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Post by ArcLight on Feb 12, 2020 0:36:14 GMT -5
Not that it technically matters, but this is from the same guy who did Bonehill Road. Sounds like a step or two down from that one, though. |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 12, 2020 7:07:32 GMT -5
Not that it technically matters, but this is from the same guy who did Bonehill Road. Sounds like a step or two down from that one, though. IMO more like a whole flight of stairs down. |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 12, 2020 7:14:24 GMT -5
The Craft (1996) An old favorite of mine that I used to re-visit every few years. This time it was over 10 years. Still enjoyable.  |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Feb 12, 2020 12:50:45 GMT -5
Clownado (2019) OK, I made it through 40 minutes of this before giving up. It is just too weird without any redeeming qualities. Acting, dialog, plot, characters - they all suck. The gore is plentiful but it just comes across as fake and meaningless, seemingly merely a way of trying to shock the viewer. But it was when the clowns arrived in town courtesy of a tornado without any reasonable explanation that I quit. And I mean this small tornado comes along, lands in the middle of the street, and then vanishes leaving this pack of evil clowns standing there. None of the movie had made much sense prior to that but this was just ludicrous.
Okay So, it's Sharknado with Clowns?
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 12, 2020 14:24:11 GMT -5
Clownado (2019) OK, I made it through 40 minutes of this before giving up. It is just too weird without any redeeming qualities. Acting, dialog, plot, characters - they all suck. The gore is plentiful but it just comes across as fake and meaningless, seemingly merely a way of trying to shock the viewer. But it was when the clowns arrived in town courtesy of a tornado without any reasonable explanation that I quit. And I mean this small tornado comes along, lands in the middle of the street, and then vanishes leaving this pack of evil clowns standing there. None of the movie had made much sense prior to that but this was just ludicrous.
Okay So, it's Sharknado with Clowns?
The clowns were part of the story from the beginning. They are all really sick SOBs. There was some kind of magic curse put on them. It is the sudden appearance of this new mode of transportation that killed the movie for me. Sharknado is 'natural' horror, albeit of a really wacky kind. Clownado is somehow supernatural. But I lost interest in the details with the tornado arrival. I had not much interest to begin with due to the deficits I previously mentioned and that scene made up my mind. |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 13, 2020 14:26:40 GMT -5
Fulci's 'Gates of Hell' trilogy Yes, I binged them all. I may not feel like eating for about a week now, but what the heck…  City of the Living Dead (1980) The Beyond (1981) The House by the Cemetery (1981) Loads of gore and goo and other disgusting stuff. However, we can see that Fulci’s use of it evolves throughout the series, along with his other film making abilities. In ‘City’, the gore etc. seems to be the entire raison d’etre of the film. The acting is poor, the sets cheap and even the gore FX almost laughable. In ‘Beyond’, it is used to build a nicely spooky atmosphere with truly unsettling FX and some semblance of a plot in which some acting actually takes place. ‘Cemetery’, while having a fair amount of gore etc., is more dependent on how it fits into the story. Sadly, the story is not all that much to write home about, although storyline development, acting, dialog and production values are decent. Of the three I liked The Beyond the best. While the story is not all that coherent, it is IMO the most successfully atmospheric of the three. And the gore and other yucky stuff is both over the top and properly done. Does anyone have an opinion on the ending of City of the Living Dead? Why is she screaming when the kid runs up to her? I see nothing wrong with him. He does not appear at all zombie like or anything else threatening. Why the sudden switch from being glad that he is alive and being horrified by him. Or am I missing something about the movie? |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 13, 2020 21:22:50 GMT -5
Bug (1975) Creepy insect fright fest. Earthquake frees weird insects from ground, two-inch cockroaches that can start fires by rubbing their hind legs, which they proceed to do all around town. Then it gets worse. Then it gets much worse.  Bradford Dillman did a great job as the sane scientist who went mad, and then even madder, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by his obsession with this weird insect. How much of what we see at the end is real or just in his head is an open question. Based on subsequent developments, it was probably real if unexplained, which is really creepy. All around acting and dialog were not bad. Good creepy thrills increasing as the movie progresses. For example, when the hybrid bugs learn how to get out of their enclosure. And you see real rather big bugs climbing out, again in closeup with focus slowly changing from the guy in the kitchen in the background to the bugs in the foreground. FX were mostly low budget except for the very disturbing real cockroaches often shown in closeup. The final FX were definitely cheap which is a shame since this is a really powerful climax. The synthesizer (?) music really sucked IMO.
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 14, 2020 10:00:54 GMT -5
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Twin planets are headed for earth. One will collide with earth, destroying everything. A spaceship 'ark' capable of carrying a small number of people and what they need to start over on the other planet is being built. Interleaved with the science fiction aspects are complex human interest developments. Good story if you take the science as reasonable, and it is not outrageously off the mark.
I first saw this in the movies ages ago and have caught it on TV several times since. It was on Turner Classic Movies last night and of course I watched it. A fine example of 1950s science fiction that I would not be embarrassed to recommend for watching, one of possibly ten such movies from that decade.
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 14, 2020 14:47:46 GMT -5
Bong of the Living Dead (2019) A bunch of stoners face the zombie apocalypse. They have been zombie fanatics for years and years and are obsessive about the topic. I loved the (stoned) arguments about what zombies would be like just before the zombie outbreak happens. There is more pot consumed in this movie than I saw in my life. And I lived in the sixties man! Mostly laughable, some serious and sometimes even that is laughable. Sort of Shaun of the Dead on drugs. Running gags, smoking dope, lots of gore, blowing weed, a bit of nudity, pot. There are worse ways to 'waste' 80 minutes. Better ones too, I guess. |
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Post by ArcLight on Feb 14, 2020 23:11:18 GMT -5
My Bloody Valentine (1981 & 2009)
I didn't actually watch the original version when I posted earlier - I ended up just going thru some of the special features.
Since it actually is Valentine's Day, tho, I figured I'd watch both it and the remake.
The new Blu-ray from Shout! Factory of the original looks great. This one also includes the legendary "lost" gore that was cut back in the day as slasher movies were getting more heavily censored by the MPAA. It's not the first time those scenes have been re-inserted into the movie, as they were on the DVD and Blu-ray release that came out to coincide with the 2009 remake, but at the time it was obvious that they came from a separate source and were nowhere near the quality of the main film. For the new release, the scenes have been spruced up considerably so that I think you'd have to be looking for a difference to see it.
Still holds up in my mind as one of the best of the classic slashers.
By the way, in the special features for the new release the director, George Mihalka, mentions that he's come up with an idea for a true sequel. Fingers crossed...
The 2009 remake came in with the current round of 3D movies, so of course they went with it for this one. As remakes go, I liked it well enough and thought the 3D was actually used pretty effectively for the most part. The Blu-ray thankfully uses the old red/blue 3D glasses so I can watch it just fine that way without needing a 3D TV setup.
It starred Jensen Ackles from the 'Supernatural' TV show and came out the same year his TV brother, Jared Padalecki, starred in the Friday the 13th sequel/reboot. An online buddy had a great theory that Dean Winchester went thru the events of the remake as part of the torture he suffered in Hell while brother Sam, thinking Dean was gone for good, tried to continue monster-hunting and ended up in Crystal Lake and faced off against Jason. It makes a lot of sense if you're familiar with the show.
Happy Valentine's Day!
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 15, 2020 10:36:35 GMT -5
My Bloody Valentine (1981 & 2009) I didn't actually watch the original version when I posted earlier - I ended up just going thru some of the special features. Since it actually is Valentine's Day, tho, I figured I'd watch both it and the remake. The new Blu-ray from Shout! Factory of the original looks great. This one also includes the legendary "lost" gore that was cut back in the day as slasher movies were getting more heavily censored by the MPAA. It's not the first time those scenes have been re-inserted into the movie, as they were on the DVD and Blu-ray release that came out to coincide with the 2009 remake, but at the time it was obvious that they came from a separate source and were nowhere near the quality of the main film. For the new release, the scenes have been spruced up considerably so that I think you'd have to be looking for a difference to see it. Still holds up in my mind as one of the best of the classic slashers. By the way, in the special features for the new release the director, George Mihalka, mentions that he's come up with an idea for a true sequel. Fingers crossed... The 2009 remake came in with the current round of 3D movies, so of course they went with it for this one. As remakes go, I liked it well enough and thought the 3D was actually used pretty effectively for the most part. The Blu-ray thankfully uses the old red/blue 3D glasses so I can watch it just fine that way without needing a 3D TV setup. It starred Jensen Ackles from the 'Supernatural' TV show and came out the same year his TV brother, Jared Padalecki, starred in the Friday the 13th sequel/reboot. An online buddy had a great theory that Dean Winchester went thru the events of the remake as part of the torture he suffered in Hell while brother Sam, thinking Dean was gone for good, tried to continue monster-hunting and ended up in Crystal Lake and faced off against Jason. It makes a lot of sense if you're familiar with the show. Happy Valentine's Day! I totally forget it was Valentine's Day! I remember the original My Bloody Valentine from 1981 (good one!) but never saw the 3D remake. I know the early seasons of Supernatural very well. I have a theory that the first 30 years of Dean's time in Hell were spent being forced to watch bad remakes (not this one apparently) and the last 10 years making them to inflict on others. Sam might have needed some demon blood to tackle Jason. I saw a number of 3D movies back in the 1950s. my favorite being It Came from Outer Space. These were all the old red/blue glasses kind, the newer technology still in the future. I also saw the original 13 Ghosts (1960) with the glasses gimmick where you had to squint through one eye to see the ghosts. I remember there was an indication on the screen when there were ghosts present. William Castle loved his gimmicks. Being still the heyday of the double feature, the other movie was the Japanese science fiction movie Battle in Outer Space (no 3D or other gimmick). This was the sequel to The Mysterians. I remember the kids laughing that the aliens looked Japanese. |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 15, 2020 10:56:33 GMT -5
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001) Cheap and cheesy. I know 16mm film when I see it. But surprisingly fun, totally unlike the stupid Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. The plot is that Jesus is trying to save lesbians from vampires, who have decided to specialize in victimizing that lifestyle. But he gets in over his head and needs help from silver-masked Mexican wrestler Santo. As ludicrous as it sounds but it is plain that this is the intention. Considerable laughs like having the priests bless the lake so the vampires can be killed by the holy water a wacky song and dance number, oddball biblical references some may know that Luke 10 is about the Good Samaritan and even odder Catholic references who else would know the 13th Station of the Cross and how that fits the circumstances? The movie is full of kung fu fighting sequences (Jesus rocks!) and later wrestling moves. Some gore, vampires being what they are, and some of the gore is rather gruesome but in a funny way, like the autopsy stuff. There are some brief but sly references to other movies not all of them horror. Keystone atheists? A dumb movie that is also a smart one. I had fun but I can also see that not everyone might. |
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Post by silverbullet63 on Feb 15, 2020 14:11:08 GMT -5
My Bloody Valentine (1981/2009)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Watching this now.
Jessica Walter was great in Play Misty for Me, but Glenn took it to a whole other level. One of her best role IMHO.
Oh and regarding the end to Gates of Hell/City of the Dead.
I took it to mean that nobody survived and they're all in Hell.
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 15, 2020 20:22:59 GMT -5
My Bloody Valentine (1981/2009) Fatal Attraction (1987) Watching this now. Jessica Walter was great in Play Misty for Me, but Glenn took it to a whole other level. One of her best role IMHO. Oh and regarding the end to Gates of Hell/City of the Dead. I took it to mean that nobody survived and they're all in Hell. Glenn Close has done some great stuff. Lots of awards and nominations, although after seven nominations she never got an Oscar. Everyone being in hell sounds like the end of The Beyond. I do not see how that fits City of the Dead, where they climb out of the tomb and see the kid running to them. The woman is first happy that the kid survived but then starts screaming. I do not understand why. |
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Post by someoldguy on Feb 15, 2020 20:45:28 GMT -5
Inhumanwich!
'Make me a sammich' gone wrong!!!
A wild send up of bad 1950s monster from space movies. Totally ridiculous from beginning to end. FX are awful just as they should be. Memes recognizable from a dozen monster flicks with a special nod to The Creeping Unknown. Intentionally dumb, yet quite witty and filled with wordplay and running gags. With a really unique way of killing the monster.
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Le Loup-Garou Qui Rit
