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Post by someoldguy on Mar 19, 2020 17:09:28 GMT -5
Satanic Panic (2019) Horror comedy about satanists who need a virgin to sacrifice to keep up their life style, their candidate having intentionally lost that status. Enter the pizza delivery girl. Good gore and other disgusting stuff.  Lots of black magic. Some just plain weird stuff. Mostly funny humor. Quick in-joke references here and there to other horror movies but you do not need to get them. Silly at times, scary at times. Overall a fun ride with a happy ending. I think. One of the bunnies wanted her dead. She took the other one with her. Who/what are the bunnies? What happens now? The climax, or perhaps the denouement of the climax to be accurate, is foreshadowed but you have to be very observant. My obsession with details caught the bit with the little girl playing hopscotch. But it goes by so quick it is almost subliminal. |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 20, 2020 19:14:58 GMT -5
Finished Whitechapel Season 3
IMO the change to 90 minutes per case from 135 minutes works better. Your mileage may vary.
The various characters are getting well developed, going through life and not just cases.
I still have some introductory free time on Hulu before I have to pay. I will put off Season 4 for a little bit.
In Case 3, in the room where all the Lon Chaney stuff was, there is a small statue covered in cobwebs. It is the Wolf Man who was played of course by Lon Chaney Jr.
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 21, 2020 14:23:04 GMT -5
Super 8 (2011) This was another one that I only partly saw on cable years ago and never got back to. (Rude but unavoidable phone calls  ) Watched it all this time on Prime. Very well done! Acting, dialog, plot, camera work, direction, editing, FX, production values - everthing was on the money. The kids central to the story gave it a very Spielberg feel. Spielberg was one of the producers, assisting JJ Abrams who was the first listed producer as well as the writer and director. Kids in 1979 tangle with Air Force bad guys when an alien held captive for many years escapes with the help of a man it is telepathically linked with. Love that train crash! Having been locked up and mistreated for twenty years, this is one Pissed Off! alien. All dogs in town run away, things start getting smashed and people disappearing. Air Force bad guys act like big time bad guys. Great development with good human interest background, spectacular FX along the way and a terrific ending that would have been worthy of Steven S. if he had been in the driver's seat. The alien is really good but revealed only slowly, in fact not seen at all until very far in, although you do see a bunch of destruction happening. The title? The kids are making a zombie movie for entry in a Super 8 competition and accidentally record the alien escaping. Chief bad guy finds empty film box. Ruh Roh! One thing about this movie that really impressed me was young Elle Fanning. (13 at the time?) She is really good throughout. But her snippet of 'acting' in the zombie 'movie' is more than a lot of people who call themselves actors do in whole movies. But what made me sit up was when she is watching the home movie of Joe's dead mother and she cries. I don't mean a drop of gelatin in each eye and a perfectly straight tear drop rolling down dead center from each eye. I mean sloppy corner of the eye tears and runny nose crying happening in closeup. |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 21, 2020 21:51:16 GMT -5
Kidan Piece of Darkness (2016) Japanese, English subtitles available An anthology of 10 brief spooky stories. Each is prefixed by the label 'A letter from a reader' and is generally of the anecdotal ghost story or urban legend type. No deep plots or character studies or lengthy setups and usually no resolution. Just the 'good parts' without any window dressing. No gore or FX to speak of. Acting and dialog are mostly people being scared or leading up to that point. Some of the stories are pretty creepy, others less so. The first one (The Shadow Man) is IMO the worst, there being very little to the story. Be patient, better stuff awaits. I especially liked The Woman in Red, which is about the consequences of telling a certain ghost story, and the last one (Sealed). (I love what the girlfriend does!) The brief prologue story is not bad, being simply a nice spooky scare.
Bottom line: Reasonably entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.
On Prime, free for members. |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Mar 22, 2020 2:00:07 GMT -5
Super 8 (2011) This was another one that I only partly saw on cable years ago and never got back to. (Rude but unavoidable phone calls ) Watched it all this time on Prime. Very well done! Acting, dialog, plot, camera work, direction, editing, FX, production values - everthing was on the money. The kids central to the story gave it a very Spielberg feel. Spielberg was one of the producers, assisting JJ Abrams who was the first listed producer as well as the writer and director. Kids in 1979 tangle with Air Force bad guys when an alien held captive for many years escapes with the help of a man it is telepathically linked with. Love that train crash! Having been locked up and mistreated for twenty years, this is one Pissed Off! alien. All dogs in town run away, things start getting smashed and people disappearing. Air Force bad guys act like big time bad guys. Great development with good human interest background, spectacular FX along the way and a terrific ending that would have been worthy of Steven S. if he had been in the driver's seat. The alien is really good but revealed only slowly, in fact not seen at all until very far in, although you do see a bunch of destruction happening. The title? The kids are making a zombie movie for entry in a Super 8 competition and accidentally record the alien escaping. Chief bad guy finds empty film box. Ruh Roh! One thing about this movie that really impressed me was young Elle Fanning. (13 at the time?) She is really good throughout. But her snippet of 'acting' in the zombie 'movie' is more than a lot of people who call themselves actors do in whole movies. But what made me sit up was when she is watching the home movie of Joe's dead mother and she cries. I don't mean a drop of gelatin in each eye and a perfectly straight tear drop rolling down dead center from each eye. I mean sloppy corner of the eye tears and runny nose crying happening in closeup. Really enjoyed this one in theaters. I agree about Elle, she was the standout among the child actors. Who were all good. Super 8 reminds of The Gooonies and Lost Boys. |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Mar 22, 2020 2:03:47 GMT -5
Saturn 3 (1980)
Quarantine (2008)
Quarantine 2:Terminal (2011)
Decided to watch this one again, as a twin bill with the 1st
one.
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Post by ArcLight on Mar 22, 2020 2:07:12 GMT -5
Ah...Saturn 3
I still love Farrah...
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 22, 2020 9:49:56 GMT -5
Really liked Saturn 3 and may watch it again now. Feeling like Alien but more complex. I remember the intentional nods to Star Wars and 2001 near the beginning. |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 22, 2020 10:43:45 GMT -5
Ah...Saturn 3 I still love Farrah... She was a beautiful woman and a better actress than generally appreciated but given few chances to show it, e.g., The Burning Bed. Co-star in Saturn 3 Kirk Douglas was 31 years her senior (and could still credibly pull off playing her lover despite being almost twice her age at that time) yet outlived her by a decade. Which reminds me that I totally forgot to make a post on having watched Lust for Life, Paths of Glory and Spartacus back to back on TCM not long ago when they honored Douglas after his passing. This ran late into the night and I intended to do so the following morning but never did. |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 22, 2020 21:42:27 GMT -5
The Meg (2018) Giant Megalodon, a prehistoric shark thought extinct, comes out of the deep sea and wreaks havoc. At the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, if you stand at a certain place on the Mezzanine and look up you will see the gaping jaws of a Megalodon above you, like it is going to eat you.  Ever since I was a kid and first saw that I have had a soft spot for that big mother (^75 feet) of a flesh eating fish. The movie is heavy on action and FX (you would expect otherwise?) but does not skimp on acting and dialog, which are reasonably good. The story 'hook' is that they need a certain former sub diver who drinks a lot and has not gone diving since he was criticized for 'imagining' the giant shark that prevented him from rescuing more people from the damaged sub. Like they are really going to track down and recruit this guy on critically short notice. And how come nobody is concerned that his 'imaginary' shark rammed and destroyed a nuclear submarine? But if you are willing to buy into that stuff, then you can sit back and enjoy the movie. As I alluded to, the action and the FX are very good and plentiful (Good and Plenty?) and the real reason for watching the movie. You sort of know right off who has to die and who has to make it to the end. But there is plenty of collateral damage along the way as well. And just when you think it is safe to go back in the water...
Plot development, production values, cinematography etc. are top notch. A couple of tropes that are not in place are: 1. The hero does not get back together with his ex-wife but connects with someone else.
2. The dog lives. Good fun if you like this sort of thing. |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Mar 22, 2020 22:01:52 GMT -5
The Crater Lake Monster (1977)
Spawn of the Slithis (1978)
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 23, 2020 8:09:17 GMT -5
The Crater Lake Monster (1977) Spawn of the Slithis (1978) I know they are schlock cheapies. But are they fun watches? |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 23, 2020 15:28:22 GMT -5
The Crater Lake Monster (1977) Spawn of the Slithis (1978) I know they are schlock cheapies. But are they fun watches? I will answer my own question. The Carter Lake Monster is cheap and cheesy fun. Spawn of the Slithis isn't. IMO anyway. Crater Lake has a good amount of stop motion animation, maybe not quite as good as Harryhausen but not bad either. Dialog and acting leave a lot to be desired but much of it is fun - Arnie and Mitch are hilarious. Story is rather simple, a series of episodes where people get eaten, with belief in the monster finally taking hold. Not much else to it, even when padded out with the armed robbery, chase scene and gunfight part. And of course Arnie and Mitch.  Slithis is also cheap and cheesy but without the saving grace of a decent monster. Instead we get a stupid looking ‘man in a suit’ monster. In the fight scene on the boat near the end, is that the seam of the suit we see on the creature's back? 'Carter Lake' got padded some but Slithis is full of padding, mostly talking about this and that and some other thing that has nothing to do with anything. Acting and dialog are poor. Action scenes are passable with some moderate gore. But overall ... meh. I rarely agreed with Roger Ebert but in this case I do. Here is his rather humorous 1978 review. IMO the movie took itself too seriously. It could have used Arnie and Mitch. Additional comments on Slithis. The Slithis eye view reminded me of It Came from Outer Space, which was sort of hokey even in 1953. 'Slithis' and ‘Spawn of the Slithis' are the same movie. However the poster gives a not so subliminal hint about what a sequel might be about. What is the monster planning on doing and why does it look so gleeful? Spawn indeed.  Concerning the ending: Horror 101: Category: Monsters Sub-Category: Non-Human Rule 1:
Unless you actually see the monster get blown apart / burnt to a crisp / hacked into pieces / or otherwise rendered really most sincerely dead, it isn’t. Lots of dead dogs.  |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Mar 23, 2020 19:27:36 GMT -5
The Crater Lake Monster (1977) Spawn of the Slithis (1978) I know they are schlock cheapies. But are they fun watches? Slithis is hilariously bad, but a guilty pleasure for me. Crater Lake Monster has a Boggy Creek vibe to it. A movie I truly adore. |
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Post by someoldguy on Mar 23, 2020 19:45:07 GMT -5
I know they are schlock cheapies. But are they fun watches? Slithis is hilariously bad, but a guilty pleasure for me. Crater Lake Monster has a Boggy Creek vibe to it. A movie I truly adore. You adore Crater Lake Monster or Boggy Creek? And which Boggy Creek? I liked the 2010 one, excluding the irrelevant psychodrama stuff. I like your new avatar. And I really liked Howl, which as I recall you turned me on to. |
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Lots of black magic. Some just plain weird stuff. Mostly funny humor. Quick in-joke references here and there to other horror movies but you do not need to get them. Silly at times, scary at times. Overall a fun ride with a happy ending. I think.
Le Loup-Garou Qui Rit
) Watched it all this time on Prime. Very well done! Acting, dialog, plot, camera work, direction, editing, FX, production values - everthing was on the money. The kids central to the story gave it a very Spielberg feel. Spielberg was one of the producers, assisting JJ Abrams who was the first listed producer as well as the writer and director.
Ever since I was a kid and first saw that I have had a soft spot for that big mother (^75 feet) of a flesh eating fish. 
