Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

"Baby's Day Out" (1994)
Baby's Day Out Trailer
In this slapstick "Home Alone" variant from John Hughes, a trio of dim witted crooks kidnap a wealthy couple's baby for ransom. However, their plan hits a snag when the kid crawls out of their hideout and heads off on an adventure through the streets of Chicago. Cartoonish mayhem ensues as they try to get him back, and get put thru the wringer in the process.
My 7 year old LOVES this movie, he made me play the scene where Joe Mantegna's crotch catches fire - and his partners put it out by stomping on it repeatedly - three times.

[Silverlady]

"Baby's Day Out" (1994)
Baby's Day Out Trailer
In this slapstick "Home Alone" variant from John Hughes, a trio of dim witted crooks kidnap a wealthy couple's baby for ransom. However, their plan hits a snag when the kid crawls out of their hideout and heads off on an adventure through the streets of Chicago. Cartoonish mayhem ensues as they try to get him back, and get put thru the wringer in the process.
My 7 year old LOVES this movie, he made me play the scene where Joe Mantegna's crotch catches fire - and his partners put it out by stomping on it repeatedly - three times.

I remember seeing this movie a long time ago. And it was funny as hell

[indianasmith]

I just watched a horror film called CHEMICAL PEEL.  One of the most gruesome things I have ever seen - a group of girls trapped in a country cabin when a train wreck unleashes deadly chemical fumes into the air, forcing them to remain in the cabin as the air grows worse and worse . . . and all their petty jealousies and rivalries emerge in their desperation to survive.  Hard to say what was uglier - the effect of the chemicals on their skin, or the effect of the crisis on their personalities.  AMAZING film, but very disturbing.  I'll be replaying some of those scenes in my head when I try to sleep tonight!
5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Satan's Little Helper" (2004)
"Satan's Little Helper" (2004) ORIGINAL MOVIE TRAILER
An absolutely crap-tacular no budget horror comedy (tho I think the comedy is mostly unintentional) from Jeff "Squirm" Lieberman. An apparently retarded kid becomes a serial killer's unwitting assistant on Halloween night, because he thinks the masked psycho is a character from his favorite video game. Yeah, that boy ain't right. This kid was so annoying that I was hoping the psycho would eventually twist his head off, but no such luck.
Seriously folks, we all love some bad movies but this wasn't even close to the "good" kind of bad. I think watching this film gave me a traumatic brain injury. For the love of God, avoid this movie!!!

[JaseSF]

I, Frankenstein (2014): Frankenstein's creation, here named Adam (Aaron Eckhart), finds himself caught in the middle of a war between the forces of good (gargoyles) and the forces of evil (demons). Said war goes on unseen by humans but when said war threatens the reanimation of more Frankenstein-like creature, Adam feels compelled to get more involved.

This basically turns Frankenstein's Monster into a comic book superhero. The CGI battles between the two supernatural factions do seem to go on much too long and I must admit I found them hard to follow and rather dull for the most part. I didn't care for most of the CGI in the film to be honest. I did like the performance of Eckhart in the lead role although this Frankenstein Monster is far more attractive than most other versions I've seen put to film before with a few exceptions. There's really very little plot here beyond the most basic, the most compelling viewing comes from watching the character of Adam grow and seeing which decisions he will make. Back in my teen years, I might well have loved to read something like this in comic book form. As a modern day CGI popcorn action thriller, it feels somewhat lackluster aside from the Adam character. Really though, his origin story which is just glazed over here is far more interesting.  *** out of **** stars

The Doomsday Machine (1972): Viewed on Elvira's Movie Macabre, this is yet another really bad movie best enjoyed with Elvira. After spies learn the Chinese have created a doomsday weapon capable of wiping out all life on Earth, a planned manned space trip to Venus is taken over by martial law and three male crew members are replaced unexpectedly by three new female crew members just as qualified. We eventually learn this has been done to ensure the continued survival of the human race if the doomsday machine goes off.

At times I actually enjoyed this mish-mash film, particularly the space opera stuff in the middle. On a guilty pleasure level, I have to admit to getting a kick out of this at times particularly during this section of the story where we see three couples more or less pairing off although one male member of the crew (actually played by Grant Williams of Incredible Shrinking Man fame) turns into something of a lustful leech once he learns the real purpose of the ladies on board. Other actors on board for this one are Bobby Van, Ruta Lee, Mala Powers, Henry Wilcoxon, and James Craig.  Also look for Casey Kasem and Mike Farrell in brief roles. This is basically an uncompleted film where they decided to film unrelated extra scenes and add in stock footage to complete the movie which apparently sat uncompleted for years. The end result is a mess of a movie that laughably has about four different versions of what is supposed to be one spaceship (one looks like a rocket, another a space station, another a moving space station), poorly mismatches stock footage from Gorath, The Wizard of Mars and other films into the movie, has a tacked on beginning and ending that both seem unrelated to the rest of the film. The middle space opera section is enjoyable in a so bad it's good kind of way but the ending proves terribly disappointing as you could tell they couldn't get the original actors to shoot a few concluding scenes so we get tacked on narration and a nonsensical, dull ending instead. There is one moment of horror in this one involving characters accidentally opening the space shuttle doors at one point. The rest is pretty unconvincing and laughable. *** out of ***** stars on a bad movie scale. * out ***** stars for most everyone else.

The Return of Dracula (1958): A visitor from the Balkans named Bellac Gordal (Francis Lederer) comes to America to stay with his cousins the Mayberry family. However we know he is in reality the notorious Count Dracula in disguise.

This had some good atmospheric moments in its favor. It also has a certain quiet charm yet doesn't fail to deliver moments that do successfully leave a chill or two. It's kind of like taking Count Dracula and mixing him and what he gets up to with small town folks in rural America. Lederer does quite well in the lead and I was surprised that this black and white classic had some surprisingly gory moments towards the end clearly designed to startle viewers in the time. Still compared to Horror of Dracula, which came out the same year, this film feels kind of tame. Biggest problem with this one is some scenes are not as convincing as one wants them to be, the lack of vampire fangs and bats, etc. Still well worth watching and quite enjoyable for Lederer's performance and that of his potential victims Virginia Vincent and Norma Eberhardt. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Rev. Powell]

MADEINUSA (2006): A stranger from Lima is stranded in a remote hamlet in the Andes where the villagers practice strange Easter rituals that are definitely not sanctioned by the Pope. Slow to get started, but it draws you in with the bizarre pagan/Christian hybrid traditions it invents, and the sad dilemma of its central character, a young teen girl oddly named "Madeinusa." 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

fatfredy - I liked it esp blonde

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched an interesting film called WEREWOLF RISING.  A young girl, recovering from a severe bout with alcohol and drug abuse, returns to her native Ozark home for some down time.  But there's a werewolf in them there woods - is it the young charming ex-con that steals her heart?  Or is it his sinister, older cellmate, who escaped with him and is lurking in the woods?  Decent monster effects, likable characters, and a good story.

4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

It's my day off 'n' the weather sucks, so Wifey and I fired up Netflix for a Schlock-Tober double feature:

"Detention" (2011)
Detention Official Trailer
A tiresome high school horror/comedy that wishes it was as clever as "Scream" but in the end is barely a cut above crap like the "Scary Movie" series. It's prom season and a psycho killer is stalking a high school full of annoyingly ironic hipster larva who constantly break the "4th wall" to make '90s pop culture references to the audience. This flick is mildly funny at the beginning, starts getting irritating around the halfway point and makes the leap to "utterly random nonsense" by the end. I got a few chuckles here and there but that's about all the praise I can give it.

"Return to Horror High" (1987)
"Return to Horror High" Trailer
A low budget film crew is shooting a horror flick at an abandoned high school that was the site of a famous mass murder...naturally, a masked somebody-or-other starts picking off the cast and crew one by one. There's nothing here that you haven't seen in 1000 other slashers but "Horror High" is worth a look just for the cast, which includes the always welcome Alex Rocco as a sleazy producer, a young, then-unknown George Clooney (in his film debut) and a hilarious Maureen "Marcia Brady" McCormick (who rubs her blood-covered breasts and drops an "F" bomb)!

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Official Theatrical Trailer (2013) HD
Jennifer Lawrence returns for a second round of futuristic fight-to-the-death fun in the continuation of the dystopian sci-fi series. Pretty cool, action packed stuff that actually held my 12 year old's attention for its entire two and a half hour length.

[indianasmith]

WRONG TURN 5 nearly put me off the popular Cannibal Mutant Hillbilly series for good.
It was mean-spirited torture porn from start to finish with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
But I hadn't seen a CMH movie in awhile, so when I saw WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT was out
this week, I decided to give it a spin and I am glad I did.

Danny is a failed Wall Street lawyer recovering from an emotional meltdown when he receives
word that he has inherited a nineteenth century resort hotel in the Appalachians.  With his GF,
her brother, and several friends in tow, he heads up to Hobb Springs resort to check out his new
acquisition.  The friends are an annoying, shallow bunch of slasher bait, but the curators of the
hotel are two of Danny's long lost cousins, Jackson and Sally - and Three Fingers and his deformed
brethren are keeping a watchful eye on the place from the woods.

What follows is the now predictable pattern of nudity, gore, and cannibalism we have come to
know and expect from this franchise, but served up with a bit more humor and a lot more plot
than the last 2 entries.  I enjoyed this one way more than I should have!

[lester1/2jr]

The Amazing Transparent Man- I had just watched a TCM doc on Edgar Ulmer who is most well known for directing the amazing and I think actually quite funny Detour, a very cheap film noir. You hear about people "cranking out" movies but this guy really seemed to do that. He worked for PRC aka poverty row and made tons of money and movies throughout his life, mostly b films.

I went in to this inclined to like it and I did. It's certainly not Twilight Zone level sci fi but it's short (60 minutes) ,to the point, and the acting and writing are believable and smooth. It probably played before the main feature and I'd say it works pretty darn well in that context. 3/5

[JaseSF]

I watched the same documentary lester. Fascinating stuff, loved all the interviews and the stuff about the legend being perhaps bigger than the man. Still he made some damn good movies in my opinion, often with a very low budget. Detour I feel is a brilliant film noir classic where its cheapness perhaps enhances it even more. The Black Cat, Bluebeard, The Man From Planet X are all classic faves of mine, the first two being surprisingly dark and twisted creepy. An enjoyable documentary that, was surprised Amazing Transparent Man didn't get a mention although that came towards the end of his career when his films had taken a downturn in quality.

[lester1/2jr]

I saw the 70's Bluebeard not his. It was cool doc the only thing that bothered me was the one guy in the cars massive full head comb over.

[claws]

"Satan's Little Helper" (2004)
An absolutely crap-tacular no budget horror comedy (tho I think the comedy is mostly unintentional) from Jeff "Squirm" Lieberman. An apparently retarded kid becomes a serial killer's unwitting assistant on Halloween night, because he thinks the masked psycho is a character from his favorite video game. Yeah, that boy ain't right. This kid was so annoying that I was hoping the psycho would eventually twist his head off, but no such luck.
Seriously folks, we all love some bad movies but this wasn't even close to the "good" kind of bad. I think watching this film gave me a traumatic brain injury. For the love of God, avoid this movie!!!

Pretty bad/dull movie, had a bit of a buzz when first released, mainly hyped by horror nerds. I don't see whatever they think makes this movie work. The only reaction I got was laughing because of unintentional humor.