Recent viewings

[Jack]

Mutant Hunt (1987) - a mad scientist creates some androids and shoots them up with a drug that turns them homicidal. Due to psycho-sexual stimulus, or some serious scientific reason like that. He's going to sell this invincible army to a foreign power and get rich you see. Never mind he's only got 2 of them and if anybody in the movie had enough brains to get a gun they could quite easily be defeated. So some mercenaries are called in to end the android threat, and we get to see lots and lots of really fake Karate kicks being landed on these androids. They just stagger back a bit and then get in position to take the next kick. The mercenaries kind of kill them, then we get a few dialogue scenes, then they come back to life and we do it all over again.  And again and again. I kind of drifted off towards the end, probably only saw 50 of the 150 fake Karate kicks hit the androids. Couldn't tell if I actually fell asleep or just came very very close to falling asleep. Anyhow, It's 1987 so there's plenty of direct-to-video synth music and even a few guitar riffs here and there. The acting was dull as dirt, and considering that I lost consciousness for a bit, I'm thinking I won't give it high marks for interest or excitement. Oh and there's a nice 5 minute fight at the beginning featuring our male lead in his underpants. Hmmmm...yeah.  2.75/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Evil Dead 2" (1987)

Hilarious "splat-stick" sequel finds square-jawed hero Ash and a few unlucky hangers-on trapped in a remote cabin in the woods, fending off an onslaught of "dead-ites."

This flick has always felt more like a series of gory Three Stooges skits strung together than an actual movie, but it's so much damn fun that you can't help but love it!

[Jack]

Future Hunters (1988) - in a post-apocalyptic future a guy finds the Spear of Longinus (the one they threw at Jesus on the cross) and this causes him to time-travel back to 1988. No really, it does. He meets a young couple and tells them they have to find the shaft of the spear and - through some means never explained nor shown - this will fix the future. Then he dies. So these two jet off to some jungle somewhere and get captured by the bad guys, then escape, then get captured by a different group of people, then escape, then get captured again by the bad guys, then finally captured by some Amazon women. Lots and lots of fakey Kung Fu fights.  Some Bruce Lee lookalike even shows up for a few scenes for absolutely no reason except to add another ten minutes of fakey Kung Fu action. As far as the characters, the guy was certainly no prize but the girlfriend was...what do you call those women who constantly criticize their boyfriends for absolutely no reason? It's on the tip of my tongue. Anyhow, the whole thing just kind of rolled on and on with repetitive jungle junk, half of which was too dark to really see. Ah, I'll be nice and give it a 3/5 2.5/5.

I forgot to mention my favorite scene - when the Bruce Lee lookalike is having a big Kung Fu fight, and of course he takes his shirt off. We get a close-up of him flexing his back muscles - for an entire freakin' minute! I'm like, oh come on, the posing routines in the Mr. Universe contest don't go on for this long   

[dean]

"Evil Dead 2" (1987)

Hilarious "splat-stick" sequel finds square-jawed hero Ash and a few unlucky hangers-on trapped in a remote cabin in the woods, fending off an onslaught of "dead-ites."

This flick has always felt more like a series of gory Three Stooges skits strung together than an actual movie, but it's so much damn fun that you can't help but love it!

Thats funny, albeit not surprising since Raimi was always inspired by the stooges.  They even had a term for when they used stand-ins in shots on his films when they needed to 'Shemp' it.

[claws]

Carnival of Blood (1970)

Deranged psycho is killing "nagging" women at a carnival. Dull cheese with only a couple of amusing moments. 1.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Unknown" (2011)

Neat little international thriller with Liam Neeson as an American visiting Berlin for a summit conference. After an auto accident and a four day coma, he re-awakens to find he's apparently been "replaced" by someone who claims to be him, and seems to knows everything and everyone he knows. So is he crazy, or is there something more sinister at work? Cool stuff, lots of twists & turns.

[alandhopewell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7kf-nV_E5Y

     Trace and I caught this on THIS Network yesterday; it would take me at least an hour to decide where to begin describing how BAD this film is, so I'll just recommend it, and leave it at that.

[retrorussell]

Caught Friday The 13th part VII: The New Blood on Netflix last night.  I saw this in the theater 25 years ago.  Not the best (part VI) nor worst in the series (Jason Goes To Hell).. hurt by ridiculous cuts thanks to the MPAA.

[lester1/2jr]

Blue Hill Avenue (2001) - If you like stuff like "New jack City" check this out. It's got a smaller budget but is of similar quality. Unfortunately it was made before Massachusetts began giving film companies tax breaks to film stuff here so there is very little location work. Not all the acting and writing is amazing and some of the plot stuff isn't astoundingly clever but in general it's entertaing an the 2 hours went by pretty quick. cool 4.25/5

[JaseSF]

Riders to the Stars (1954): After several test rockets sustain considerable damage from cosmic rays, a team of scientists recruit some of the world's top scientific young minds hoping to find the right three men to man three rocketships designed to each capture a live meteor and bring it back to Earth to learn why meteors are unaffected by cosmic rays.

While somewhat dated now, this film explores questions about space travel that were probably quite relevant at the time this was made. Granted a lot of the science and theory on display here is now dubious, although some of it also seems valid, which makes this an odd watch but yet this nevertheless remains consistently entertaining, has good lead character actors in William Lundigan and Richard Carlson and has some fun if not always convincing FX work mixed with some well used stock footage in this low budget Sci-Fi classic that is perhaps a tad undeservedly overlooked.  Martha Hyer provides Lundigan's love interest and her character is a scientist heavily involved in the project. Some of the dialogue seems cheesy and the constant smoking of characters is rather noticeable but this one is also in many ways a snapshot of the popular trends of the 1950s. The best moments come towards the end when our leads finally take off in their rocket, definitely some scenes likely to please bad movie fans there. *** out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

The Creeping Terror (1964) - an alien spaceship lands on earth and then this, well, this thing:



comes out. What is that? A partially decomposed squirrel that's been through the lawn mower? Anyhow, this thing starts killing random people, which is surprising as it moves at about the speed of a senior citizen walking down the isle in the grocery store. Luckily everyone in the movie is frozen in fear by it and unable to escape. Like, a group of ten people in a park - every last one of them just sits there and allows it to eat them. The producer apparently lost the audio track for the movie (huh?) and so instead of dialogue, we get a narrator telling us what everyone's talking about. A narrator who previously only did automobile safety videos. Oh yeah, it's kind of obvious. That dull yet friendly monotone of '60s documentaries. I got the sense that my wife was somewhat less than enthusiastic about the movie;  we put it on pause for a while and when we came back, she said "If we watch any more of this I think I'm gonna drop dead." Hmmmm...even though I haven't yet seen the undoubtedly thrilling conclusion, I'm gonna go ahead and give it a 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Ghost Story" (1981)

Atmospheric supernatural saga about a quartet of elderly New Englanders who learn that a dark secret they've kept covered up for fifty years doesn't want to stay secret anymore.

Based on the Peter Straub novel, this flick has a great cast, including Hollywood legends Fred Astaire (!), Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as the tormented oldsters, and Alice ("Borg Queen") Krige as the restless spirit back for revenge.

This movie SCARED the LIVING CRAP out of me when I last saw it, almost 30 years ago (of course, I was 12 and easily traumatized at that time) and I'd been meaning to re-visit it for quite some time when I stumbled across it at my local library (of all places)... this time out the "scary" parts barely made me blink, but there were several scenes where I said to myself "Oh yeah, this part got me bad when I was a kid." Haha.

[Silverlady]

"Ghost Story" (1981)

Atmospheric supernatural saga about a quartet of elderly New Englanders who learn that a dark secret they've kept covered up for fifty years doesn't want to stay secret anymore.

Based on the Peter Straub novel, this flick has a great cast, including Hollywood legends Fred Astaire (!), Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as the tormented oldsters, and Alice ("Borg Queen") Krige as the restless spirit back for revenge.

This movie SCARED the LIVING CRAP out of me when I last saw it, almost 30 years ago (of course, I was 12 and easily traumatized at that time) and I'd been meaning to re-visit it for quite some time when I stumbled across it at my local library (of all places)... this time out the "scary" parts barely made me blink, but there were several scenes where I said to myself "Oh yeah, this part got me bad when I was a kid." Haha.

I remember seeing this movie a long time ago, but couldn't remember the name of it.  It's still a  to me. 

[tracy]

It had been a good many years since I'd seen this and I hadn't really realized what an aimless ego trip it was for Roger Daltry.

[alandhopewell]

     Found a copy of this at Wal-Mart for $7.50....



     Watched it yesterday, with the Richard Fleisher commentary, plus all kindsa waycool bonus stuff, including the "sunset squid" sequence, believed lost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l22tsktu8D8