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#5: Half Human Golden Years  Directed by Ishiro Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the duo behind Godzilla! It's basically fine. The bigfoot costume is really good. But beyond that nothing to write home about. Except for the racism. There's a clan of evil inbred rural mountain people, which in an American movie would just be inbred mountain people, no problem, but in Japan reads as a specific racial group and a lot of people were not happy with this movie when it came out. Half Human is far from the worst biigfoot movie. Honestly just being fine probably puts it in the top 5th percentile of bigfoot movies. But unless you're a Honda completionist, or a bigfoot completionist, best leave it. 
Gripweed fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Oct 6, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 03:33
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Movie #4 Zombie Honeymoon -watch a film featuring a doomed romance -watch a film about relationships or love Kiss of the Vampire, 1963  A young couple on their honeymoon break down in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for them, a wealthy family sees their misfortune and invites them to dinner. Of course, the family ends up being a bunch of vampires. The colors are bold and the sets look great. There's a costume ball full of wealthy weirdos in cool dresses and awesome animal masks. The whole film is filled with a crazy amount of sexual tension, with both Vampire Dad and Vampire Son trying to seduce the newly wed wife while Vampire Daughter tries her hand with the husband. A lot of psychological manipulation on top of the seduction. A lavish party quickly turns into a drunken nightmare, but thankfully there's a Not Van Helsing around to set things right. This one really goes hard on the cult and ritual angle of vampirism. Even the good guys call upon Satanic power! An absolutely wild ending. 
A True Jar Jar Fan fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 03:56
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 8. Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College (1991) Well, Ghoulies II was clearly the high point of this series. Ghoulies needed way more hijinks from the lil ghoulie guys, but this is too far in the other direction. In this direct-to-video instalment, the Ghoulies are summoned to college by a crusty old Dean (Kevin McCarthy bringing major ham) by reading from a confiscated comic book. The Ghoulies crawl out of an ornate toilet in a frat house during Prank Week, and guess what? Ghoulies can talk now, and it loving sucks. They also look worse! This is barely a horror movie. It's like a Porky's sex movie except it's ghoulies pulling the "sit on my shoulders and wear a big trenchcoat gag", ghoulies peeping at girls in the shower, ghoulies drinking lots of beer, ghoulies pulling some Three Stooges poo poo. It even ends with a big dance scene where a guy yells "Let's party!" Unreal. If you want to see a lot of boobs and a ghoulie wear a backwards ball cap then watch this, but I cannot recommend it. I'm officially bailing on this series.  1.5/5 -- Bingo Square: V/H/STotal Watched: 8 // First Time: 6
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Oct 4, 2022 04:03
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Hot Dog Day #89 posted:
I am positive that a weirdly high number of us in the thread have watched it. I saw it decades ago at this point and I recall liking Hayes in it and enjoying her rampage, but the rest is kind of burned away as fluff.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:04
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Ok, October 1st was a Saturday which meant Svengoolie night! If you don’t know Svengoolie is a Chicago based horror host who has been on the air for the better part of 50 years. Every Saturday night he shows some old movie that is sometimes a classic and is sometimes not but every time he delivers with his brand of corny dad jokes, silly puppets, songs and skits, and movie trivia. I love it, its goofy, it feels like a horror connection that brings you back through the years. And Sven started the Halloween season with a 4 hour spectacular!   - (6). Trilogy of Terror (1975) Directed by Dan Curtis; Written by Richard Matheson and William F. Nolan Watched on Svengoolie According to Wikipedia I’ve seen this before, but to be honest I didn’t remember it at all. Sven introduced it by saying everyone remembers the doll but no one remembers the other two segments… and yeah. That’s the deal. The other segments aren’t bad. Its great seeing Karen Black get to play so many roles. The first two stories are fine enough for what they are and Black is good in them but the first one kind of pulls its twist out of nowhere and it doesn’t feel too thrilling aside from being glad to see the creepy rapist get what he deserves, and the second segment’s twist is a little too obvious and its ending kind of lacks a big punch for it. Its solid and I have no major complaints, but its easy to see why they’re not memorable segments. And its clear why the last segment is so remembered. The whole zulu doll thing doesn’t seem especially cool in 2022. It feels a tad problematic. But its obviously a fun as hell killer doll and the best segment of the bunch that doesn’t really need to rely on stories or twist because it just a gonzo tale of a killer doll. In fact I started to suspect the secret message of the segment was against leaving your mom and getting an apartment because this place was kind of a death trap. She really should have been able to get away from that doll easier. But she doesn’t and that makes for a fun chase and fight and a pretty great ending. Even if that ending probably is a little problematic in its right but Black knocks it out fo the park and the film ends on its strongest note. I don’t think there’s some deeper meaning to this anthology but it does seem like there’s a common theme of maybe a regressive idea of women being let out on their own ending in terrible ways. Its the 70s so I guess you can’t expect a lot. And nothing is outwardly terrible or aged. It kind of walks up to the line and it almost feels kind of edgy for 1975, which is probably part of the reason its had such a lasting cult following. But really its that doll. And I still can’t decide how racist that is or isn’t but its definitely something that delivers what it wants. The rest of the anthology is fine but definitely wouldn’t be remembered if not for that one. So its all pretty uneven and I’m not sure if it would have held my full interest without Svengoolie. But he was here and as a cult film this is one of those movies you usually watch with some friends or something so it is what it is. Hardly a great film, but certainly a memorable one. Besides Svengoolie there is also Sventoonie. Toonie the tuna is a puppet tuna who hosts cartoons every weekday morning on MeTV, but on Saturday nights he turns into a Svengoolie clone and hosts his own show with his friends Blobbie and Trevor, a zombie who died back during the heyday of the video rental stores he worked at. Its a half hour comedy show that doesn’t show full movies but just shows clips and mocks them between a bunch of other skits. And its actually surprisingly really good and funny. Its cast and crew seems to be made up of Groundling alums and since Chicago is known for producing young comics I guess it makes sense that this would be an outlet for some of them to get weird. And they do and its pretty fun. And all of Season 1 is up on Youtube so I’d definitely suggest people check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7MnFDBY5Q  5 (7). Eegah (1962) Directed by Arch Hall Sr.; Screenplay by Bob Wehling; Story by Arch Hall Sr. Watched on Sventoonie and Amazon Prime Unlike a lot of horror fans i’m not really a connoisseur of the bad film nor a fan of the whole Rifftrax/MST3K thing. Don’t get me wrong, I watched MST3K when I was young and loved it but I just don’t tend to find the fun in intentionally watching bad movies most of the time. I’m weird. So I had never even heard of Eegah before this. And to be honest… I dunno, it wasn’t as bad as it was presented as? I mean its bad, obviously. Its this awkward vanity project for the director’s kid where he sings a bunch fo songs for no reason and there’s barely a plot and a lot of really strange choices to stretch out the run time or fit something in. Like a really long dune buggies chase. Or a weird comedic shaving scene. Or a random fight with a new character for no apparent reason. Its clearly bad in a lot of ways. But I’ve seen worse. I tend to be “underwhelmed” by these “worst movie ever” favorites. They’re usually pretty arbitrary selections by some horror host or podcaster or something that just caught on. Which again, isn’t to say its not a bad movie because it clearly is. But weirdly it has its moments? Like filming outdoors is just kind of nice and easy and the whole thing just kind of flowed easy enough. Roxie is a brat but actually not a terrible actress and I was just amused by the singing doof. Its funny. I actually do think this was probably intended to be kind of a comedy. It explains some of the stranger choices. And I actually am amused when I think that the entire point was that Roxi was kind of supposed to be a brat and Tom was kind of supposed to be a doof so that when Roxie meets Eergh he just seems more interesting and dreamy than the idiots she’s dealing with. But none of the comedy lands, in big part because most of the jokes are delivered by the director who can’t act worth a drat and has zero comedic timing. I’d wonder what would happen if you put a good actor in the dad role and if he could hold this thing together and deliver what he needs to. But really… its still a bad movie. And if it was intended to be a comedy it makes the abrupt dark and “poignant” ending weirder and completely out of that vibe. And really it feels like I’m giving it way too much time and energy. Its a bad movie that basically just suffers from a script that never gets out of the basic tropes it takes from better films and kind of doesn’t know what it wants to do with itself or how to do what it does want. Its bad. But I’ve seen worse. In fact I’ve seen worse this month. But I’m weird.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:11
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STAC Goat posted:Ok, October 1st was a Saturday which meant Svengoolie night! If you don’t know Svengoolie is a Chicago based horror host who has been on the air for the better part of 50 years. Every Saturday night he shows some old movie that is sometimes a classic and is sometimes not but every time he delivers with his brand of corny dad jokes, silly puppets, songs and skits, and movie trivia. I love it, its goofy, it feels like a horror connection that brings you back through the years. And Sven started the Halloween season with a 4 hour spectacular! One of my fondest memories as a kid was when he said my name on air with the Happy Birthday segment. I think I still have his autograph buried around somewhere.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:16
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Hollismason posted:I think this is also the movie where Loomis's burn make up changes from scene to scene and its really funny when you notice it. And then the next movie they just punt on the whole thing and have Loomis drop a line about getting skin grafts.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:29
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If you need ideas for a horror movie to watch the movie of the month is up!
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Oct 4, 2022 04:36
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Franchescanado posted:
 13) House of Bones - 2010 - TubiTV At first sight of the poster, I had 'straight to Prime' vibes. Turns out close enough, it's SyFy. Storyline follows a paranormal investigations group who finally comes across the real deal after mostly finding nothing. Well, over the years I've sat through good films, great films, okay films, and craptastic ones. Sat through many who manage the so bad they're good category. This one's a first in being so middling you could calibrate a balance level with it. Perhaps if someone's never watched a horror film before, this would be good. For those who do watch horror films, this was bland and uninspiring. I was more engaged in naming the films this one cribbed from while thinking 'Yeah, I could sit through that one again'. The actors are decent, just not given enough to work with. Effects were okay enough. This one's a skippable. I can't even recommend it as something for background noise. 
M_Sinistrari fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 04:37
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 The poster is less generic in context. Spell (Mark Tonderai ; 2020 ; Horror Noire) I was not prepared for this movie. I hunted through the filmographies of African American directors I like in case they'd done something I missed, and when that failed I googled "african american horror" and clicked the first thing with a vaguely interesting title. The whole point is branching out, let fate decide, expand my horizons. Spell as a title made me think of witches, I like witches, sure, let's rock and roll. Spell is secretly amazing but it's also slightly insane in a way that I think might turn off a lot of people too quickly. The first chunk of the movie is basically a Hallmark movie : Marquis is a big city fancy lawyer with a beautiful family, very successful, etc. when he finds out his estranged father has died, he flies himself and his family in his private plane back home to West Virginia (or Kentucky, there might be confusion), but they crash somewhere in the foothills of the Appalachians. (Which, despite being set there they never bothered to learn how to pronounce.) It's also shot like a Hallmark movie, which doesn't help matters. But but but! Marquis wakes up in a strange bed in a strange old house where he's being held captive under the guise of letting his mysteriously injured foot heal. Except his captor Eloise isn't just a crazed fan, no she's a straight up country folk magic witch and the head of an immortal witch cult. This movie is black magic Misery and you didn't even know it. It's loving tense as hell because Marquis is never not trying to escape and find his family, so there isn't ever more than a breath before we're onto the next escape or hiding our meager tools for the next attempt. Also while it doesn't have proper goop it does have a couple of truly harrowing shots. (Warning : Gore Spoilerpulling a giant rusty spike out of a heel, slowly in focus) Ah but this is three movies! The next act is Marquis breaking into Eloise's secret witch cellar and teaching himself sorcery so he can fight fire with fire and his own cunning by setting a series of hex-traps throughout the farm and THAT'S RIGHT IT'S MAGIC STRAW DOGS MOTHERFUCKERS That's literally the entire third act. It's not even really pretending to be horror anymore, it's basically a straight up action movie but with, you know, hedge wizardy. Also, you can really really tell that this movie was not made by Americans but it makes for a very interesting tone. The tone is like if Stephen King had set Misery in Japan instead of Maine and had Stephen King's understanding of Japan. Except Stephen King instead wrote it about African-American folk magic in Appalachia with the same take and amount of knowledge he had about Japan. Does that make sense? It feels very much like a cultural outsider who is aware of some parts of black history and slavery but also not others and all their understanding is wikipedia-page level. It kind of works and I have complicated feelings about that but it's certainly interesting and I definitely like it as an object. 9/10 7 down, 24 to go 
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Oct 4, 2022 04:53
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 6 (8). The Superdeep (2020) Written and directed by Arseny Syuhin i didn't intend to seek out a dubbed Russian film but that's what I got. The dub seemed built in since it had the cadence of one of those movies where people were speaking English but then got dubbed over so it doesn't fit at all. I hate dubbing. And I have stumbled on quite a few modern russian films of this nature that seem like they're trying to recapture the old Italian thing where they're making trashy versions of US films for a western audience. But they're not any good and aren't trashy enough to overcome the flaws. Basically too mainstream for the fans of trash and too trash for the fans of mainstream stuff. Truthfully I wouldn't say this was THAT bad, but it was off and never flowed at all. It kind of takes liberally from a lot of films from the Thing to Event Horizon to even arguably Stranger Things. Its basic premise is pretty solid. The idea Event Horizon idea of a descent so deep underground to wander into hell. But that really doesn't go anywhere. Then there's the Thing angle of digging through the ice and uncovering something old and frozen that you let loose to potentially apocalyptic consequences. But that doesn't really mesh with the first idea, does it? The film didn't feel like it ever really picked a lane nor made any kind of philosophical debate on the subject interesting. Instead the movie just kind of plods along down its checklist of plot points. None of the characters are developed well and nothing really has enough time to sink in. There's a kind of confusing geography of everything kind of looking the same as disaster after disaster pushes them to another room or level but it never really feels different. Its a hard plot to keep track of, not because its confusing, but just because its delivered without a ton of tact or skill. Its not TERRIBLY made. Its just not especially well made. And that means I kept having to rewind or ask where they were, why they did what they just did, and who just died. I wasn't distracted, its just one of those movies that kind of burned past the exposition steps and story and character beats in a way that you could miss if you slipped for a second. There is some good body horror and creature stuff. And really everything is completely enough done that I never longed for the movie to end or anything. But it was also never good enough to really justify the time spent on it. It wasn't notable terrible... it was just pretty dull and flawed just enough to not be all that fun even when it definitely could have been with some very goopy and gross stuff. Just a miss.  7 (9). The Night of the Hunted (1980) Written and directed by Jean Rollin Watched on Kanopy HalloweeNIT: 3/31 Fran's SPOOKY BINGO: 1/36 Franchescanado posted:
I hate Jean Rollin. Really, I really do. I don't get the appeal at all. Every film I've seen of his is just women walking around naked and being assaulted and raped with barely a plot in play. There's always these gratuitous dragged out sex scenes. And look, I like boobs and sex too but there is a point where your movie just becomes porn. And I'm not judging porn but like... pick a lane. And if that lane is "rape porn" let me off it. Because really, Jean Rollin loves rape. Sometimes its full on rape with a woman saying no (but then enjoying herself, because it is of course a rape fantasy). Sometimes its a woman who has no memory of who she is or how she got there and some dude has sex with her anyway even though that's CLEARLY not cool, dude! This lady is vulnerable! This is not a meet cute! But really sometimes its just a woman being held down as she screams. Jean Rollin loves that. And even when we're not getting sex we're just getting women disrobing for no reason. A tv edit of this movie would be like 20 minutes long. And to say there's 20 minutes of plot and character work in here feels like a lie. Nothing is really done with the core premise and the whole movie is basically just our leading lady wandering about hallways. No one's even being hunted. Not really. The title basically refers to the opening minute of the film and none of that goes anywhere interesting. Just rape and a very dim view of women. I hate Jean Rollin.
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Oct 4, 2022 04:58
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4. What Lies Beneath Zombie Honeymoon My wife said she wanted to rewatch this one and I've actually never seen it, so sure. I really miss this late 90s/early 2000s era of mainstream horror. It's got its own aesthetic and vibe that really works, plus you get stuff like this where you have two absolute veteran actors leading it. It's not a perfect or even great movie, but it's good and got me nostalgic for the era.
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Oct 4, 2022 05:10
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8. The Boneyard Collection 2008 I'm not even going to make a joke here, this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  Fran wants a movie with 'bone' in the title, fine, I'll find a movie with 'bone' in the title. Oh, a horror anthology? And I've never seen it? Color me intrigued. I paused this movie after what I thought was 45 minutes to see how much longer I had. I was 18 minutes in. I always wondered what it was like when I made movies in high school and insisted that my family and friends watch them. And now I know. The movie features a lot of brief cameos from mid-level stars of yesteryear, and I'll be honest, I feel like the producers should be brought up on charges of elder abuse. Forcing poor Robert Loggia and Tippi Hendren to be in this movie feels cruel. The acting in the movie is straight from a porn set, but the only person getting hosed is me, hosed out of an hour and forty minutes of my life that I will never get back again. Did I mention that Brad Dourif is in this movie? He appears for approximately :48, and is more captivating in those forty-eight seconds than literally anything else. There are no less than three separate and full song/dance numbers in this movie. This has no relevance to anything but I thought you needed to know. The only compliment I can give this movie is that while fast forwarding to clip this GIF, I heard the movie's song 'Dangerous Girls' in 2x speed, and it was almost, ALMOST a bop. Anyway, this GIF I yanked from the movie says more than I can:  It would be easy to give this movie a 1 and be done with it, but it is in fact a movie. Someone wrote it, and filmed it, and edited it, and tracked down a bunch of quasi-celebs to act in it. Effort was clearly put into it, so a 0 or a 1 would feel disrespectful. But I am being incredibly generous by giving this movie a 2. Rating: 2/10 Braincells Left In My Head
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Oct 4, 2022 05:41
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2. Trilogy of Terror (1975), Amazon Video This one was... alright. I appreciated that the three stories were distinctly different, but the first one was easily the best one. I genuinely didn't see the "she's a black widow" twist coming, and I liked it. The second story I kind of predicted the "twist" almost immediately, and it was confirmed for me when the lead actress was playing two parts. It felt like it was the shortest of the three stories, and I'm glad because I was afraid it would belabor the point and overstay its welcome, which it didn't - once it started to get a little on-the-nose, it ended. The third story was wacky and silly, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It's the only one with any real "supernatural" element which was a bit of a change of pace, and didn't try to be any deeper or more meaningful than it needed to be, haha. It's just got a killer tribal doll running around a hotel room trying to stab a person for like 20 minutes, and that's it. 3. Southbound (2015), blu-ray  This was a repeat viewing, and I still like it. I like that each story pretty much flows right into the next before wrapping around in a loop, I think it works well and is an interesting way to handle a lack of a framing narrative. I like how (most of) the movie has a sort of surreal dreamlike quality where things are happening around the characters and they feel off and the characters kind of recognize that things are off but keep going with it. The purgatory demons (for lack of a better term) are creepy and weird and are a huge stand-out in the first and last stories, but I think my favorite story is the highway accident story. I think my least favorite would have to be the brother/sister rescue story, it wasn't very dreamlike like the others and it kind of didn't go anywhere, I dunno. 1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) 2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975) 3. 'Southbound' (2015) Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 05:47
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Thanks for all the guidance on the Universal stuff so far! STAC Goat in particular coming through with a hell of a road map. I'll be planning out my next Bingo moves in the coming days so I should have a lot to work with. 2. Strange Behavior (1981) (first viewing) Odd things are happening in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois. The mayor's son goes missing, then turns up dead inside a scarecrow. Another teen is attacked and killed after a house party. The coroner finds a victim's eyes are removed with surgical precision. The body count mounts. And what's this got to do with the scientists at the local university conducting research on behavioral modification, paying hard-up high schoolers stacks of cash in exchange for their strange experiments? Honestly, I watched this movie and I'm still not too sure, as it's kind of a mess. There's an exposition dump maybe 20 minutes before the end of the movie, but it doesn't clear things up too much. (But at least it lets an underused Louise Fletcher sneak in some acting.) It's got some elements of a slasher mystery, as well as a pulpy vibe, but there's not much to see here. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Dead & Buried," as it features the aforementioned late, great Louise Fletcher 3. Cat's Eye (1985) (first viewing) This anthology film presents three tales from Stephen King, two of which were previously published short stories and one of which was newly written for the screen. There's a very loose framing device involving a cat that travels from story to story, picking up agency until he's basically the protagonist. It's like Au Hasard Balthazar meets Creepshow. (Just kidding.) There's definitely noting too intense here, and the 90-minute runtime is split quite evenly among the three stories. In "Quitters, Inc.," a man (James Woods) signs up for a smoking cessation clinic, only to discover their methods are, shall we say, extreme. Among all three, this is the one that probably could have benefited from a little more time to stretch out, as the premise is pretty funny. In "The Ledge," a man learns his girlfriend belongs to an Atlantic City gangster, and promptly finds himself being forced by said gangster to walk around the ledge of a high-rise apartment building. This one has the thinnest premise for sure. It's fine, but it feels like almost the entire run-time is devoted to the minutiae of the task. Finally, in "General," our titular cat winds up staying with a family and bonding with the young daughter (Drew Barrymore). He's just in time, because a troll is hiding in the walls and terrorizing the house! I actually must have caught the end of this movie at least once as a young kid, because the image of the troll sneaking up and trying to steal the girl's breath was embedded in my mind. But this one is very light-hearted, even goofy. Nothing indelible here, but decent enough if you want a light horror anthology. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Tales of Horror." 
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Oct 4, 2022 05:50
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PKMN Trainer Red posted:8. The Boneyard Collection  Zombie Honeymoon -watch a film featuring a doomed romance #18.) Everfall (2017; DVD) A figure skater trying to make a comeback after a serious injury is sent by her coach to a memorial skate competition in a town called Everfall. Things are weird there, in a Western Silent Hill sequel sort of way. Good thing she has her estranged sort-of boyfriend and his cameraman buddy to come along for the ride. The biggest thing about this film is that the color grading is irritating. It usually has a washed-out look, not just in the spooky or otherworldly parts, but even in the scenes that cut back to the safety of the skater's home. The second thing is that the twists and changes in the environment feel jumbled, thrown together without building from each other in a sensible way. The set-up given is that the town burned down in 1969, and among the casualties were a pair of figure skaters. Also, a child has gone missing every year since then. And there's a figure skater ghost, and some time loop shenanigans, and a love triangle (of sorts) struggling to evoke emotion. There's points that the film keeps returning to, but even so, the film is too unfocused for all the pieces to come together in an effective way. There's glimpses of what they're going for, but too much time is spent on attempts at spooky ambiguity to succeed with any part of the story. “This is crazy, I'm going crazy.” Rating: 5/10
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Oct 4, 2022 05:51
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Crescent Wrench posted:3. Cat's Eye (1985) (first viewing) This sentence has instantly been burned into my brain and I will never see the movie without thinking it ever again.
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Oct 4, 2022 05:53
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 8. Harpoon (2019) Is there a genre term for people trapping themselves in disastrous situations of their own making? Nitwit thrillers, maybe? Inept survival? Harpoon is one of those. Munro Chambers plays a loser, Chris Gray plays a prick, and Emily Tyra plays a woman dumb enough to be involved with these awful guys. Gray has "one of his many" rage fits and beats up Chambers because he thinks Tyra slept with him, then apologizes by bringing them on an impromptu day trip in his boat, only for the fight to flare up again with even more violence when Gray realizes he had it right the first time. Chekhov's spear gun is fired and disposed of when we're barely out of the first act, and once everyone is injured and miserable and ready to set for shore and put this deeply stupid incident behind them, the boat's engine fails to turn over. So now everyone hates each other and they're stranded at sea. Whoops. Harpoon is mostly played as comedy, and it... sort of works. The characters are unpleasant buffoons and Brett Gelman gives a snide voiceover narration throughout most of the opening that does a fairly entertaining job mocking them. The single best part of the movie is probably Gelman's rapid-fire listing of every nautical superstition they violated to bring bad luck on themselves. I can't think of another comedy that gives the best jokes to a narrator besides, uh, Arrested Development maybe? It's weird because in between the narration, the actors themselves don't bring nearly enough comedy energy, so the relationship conversations feel awkwardly serious while also being impossible to invest in. Eventually things get properly dark and the laughs vanish altogether. The horror beats are a mixed bag again, some genuinely grody stuff with an infected wound leading to sepsis when they're utterly without the tools to even amputate, but also some extremely uninspired "people going loony and yelling at each other" material that seems to be common for super low budget films that can't go bigger beyond dialogue in a single location. Some comedy-by-idiocy returns in the ending, fortunately, but it feels like the film is whipsawing between tones rather than serving a smooth blend. Maybe I'm more down on Harpoon than it deserves. It's a quick little film that made me both laugh and squirm. But the cinematography is unimaginative, conspicuously so when it tries to do some kind of flourish and settles for That '70s Show by doing whip-pans around a conversation circle, so I'll let that be my mental tiebreaker for a thumbs down.  .5 / 5 For Spooky Bingo, this movie is all about a supposedly romantic relationship triangle, strained and loveless though it seems to be, so I'm counting it for Zombie Honeymoon. 
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Oct 4, 2022 06:00
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Franchescanado posted:
 4.) Two Evil Eyes George Romero & Dario Argento | 1990 | 4K UHD An anthology of adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe’s works, apparently this was supposed to be a collection of four shorts directed by Romero, Argento, and possibly John Carpenter and Stephen King. However, we ended up with two segments directed by Romero and Argento. I picked this up because ever since I got into horror (embarrassingly recently), I’ve been a Romero fan. Which is unfortunate for me because I found his half, "The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar", to be the weaker of the two stories. It’s not necessarily bad per se, but it just kind of drags though the twist and the ending are pretty neat. Argento’s story, “The Black Cat” is much better. Harvey Keitel is fantastic and the story does a great job of showing his gradual decline into madness. Tom Savini provides some amazing gory effects (one of which is unfortunately spoiled on the film’s Letterboxd page). Overall, it all evens out to a solid film. If you’re a Poe fan, you might get more out of it. "The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar": 3/5 ”The Black Cat”: 4/5 Rating (overall): ½ Total: 4/13 New: 4 Rewatches: 0 My Letterboxd list (in progress) 
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Oct 4, 2022 06:36
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 Finally someone makes a movie about my love life -- dead. Return of the Living Dead 3 (Brian Yuzna ; 1993) Punk Vacation Why did I never bother with the RotL sequels? This is good campy fun. Nowhere near as good as the original, of course, but not without its own charms and it's that early 90's VHS kind of horror where there was just enough money to make these things have a budget but not to be good-good. Plus Kent McCord! The man with the hairline you could shave with. Sadly, while there's another zombie in a barrel, it is but a pale mooncast shadow of our beloved gooplord, the Tarman. It tries valiantly and has a cool exploding skull effect, but it's just not the same as that goopy goopy buddy. Lot of 90's today. I guess we can call the flannel seasonal? Various Shorts! Short Cuts I'm not spoiler tagging any of these because they're short films. I'm not gonna try to spoil them, but just getting the premise across takes some. Standing Woman ([url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDfmZaiWlWk]Link)[/url] A dystopian future where they turn undesirable people into trees. It's very, very student film. It's only missing like gunshot-fade to black as an ending. It's okay? The acting isn't great but it's functional. Not gonna recommend it but certainly don't avoid it. If it was playing at the dentist's while I was waiting, I'd watch that unless my book was at least okay. 5/10 (15 minutes) GUEST (Link) This is a story about a person who had a kind of creepy mask. So they made an 11 minute short film that could have very long still shots of the mask staring head-on at the camera. But not alone. That would be weird. So some women also stare head-on into the camera, and sometimes are a-spooked. 2/10 but just barely (11 minutes ; 26 rolling ) Other Side of the Box (Link) Easily the best so far. A couple get a weird box as a present from an estranged friend, but inside it some spook 'em ups that they have to always keep on eye on or it'll do a spooky. It's basically just a rehash of Blink, the Doctor Who episode, but it's decently well done and they have some cute touches and a little twist. Didn't blow me away but got me more hopeful. 8/10, relieved (15 minutes ; 41 rolling) Stuck (Link) This one rules. A gymnastics coach sees a creepy dude perving on her students, and later he hides inside a padded jumping thing that must have a name but I don't know it. Then the real fun begins (you can guess). Simple, gory yet goofy. Quick shot of Twilight Zone-ish irony. 8/10 (15 minutes ; 56 rolling) How to be Alone (Link) Hey it's Maika Monroe from It Follows and Joe Keery from Stranger Things. They're a charming little couple, Joe has to work a night shift, Maika doesn't want to be left alone. Pseudo psychedelic anxiety horror commences, metaphors for codependence and love. Good acting, but Maika is about as close as we get to a scream queen these days so it's not a surprise. 6/10 (12 minutes ; 68 rolling) Hell yeah first to get bingo I'm not competitive you're competitive  8 down, 23 to go and do shorts count only for bingo or?
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Oct 4, 2022 07:21
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STAC Goat posted:Full Moon: Franknetsine Meets Wolfman (Any of the Wolfman movies fit here) poo poo. I know An American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps might be better but I'll be damned if "Frankenstein meets Wolfman" (I assume that was a typo, but honestly Wolfman meeting some guy called Franknetsine sounds even better) doesn't sound like an amazing premise for a movie. It's kinda wild to think that we've had these crossover cinematic universes as far back as the 40s. E: PKMN Trainer Red posted:8. The Boneyard Collection Fun fact: Ron Moss was voted the sexiest man in the world by Finnish women for several years running, because the Bold and the Beautiful was the first American soap we got over here since Dynasty and Dallas, and middle-aged housewives and grandmas went NUTS for him. Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 07:24
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4. Moloch (2022) A family who lives on a bog in the Netherlands is attacked by a strange man, the daughter attempts to discover what's really happening. Moloch was very interesting, bit of a slow burn. Got an interesting mythology, ending kind of whatever but the last scene redeemed it for me Recommended. Available on shudder Don't believe I've ever seen a film from the Netherlands or Dutch even. So I'm gonna say this counts for a perfect getaway. 
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Oct 4, 2022 07:39
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3. Meatcleaver Massacre (aka Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre) Okay I've seen deceptive and misleading horror film titles but this one is just an outright lie. I did not see a single meat clever throughout the proceedings. Just getting that out of the way. What the film really is about, is a group of four ne'er do well young guys who decide to break into the home of a professor, kill his family, and leave him in a coma. The professor, who at the start of the film had lectured them about an Irish vengeance demon, evokes said demon who then proceeds to kill the guilty in a vague supernatural fashion. So far so good! Lack of meat cleavers aside I was willing to go along with this but it just doesn't deliver at any point. There are no surprises or further twists, we spend some time with the scumbags before they get killed and they're all just kinda boring. There is one bit I liked (cw for suicide): one of the characters, on the brink of killing himself, holds a straight razor to his wrist and sees his watch and realizes he's late for work. There are a few weird, competently made, and even atmospheric bits, but the whole thing is killed by a dead pace and the sense that they really didn't have enough material. It exists at a weird point between the lurid, post-Manson panic of movies like Last House on the Left or I Drink Your Blood and the upcoming slasher boom, so it's kind of an anomaly in that respect, but as a movie? Really disappointing.
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Oct 4, 2022 08:00
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Franchescanado posted:
 14.1) Highway to Heaven: I Was a Middle Aged Werewolf - 1987 - Youtube I think this was the only episode of this show I watched. Highway to Heaven was a fantasy/drama show back in the 80s. It centered around Johnathan, a probationary angel, and Victor, a retired cop who teamed up to help troubled people in need. Show was pretty much peak 80s. In this episode, there's multiple storylines. Victor buys a sub sandwich from Satan that gives him nightmares, and a little boy who's picked on by his mean sister learns to overcome his fears while his family learns how important they are to each other. His sister gets her comeuppance as well. There's a third one that goes nowhere with a Mom punching out a teen sneaking booze at a party. The only reason I watched this was Michael Landon wearing the werewolf makeup again, and he hams it up gloriously. There's plenty of call backs to I Was A Teenage Werewolf with comments like 'You look like that guy in the movie, but older'. Rewatching this, I completely forgot Michael Berryman played Satan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRjtXGQz0Rs  14.2) Witch's Night Out - 1978 - Youtube In this one, two children, Small and Tender are upset over not really scaring anyone on Halloween and summon a witch who's depressed that she's ignored on Halloween. She turns them along with their babysitter, Bazooey into real monsters so they can scare people. Of course, things go wrong when the witch's wand gets stolen by Malicious and Rotten, but it all ends good in the end. I don't remember this one getting the same level of attention with the yearly dustoff of Halloween cartoons. It's very 70s with the animation style and dialog. I still laugh at the witch's appearance to the children and she responds to the expected surprise as "I'm not the Avon lady" or during the town's Halloween party it's commented "Nicely's passed out" with the response of "Already?". Gilda Radner voices the witch and she knocks it out of the park. Definitely a recommend for family watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Es0jflWSqw  14.3) It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown - 1966 - DVD This was one of those big Halloween traditions of you always watched Great Pumpkin when it was broadcast when I was a kid. It's a Classic. For whoever might be unfamiliar with the story, while everyone's getting ready for trick or treating and the Halloween Party, Linus is preparing for the Great Pumpkin who will only appear to true believers in a sincere pumpkin patch. This has been an ongoing thing since they all tease Linus about this and his teasing back over their belief in Santa gets accepted as denominational differences. Linus stays true to the Great Pumpkin while the rest go off for trick or treating. Charlie Brown's sister Sally who has a crush on Linus decides to join him in the pumpkin patch rather than join the others. We see the various events of the night up to the pumpkin patch reveal. I still watch this every year as part of my seasonal viewing, and it was a joy introducing this one to my kids when they were little. I am still not forgiving Apple for when they pulled the 2020 AppleTV only broadcast bullshit which interrupted a 54 year steady seasonal airing on regular TV.  14.4) Vincent Price's Once Upon a Midnight Scary - 1979 - Youtube Vincent Price hosts this short anthology featuring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Ghost Belonged to Me, and House with a Clock in it's Walls. The stories are deliberately short to hook you in with Price encouraging one to read the books for the rest of the story. As expected, Vincent Price is simply amazing in the wrap around. I'd've even been happy if this was just him reading the stories aloud. Make sure to stick around to the end for the wrap around surprise. This is definitely one of my recommends for family viewing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnJHHK5Qdc 
M_Sinistrari fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 08:22
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#3 - The Source of Shadows I love anthologies! Often they showcase some great, original ideas, without the need to reach a certain runtime. A cool one-sentence idea can be just that, without the need for sideplots, added characters, red herrings or anything else to stretch the concept far beyond what it should be. Sadly, The Source of Shadows shows that I forgot about one important thing; the ending. Nearly every short in this anthology efficiently presents a tense, unique or interesting situation, I would even say most nail a very specific atmosphere, only to go out on a whimper. Most end with a cut-to-monster jump scare which are almost insultingly bad and take away any of the good will it garnered. The last short is the longest and also the best, so that helps quite a bit, but overall this felt like a missed opportunity. Counted for "Tales of Terror" #4 - Saloum  This reminded me a lot of From Dusk Till Dawn, in all the good ways. Senegalese mercenaries extracting a druglord from a military coup and getting involved in supernatural shenanigans is a great premise. I do think the first part is a lot stronger than everything after the poo poo hits the fan, because what they face has some weird "rules" that make it unclear whether the characters are in danger at certain points or not. Still, a strong start, decent ending and some fantastic shots make for a very enjoyable ride. Counted for "Horror Noire" #5 - Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell  It says "Japanese Evil Dead" on the poster, how could I not watch it? Well, that description is pretty accurate. It is a low-budget rollercoaster ride where they use everything from stop-motion to slapstick to keep the gore and laughs coming. It barely lasts 60 minutes, but after it gets started it just doesn't let up. This was a lot of fun. Counted for "Hausu" 
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Oct 4, 2022 09:23
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7: Childsplay 3 (1991) The Devil made me do it Possessed doll Chucky wants a new body, sets out to possess a little kid. Chucky gets revived by a drop of blood why not, and goes after Andy, who's been sent to a military school. It's just another Chunky movie. Not one of the better ones, but it's fine. Brad Dourif continues to be a foul mouthed delight. Everyone else is just kind of there. This film was notorious in the UK after it got blamed for the James Bulger murder based on absolutely nothing. Sometimes I think the UK is getting stupider and then I see something that reminds me it's always been like this. 8: Boris Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster (2021)  Behind the Screams The life and career of Karloff, with interviews from the likes of Guillermo del Torro, John Landis, Joe Dante and Roger Corman as well as his daughter, Sara. It's a standard format, but it's informative and interesting. Some of the talking head bits look like Zoom recordings with no greenscreen so the guest's hair displays weirdly. Total: 8 Scream 4; Scream 5; Burke & Hare; Pet Semetary (1989); Lake Mungo; Season of the Witch; Childsplay 3; Boris Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster 
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Oct 4, 2022 12:24
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PKMN Trainer Red posted:7. The Haunting in Connecticut It's not even as good as the two part "A Haunting" episode on the case.
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Oct 4, 2022 12:30
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If anyone is watching their short films (for Short Cuts) or Halloween Specials on YouTube, please do me (and everyone else) a favor and link them. I'm constantly adding things to a Halloween and Short Film playlist and finding watchable copies of older things is tricky. Thank you!
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Oct 4, 2022 13:02
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4. The Lift 1983 | dir. Dick Maas Tubi SPOOKY BINGO: Glitches  In 2001, Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas directed a film called Down, about malfunctioning elevators killing people. It stars James Marshall (James from Twin Peaks), Naomi Watts, Michael Ironside, Dan Hedaya, and Ron Perlman. It is 2 hours long. It is not currently streaming anywhere (for free). Thankfully Dick Maas previously directed a 1983 film called The Lift, which is about a malevalent elevator that kills people. It doesn't star anyone with name recognition, and it was filmed in the Netherlands. It's 95 minutes long, and is available on Tubi. The premise is taken seriously, but the tone is not dire. It has the flair (and light sleaze) of European style of 80's filmmaking, with colorful lights, cool clothes, fun camera movement.    This is a movie of elevator anxieties. Have you ever felt claustrophobic inside an elevator? Like you couldn't breathe? Have you ever imagined your head getting trapped between elevator doors and the elevator coming down and popping your head off? Have you ever worried about walking into an empty elevator shaft and falling? Have you thought about being inside an elevator as it fell? Now imagine the elevator is sentient and evil. The main character is an elevator repair man who's trying to figure out why an elevator inside a large building is so hellbent on killing people. The truth is far more bizarre than just simple possession. This was genuinely fun, creative, and competent with some style. It's not a great film, and someone might harumph at me for calling it good, but it is a good time. "I watched this movie recently about a killer elevator, called The Lift. You know what? Pretty good, actually." Recommended. Re-Watches: An American Werewolf In London New To Me: Practical Magic, Pacific Heights, The Lift Total: 4 
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Oct 4, 2022 13:41
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#6: Cheerleader Camp Origin of Evil  Not much going on here. There's babes in cheerleader outfits and a few mildly gory murders. The main girl actress is pretty good, and Buck Flower is here playing something other than a homeless man if you can believe that. But overall the characters are weak, the kills are dull, and since the movie is half boner comedy from the 80s there's a moment of light-hearted hi-jinks that by modern standards is rape. Low tier slasher and low tier cheerleader horror. Cheerleader Camp is an easy pass. 
Gripweed fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Oct 6, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 14:03
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duz posted:Also for anyone who wants to browse prior challenge threads for ideas: Hey Fran, could you add these to one of the OPs? They're a good reference for some of the challenges. For anyone who is new to the thread, I'll just shout out twernt for their challenge last year, which was horror movies from 31 different countries - a great resource if you have watched a lot of horror and are struggling to figure out how you will tackle the Perfect Getaway square. Really enjoying reading everyone's reviews in between my own viewings, and love seeing stuff like STAC Goat trying to Universal the whole card. It's the best time of the year 
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Oct 4, 2022 14:26
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The Berzerker posted:Hey Fran, could you add these to one of the OPs? They're a good reference for some of the challenges. For anyone who is new to the thread, I'll just shout out twernt for their challenge last year, which was horror movies from 31 different countries - a great resource if you have watched a lot of horror and are struggling to figure out how you will tackle the Perfect Getaway square. Done. It's at the top of the 2nd post, above Spooky Bingo.
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Oct 4, 2022 14:28
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8. Body Bags I wanted to hit the Origin of Evil square for the bingo card, and I hadn't watched any anthologies so far this month, so when I saw that this was a collab between Carpenter and Hooper, I was all over it. And it's solid! The first story is a fairly forgettable slasher at least capped off with a satisfyingly goopy kill. The second is a fun body horror about a guy trying to restore his hair, some pretty of-their-time CGI, but just gross enough to sell it. The third is Mark Hammil recieving an eye transplant from an executed serial killer which starts taking over him, and ends in a pretty gruesome way, especially if you have a thing about eye gore. A whole bunch of fun cameos through all 3 too, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Roger Corman all pop up as fun little nods. The actual highlight, though, is John Carpenter doing the wraparound story. The guy's a god-drat delight and I wish there was more of him doing that kinda stuff. 3 out of 5! 8/31, watched: Scary Movie, Final Destination 4, Happy Death Day, Final Destination, No One Gets Out Alive, Smile, Freaky, Body Bags 
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Oct 4, 2022 14:43
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4. Lynch/Oz Fantastic Fest 2022 @Home  In 2001 New York David Lynch was giving an ordinary (for him) Q&A in the aftermath of a screening of Mulholland Drive, when the mood changed upon a question. The question was regarding the Wizard of Oz and its impact on him. Lynch responded, "Not a day goes by where I don't think of The Wizard of Oz" Over the course of 105 minutes six video essays explore this influence on his filmography, in addition to how much filmmakers are influenced by films they've encountered. Three of the video essays are contributed by John Waters, Karyn Kusama (who was in attendance for the Q&A and remembers how important it was to her too, not just him), and Aaron Moorhead+Justin Benson I don't think there's a more made-for-me documentary released in 2022 than this, between subject/s and who's discussing it, honestly ***** 5. Give Me An A Fantastic Fest 2022 @Home  On June 24th, with the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, the ruling in prior landmark case Roe v Wade (assuring the right to have an abortion in the United States) was overturned Give Me An A is a cathartic response to the decision, in the form of an anthology of 15 shorts (mostly horror or dystopic, some black comedy mixed in too), all made by women filmmakers. Given the timing, the speed at which it was made and released, and how anthologies usually are, it's nothing short of impressive that I can't really say there's a bad short here. There's almost a handful I don't like, but everything's competently done, and the wraparound is satisfying while being experimental. One of the better modern anthologies **** Watched so far: Missing (2022), Everyone Will Burn, Dark Glasses, Lynch/Oz, Give Me An A
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Oct 4, 2022 14:57
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If I had known more, I would have watched these in reverse order. End of the Wicked is a Pentecostal horror film that caused a real witch panic in Nigeria; I Am Not a Witch is about a little girl victim of a witch panic. 5 (19 - Nigeria) End of the Wicked ( V/H/S ) Shot on video Nollywood film that has some "so bad it's good" reviews on Letterboxd. Which might be true if they trimmed it a bit, but once you've seen the transformation effects and the dick, it comes down a film about the devil, mildly and interminably, messing with a dude's family. 2/54. (18 - Zambia) I Am Not a Witch ( Something Wicked This Way Comes ) - Shula is accused of being a witch (female and bad) by her neighbors because bad things keep happening in town. Once a witch doctor (male and good) has determined that she is in fact a witch, she's sent off to witch camp - part prison, part refugee camp, and part worker housing - where the civil service has "civil witches" working for the government, chiefly by serving as judge and jury at mass trials to use their (non-existent) magical powers to determine who the guilty parties are. Does a great job of showing the discrimination against accused witches, and women in general, and a government that wants to have it both ways on modernity. 4/5And a couple more shorts while I'm at it: - (20 - Guadeloupe) Bwa Kaybo - Two thugs rob a convenience store where the owner has supernatural powers. Great animated opening half, which leads to the owner teleporting them into an absolutely pedestrian, no-budget zombie flick for the second half of the film. 3/5 - (21 - St. Lucia) Soucouyant - Very ambient film that shows great urban and beach landscapes in St. Lucia. Nominally about a vampire variant, who spends all her time relaxing in the woods while two people in town act scared. Nothing much happens. 3/5
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Oct 4, 2022 14:57
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M_Sinistrari posted:
I bet this was a follow up to a previous Price TV special: An Evening with Edgar Alan Poe. It's just fifty minutes of Price reading Poe and it's exactly what you'd want from that. I'm bringing this up because I bet they'd make an amazing double feature for anyone looking for spooky holiday specials and they're both on youtube.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:03
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Franchescanado posted:
 15) The Reflecting Skin - 1991 - TubiTV This one lost me with the frog death at the beginning, and it just got worse from there. If this wasn't for the challenge, I would've stopped watching and moved on to something else. Set in the 1950s, the story follows Seth, a child who's convinced the widowed neighbor down the way in a deeply rural town is a vampire. While the cinematography does look incredible, everything here is a mix of miserable, messed up and awful. Right when you think things can't get any worse, it does. It's a testament to the talent of the actors to have me dislike every single one of the characters. This just wasn't my sort of thing by any stretch. Franchescanado posted:
 16) The Good Son - 1993 - Prime This one's pretty much a modernization with tweeks of The Bad Seed. Plot is after the death of his mother, Henry is sent to live with his aunt and uncle while his dad goes on a business trip. He gets along with them at the start, but cousin Henry's got something to hide. Mostly what I remember when it came out was people thrown for a loop that Macauley Culkin 'the Home Alone kid' was playing a killer. I thought it worked incredibly well in helping sell the aspect of Henry's hiding his psychopathy along with showing Culkin could handle more than just the usual kid roles.  I have a SPOOKY! Now on to cover the card.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:16
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#3: Ghost Ship (2002) Challenge: H20 After seeing Thir13en Ghosts I was looking for more loud early-oughts horror, so here's Ghost Ship. A team of ocean salvagers stumbles across a haunted cruise ship that disappeared decades earlier. Once they climb onboard, they find out the ship doesn't want them to leave. This movie is most notable for two things: the opening scene where a dance floor full of passengers is instantly sliced in half by a steel cable, and Karl Urban's floppy ponytail. Oh, the guy who tips them off about the derelict ship is named Ferriman - that probably doesn't signify anything, right? Lots of explosions for a horror movie. 3/5 1. Dracula (Spanish)(1931) 2. Trick r Treat (2007) 3. Ghost Ship (2002)
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Oct 4, 2022 15:20
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 Alligator I was not aware of Alligator(1980) until about a year ago, but it's quickly become one of my favorite creature features. It does a few key things right that I think most really good creatures features do. First, you need a rock solid lead, a real pro. Somebody who can take a ridiculous situation and make it seem real. Robert Forster fits the bill, he was made for this sort of movie. He's chasing down a giant alligator, but at the same time he creates a genuinely tortured character(he previously lost his partner in tragic circumstances) with a real emotional edge to him. Secondly, you need to mix things up and use all the tools in the toolbox for the creature. This is more of a modern issue because there's a tendency to rely totally on CGI, but of course in 1980 that wasn't an option so there's a mix of a real gator interacting with miniatures, and then also a big physical gator that allowed the actors to actually jump inside that mouth to get eaten. It's just a really fun creature effects showcase combined with some legitimately good characters, always the best formula for a memorable creature feature.    Mosquito(Fran Challenge: Wild Beasts) - Available on AMC+ Well this one I wasn't aware of until about 2 weeks ago! Never heard of it but I'm always on the lookout for new creature stuff and giant mosquitos is something that I thought had a lot of potential. And good news, it pretty much delivers on that promise. On a similar note to what I said about Alligator, this movie also does a good job of mixing up the effects with some solid stop-motion stuff to go along with the practical mosquitos. It's one of those creature features where you'll probably be sold in the first 5 minutes, and you never really go very long without seeing either a mosquito suck someone dry or a person blasting one of the mosquitos into glorious goop. I was pretty impressed by the goop level actually, they really didn't skimp on the mosquito models because there were a whole lot of them obliterated by shotgun blasts or hacked to pieces or squashed by cars, etc. etc. And the characters look like they survived an Evil Dead movie by the end, so I have to give this one a thumbs up despite some predictable flaws(no the actors aren't very good).    Current List: 1. The Munsters 2. The Addams Family 3. Alligator 4. Mosquito(Fran Challenge: Wild Beasts)
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Oct 4, 2022 15:21
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4. Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966) - 3/5 Christopher Lee seems more mournful than magnetic as Rasputin. As played he’s just not charismatic enough to justify the obsession at the heart of the plot. Which is too bad, since Barbara Shelley gives a strong enough performance to be believably obsessed as the Tsarina’s lady in waiting. She has a less muted screen presence than Lee. As much as I wanted to be rooting for Rasputin, he’s not as fun a monster as I had hoped and Lee just barely carries the film.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:27
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