Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Allhallowsday]

...I'll have to take a look! I will tell you! 

The Chauffeur is NOT in the book. 

[lester1/2jr]

Burnt Offerings rules, we had a neighbor named Mrs Alerdice.


I tried to watch another "urban" tubi movie. A horror offering called "House Sitter" but it was so bad. I guess I'll try again. It opened with a scene that made no sense and I was like "I don't have time for this" .

[jimpickens]

Golgo 13 The Professional still holds up after 39 years.

[indianasmith]

SUMMER SCHOOL (1978)  aka MAG WHEELS

     I was a bit under the weather last night, so I spotted this freebie on Amazon Prime and decided to give it a spin.
Holy cow, this thing is BAD in all the good ways!   A new girl in town named Anita catches the eye of the college age beach bum, but his jealous girlfriend can't stand the competition and resorts to nasty means to get rid of her.  Cringy bad dialogue, gratuitous nudity, cheesy music score, and wildly improbable personal interactions make this one a film that has to be seen to be believe.  I mean, I was a HS freshman in 1978, and I am pretty sure we did NOT talk like that!

[indianasmith]

Still feeling kinda cruddy today, so I came home from work early, laid down, and watched movies all afternoon.
This was the result:

SX_TAPE (2013) - An artist named Jill and her boyfriend Adam are shooting edgy, sexy videos to help promote her upcoming art exhibition.  One afternoon, Adam takes her to an abandoned hospital, and she falls in love with the brooding, dark atmosphere there - but then something happens when he leaves her tied on a table as a prank, and next thing you know Adam, Jill, and their friends Elly and Bobby are trapped inside the creepy place with vengeful spirits spurring them on to increased acts of violence and eroticism.  Bizarre film; a mashup of GRAVE ENCOUNTERS and 50 SHADES maybe?  It was entertaining, to say the least. 3.5/5

AVALANCHE SHARKS (2014) Absolutely as ridiculous as its title sounds.  Despite its "R" rating on Prime, this is obviously a made for TV movie, most likely for the SYFY channel.  Avoid.  2/5

THE WIDOW (2020) - A team of Russian paramedics are training in the woods north of St. Petersburg when they get an emergency call about a missing child. This leads them on a nightmarish odyssey in a dark forest, where a bizarre local myth claims the "Broken Widow" will come to claim their souls before the night is over.   I'll be honest, the lighting was terrible, I was fevered and sleepy, and this one didn't hold my interest in the first half.  Ending was kinda cool though. 3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

MADS ARE BACK: THE YESTERDAY MACHINE: Boy, the movie is a talky stinker about a mad Nazi scientist who develops a time machine and is foiled by a podunk reporter, a lounge singer, and a majorette. Got a couple of laughs out of the commentary but not something I'd revisit often. The guest was Beez McKeever of MST3K, who's very pleasant, but I've heard all her stories before, and I'm still not really happy with the fact that the Q&A section is longer than the feature presentation. Still, 3/5 for a pleasant enough evening.

[indianasmith]

Home sick today - feeling better this evening, honestly, and I think I'll be back up to 100% or close tomorrow.
But I spent a good part of the day sitting in bed and watching movies.  Here were the results:

THE ISLE - This period piece is set in 1840's Scotland and features three British mariners who wash ashore on a remote island inhabited by a handful of people.  They quickly realize that there is more here than meets the eye: although they are not far from the mainland, no ships are coming and going, and the islanders insist that they cannot leave.  This was an interesting take on the legend of the sirens from the Odyssey. 3.5/5

FEAR STREET Vol. 1 - 1994  I had never heard of this series until I happened to spot it on Netflix today, and I discovered the three films are so closely interwoven that you can't watch one without watching the rest!  In this initial episode, we get acquainted with the sister towns of Sunnyvale and Shadyside.  Sunnyvale is prosperous, blessed, and has virtually no crime.  Shadyside is plagued with spree killings every decade or two; the story begins with a teenager going berserk at a mall and killing eight people there before being shot in the head by the local sheriff.  The local high school is abuzz with rumors that the killings are the result of an ancient curse from a witch named Sarah Fier.   Five friends who decide to investigate find themselves pursued by resurrected killers from the past; their only hope is to talk to the survivor of the previous massacre which happened in 1978.

FEAR STREET Vol. 2 - 1978  This movie is a flashback from the survivor the cast of the first movie located at the end.  Two sisters are at NightWing Summer camp - one is a responsible, preppy counselor hoping to move out of Shadyside and go to college, the other a high school rebel who harbors no ambitions of any sort and loves making her sister miserable.  But then Tommy, another counselor, gets possessed by the spirit of the witch and goes on a killing spree, and it is up to the two girls to try and save everybody else in the camp.  Along the way, they discover the witch's lair, and find an ancient text which says the only way to end the curse is to reunite the witch's severed hand with her body.  But when they get to the burial site beneath the "Hanging Tree" where Sarah Fier was executed, the body is gone.   Flash back to 1994; these teens located Sara Fier's body in their quest to get to the root of the curse.  So now all they have to do is find where the hand was left in 1978 and reunite it with the witch's body.  But when they do, one of the girls, Deema, bleeds on the ancient bones and flashes back to the beginning of the whole thing . . .

FEAR STREET Vol. 3 - 1666  In this movie we see the origin of Sarah Fier's legend explored, and then flash back to the present for a satisfying denouement to the whole plot.  I only found out after the fact that this whole series was based on some books by R.L. Stein, an author I never took much time to read during his heyday of popularity back in the 1990's.  But if this book is any indication, I see why the stories were so popular with teens!  Overall, I give the whole trilogy about a 4/5.

[Dr. Whom]

Buffet Froid (1979)

If Ionesco would have written a play about serial killers, this would be it. A strange, highly cynical dark comedy with as central conceit that murder is not worth getting all excited about. The whole movie follows a dreamlike logic, with characters acting incongruously throughout, and killing eachother off at the drop of hat. Bizarrely fascinating, just as long as you don't expect anything to make any sense.

[Rev. Powell]

Buffet Froid (1979)

If Ionesco would have written a play about serial killers, this would be it. A strange, highly cynical dark comedy with as central conceit that murder is not worth getting all excited about. The whole movie follows a dreamlike logic, with characters acting incongruously throughout, and killing eachother off at the drop of hat. Bizarrely fascinating, just as long as you don't expect anything to make any sense.

I loved it (but you know me).

DELTA SPACE MISSION (1984): A super-powerful A.I. computer falls in love with a beautiful alien journalist and chases her across the universe in this Romanian animated feature. The animation will remind you of old Saturday morning cartoons--with the obligatory descriptor, "on acid"--and although the story is slight and ends abruptly, sci-fi fans will have a blast picking out all the tributes to "2001," "Star Trek," "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back," "Fantastic Planet," and more. 3.5/5.

[Alex]

Infestation.

A slacker finds himself in the middle of a alien bug invasion and starts chasing the girl of his dreams who has no interest in him while ignoring the mentally unstable hot chick who wants him. Quite a fun movie.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Fiction Makers" (1968)
Theatrical spin off from the British TV series "The Saint," starring future 007 Roger Moore as the suave millionaire do-gooder Simon Templar. Simon is hired to impersonate the reclusive author of a series of suspense novels, which goes well until he's kidnapped by a gang planning a huge heist based on one of those books, and want "his" creative input with the scheme.
A light, breezy caper/crime film, Moore's performance is all arched eyebrows and snide sarcasm, but he still stops the bad guys and (of course) gets the girl in the end. This was the first time I'd ever watched any of Roger's "Saint" adventures and I wouldn't mind seeing more.

[indianasmith]

HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL (2016) - Although I have watched it before, this afternoon I was in just the right mood to take in Lin-Manuel's masterpiece again.  The remarkable fusion of history, poetry, music, and choreography take my breath away every single time, and this was no exception.  It's totally worth the subscription fee to Disney Plus just to watch this two or three times a year.  Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius and a national treasure!  5/5

[Trevor]

Infestation.

A slacker finds himself in the middle of a alien bug invasion and starts chasing the girl of his dreams who has no interest in him while ignoring the mentally unstable hot chick who wants him. Quite a fun movie.

That is my life right there: minus the alien bug invasion 

[Jim H]

The VelociPastor - As silly as it sounds.  That said, while it is sometimes knowingly funny, even laugh out loud at times, and it's wisely very short (barely over an hour), I still found it trying and dull at times.  Just numerous sequences that don't really work and last.  Too much filler and moments that don't gel, character beats that don't work.  The goofy dinosaur isn't funny enough for what it is. 

Would have been an excellent 20 minute short.

I would watch more from the same director though, it's clear he has some talent.

[Rev. Powell]

ULTRASOUND (2021): After a car accident, a man spends a night at a couple's remote house and---at the husband's insistence---sleeps with the wife, which leads to an increasingly strange series of events. A twisty what-is-reality? psychological thriller with great tension and paranoia throughout, perfect for our era of deepfakes, fake news, and fake claims of fake news. 3.5/5