetery, with the promise of a "treasure" if they can make it till dawn. The gang encounters a variety of vampires, zombies, and other creepy crawlies, but nothing really happens. There's no gore, no violence, just a lot of scenes of these kids walking around in circles, arguing, screaming, and running. The flick has some nice makeup FX and cool set designs but otherwise it was dumb as dirt and twice as dull.
AVOID.

Dr. Whom · January 14, 2018, 04:59:50 AM

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Beautiful but boring. All the weirdness and chaos that made the Fifth Element so enjoyable is completely gone and replaced by plodding seriousness. This is very much Luc Besson's Avatar (including blue-ish noble savages). Also Valerian and Laureline are written in a David Addison/Maddie Hayes vein. Dane DeHaan even uses a kind of Bruce Willis voice. His deadly seriousness kills all attempts at charisma, however.

The item number (to use a Bollywood phrase) by Rihanna is nice, though.

lester1/2jr · January 14, 2018, 12:07:32 PM

NOthing Left to Fear (2013) - blandly watcheable but pretty disposable horror movie about a preacher who moves his family into what turns out to be an evil town. Does no one in this family have a cell phone? because I'm pretty sure most people would send some sort of message out in the considerable time they have escaping the great evil thingy.

There are a lot of horror movies out there and this one makes no real effort to distinguish itself, either as a horror movie or just a movie in general. A bunch of cliches for a plot and very perfunctory and boring cinematography.

it's not as bad as C Me Dance though and they don't screw anything up so bad as to render it impossible to watch

2.5/ 5

Slash from Guns and Roses did the soundtrack and is a co producer. He should try his hand at something else or stick to guitar playing

FatFreddysCat · January 14, 2018, 05:19:25 PM

I meant to get to this one during my pre-holiday "Twisted Christmas" film marathon but ran out of time. Oh well, better late than never.

"To All a Goodnight" (1980)
A group of private-school girls (and their boyfriends) staying behind in the dorm during Christmas break are picked off by a killer in a Santa suit. This cheap but effective knock-off of "Black Christmas" and "Friday the 13th" pre-dates the similar, but way more notorious, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" by a couple of years. It gets off to a rip roarin' start by piling up a bunch of bodies early on, but then the midsection turns into a slow slog until the killer's I.D. (which most viewers will have figured out way before the characters do) is finally revealed in the last quarter. Directed by David Hess of "Last House on the Left" fame, this is far from a top drawer slasher but it was sleazy and entertaining enough for me.

FatFreddysCat · January 15, 2018, 06:30:10 PM

"Contamination" (aka "Alien Contamination," 1980)
A ship drifts into New York harbor with no one left alive on board - and a cargo of extra-terrestrial eggs full of goo that makes people's bodies explode. A government investigative team traces the ship's trail to South America, where an alien life form has taken over a coffee plantation (?) for use as its home base to colonize our planet. Yikes!
Luigi "StarCrash" Cozzi directed this earth-bound Italian "Alien" variant, which doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's a rip-off... but it's fun, comic book nonsense with lotsa cool gory special effects. Worth a look if you need a Euro-trash horror fix.

indianasmith · January 15, 2018, 07:20:00 PM

MASTERS OF HORROR: THE FAIR-HAIRED CHILD I had seen many of these Season 1 episodes before, but not this one. A young girl is kidnapped by two musicians as a human sacrifice, to bring their dead son back to life. But the boy, who spends part of his time as human and part of his time as a savage creature, half-corpse and half demon, falls in love with the girl whose death is meant to make him fully alive - with serious consequences for his parents!

MASTERS OF HORROR: PICK ME UP I watched this one last year; a bus breaks down on a lonely stretch of highway, and the kindly truck driver who picks up the stranded passengers turns out to be a serial killer. Only problem is, there is a hitchhiker working the same stretch of highway who ALSO happens to be a serial killer, and he and the trucker wind up in a duel to the death over which one of them will get to kill the final girl. Gory, goofy fun, with a neat little twist at the end.

VOLDEMORT: ORIGINS OF THE HEIR This is a fan made film on YouTube chronicling the rise of the dark wizard Tom Riddle. Excellent acting and production values; plot is a bit static, but it's a worthy addition to the lore of the Harry Potter universe.

lester1/2jr · January 16, 2018, 06:49:41 PM

L'enfant (the Infant) France 2005 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456396/

hmmm... well here's the thing...France is a weird country. The male female dynamic in this movie is enough to make your bang your head against the wall. You hate the main character so much that you're glad when he f**ks everything up. At the same time, you kind of hope he and the other main character, an extremely hot but stupid girl, work things out. It's frustrating. the actor is either a genius or an idiot. If I saw him, I'd probably punch him in the face.

watch this and join me in hating the crap out of this actor whoever the f**k he is (right)

5/5