Recent viewings

[InformationGeek]

In the Heat of the Night: We watched it my film class.  Most of the movies showed in the class have been overhyped so much in my life that I'm not as impressed with them when I see them, like Psycho and Blade Runner.  However, this was the opposite.  This movie was just as good as all the hype around it I heard and managed to be even better.  Probably the best movie I've seen in the entire class, next to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Rev. Powell]

PERFORMANCE (1970): A British gangster goes on the lam and ends up hiding out with a hermit pop star (Mick Jagger) and his two girlfriends.  There's a tremendous psychedelic scene, but it's pretty trippy even before Anita Pallenberg sneaks amanita mushrooms into James Fox's salad; a confusing movie and not a great or profound one, but the 60s spirit of experimentation is even more intoxicating than the visuals.  Not for everyone, but 3/5 for the adventurous.

[JaseSF]

Black Sabbath (1963): Three creepy, eerie and terrifying tales of horror and thrilling suspense. In the first "The Telephone", a woman is extremely frightened by a caller who threatens to kill her, the second is the story of "The Wurdulak" - a story about a type of vampire that preys on the blood of those it loved most in life and the final "The Drop of Water" is about a nurse who makes the bad mistake to steal a ring from a frightfully dead medium. The first story is by far the weakest as it is mostly just a stylistic crime giallo. It does create some good suspense but honestly overall it feels rather predictable. The second story is awesome, one of the best and creepiest vampire stories of all-time starring Boris Karloff in yet another unforgettable monster role. The final story is quite good too with a terrifying build to its intense climax and using themes of guilt and vengeance. The only element here for me is the special FX aren't always convincing and the low budget sometimes shows through. Still a must for all true horror fans - Bava and Karloff in top form. I watched the Italian version of the film which most consider superior to the more toned down AIP version but I find I terribly miss Karloff's creepy voice ("I'm Hungry") and his fun intros (wish the AIP version would get a DVD release too). ***1/2 out of *****

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

Saw 3D. Bad times. It ended on a good note though.

[3mnkids]

30 Days of night: Dark days~ Stella, the survivor from the first movie, leaves Alaska and moves to LA in the hopes of convincing the world that vampires exist. She meets some "vampire hunters" and they set out to rid the world of vamps...

Sound stupid? that's because it was. The "vampire hunters" dont behave like people who know the first damn thing about vampires, the plot is ridiculous, and the acting is poor. I spent a lot of time saying.. what! why the hell are they doing that!..um, but, but.. eff it! turn this crap off.

ETA
Robin Hood(2010)~ drab, dreary, and boring.. that is all.

[Rev. Powell]

FILM CREW: THE GIANT OF MARATHON:  I laughed several times during this one, but it wasn't up to the level of the other 2 FILM CREW episodes I've seen.  The skits were not exactly hilarious, and one, a fake commentary by an "extra" on the film, was actually a bit painful.  The movie wasn't very good, either; it was a fairly predictable sword-and-sandal Hercules ripoff set at the battle of Marathon.  Battle scenes were lavish but extremely uneven (at one point Kevin says "the camera's not on us: just tap on my shield with you wooden sword.")  This may be sacrilege, but for me Steve Reeves + a movie just doesn't work.  Amazingly, this turkey was directed by both Jacques Tourneur and Mario Bava (Bava finished the film, I don't know why Tourneur left).  An acceptable way to spend an evening.  2.5/5. 

[vanlutz]

Excellent TCM line-up. I watched:

Mr. Sardonicus: Never saw this before. But, very cool movie by William Castle
Straight Jacket: Castle's classic starring Joan Crawford
Hunchback of Notre Dame: Charles Laughton version. Great, but Chaney's is better.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane: Gets better each time you see it. Davis and Crawford are brilliant.
Mad Love or The Hands of Orlock: A great Peter Lorre vehicle.

[dean]

Thirst [2009]

Korean Vampire movie by the director of Oldboy.  Excellent film that is a must see!  MUST SEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!  4.5/5

Evil: In the Time of Heroes [2010]

Greek zombie film with Billy Zane.  Hilarious, surreal, often not making any sense.  It is a terrific, awful, great, fun film that must be seen to be believed.  I had a lot of fun watching this one.  3.5/5

Let the Right One In [2008]

Why are nordic kids always so creepy?  Vampire film that explores the love between a boy and his next door neighbour, who happens to be a homicidal vampire who looks 12.  They probably didn't push the boundaries as far as they could have, and I've heard the recent American remake, "Let me in" pulls even more punches, but this is certainly a creeper of a film.  4/5.


Last few movies I've watched have all been excellent.  Even the trashy Greek one.

[Hammock Rider]

The Bat (1959)

   This is a fun old Vincent Price haunted house movie.  Agnes Moorehead is an eccentric mystery writer who rents a creaky old mansion deep in the woods somewhere. A million dollars has been stolen from a local  bank and hidden somewhere in the mansion. A mysterious villain named The Bat is searching for the money and leaving a trail of bodies behind. 
  I liked it. You have a creepy old house,  a masked killer, plenty of vicims and suspects and Vincent Price vs Endora. What's not the like?

[Rev. Powell]

Evil: In the Time of Heroes [2010]

Greek zombie film with Billy Zane.  Hilarious, surreal, often not making any sense.  It is a terrific, awful, great, fun film that must be seen to be believed.  I had a lot of fun watching this one.  3.5/5

I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.  Not available on DVD here yet.

Some catching up to do:

HAXAN (1922): Curious early "documentary" mixing fact with recreations of medieval witch hunts and diabolical fantasy sequences.  There are five to ten minute stretches of this film---the phantasmagorical black sabbath with an old woman giving birth to monsters and witches cooking babies and lining up to kiss the devil's arse---that are 5 star horror moments, but the documentary side doesn't hold up and the ending is a letdown.  Enormous historical importance, however, and to my mind no one has ever created scarier demons than these. 4/5. 

FLOODING WITH LOVE FOR THE KID (2010): A one man retelling of "First Blood" (more faithful to the original novel than the Stallone movie), with Zachary Oberzan playing dozens of roles and shooting the entire film in his NYC apartment for $96.  This is really an amazing low budget achievement; Oberzan finds exactly the right tone, playing it seriously (his acting is very good, particularly as Teasle).  He lets the cheap "special effects" (toy snakes, bookshelves with branches sticking out of them to represent trees) supply the comic relief, but you still find yourself drawn into the dramatic arc of the story.  For a film made for less than $100 it's 5/5; I think it's a compliment to call it 3/5 versus Hollywood competition.  It's no masterpiece but it was more entertaining than most movies with 1,000,000 times the budget.     

THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933): Quickie poverty row Dracula knockoff about a plague of vampiric activity in a German village: is it a real vampire, bloodsucking bats, or a human killer posing as a nosferatu?  The flick features a good cast (Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, and Dwight Frye) and it starts with strong Gothic atmosphere, but fizzles out as the plot is revealed.  2/5.   

HOUSE OF WAX (1953): Vincent Price stars as the wax sculptor who survives a fire that destroys his life's work, then, despite his ruined hands and embittered mind, opens a new wax museum featuring a sensationalistic chamber of horrors that recreates classic and recent acts of violence.  A darn good b-movie with nice acting, action, colorful sets, reliable comic relief and satisfying light chills.  3.5/5. 

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

FIDO
OMEN
EXORCIST

Good times

[JaseSF]

Yesterday's Halloween viewings:

Halloween (1978): Yes I watched the John Carpenter classic yet again. I watch it every Halloween and it holds up and packs a punch every time, still managing to thrill and chill. Terrific build of suspense with Michael disturbingly always seeming to be in the background watching events unfold before he finally takes action trying to recreate the events of 1963 all over again. ***** out of ***** stars on Halloween.

The Exorcist (1973): Watched "The Version You've Never Seen Before". The film feels a bit overlong and definitely seems to be going for as much shocks and disturbing unpleasantness as scares yet it holds up very well too. The performances here are all terrific and I'd argue it's the acting that really makes this one so good. The powerful climax and the most disturbing scenes featuring a possessed Regan really affect you. Powerful stuff. ****1/2 out of ***** stars.

The Thing From Another World (1951): an alien is found frozen in the ice at the North Pole. Sure enough, it gets thawed out and wrecks havoc. In time, it's revealed as a threat to the entire world. Watching this is always fun. I'm always amazed at how quickly the time seems to fly by watching this unfold thanks in large part to its likable cast and terrific, clever dialogue. Every bit as much science fiction as horror, this horror is explained by science but that doesn't make it any less menacing as a threat. The movie holds up even better than I remembered. Really good classic that does manage to make you jump on occasion. ***** out of ***** stars, especially on Halloween. "Keep Watching the Skies!"

The Thing (1982): John Carpenter's version of "Who Goes There?" is a fascinating study in paranoia as an alien capable of assimilating and mimicking any other lifeform comes to threaten as isolated American camp base in Antarctica. In many ways, this reminds me much more of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers than the classic film version of this story although it is closer to its source material. Honestly while I think this is quite good, to me its unpleasantness and gore plus its less likable characters makes this less appealing than the classic film to me personally. Still it definitely shocks you and the big reveal of the Thing always makes me jump quite a bit so I got to give it some considerable kudos nevertheless. **** out of ***** stars.

Quatermass and the Pit (1967): At Hobb's End, a place known for many historical strange occurrences, primitive men and what surely seems to be an alien spacecraft thought to be five million years or more old is unearthed. Eventually Professor Bernard Quatermass starts to string the pieces together and uncovers an horrific truth about mankind and its connection to this event.

This is science fiction at its very best. It's clever, well-written, well-acted and surprisingly convincing despite its seemingly unlikely premise. It's also quite a startling good horror film in its own right as connection to goblins, imps, ghouls and the devil soon seem to come to light with a final frightful violent climax and an unforgettable ghostly spectre quite unlike any other. ***** out of ***** stars, especially on Halloween.

The Haunting (1963): Robert Wise's classic film. IMO the best haunted house film in movie history. Just chilling.  A must view for anyone who hasn't seen it. ***** out of ***** stars.

Halloween II (1981): doesn't hold up so well under repeated viewing as plotholes and plot conveniences become even more obvious yet it is a better than average slasher film, it just pales as a follow up to the original Halloween. **1/2 out of ***** stars

[Doggett]

Xanadu

Everything Andrew said it was. And worse.
I really can't comment on the film as I don't know what it was about. There was bad dancing, music, acting, Olivia Newton John. I kinda liked the fashion and the rollerskates though.

The worst part is, is that it just isn't fun to laught at. Maybe I need to watch it with friends...but not for a long time.

1.5/5 (and thats for the rollerskates)


House of the Devil (2009)

A woman who needs cash for a new flat takes a babysitting job.

Okay, even this was made recently the flick has a really good late 70's early 80's feel and not in a over the top was like the Grindhouse films did. Its much more sublte than that, perhaps a little too sublte. This is a film that tries to create atmosphere and tension. Sadly the atmosphere is well done, but there is no real suspense in the film.
You need to have a real sense of threat, and as there isn't one untill the climax and by then its too late. The only real scares are the loud noise jump scares and this film is too well directed to cheapen itself like that. Its pretty much just a woman walking around being nervous untill the end.
Its worth at least one watch though.

3/5

Piranha (2010)

Killer fish kill people.

A few problems with this flick. I don't like famous cameos because they ruin the trashyness of this type of film. Also, they should save their big set piece for the end of the film, not halfway through. The climax of this was such a let down compared to the mass teen killing of teenages in the river. The CGI was awful. This film falls between two posts, it wants to be a trashy explotation flick, but it also wants to be a mainstream popcorn flick.

2.5/5

[3mnkids]

White Dog~ After hitting a dog with her car Kristy McNichol takes the dog home. She later finds out that the dog is an attack dog trained to attack black people.     Instead of putting the dog down she decides to try and have him "cured".

Some of the scenes where he attacks people are in slow motion and McNichol just stands there with this stupid look on her face. It would be funny if it weren't for ya know, the person getting attacked by a dog. There is a scene where she meets the old racist man who raised the dog and its freaking hilarious. She must have called him a sick son of a b***h 4 maybe 5 times. My daughter and I spent the rest of the evening looking for any excuse to say you sick son of a b***h.

I cant say I get what all the controversy was about.  It is not a racist movie. I think it handles the topic of racism pretty well. Racism is ugly, its hurtful, and it would be nice if there was a cure for it.

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb2RJon0-48

^look at that waitress


One Shocking Moment (1965) - fun black and white cheap o grindhouse movie dir by Ted V Mikels that has moments of greatness or at least very goodness. Reminded me alot of the recent faux-Something Weird romp "Viva". Everyone drinks in nearly every scene even when they are at work. No one has any kids. The men are grade A cads throughout.  The music is mostly I don't know exactly what you call it sort of lounge music always with "crazy" sounding horn.

A guy in metal alloy or something design who lives in grand rapids gets a new job in LA. He and his very cute wife move out there and into and apartment complex across the hall from a hot blonde who works at a tiki lounge type watering hole. Soon everyone drinks too much and does stuff they enjoy but regret or are confilcted about to various degress.

S & M themes are explored a little bit but not as much as implied and it's more sort of sad weak people being dominated by their boss than out and out whips and chains. The whole thing has a typical bummer we shouldn't be doing this sort of vibe hanging around but that doesn't hurt it too much. The girls are blonde and buxom. DVD came with 2 other features I didn't watch cuz I had to catch up on all the Halloween type stuff I dvred.

4/5