Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

TWICE UPON A TIME (1983): With the help of a fairy godmother and a blundering superhero, two dreamland misfits try to stop Synonamess Botch from detonating nightmare bombs. Crazy, but quite entertaining, animated spectacle that flopped in theaters, was re-recorded with a new dub with mildly adult jokes, then sat on the shelf for years. A young David Fincher and Henry Selick both worked on this overlooked sleeper that is worth rediscovering (in either version). 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE (1970): A female yakuza leader blinds an enemy in a sword fight, then years later is visited by a blind woman seeking revenge. The deranged plot incorporates a blood-licking cat, a hunchback, a thug in a thong, topless opium-smoking, and tattoo-flaying to fashion a superior B-movie. 3.5/5.

[indianasmith]

DEVOURED (2015) - A Latina comes to New York to work and get enough money to pay for her sick son's operation.  She has to endure long hours, hard work, and a very nasty female supervisor, as well as the stares and unwanted attentions of male customers.  Eventually, when one corners her in the bathroom, she takes him up on his offer of cash for sexual favors.  Anything to earn money for her boy.  But then, at the end, the story takes a bizarre twist and we see that the way she perceives reality is not exactly the way reality is!

This one is a very slow moving story, but the final payoff makes it worthwhile.  3.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

twitter sized review: MST3K: Red Zone Cuba - Mike era but before Pearl invited herself onto every episode. She must have had dirt on those guys 5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Fear City" (1984)
! No longer available

Abel "Ms. 45" Ferrara directed this delightfully sleazy New York exploitation flick set in the Times Square strip club circuit. A nut job is carving up strippers after hours and a pair of tough guys, some mobsters and the Vice squad (led by Billy Dee "Lando Calrissian" Wililams) are all out looking to stop him before he can kill again. A cool time capsule of an era in New York that's long gone.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Silent Night, Zombie Night" (2009)
http://youtu.be/G78z5ipTgUo

Two L.A. cops - and the woman who loves them both - try to survive an onslaught of Yuletide undead in this pedestrian zombie flick which, despite its awesome title, doesn't do much with its "holiday season" setting. There's some decent gore splattered throughout, but the end result is generic at best.

[FatFreddysCat]

I'm fighting a nasty cold this weekend - good reason to stay in bed and watch movies...

"Fright Night Part II" (1988)
http://youtu.be/0uYdPX2EG5U
After three years of therapy, Charley Brewster has convinced himself that he imagined the events of the original "Fright Night." Unfortunately, the vampire from the first film had a sister, and now she's come to town gunning for him and Peter Vincent. Entertaining, underrated sequel directed by Tommy Lee Wallace ("Halloween III").

"Shocking Dark" (aka "Alienators" aka "Terminator 2," 1989)
http://youtu.be/WrDeESoujBU
A team of commandos is sent into the ruins of post-apocalypse Venice to find a secret laboratory, and are attacked by hungry mutations. Remember "Aliens?" The Italians who made this ultra-cheap sci-fi horror flick sure do, because this is practically a shot-by-shot remake. Oh, and three quarters of the way thru the movie they throw in a killer cyborg ala "The Terminator," just because. Poorly acted copycat schlock that was actually released as "Terminator 2" in some overseas markets with lax copyright laws.

[claws]

Infini (2015)

The future looks very familiar (think Blade Runner) and people have strange jobs: they "slipstream" (like teleportation) to some parts in the universe to do whatever they are assigned for. After a fatal accident at the "slipstream center" a special military unit (think Aliens) must rescue and bring back a man not able to slipstream back home. Upon arrival they encounter frozen terror (think The Thing) and soon enough they get possessed by some demonic alien force (think Event Horizon).

This one spirals quickly into madness, and more than once I was saying to myself 'wtf is going on?' Madness is the key word here. Like, the actors would argue over stuff that goes on and on, with quick edits occasionally interrupted by sudden outbursts of laughter, only to start all over again with the insane talk. This was kind of tiresome. And yeah, none of the actors are really sympathetic, but the special effects and production values are top notch. The director certainly had a vision and quite a few original ideas but all this is still somewhat flawed at times. At least it was trying to be above average good so my rating is 3.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Elves" (1989)
http://youtu.be/GLo795JFfpg
A down-on-his-luck department store Santa (Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty) must protect a teenage girl from a demonic Elf - part of a Nazi experiment to procreate the Master Race on Christmas Eve - in this utterly WTF holiday themed horror trash epic. I think this movie gave me a traumatic brain injury.

[Rev. Powell]

BREEDERS (1986): Aliens from underneath Manhattan rape virgins. Dumb, ridiculous, exploitative, offensive, and horribly acted, but you have to admire the director's moxie for that final scene with all the naked women flopping about in a vat of alien sperm. 3+/5 for bad movie fans. As a film it's a generous 1.5/5.

[claws]

Absurd (1981)

A family becomes the target of a giant and seemingly indestructible madman - he escaped a medical experiment and his body has the ability to heal itself. Hot on the heels of the killer is a priest on a mission to stop this evil being. Joining the manhunt is a investigating detective who rather harass drunk homeless people.

Euro-Sleaze director Joe D'Amato gives us his version of John Carpenter's Halloween. In other words: no suspense, gory kills and awkward acting. George Eastman is actually creepy as the killer, the rest is your typical cheesy euro cash-in. 3.5/5

Aenigma (1987)

b***hy girls at a private school play a nasty prank on the goofy outcast. She falls into a coma but thanks to telekinesis she uses her mentally challenged mother and the new girl to do her revenge.

Lucio Fulci was a brilliant copy cat director. In Aenigma he patches together Carrie, Patrick, Freddy Krueger type of fantasy killings and a bit from fellow Italian director Dario Argento's Phenomena. The outcome is quite ridiculous, even by Fulci standards. Though got to give him credit for using snails and a visual style that resembles Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart music video. 3/5

[Rev. Powell]

ISLAND OF DEATH (1976): A vacationing couple take it upon themselves to clean a small Greek island (inhabited almost entirely by English-speaking expats) of "perverts": the young wife sleeps with them, then hubby slaughters them. Many quality movies were swept up and unfairly banned in the UK's "video nasty" moral panic of the 1980s. This was not one of them. I don't get the appeal of this kind of sadistic stuff at all, so I give it 1/5.

CHI-RAQ (2015): After another child is accidentally gunned down,the woman of Chicago go on a sex-strike to stop gang violence, and enforced abstinence eventually travels around the globe. Wildly uneven but in the best way possible, Spike Lee's high-energy hip-hopera provides everything you would hope for from a movie which casts Samuel L. Jackson as a pimped-out narrator (who should have been named "Dolemites"). 4.5/5.

LOVE UNTO DEATH (1984): An archaeologist and his lover become obsessed with death when he suffers an attack, is declared legally dead, but then recovers in perfect health. Up until the passionate third act, talky film is simultaneously weighty and slight, like a wide-ranging but inconclusive conversation about love and death with an old friend. 3.5/5.

JAPANESE SUMMER: DOUBLE SUICIDE (1967): An 18-year old sexpot who can't get laid and a suicidal man who can't get killed are kidnapped by a secret organization fighting an underground war, all while a white sniper is killing Japanese citizens. This surrealistic satire carves out a unique space somewhere between a Bunuelian joke and an extended zen koan. 4/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Radio Days - this is Woody Allen's homage to his youth in Brooklyn when everyone listened to the radio. the title makes it sound corny and old fashioned and it is, but it's still enjoyable. It sat on my coffee table for a month because I was busy and my attention span was such that I couldn't bring myself to watch something that wasn't a horror movie.

While there is the occasional ribald touch this is pretty safe and generally less complex and deep than Woody usually gets. I liked the Jewish people in the neighborhood arguing and Mia farrow trying to sleep her way into the radio business. Sometimes they'd go to Night Clubs that were like the ones in Looney Tunes cartoons with cigarette girls and carmen Miranda bands and so forth. 5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Maximum Overdrive" (1986)
http://youtu.be/ygWMy-QQNbw

Stephen King's lone stab at directing a movie (based on his own short story "Trucks") was a famous flop. Machines randomly gain sentience and become homicidal, trapping a bunch of humans in a secluded truck stop. Much mayhem ensues as the puny flesh-lings try to figure out how to escape. Yeah, it's dumb as a stump and full of overacting and plot holes, but lotsa stuff blows up real good and the soundtrack is by AC/DC, which equals awesomeness in my book. A fun "moron movie."

[FatFreddysCat]

"Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" (2003)
http://youtu.be/QHhZK-g7wHo

The now-adult John Connor goes on the run yet again when a new, female Terminatrix arrives thru the time stream and tries to bring on Judgment Day by rubbing him out. Fortunately Ahh-nold is back again as a good-guy Terminator who steps up to defend him.
"T3" is probably my least fave of the series, due mostly to the unappealing leads (Nick Stahl and Claire Danes have about as much chemistry as a pair of wet mops), but the level of mayhem is impressive as usual, making this entry sufficiently entertaining.