Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"Madman" (1982)
As the staff of a summer camp prepare to close the place down for the winter, they make the fatal mistake of mocking local legend "Madman Marz." This somehow summons the maniac, who starts whackin' away at them with an axe.
This competently made, though totally unoriginal slasher flick is one of the better "Friday The 13th" knock-offs of the era.

[M.10rda]

Lester - I was joking, I like PIRANHA and JAWS et al just fine. (Avoid NOTGRIZZLY though!)
DrWhom - Did Mikey Madison earn her Oscar?
FFC - MADMAN is great.
This next movie is... okay?

EL HOMBRE SIN NOSTRO aka THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE (1950):
This is a Mexican serial killer "thriller" or perhaps more "suspense mystery" with a handsome dollop of German Expressionism and surrealism as well as an indigestible overserving of psychanalysis. A reputedly brilliant homicide detective who looks like a sleepy and underfed Pedro Pascal can't manage to identify and catch a vicious lady-slasher, so he consults the expertise of his therapist buddy, who looks like what would happen if you overinflated Mandy Patinkin with helium. What follows is a long, talky, talky series of counseling sessions and melodramatic flashbacks and then, finally, after one has nearly forgotten that a slasher is supposedly on the loose slashing victims, a long-deferred and utterly anti-climactic ending. You can probably already predict the twist from my brief synopsis above, but if you can't somehow, my friend Sigmund Freud would be happy to explain to you how Detective Pascal's mother is entirely to blame for the murders. 

Besides my conviction that explicit psychoanalysis takes all the fun out of movies, EL HOMBRE SIN NOSTRO is worth mentioning for its spectacular B+W dream sequences, where the Detective roams a nightmarish landscape ala Salvador Dali and is haunted by a cool-looking killer (that may well have inspired Madonna's disguise in Beatty's DICK TRACY). These sequences are quite unlike much else you'd see in movies of or prior to 1950, so at least you could FF through the rest of the movie to enjoy those.

3/5
And I know everyone loves PSYCHO but if nothing else EL HOMBRE SIN NOSTRO demonstrates it was mostly done before (sans drag).

[Senor Citizen]

Trick 'r Treat (2007)

This was so good movie. I love it.
It has real atmosphere, like good halloween-movie should have. 82 minute running time makes me want more but rather too short than too long.

Sam is true horror icon.

[Dr. Whom]

DrWhom - Did Mikey Madison earn her Oscar?

Hard to say. Of the other candidates, I only saw The Substance. The themes in Anora are of course a lot more Oscar-friendly than The Substance. The fact remains that Mikey Madison really carries the movie, while The Substance is more of a double act. So in that sense, yes.

[Rev. Powell]

DrWhom - Did Mikey Madison earn her Oscar?

Hard to say. Of the other candidates, I only saw The Substance. The themes in Anora are of course a lot more Oscar-friendly than The Substance. The fact remains that Mikey Madison really carries the movie, while The Substance is more of a double act. So in that sense, yes.

I voted for Demi but Mikey won our critic's group, too.