Recent viewings

[claws]

Evidence (2011)

Four friends in an RV are filming a documentary (about camping I guess) in the great outdoors. While hiking through fields and forests one of them finds a dead fish on the ground. A bit odd considering there's no nearby lake or river. After setting up camp they hear a strange animal-like noise coming from the woods, and the next day they have a feeling of being watched. While exploring the surrounding area they stumble across weird evidence that something is following them and is tampering with their belongings. When they film a strange hairy creature things start to get outright dangerous - a terrifying struggle for survival begins ....

Above average Indie found footage terror flick with quality production values, decent f/x and - surprise - solid build of tension. Acting was alright for this kind of movie. The guys sometimes do the cliche "me so horny" thing, while the girls remain level-headed (though flashing boobs and butts when "necessary") and do a believable job at being scared to death. There's lots of screaming, shouting and running resembling The Blair Witch Project so one could attribute lack of originality. There doesn't seem to be a U.S. release yet. Myself bought the German Blu-ray. 4/5

[Jack]

The Wasp Woman (1959) - the owner of a cosmetics company hires a guy who's experimenting with wasps to create a youth-restoring formula. Of course she acts as the test subject, and with the movie's name being The Wasp Woman you can kind of guess how that turns out. Pretty boring and silly overall, especially with the wasp costume just being a ridiculous mask the lead actress wears. It's probably not a good thing when the most interesting part of a sci-fi "horror" movie is watching the secretaries sit around doing their nails and gossiping. 2.5/5.

Life Returns (1935) - a scientist is working on a formula to revive the dead, but then his funding runs out and he wallows in a pool of self pity for the remainder of the movie. So then we switch to an episode of The Little Rascals where the scientist's kid hangs out with the neighborhood gang. Eventually the dog catcher, who really should be bludgeoned to death, takes the kid's dog and puts it to sleep. Will dad emerge from his pity party long enough to save the dog? Will his formula work? Has anyone watching this ever made it all the way to the end before? This was just awful. Terrible characters, no plot whatsoever; at 63 minutes it seems to drag for at least 90. 1.5/5.

Night of the Blood Beast (1958) - a spaceship crashes and the pilot is killed, so NASA sends out 5 people to investigate (I'm guessing it was a really unimportant mission as I seem to remember them sending a whole aircraft carrier to retrieve the Apollo astronauts). Anyhow, even though the guy is dead his body seems oddly unaware of this fact, perhaps because it's being kept alive by alien parasites. And we've got a guy in a big rubber suit running around scaring everybody too. This was kind of fun, the characters were decent enough and there was some cheesy '50s era sci-fi science. 3/5.

[fulci420]

Let The Bullets Fly (2010)-The title suggests a brainless shoot em up kind of movie but this is actually an interesting mix of comedy and western, punctuated with over the top action set pieces. At times it reminded me of a Chinese take on Django Unchained even though it came out earlier than that film. The great Chow Yun Fat makes for a very entertaining villain and gets substantial screen time which is nice. Everything is over the top from the humor, acting, to the violence. I liked this quite a bit and despite reading a bunch of reviews that said non Chinese viewers would not understand the humor, i found quite a bit to laugh at here. It is far too long for a comedy though, and this hurts my overall liking of the movie. Definitely was impressed by the production values of this movie, it looked fantastic on blu ray and at least visually it surpasses many recent American westerns that cost a lot more than this movie did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFoLfRA5ghw

[Jack]

The Manster (1959) - an American reporter in Japan is sent to interview a mad scientist. Being mad he injects the reporter with some sort of serum which transforms him into a jerk who leaves his fiancee and takes up with the scientist's assistant. Eventually he transforms into a monster. This was fun. The characters were pretty good and the plot was plenty goofy to keep it entertaining. 3/5.

Assassin (1986) - made-for-TV movie about an android assassin the government has created which goes rogue and starts killing everyone on a list of people his creator didn't like. Robert Conrad teams up with a member of the team that created the android to track him down and stop him. This was pretty dull. Very one-dimensional characters, an uninteresting plot, and the android was by far the most entertaining person in it. Watchable though. 2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE (1971): A wealthy playboy tortures and kills redheads who remind him of his ex-wife, until he marries one and his problems really start. About the best thing that can be said for this tawdry giallo is that it evokes a certain distinctive era of leisure-suit sleaze; guys who've been dumped by redheads may find it therapeutic, too. 2/5.

[alandhopewell]

     SEXTETTE (1978)

This picture can perhaps be called Lovecraftian,  because it truly is horrible, putrid,  indescribable, and deals in necromancy, if not outright necrophilia. The remains of Mae West star in this transporter malfunction, along with Timothy Dalton, Dom De Luise, Tony Curtis, Alice Cooper, George Hamilton, Ringo Starr, and a few others who should've known better. Mr. Dalton almost didn't have a career after signing to play the late siren's love interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlXgO-ALY1E

     Here 'tis; don't say you weren't warned.

[Jack]

Fugitive Alien (1987) - aliens attack earth but one of their guys (Ken) refuses to kill a little kid, which apparently ruins their entire invasion plans so they all leave. This guy is declared a traitor, but he's taken in by the crew of an earth spaceship. Eventually the aliens attack some other planet and the earth ship is sent to assist them, which consists of this alien dude trying to free some other guy from prison. Typical Japanese sci-fi nonsense, with ludicrously bad dubbing - the captain of the ship, Captain Joe, has extreme bipolar disorder as he'll be talking normally, then erupt into maniacal laughter, then be angry. Or maybe that wasn't even the dubbing. It's pretty much a kid's movie I guess. Great ending - I'm going to spoil it for you right now: "To Be Continued." Thanks Mill Creek, now I'll never know if they killed Kenny or not. 2.25/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Guns" (1990)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ricy1dL6Cm8

More bullets-n-boobs B-Movie fun from the funbag factory of the late, great Andy Sidaris. "Guns" stars a bunch of Playboy Playmates as federal agents trying to stop a criminal kingpin (played by Erik Estrada... yes, you read that right, ERIK ESTRADA!) from smuggling a shipment of Chinese machine guns into the U.S. by way of Las Vegas. The plot is needlessly complicated, the acting sucks, the dialogue is hilariously awful, but the girls are gorgeous and they spend much of the film in states of undress while lots of stuff blows up.

"Guns" also features a pre-fame Danny ("Machete") Trejo as one of Estrada's henchmen, a couple of cross dressing hit men, an utterly random ninja attack scene, and a godawful theme song ("Don't play with guuuuuuunnns.... they're not much fuuuuuunnn!") sung by former Playmate Cynthia Brimhall.   

[lester1/2jr]

Legionnaire (Van Damme) - This looks and feels like a late night cable b movie that a guy like Van Damme would tend to make, but is quite a bit different. Van Damme is a boxer, not much of a stretch there, who winds up in the French Foreign Legion at a colonial outpost in the desert. He meets people from various walks of life and they get yelled at, have fights and friendships with each other, and guard the place against Muslim hordes. There are no ninjas present in any of this. The last third of the movie is very strong, centering around an epic showdown between the natives and the colonialists. low brow but inspired 4/5

[Rev. Powell]

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (2012): Eternal teenager Jack Frost reluctantly joins the legendary Guardians (including Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc.) who protect the world's children from the Boogeyman. It has a few issues, and some of the action scenes look like pitches for theme park rides, but any movie that depicts Santa Claus as a tatted-up saber-wielding Cossack with an army of Yetis is at least willing to take chances. 3.5/5.

[Jack]

Trapped by Television (1936) - in the early days of the television industry, when radio networks are first buying their TV equipment, an inventor comes up with a new method to broadcast TV. He teams up with a couple of girls who run a very shady public relations firm and they try to pitch the new device to a TV network. Unfortunately some other folks at the network are determined to sabotage their plans because they're trying to get them to buy their far more expensive technology instead. On the one hand this was kind of boring, but on the other hand the characters were pretty good and the plot kind of made me care about what happened in the end. The two girls especially had that wonderful witty banter going on that's so absent from today's movies. Seems like women on the screen lost every trace of wit and humor they had about 50 years ago. 3.5/5.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961) - sort of a quasi-documentary "what if?" thing about the US response to the launch of Sputnik. The Soviet military is a bit ahead in the missile race and decides to nuke New York, while the Allies send in a secret agent to sabotage their plans. Acting was really bad across the board and the plot was as non-dramatic as possible. Meh, it was watchable. 2.25/5.

[lester1/2jr]

I have trapped by television in my queue just because the title is so weird. I'll watch it who cares. or at least move it up a bit haha

[Jack]

^ Nobody ever gets trapped in a TV, I was a little disappointed about that lol.

[FatFreddysCat]

"John Dies at the End" (2012)
http://www.youtube.com/v/Vy83MPk7Wpg

In Don "Phantasm" Coscarelli's quirky-on-purpose horror comedy, a paranormal investigator inadvertently finds himself caught in the middle of a plot involving monsters from another dimension ... thanks to an accidental dose of a drug called "Soy Sauce." There's a lot more going on than just that, but that's really about all the description I can give you without ruining it. Let's just say that this movie was WEIRD as HELL. Fortunately it was also funny as hell. I'm not sure I fully "got" it, but I got a kick out of it anyway.

[Jack]

Alien Hunter (2003) - an alien artifact is found at the South Pole, and a group of researchers dig it up and thaw it out - yeah that's a good idea. This was okay, nothing more. Characters weren't really likable or sympathetic, they were just there. One guy who disagrees vehemently with whatever everybody else says pretty much yells over every scene. The plot never managed to generate any suspense and the ending was nothing but a cheesy CGI show. 3/5.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) - some folks go to Mars and on the return trip find that a scary guy in a rubber suit has stowed away. Bad news for our intrepid space explorers. Luckily they've got a good supply of grenades and even a bazooka on the ship. They really built those spaceships out of some sturdy stuff back in the '50s. Characters were okay, partially developed but mostly just served as monster chow. Plot was cheesy but overall it created at least a modicum of suspense. 3/5.