2020 movie diary
Some of these I watched, and some I had on my mind in this, the year of the plague
…
Best- new to me:
Revenge
Berberian Sound Studio
Under the Skin
Palm Springs
Hush
Kill List
Cheap Thrills
Luz
Feels Good, Man
Turkey Shoot
Birds of Prey
Lost Soul
The Baby
Never Goin’ Back
—
Best- rewatches:
King of the Ants
Starship Troopers
Re-Animator
Day of the Dead
Rabid
Super
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Bone Tomahawk
The Fly
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Fritz the Cat
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
—
Worst (oh god so many)
Ice Cream Man
Hack-O-Lantern
Wonder Woman 1984
Shark Exorcist
Eat and Run
Private Resort
The Dark Side of the Womb
47 Meters Down: Uncaged
Nightmare Cinema
Puff Puff Pass
Phantasm: RaVager
Puppet Master
Jaws 3-D
Extracurricular Activities
Blood Feast
Dead Before Dawn 3D
…
Best- new to me:
Revenge
Berberian Sound Studio
Under the Skin
Palm Springs
Hush
Kill List
Cheap Thrills
Luz
Feels Good, Man
Turkey Shoot
Birds of Prey
Lost Soul
The Baby
Never Goin’ Back
—
Best- rewatches:
King of the Ants
Starship Troopers
Re-Animator
Day of the Dead
Rabid
Super
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Bone Tomahawk
The Fly
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Fritz the Cat
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
—
Worst (oh god so many)
Ice Cream Man
Hack-O-Lantern
Wonder Woman 1984
Shark Exorcist
Eat and Run
Private Resort
The Dark Side of the Womb
47 Meters Down: Uncaged
Nightmare Cinema
Puff Puff Pass
Phantasm: RaVager
Puppet Master
Jaws 3-D
Extracurricular Activities
Blood Feast
Dead Before Dawn 3D
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261 titles
- DirectorTim RobbinsStarsTim RobbinsGiancarlo EspositoAlan RickmanA conservative folk singer turns his hand to politics, running for the US Senate. He is not above dirty tricks and smear campaigns to gain an advantage over his opponent.Here’s a movie you idiots should have watched back in 2016. But hey, it’s never too late, you idiots.
- DirectorRuggero DeodatoStarsRobert KermanFrancesca CiardiPerry PirkanenDuring a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew.Here’s a recommendation for our good friend Mitch McConnell. Watch that turtle scene for a good laugh, Mitch. That’s what happens to turtles.
- DirectorBarry LevinsonStarsDustin HoffmanRobert De NiroAnne HecheShortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.Need to get re-elected? It helps if there’s a war on. It’s surely just a coincidence that our fearless spray-tanned leader is blowing up generals in Iran while dipshits on Fox News tell their doddering viewers than the Iranians will greet us as liberators.
- DirectorVincenzo NataliStarsNicole de BoerMaurice Dean WintDavid HewlettA group of strangers awaken to find themselves placed in a giant cube. Each one of them is gifted with a special skill and they must work together to escape an endless maze of deadly traps.It’s pretty good for a tv movie or direct to video affair. Characters lack nuance, and the acting’s a bit too broad across the board. Ingenious low budget affair though.
I was smokin with the boys upstairs
when i heard about the whole affair
I said Oh no, William and Mary won't do. - DirectorKrysia PlonkaStarsFortune FeimsterHenry GelinasSouthern-born comedian Fortune Feimster recalls her childhood misadventures as a former Girl Scout, debutante and (disqualified) swim meet champion, and her family's complicated relationship with Hooters.Mostly anecdotal humor. Some funny observations regarding the importance of Chili’s and Hooter’s in North Carolinian society. Also, there is a tale of learning about her sexuality from a Lifetime Movie, with a good blurb for Lifetime, whose movies “are about a girl... who gets murdered. Or raped. Or mutilated. Or beheaded. You know: girl stuff!”
- DirectorManny RodriguezStarsDebra DiGiovanniDebra DiGiovanni is one of the fastest rising international comedy stars. A finalist on Last Comic Standing, Debra was also voted Canada's Best Female Comedian at the Canadian Comedy Awards and has been selling out venues everywhere she performs. Now, Debra is back as a Single, Awkward, Female with her hilarious, unique views on dating, dieting, and love as only she can shareMotormouth Canuck comic. Enviable rate of jokes per minute, though this is not my preferred standup style.
- DirectorElia KazanStarsAndy GriffithPatricia NealAnthony FranciosaA female radio reporter turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.Nuther’n fer ya
- DirectorDonald FarmerStarsAngela KereczBobby KereczChanning DodsonA demonic nun unleashes holy hell when she summons the devil to possess a great white shark.on Tubi. This was rather terrible, with poor performances, incredibly cheap effects, incomprehensible plotting and dull, episodic pacing. It’s insanely cheap. Syfy wouldn’t touch something this amateurish. It’s quite, quite bad.
- DirectorJacques PerrinJacques CluzaudStarsPierce BrosnanPedro Armendáriz Jr.Jacques PerrinAn ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.
- DirectorJohannes RobertsStarsSophie NélisseCorinne FoxxBrianne TjuTwo sisters diving in a ruined underwater city quickly learn they've entered the territory of the deadliest shark species in the claustrophobic labyrinth of submerged caves.This has roughly the quality of a Syfy channel movie, though they might find the hook a bit thin. A quartet of teen girls go scuba diving in a cave, only to run afoul of growling albino cave sharks. Tries to repeat the climactic speech scene from Deep Blue Sea to far less effect.
- DirectorDaniel Sánchez ArévaloStarsAntonio de la TorreRoberto EnríquezVerónica SánchezFollows the excesses and deprivation of life. Complexes, phobias, obsessions, traumas, fears, and sex are aired in a weight-loss therapy group.On something called Tubi, sans subtitles. I did not learn Spanish as a result.
- DirectorRalph BakshiStarsSkip HinnantRosetta LeNoireJohn McCurryIn the late 1960s, a pretentious, womanizing young cat drops out of college, starts a riot in Harlem, hits the road with an ex-girlfriend and gets mixed up with domestic terrorists.R Crumb famously hated Bakshi’s feature film based on his freewheeling, free-loving feline, finding it twisted and perverse. But it wouldn’t have that R Crumb feeling if it weren’t. His distaste for the movie led to a lifelong mutual animosity between him and Bakshi. Crumb’s complaints, or those I’ve seen, are either nitpicks or criticisms that strongly describe his own work. Bakshi, for his part, calls Crumb a hustler and claims that Crumb has threatened to have artists blackballed if they worked with Bakshi. (All this per wikipedia)
- DirectorJared HessStarsJack BlackAna de la RegueraHéctor JiménezBerated all his life by those around him, a monk follows his dream and dons a mask to moonlight as a Luchador (Mexican wrestler).Pure underdog formula, minus the empathy the formula needs to engage. Jared Hess’ fixation on oddball characters seems to eschew affection, and his misanthropy is unfortunately married to a fondness for juvenile humor and lazy stereotypes.
- DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsMatt DamonKate WinsletJude LawHealthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a pandemic as the CDC works to find a cure.Contagion is having its moment in the sun, some 9 years after its release, as the COVID-19 Coronavirus sweeps the world. Might do with a rewatch. Probably better than “Outbreak”...
- DirectorJustin BensonAaron MoorheadStarsAaron MoorheadJustin BensonCallie HernandezAs kids, they escaped a UFO death cult. Now, two adult brothers seek answers after an old videotape surfaces and brings them back to where they began.Twisty sci-fi horror has some intriguing images and concepts, and does a good job of letting character drive plot, but the execution lacks. The concept is a bit too out-there, with too many wrinkles: why are there video tapes and photographs appearing out of nowhere? Why are some of the time loops faster than others? What in fact is actually going on? Horror can be mined from the unknown, but it helps if it has a certain fearful symmetry, if you will, a certain internal consistency. The threat here lacks that consistency, and as a result we lose our suspension of disbelief.
- DirectorMike DivaAkiva SchafferStarsAndy SambergAkiva SchafferJorma TacconeThe Lonely Island spoofs notorious baseball stars Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire in this visual rap album set in the Bash Brothers' 1980s heyday.Lonely Island project imagines a steroid-fueled alternative universe rap career for Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. It’s a fans-only proposition.
- DirectorWayne WangSpencer NakasakoStarsWan Kin ChengJohn ChanKwan-Min ChengA man is hired by a group of people he believes to be gangsters to escort a briefcase from America to Hong Kong. When he arrives, however, his contact is nowhere to be found.Another one for the to-watch list.
I added this one, you see, because the panic over the pandemic has people hoarding toilet paper, as we come together as a nation to worry about having enough TP for our bungholes. And because we are openly debating the cheapness of life. Surely it is better that grandma were to die than for the economy to suffer, as Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick, that fat sack of Republican shit, has said.
Not sure where you can see this one. - DirectorMel StuartStarsSuzanne PleshetteIan McShaneVittorio De SicaThe humorous adventures of a group of American tourists taking an 18-day guided bus tour of nine European countries.Slight travelogue-cum-romantic comedy, starring a startlingly young Al Swearingen as a suave, swinging tour guide. Slight characters, lukewarm gags. Most have a single defining trait, few have any appreciable arc, like Aubrey Morris as a kleptomaniac weirdo, or the skeevy photographer who keeps trying to look up women’s skirts.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsVincent PriceHazel CourtJane AsherA European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.Here comes sickness, walking down my street.
Gonna keep my eye out for this one. - DirectorStuart GordonStarsChris McKennaKari WuhrerGeorge WendtA young drifter discovers his true calling when he's hired by a mobster to stalk and kill a prominent accountant, and then decides to seek revenge when the stingy thugs try to kill him rather than pay him.RIP Stuart Gordon, one of the masters of horror who never seemed to get his due. Craven, Hooper, Romero, Carpenter, those guys got their start on low budget fright features before moving onto Hollywood. Gordon came from the Chicago theater, where he gave David Mamet his big start, but prestige for his efforts on the silver screen eluded him. Indeed, perhaps he actively avoided it. He made his debut film “Re-Animator” and scores of others for Charles Band, the huckster behind Full Moon Productions, and though they vary wildly in quality, his efforts are hands down the very best in Band’s repertoire. Band made movies on the cheap, and he specialized in sleaze. Working with him, Gordon got away with things a proper studio wouldn’t allow in a million years. Here, in one of his last films, he’s working with Full Moon’s successors, those lunatics from The Asylum, which you may recognize as the studio behind Sharknado and other similar cinematic atrocities. He has not lost his edge.
Deceptively titled, “King of the Ants” is more scuzzy LA noir than outright horror, though it flirts with Gordon’s horror roots. - DirectorStuart GordonStarsIan Patrick WilliamsCarolyn Purdy-GordonCarrie LorraineA dysfunctional family of three stop by a mansion during a storm -- father, stepmother, and child. The child discovers that the elderly owners are magical toy makers and have a haunted collection of dolls.Another one from Stuart Gordon, though this has more the stamp of producer Charles Band. The man does so love his tiny little monsters. Pretty silly, with wildly dissonant shifts in tone from horror to goofy whimsy. One moment it feels like a movie pitched to children, the next people are getting dismembered.
- 20141h 37mNot Rated7.5 (4.4K)DirectorDavid GregoryStarsRichard StanleyKier-La JanisseMichael GingoldA behind the scenes chronicle of how clash of vision, bad creative decisions, lack of interest and really bad weather plagued the disastrous production of the infamous The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996).Talking head documentary recounts the disastrous making of The Island of Doctor Moreau. It is truly an entertaining yarn, with a host of colorful characters: Richard Stanley, the initial director, who spent years trying to get the film into development, even going so far as to seeking the help of a warlock, and who, after being fired, snuck back on set disguised as an extra in a dog mask, so he could watch his dream project fall apart with his own eyes; Val Kilmer, then a movie star at the peak of his career, who had just made his debut as Batman and was acutely conscious of how his next project could shape his career; veteran director John Frankenheimer, who took the reins after Stanley was canned, and who found himself trapped in the jungle for months fighting to finish a movie he had little interest in; the famously mercurial Marlon Brando, who shows up long after he was expected to appear, and who gleefully stalls and sabotages shooting; and the 2’4 Nelson de la Rosa, a playboy and celebrity who Brando takes a shine to, insisting that the small actor appear with him in every scene, who flirts shamelessly with co-stars and punches a rival in the groin.
- DirectorRalph BakshiStarsRandy NortonCynthia LeakeSteve SandorAt the end of the ice age, an evil queen and her son are set on conquering the world using magic and warriors. The lone survivor of a crushed village fights back as does the king of Fire Keep.Generic fantasia from Bakshi and Frank Franzetta. Evil ice queen and her fey son, scheming to conquer the rival fire kingdom, send their henchmen to kidnap a scantily clad princess. Two warriors team up to stop them: a blonde dude named Larn and a guy in a panther mask who is essentially Batman the Barbarian. Fantasy has a rich history of racism and sexism, and this movie pretty much turns the subtext into text, though there’s no commentary or subversion in it. Thicc princess Teegra is framed time and again from angles that show off her tits and ass, and the drooling dark-skinned tribesmen who chase after her are actually referred to and credited as “subhumans”. Wow!
I real did want to like this more. But it is also visually underwhelming, with rotoscoped action that is just flat and unimaginative. Imagine what a Genndy Tartakovsky would do with this material. Look at Primal if you need a hint. Or Korgoth of Barbaria, if you wish it were funnier. Bakshi doesn’t come near that.
And now, a spoiler of note: good king Jerol, that’s Teegra’s dad, puts an end to the ice kingdom as things wrap up by unleashing a flood of lava, killing scores of people and obliterating a thriving rainforest full of hungry monsters and other animals. This guy is history’s greatest monster. - DirectorCraig R. BaxleyStarsDolph LundgrenBrian BenbenBetsy BrantleyA Renegade Cop is forced to work with an FBI Agent in order to bring down a group of Drug Dealers with sinister plans.Rote actioner with Lundgren as a cop who plays by his own rules. A alien is murdering people and harvesting their endorphins for the interstellar drug trade, and Dolph teams up with by-the-book fed Brian Benben to stop him. Among the alien’s arsenal of weapons is a magnetic disk that flies around slicing up people’s throats. The first scene dwells on the novelty of a car CD player to give this armament a visual analogue.
- DirectorLamar CardStarsMark SchneiderKatie SaylorMorgan WoodwardA man named Clint enters a solar-powered van called Vandora into a competition called Freakout.Dull “Vansploitation”. Couldn’t do this one in one go.Watching lots of movies lately. Usually I’m more a tv guy. Movies are for seeing in the theater in my book. Only nowadays you can’t go to the theater, so it’s a good time for home viewing. This one I mistook for “The Van”, which looks to be unavailable.
Pretty dumb stuff, with female characters who are pretty nasty; the romantic lead is a prep school brat on the run, who the hero saves from gang-raping bikers broadcasting their crime on CB radio. The ensuing junkyard chase ends with his prized van getting smushed in a trash compactor, so he talks his scientist buddy into loaning him a solar powered prototype van of the future for the big... van... competition. These guys are really into their vans, to a preposterous degree. And she’s a big nag. It’s not worth getting into.
Did I mention that the van shoots lasers? It does. Otherwise the film fails to establish the superiority of the supervan. The van... extravaganza has obstacle courses, where the vans must weave between traffic cones or scale a steep muddy incline. Supervan doesn’t do anything the old internal combustion vans can do, as far as one can tell from what is shown. Besides the lasers, of course. But all the same, it is beloved by the van fanatics and wins first prize, I think.
Appearance from Charles Bukowski as an ogler at a wet t-shirt contest. - DirectorAna Lily AmirpourStarsSheila VandArash MarandiMarshall ManeshIn the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.This black and white thriller is short on incident but has mood to spare. I do feel that it lacks a proper conclusion, but it does an impressive job of turning rust belt California into an otherworldly nightmare.
- DirectorGeorge BowersStarsRob MorrowJohnny DeppEmily LongstrethTwo adolescent boys, staying at a Florida resort, are captivated by chasing girls, but their fate holds more surprises.Crackle is refusing to play this on the tv. Or on the tablet. Crackle sux.
Ah! Crackle WILL play it on my phooooooone. But when the commercials start playing, it shows the same 3 ads on a continuous loop and... never... goes... back... to... the... movie... Crackle sucks, y’all, for real....
So, made it through. Wasn’t worth the effort, but then again, the tedious process of using Crackle would have been more frustrating for a movie that was actually potentially engaging. It’s a gross 80’s sex comedy, with a lot of leering shots of boobs and what have you, as well as the expected gags involving horny drunk girls, fat women, transvestism, gay panic, female on male rape, and the lot. Interesting as a sort of time capsule, reminding us of what was considered funny at the time. And if that sounds like a good time, then be warned that it’s just incredibly hackneyed, with shameless mugging at the camera, ostensible comic relief from a bumbling hotel dick, and a montage of two kids falling in love that has them bicycling at sunset. Interesting cast, with Depp playing second fiddle to Rob Morrow, Hector Elizondo as a hapless jewel thief, Dody Goodman as his mark, character actor Michael Bowen as a jerky resort manager. Leslie Easterbrook. Andrew Dice Clay, essentially playing himself. Love the gag with the hefty woman continuing to chow down as Elizondo goes full Scarface in the resort cafeteria. - DirectorStuart GordonStarsJeffrey CombsBarbara CramptonJonathan FullerA man travels to Italy with his family to live in the castle they have recently inherited. But he soon begins to suspect that they are not the only occupants.Not bad Full Moon cheapie from the perpetually underrated Stuart Gordon, inspired by the HP Lovecraft tale “The Outsider”.
Actually that’s got it a bit backwards: schlockmeister Charles Band bought a castle in Italy, and decided that it was a great location for making movies. So he commissioned a poster for such a movie: “Castle Freak”. One day Stuart Gordon is in a meeting with Band and he sees the poster. Gordon asks “ ‘Castle Freak’? What’s that about?” and Band replies “It’s about a castle and a freak.” And so Gordon signed on to write and direct with the help of his frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli. It was their idea to make the project yet another of their Lovecraft adaptations. Sounds like a back-assward way of making movies, but I’m not inclined to argue with the result here.
Showcased on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. Briggs is new to me. I was too young and chickenshit for Monstervision back in the day, and I’ve heard of his career resurgence but not watched any of his specials before. He’s likable and he knows his horror, but he’s a bit of a chauvinistic good ole boy. I would usually rather just watch the feature, but this was the only way to watch Castle Freak, and I’d say it was worth it. Gonna keep my eye out for Gordon’s other movies on streaming.
“Every dog must have his every day/
“Every castle has its freak!” - DirectorSam SalernoStarsWee MattFay LytleJosh ConnorA dwarf named Ed falls in love with a big woman named Linda. He cuts her open and climbs into her womb to be "born again."Ostensibly a horror comedy. You can’t always believe what it says on the tin, though.
The so-bad-it’s-good movie is not a commodity you can mass produce. It takes passion and care, if not some degree of competence. But no care and little passion have been imbued on this turgid bore. The performances are truly all over the place. The lead is styled as a good vibes, hard partying bro and no effort is made to square this attitude to his maudlin arc. The murder clown is a one-note performance, never relaxing his rigid grin even when forgoing makeup as a disguise. The romantic lead seems to realize that she is just the butt of a joke and tolerates that fact with wry forbearance for much of the film, until she pitches a late in the film monologue toward the rafters, seemingly just to get in something good for her demo reel. The nonexistent budget is deployed as a cheap gag time and again.
Plainly though, the film’s problems begin at the level of the writing. Nothing in the film begins to justify the ghoulish premise, or makes a worthwhile joke about it. No performance could save this. Nor could throwing any amount of money at it. - DirectorRyûhei KitamuraStarsKelly ConnaireStephanie PearsonRod HernandezStranded at the side of the road after a tire blowout, a group of friends become targets for an enigmatic sniper.Taut, ingenious thriller from Ryuhei Kitamura. Underwhelming ending is unnecessarily bleak. Otherwise top-notch
- DirectorShin'ichirô UedaStarsTakayuki HamatsuYuzuki AkiyamaHarumi ShuhamaThings go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies.Ehhh, indie horror movies live and die by the hype they generate. Go in cold, and you’re surprised and delighted. Maybe you praise it to the heavens; you get to be the first on the hype train. But if you’ve seen scads of glowing reviews, many a good-enough movie isn’t going to live up to that. Gotta take that hype with a grain of salt, boy-o.
It’s a ok spoof of low budget horror. To say more than that risks adding to the hype. And that I refuse to do. (Yes, I am the hero you need right now.) Don’t go in expecting a Re-Animator or an Evil Dead 2, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised, likely enough - DirectorCoralie FargeatStarsMatilda Anna Ingrid LutzKevin JanssensVincent ColombeNever take your mistress on an annual guys' getaway, especially one devoted to hunting - a violent lesson for three wealthy married men.Best movie I’ve seen in a while.
- DirectorE.L. KatzStarsPat HealyEthan EmbrySara PaxtonA scheming couple put a struggling family man and his old friend through a series of increasingly twisted dares over the course of an evening at a local bar.
- DirectorNeil MarshallStarsSean PertweeKevin McKiddEmma CleasbyA routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scottish wilderness.Debut feature for Neil Marshall. Originally saw this presented as a Sci-fi Channel original movie. By that standard it’s excellent, by any other it’s... passable. Pretty good, maybe even. Holds up a bit better than “Cube”, the only other Sci-fi Channel movie I can think of that is worth a damn.
- DirectorMichael GornickStarsGeorge KennedyLois ChilesDomenick JohnThree macabre tales from the latest issue of a boy's favorite comic book, dealing with a vengeful wooden Native American, a monstrous blob in a lake, and an undying hitchhiker.“The Raft” and “The Hitch-Hiker” are alright. “Chief Woodenhead” I won’t vouch for, and the cartoon segments are pretty bad, too.
- DirectorSteve MinerStarsWilliam KattKay LenzGeorge WendtA troubled writer moves into a haunted house after inheriting it from his aunt.This 80's haunted house horror comedy has too much going on and none of it clicks. It isn't enough that horror novelist Roger Cobb has moved into his aunt's house after its restless spirits have driven her to suicide. He's also dealing with his divorce AND the disappearance of his son AND trying to get past writer's block and PTSD as he works on his memoir of the Vietnam war. These various anxieties torment him in the form of ghosts and monsters and visions, none of them especially scary and a number of which are just goofy. Speaking of: I say this is a horror comedy, but it is not very funny either.
- DirectorJoe LynchStarsSteven YeunSamara WeavingSteven BrandA virus spreads through an office complex causing white-collar workers to act out their worst impulses.Maybe more cathartic for people who work in this sort of environment. I liked “The Belko Experiment” a bit better, another blackly comic thriller about people trapped in an office building murdering each other, from the same year no less. It had a less impressive lead than Yuen, but a better premise and execution, and it seemed to reckon with the moral gravity of, y’know, murder in a way that “Mayhem” doesn’t worry about. Yuen and Weaving are pretty good, but they and their costars seem less like they’re acting out of a loss of inhibition than as if they’re using the virus as an alibi. Which they kinda are. Just seems as though it could have been better realized. Also, there’s too much narration, and the asides with Yuen painting... take you out of the movie a bit; it doesn’t seem to add anything, though I guess it’s supposed to be a therapeutic activity like the meditation or bansai tree other characters are seen doing.
- DirectorBrian Trenchard-SmithStarsSteve RailsbackOlivia HusseyMichael CraigIn a dystopian future where deviants are held in "re-education" camps, a freedom fighter and an innocent prisoner try to survive their decadent oppressors' game of kill-or-be-killed.Good Aussie exploitation movie. In a very 80’s future, fascists have seized control, and enemies of the state are sent to brutal re-education camps. Five prisoners are selected for a most-dangerous-game scenario to entertain a group of elites. One of these muckity mucks wears a priest collar and shows up for the hunt with a bestial snake-eyed henchman, a strange touch which is charmingly never explained. Cheap and nasty, with some unconvincing but creative gore: a floppy trunk with legs attached falls to the ground when a guy is split in two by the plow of a bulldozer, an actor with his hands chopped off sports distractingly large, lumpy sleeves. Highly recommended, overall.
- DirectorAlejandro BruguésJoe DanteMick GarrisStarsMickey RourkeSarah Elizabeth WithersFaly RakotohavanaFive strangers converge at a haunted movie theater owned by The Projectionist. Once inside, the audience members witness a series of screenings showing them their deepest fears and darkest secrets over five tales.Subpar horror anthology. Silly, hammy. Some promising ideas but no competent execution. Ryuhei Kitamura’s segment “Mashit” is probably the worst, a gory tale of a nun and a priest battling possessed children at their Catholic boarding school. Joe Dante’s “Mirari”, about a young woman scarred from a car accident who undergoes plastic surgery, has a nasty ending that would do the Cryptkeeper proud. The first bit is a slasher movie send up with a twist that sounds better on paper than it plays on screen.
- DirectorTilman SingerStarsLuana VelisJohannes BeneckeJan BluthardtLuz, a young cabdriver, drags herself into the brightly lit entrance of a run-down police station. A demonic entity follows her, determined to finally be close to the woman it loves.An exceptional student film, though a bit taxing if viewed as entertainment. Very slow, featuring numerous long static shots with the characters relegated to the background, and a frequently beguiling plot. Ingenious use of a minuscule budget, most of which I imagine went to 16mm film stock. Clever use of sound. The centerpiece is a scene at a police station where an officer interrogates the heroine, with the help of an interpreter and a hypnotherapist. With clever staging and layered dialog, the film reconstructs a traumatic night Luz spent working in her cab.
- DirectorDavid HartmanStarsA. Michael BaldwinReggie BannisterDawn CodyThe final installment of the long-running Phantasm series.Cheapo belated sequel, not worth the wait. Apparently conceived as a web series, which tracks: this has the budget of a fan film, or maybe a really cheap Syfy original. And it doesn’t display Don Coscarelli’s knack for getting the most out of a minuscule budget. David Hartman, taking the reins, is a visual effects guy, and his instinct seems to be to stage the most elaborate sequences he can with his budget. This is a distinction with quite a difference. Some restraint would have been appreciated; instead, every penny spent shows up on the screen, and none of it looks good. On a story level it disappoints, too. Reggie Bannister bounces around the multiverse, from our world to a post apocalyptic hellscape ruled by the Tall Man to one where he’s a dementia patient. It’s an ambitious idea, but it feels like they should have picked one of these ideas and stuck with it, or shifted between the worlds with a bit more of a design. And really, there is not much story. Reggie finds Mike; they meet up with Jody, in a universe where he’s still alive, and it’s all thumbs-up and knowing smiles. One of their allies, introduced late in this film, kills the Tall Man, at least for now. Nothing happens that the series hasn’t done better before, and it certainly doesn't feel like a conclusion, let alone a proper one.
- DirectorDavid SchmoellerStarsChuck ConnorsJocelyn JonesJon Van NessA group of young friends stranded at a secluded roadside museum are stalked by a masked assailant who uses his telekinetic powers to control the attraction's mannequins.On “The Last Drive-In”.
Proto slasher from Charles Band and the Empire Pictures boys. David Schmoeller, apparently a student of Jodorowsky and Bunuel from his days in Mexico, directs. He would later make Crawlspace, Puppet Master, a whole bunch of stuff. Chuck Connors of “The Rifleman” stars, making a bid for a late career transition to horror. He’s pretty good, but the transition never really took; as Joe Bob Briggs remarks, even in his 50’s he’s too handsome for the Boris Karloff career track. The fact that this wound up being an anomaly in Connors’ career makes it more effective; you know that this character is shifty, but he can’t be the bad guy because he’s The Rifleman!
It’s pretty standard Charles Band stuff. Creepy mannequins, cackling puppets, women transformed into dolls. The low rent environs makes it work a bit better; this road stop looks like a place where you might get murdered. It’s a bit nonsensical; the villain has telekinesis, which I guess explains why the dolls move and talk, but it definitely helps to conceal his identity when he can murder someone without even appearing on screen. The moment you see him in the mask you recognize his chin right away. - DirectorSteve MitchellStarsJ.J. AbramsRick BakerEric BogosianA feature length documentary on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen.Gives one an appreciation of Cohen’s brand of guerrilla filmmaking. Cheap, rough, almost slapdash, largely improvised on location, thoughtful but brazen and bracingly weird, his exploitation movies are like nothing else. This career retrospective is a charming portrait of the artist, a amiable, energetic huckster who got his start as a kid writing for television before deciding, feeling his work was getting watered down by the studios, to produce and direct his own idiosyncratic scripts. Filming permits were a nicety he rarely bothered with. That fight on a airport baggage carousel in Black Caesar? Those bystanders did not know those were actors filming a movie. A shootout at the top of the Chrysler Building on a later picture caused bullet casings to rain down on the city below; when a producer told Cohen that this was causing people to run for cover on the ground, Cohen cheerfully told the producer to get some footage of the panic. Just what the picture needed!
Cohen passed away last year, but “King Cohen” finds him as lively as ever, chatting amiable in his home office, grousing good-naturedly at a convention, always coming up with ideas and pitching them on the fly. RIP. - DirectorTed PostStarsAnjanette ComerRuth RomanMarianna HillA social worker, still reeling from the loss of her architect husband, investigates the eccentric, psychedelic Wadsworth Family, consisting of a mother, two daughters, and an adult son with the apparent mental capacity of an infant.Demented 70’s shocker about a young adult male treated as a baby by his mother and sisters. Fun for the whole family.
- DirectorMartinus KlemetA mystical beauty surgery clinic is built next to a sports club which threatens to ruin the club's owner. What is going on in this clinic? The solution seems to be inside a bottle of "Fat Burner".Silly animated short. Unique but stiff sort of look. Perhaps a bit risqué for kids... so I’m not really sure who it is for.
- DirectorAugustine FrizzellStarsMaia MitchellCamila MorroneLiz CardenasJessie and Angela, high school dropouts, are taking a week off to chill at the beach. Too bad their house got robbed, rent's due, they're about to get fired, and they're broke.This DFW-set teen comedy is sweet and amiable, with an uproarious scatological climax. BFFs Angela and Jessie, high school dropouts who waitress together at a diner, plan a beach vacay for the latter’s 17th birthday. But after they get busted for possession, and Jessie’s idiot brother loses his share of the rent in a botched drug deal, they find themselves facing eviction. A24 is a great little studio, delving here into broad comedy after establishing itself as a heavy hitter in horror.
- DirectorGiddens KoStarsYu-Kai TengKent TsaiBonnie LiangShu-wei is an unpopular student who is a constant target for the school bullies, but he ends up joining forces with them when they encounter two demonic sisters who feast on human flesh at night, and they manage to capture one of them.Animals, you know, never had a war, so who, really, is the real animals? It's man, you see.
This was alright. offputtingly cynical ending has the ostensible hero murdering his schoolmates because he was bullied, boo hoo. - DirectorJay LowiStarsPatrick FabianAngela KinseyColin FordA mature, intelligent high school student has a side job arranging "accidental" deaths (no two alike) of fellow students' parents. A cop detective notices this student being connected to all the kids of dead parents. Who wins the face-off?A sort of Ferris Bueller for the psychopath set, this was not funny, or exciting, or interesting. The killer nerd hero is a sort of honor roll version of Keyser Soze, or Ozymandias of “Watchmen” fame; the sort of all-seeing super genius who is always ten steps ahead of anyone else. Why is he on a quest to rid his whitebread suburban town of any and all subpar parents, besides the obvious fun and profit? Nobody making the movie cared to ask that question. Maybe they have their fingers on the pulse of the elusive beasts that are Kids Today, but I would like to think think that most of those kids are smart enough not to be pandered to, at least not by these particular idiots.
- DirectorMekhi PhiferStarsRonnie WarnerDanny MastersonMekhi PhiferTired of being on the wagon, two stoners get voluntarily mixed up in the plot to rip off a shady figure known as Mr. Big.So low-stakes it’s practically DOA, this stoner comedy follows two freshly evicted roommates as they scheme to find a way to.... watch their favorite movie The Shawshank Redemption on TNT. I am loathe to praise Masterson, but he and costar Warner do have a cheerfully oblivious energy that occasionally amuses. They aren’t much as far as leading men go, but there is a certain charm there. The supporting cast plays a parade of one-note caricatures, a waste of talents such as Darrell Hammond and Terry Crews. Mekhi Phifer directs and costars.
- DirectorLarry CohenStarsDavid CarradineMichael MoriartyCandy ClarkNYPD detectives Shepard and Powell are working on a bizarre case of a ritualistic Aztec murder. Meanwhile, something big is attacking people of New York and only greedy small time crook Jimmy Quinn knows where its lair is.On “The Last Drive In”. A demented 70’s monster movie. yes, I know it’s from 1982, but everything about the movie screams 1970’s: the cast with Shaft and David Carradine, the stop-motion effects (conceived and created after principal photography was completed, which is not how such things were typically done at the time), the scuzzy New York milieu.
- DirectorDick MaasStarsHuub StapelMonique van de VenSerge-Henri ValckeA hard-boiled police detective sets out to capture a gruesome serial killer terrorizing the canals of Amsterdam.Shudder has it only with an English dub with thick accents, y’know, for verisimilitude. Too bad. Now, this probably isn’t a classic even in the original Dutch, but I hate dubbing. Even Argento and Sergio Leone’s dubbing raises my hackles; but their films are designed to be dubbed. It’s the Italian way, apparently: Stuart Gordon, while filming “Castle Freak” in Italy back in the 90’s, found that local crews were not used to recording live sound during filming. It was simply not the way things were done. Wild, eh?Anyway, I’m way off topic. This is a odd little slasher. The premise is kinda ingenious: the city of Amsterdam is terrorized by a murderer stalking the canals at night in scuba gear. Unfortunately the execution is a mite too conventional. You have a slew of red herring suspects, you have a grizzled single dad cop on the edge trying to crack the case. Some good set pieces: the opening scene is a POV shot from behind the killer’s mask, a la “Halloween”, as he swims up the canal looking for his first victim. That poor unfortunate soul is found in the morning when a tour boat goes under a bridge and the pilot all of a sudden sees her hanging from the roof of the tunnel by her ankles; he kills the engine, but the boat still drifts forward, and her body is pulled up the windshield and across the glass roof of the boat, leaving a wide streak of blood. Unfortunately the film is not able to sustain this level of gruesome intensity. There is a fun speedboat chase, cop pursuing killer, where the boats zoom up ramps, split a rowing crew’s boat down the middle, jump up on the river walk and plow through the outdoor seating section of a crowded restaurant. The introduction of the detective is fun, even if it is a cheap fake out, but then the characters start talking, and that distractingly bad dubbing hits like a ton of bricks.
- DirectorMichael CooneyStarsScott MacDonaldChristopher AllportStephen MendelAfter an accident that left murderer Jack Frost dead in genetic material the vengeful killer returns as a murderous snowman to exact his revenge on the man who sent him to be executedOn The Last Drive In: Red Christmas. Not, and this may shock you, a good movie. Very low budget; imagine if this had gotten the 30 million dollar price tag that was under negotiation back when Renny Harlin was supposed to direct. Still probably wouldn’t have been good, but it would have been something. Instead, it’s something else.
Give it this, at least: “Jack Frost” is a movie that doesn’t take itself to seriously. Perhaps a bit more seriousness might’ve done something for it. Many of the supporting players are too hammy by half, and the effects, though admirable for the budget, don’t even come close to suspending disbelief. That even goes for the fake snow on the ground; apparently the winter that they filmed this was the warmest then on record at Big Bear Lake, and there was no snow to be found. There’s a nastiness that sours the potential for fun here: the scene where Shannon Elizabeth, in her film debut, is raped and killed by a snowman is a good illustration of that. - DirectorSergio StivalettiStarsRobert HosseinRomina MondelloRiccardo Serventi LonghiIn 1900 Paris, a couple is murdered by a masked man, with a young girl as the only survivor. Twelve years later, a wax museum opens in Rome, attracting people and causing a series of disappearances.Collaboration between rivals Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Fulci was expected to direct, but was in ill health and died while the movie was still in preproduction. Mad proprietor of a wax museum fancies his new employee, a beautiful seamstress, but she isn’t down with his hobby of murdering children and prostitutes and making them into displays in his menagerie. Good practical effects; first time director Sergio Stivaletti is a veteran effects artist. But like many effects artists turned directors his impulse is to showcase the effects, not necessarily to get the best use of them; it’s a cart before the horse problem.
- DirectorRachel MasonStarsKaren MasonBarry MasonMicah MasonIn 1976, Karen and Barry Mason had fallen on hard times and were looking for a way to support their young family when they answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times. Larry Flynt was seeking distributors for Hustler Magazine. What was expected to be a brief sideline led to their becoming fully immersed in the LGBT community as they took over a local store, Circus of Books. A decade later, they had become the biggest distributors of gay porn in the US. The film focuses on the double life they led, trying to maintain the balance of being parents at a time when LGBT culture was not yet accepted. Their many challenges included facing jail time for a federal obscenity prosecution and enabling their store to be a place of refuge at the height of the AIDS crisis. Circus of Books offers a rare glimpse into an untold chapter of queer history, and it is told through the lens of the owners' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker and musician.little jewish couple in cali raise a family whilst concealing from the kids the family business: a gay adult bookstore.
- DirectorDavid DeCoteauStarsAndras JonesLinnea QuigleyRobin StilleAs part of a sorority ritual, pledges and their male companions steal a trophy from a bowling alley; unbeknownst to them, it contains a devilish imp who makes their lives a living Hell.Last Drive In. Full Moon cheapie (really really cheap) with the obligatory tiny monster. Three drooling nerds are caught in the middle of a panty raid at a sorority house and forced to go along with the pledges on a initiation scavenger hunt. They break into a bowling alley and encounter a cheap jive-talking puppet that grants them each a wish, only of course it really wants to murder them.
Sad to say, this is a feature that doesn’t live up to its incredible title. There’s little bowling, no slimeballs of any kind, and though the Tri-Delts are supposedly the most popular hellenistic society on campus, there are only three of them and two pledges. As horror goes, this doesn’t much cut it. One guy gets his face polished by a bowling ball cleaner, then his head is pulled off (offscreen) and used as a bowling ball; no points though, it’s a gutter ball. When one of the sorority girls gets possessed by a demon, all of a sudden she’s sporting a white gown and Bride of Frankenstein hair. This gag doesn’t get any kind of clever presentation, it’s just a simple costume change. A pledge by the name of Taffy gets a gruesome fate appropriate for her name... again, offscreen, with no special effect or even foley effects used. Shenanigans! Shenanigans!
The imp is a cheap looking puppet, and it is shown interacting with the actors only minimally. I guess whatever suspension of disbelief the movie is able to conjure wouldn’t have held up to the challenge. And I’m pretty sure a few bad takes made it into the final film, like a botched demoness attack. Fun monologue from Buck Flowers, as the janitor who explains why the hell there was a magical imp trapped in a bowling trophy, though I couldn’t have told you exactly how even after I’d just finished that scene. - DirectorHerschell Gordon LewisStarsWilliam KerwinMal ArnoldConnie MasonAn Egyptian caterer kills various women in suburban Miami to use their body parts to revive a dormant Egyptian goddess while an inept police detective tries to track him down.Last Drive In. Mesmerizing slasher film with stiff acting and copious gore. Herschell Gordon Lewis has made nudie pictures prior to this, but this was the first of his famous horror movies, indeed likely the first gore film. It’s a strange, primitive movie like a cave meeting from a prehistoric pervert. A bunch of young ladies are getting butchered, and the cops have no leads to go on; we know this because we mostly see the two cops sitting in an office, talking about how gruesome the killings are and bemoaning the fact that they have no clues, rather than doing any discernible investigating. Seems this is the work of a bug-eyed Egyptian caterer named Fuad Ramses, who is going about an ancient sacrificial ritual to bring to life the goddess Ishtar, here portrayed by an embarrassed-looking department store mannequin with a little gold paint. As we see this guy limping around murdering people, he does not for a moment strike us as the sort of master criminal who could commit these crimes without leaving a trace. He does not look strong enough to hack someone to pieces or pull out their tongue. And his overall vibe, with his intense stare and portentous speech, is not that of someone you would want cooking for you.
- DirectorChris BolanStarsTerry DonahuePat HenschelDiana BolanFalling in love in 1947, two women -- Pat Henschel and pro baseball player Terry Donahue -- begin a 65-year journey of love and overcoming prejudice.
- DirectorWes CravenStarsSusan LanierRobert HoustonJohn SteadmanOn the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.Originally saw this on a dvd on my pc freshman year. Wasn’t impressed, rated it 5/10 based on that viewing. I was anticipating a slick Wes Craven movie in the vein of Scream or Elm Street. Obviously this is Craven in his exploitation film days, just a few years after Last House on the Left. Grit, not slick. Rewatching now, I am much more impressed.
- DirectorLee HarryStarsEric FreemanJames NewmanElizabeth KaitanThe now-adult Ricky talks to a psychiatrist about how he became a murderer after his brother, Billy, died, which leads back to Mother Superior.Last Drive In: Red Christmas. Even without seeing the first one, you can tell that half of this movie is recycled footage from part 1. It makes for a supremely dull flashback structure. Eric Freeman’s demented bug-eyed performance as Santa-obsessed Ricky is the only highlight here.
- DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsAdrienne BarbeauJamie Lee CurtisJanet LeighAn unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.Incredibly, I gave this 3/10 stars. I remember thinking that this was a middling effort from Carpenter, but hell, I liked Village of the Damned more than that! Gonna rectify that rating pronto. Now, this isn’t a stone-cold classic like The Thing. It looks to be fairly low budget. Not much gore, and the effects are pretty rudimentary. The ghosts are mostly just backlit figures in the fog, occasionally with glowing red eyes, though there is a fleeting glimpse of a wormy green face that is pretty gruesome. Makeup artist Rob Bottin did some of the effects and even played Blake, the lead ghost, it seems. Though this is a good cast, it feels as though there are a few too many heroes: radio DJ and single mother Stevie, hitchhiking artist Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis), Tom Atkins, Father Malone... It could have been better paced, like say if most of the action unfolded over a single night, and you wish that the chaos and destruction of the fog had been a bit more. Still, Carpenter (who has a short cameo near the beginning) creates a wonderfully eerie mood with minimal resources, and yet again proves himself a great craftsman of the genre.
- DirectorBrian YuznaStarsBilly WarlockConcetta D'AgneseBen SlackAn ordinary teenage boy discovers his family is part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.Last Drive In. Probably my favorite of Yuzna’s efforts as director. (Weirdly, Joe Bob says The Dentist is his best; do I need to revisit The Dentist?) It isn’t a great movie; lots of illogical moments and bizarre things that go under explained. Not talking about the ending here, but characters like the large mute woman who eats hair; there’s no good reason for her doing the things she does. Similarly, the reveal of who is playing odd pranks on the hero comes out of nowhere and leads also nowhere; it’s just forgotten. This illogic extends at times to the behavior of the hero and the romantic interest. Maybe this makes the movie stranger, and more unsettling in a way. But several times I thought that there was supposed to be an implication that a character had been killed or was about to be killed, and then... nothing happens, not even an overt fakeout. And the ending is pretty abrupt. Were they hoping for a sequel?
The effects work is pretty gross, and it’s an impressive job by Screaming Mad George, especially given that the one big set piece was all shot in one day. Some of it looks a bit dodgy. And it’s not very scary, or even especially funny when it’s meant to be. - DirectorJoel M. ReedStarsSeamus O'BrienViju KremNiles McMasterIn the Theatre of the Macabre in New York Sardu and his assistants present a show involving the torture and mutilation of young women. The audience assumes it is just an act but the torture is real, as are the deaths.Last Drive In. Didn’t get far into this one, wasn’t feeling it
- DirectorSergio MartinoStarsGeorge HiltonEdwige FenechConchita AiroldiAn ambassador's wife discovers that one of the men in her life - either her husband, an ex-lover or her current lover - may be a vicious serial killer.Pretty standard giallo. Stylish, pretty, plot’s pretty nonsensical. Deaths are faked, herrings are red, yadda yadda.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJeff GoldblumGeena DavisJohn GetzA brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.Still a classic. Jeff Goldblum’s star making role as a scientist working to invent a machine capable of teleportation, who finds his body changing in horrifying ways after he uses himself as a test subject. Geena Davis is great as well, playing a journalist who gets a too close to her subject. John Getz as her smarmy publisher.
Memory is a slippery thing; I remembered the Getz character as a hero, but he is nearly a caricature of a sleazy boss, only showing a bit more dimension later in the film. I like Goldblum a lot here; he’s funnier than a Cronenberg lead usual gets to be, though in a dry sort of way, and though his character shares Cronenberg’s fixations I wonder if he improvised his dialog at all, because it’s very much a Jeff Goldblum character. it’s a very fascinating partnership, and I wonder what they could do if they did another picture together. Davis carries the movie though; really her show. - DirectorKinka UsherStarsBen StillerJaneane GarofaloWilliam H. MacyA group of inept amateur superheroes must try to save the day when a supervillain threatens to destroy a major superhero and the city.Silly superhero spoof, very of its time. Painfully tone deaf needle drops (fuckin’ Smash Mouth), canned fart noises. Must have cost a pretty penny, with its elaborate production design and passable 90’s CGI. And this insanely overqualified cast. Funny that this came out before the big superhero boom; not that superheroes were an obscure idea back then, but there was nowhere near the saturation you’ve got nowadays. I’m not trying to imply that the comic book satire here has in any way aged well, as it very much hasn’t. Indeed, many comic book movies have similar beats, and the comic relief they deploy is usually better honed.
- DirectorLarry CohenStarsMichael MoriartyAndrea MarcovicciGarrett MorrisA delicious, mysterious goo that oozes from the earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation, but the tasty treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers who only want to consume more of the strange substance at any cost begin infesting the world.Not, unfortunately, seen on The Last Drive In. Amazon doesn’t have all the episodes, for whatever reason. In fact, Shudder on Amazon does not seem to have all the stuff on Shudder, which is frustrating. And I can’t seem to get Shudder on my tv. Anyway... here Cohen rips off The Blob, but uses that idea as the launch pad for a scathing satire on consumerism. I like this, but like a lot of Cohen’s work it’s a bit too slapdash to pass muster. I think it made me like Q just a bit more.
- DirectorLuigi CozziStarsIan McCullochLouise MarleauMarino MaséA former astronaut helps a government agent and a police detective track the source of mysterious alien pod spores, filled with lethal flesh-dissolving acid, to a South American coffee plantation controlled by alien pod clones.“Hamilton! He was beginning to... Hamilton!”
Preeeettty bad Italian rip-off of Alien. Endless shots of slow motion chest explosions. Apparently the evil alien at the end was supposed to actually move, but the mechanical effects did not work and the producers nixed the budget for stop-motion effects, so instead the sessile cyclops has convenient mind control powers, so that its victims will walk up to it and let it eat them. Seen on The Last Drive In. - DirectorFrank HenenlotterStarsRick HearstGordon MacDonaldJennifer LowryOne morning, a young man wakes to find that a small, disgusting creature has attached itself to the base of his brain stem. The creature gives him a euphoric state of happiness but demands human victims in return.Rewatched thanks to Last Drive In. I like this one a lot. Scuzzy 80’s NYC horror. A brain-eating parasite that looks like a blue-black phallus and likes to sing oldies tunes uses hallucinogenic venom to subdue and control his victims. A sort of parable on drug addiction ensues, but one with the refreshingly warped sensibilities of Frank Henenlotter. This has a great opening, with an escalating weirdness more movies should aspire to. We open in the cozy apartment of an old Jewish couple. They have shelves packed with leather bound books, old pottery and tribal masks on the wall, and anatomical drawings with scribbled footnotes everywhere; perhaps he’s a professor. He returns from the butcher, looking weary, and she is sweetly elated. He gripes about the butcher as he slumps in her chair. “We should go to that nice French butcher,” she suggests, to which the man says “No, he’s nosy, always asking questions.”She unwraps the package, and is delighted to find a pair of plump pink brains inside. “Elmer will love these!” she coos, and she puts them on a platter with a sprig of parsley and heads to the bathroom, where she is distraught to find an empty bathtub. She starts screaming, and when her husband comes and sees the empty tub, he too loses his mind, and the pair of them start tearing up their little apartment, frantically rummaging through closets and cupboard. What the hell is going on here? Is Elmer their son, or a pet?... who they feed brains to, and keep in a bathtub? Why would he be hiding in a kitchen cupboard? Next thing you know these two are lying twitching on the floor and foaming at the mouth.
- DirectorJohn McNaughtonStarsMichael RookerTracy ArnoldTom TowlesArriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.Last Drive In. Didn’t finish. Sometimes life gets in the way. Gonna start over when I can
- DirectorBill RebaneStarsTiny TimItonia SalchekDean WestJill, visiting home from college, arrives to find her parents missing, and their home vandalized. Soon, matters take a turn for the worse, when she finds herself stalked, and her friends disappearing one by one.Last drive In. An all-American bimbo with a vague Eastern European accent comes home from college to find her parents missing, their house vandalized, and her creepy neighbors skulking around. Should she maybe, y’know, get out of there? Should she just wait for them to come back? Or should she pal around with her obsessed ex and his loony clown brother? Geeeeee, I dunnnnooo.
Bad as the lead is, bizarro musician Tiny Tim, making his starring debut here, is worse, hamming it up, generally doing all the things that they tell you not to do in acting class, as Joe Bob helpfully points out. - DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsDonald PleasenceLisa BlountJameson ParkerA group of graduate students and scientists uncover an ancient canister in an abandoned church, but when they open the container, they inadvertently unleash a strange liquid and an evil force on all humanity.Manichaean horror. Well, perhaps horror is by its very nature a sort of Manichaean genre, one in which goodness dwindles in the face of omnipotent evil. Here, the subtext is text: the deathbed confession of a priest lead a team of researchers and a man of the cloth to the sanctum of a secretive doomsday cult; they quickly begin to realize that an elemental evil has been awakened under their feet, and is trying to break into our world and conquer it. This is not as successful as most of Carpenter’s works. The attempt to explain evil with talk of quantum mechanics is hard to follow, I sure am having a hard time spelling out the connection here, and at the same time it robs the supernatural forces at work of the mystery and horror that they ought to have. And when it becomes a siege, it sort of feels like Carpenter is just going through the motions; it feels like Assault on Precinct 13, or The Thing, or The Fog, only not nearly as good as any of those.
- DirectorLowell DeanStarsLeo FafardAmy MatysioSarah LindAs a series of strange and violent events begin to occur, an alcoholic policeman realizes that he has been turned into a werewolf as part of a larger plan.Last Drive In. I miss the... sincerity?... of older exploitation movies. So often these days they’re just so tongue in cheek, or else they’re sort of a slavish homage, and rarely are they their own unique thing. Now, “sincere” may not be the right word here. Take Hershel Gordon Lewis: he was just in it for a quick buck, and had no particular pretense of making art or anything; indeed, he was hardly a great cinematic talent. But a HG Lewis movie is far more watchable than that of a passionate horror fanboy.
- DirectorGeorge A. RomeroStarsTimothy HuttonAmy MadiganMichael RookerA writer's fictional alter ego wants to take over his life...at any price.Maine novelist suspects that his nom de plume has come to life and is murdering people. Not Romero’s best. Hutton is certainly trying, and he’s pretty good as the hero, but the alter ego is like a cartoon of a 50’s greaser, and he is just not very scary. I like Michael Rooker here as a sensitive local lawman, playing very against type, and Amy Madigan as Hutton’s wife, but both characters trust the hero well past the point of reason.
- DirectorStuart GordonStarsWilliam H. MacyJulia StilesJoe MantegnaA fortune-teller's teasing rumination sends Edmond Burke lurching into New York City's hellish underworld.One of Gordon’s last pictures, a reunion with his old Organic Theater colleague David Mamet. It feels a bit stagey. Good performances. Rebecca Pidgeon is great, as of course is Macy. Julia Stiles, too. It’s a great cast, with ringers even in the bit roles.
- DirectorStuart GordonStarsJeffrey CombsBruce AbbottBarbara CramptonAfter an odd new medical student arrives on campus, a dedicated local and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue.On the last drive in. A horror classic. Stuart Gordon’s film debut, and easily his best. Low budget release from Empire Pictures.
- DirectorJohn WatersStarsJohnny DeppRicki LakeAmy LocaneIn 1950s Baltimore, a bad boy with a heart of gold wins the love of a good girl, whose boyfriend sets out for revenge.A silly 50’s live action cartoon musical from John Waters. I liked this much more than I did as a dour college freshman.
- DirectorSusan StromanStarsNathan LaneMatthew BroderickUma ThurmanAfter putting together another Broadway flop, down-on-his-luck producer Max Bialystock teams up with timid accountant Leo Bloom in a get-rich-quick scheme to put on the world's worst show.Has its moments. Lane and Broderick each manage to find a fresh angle on their characters. Some neat staging, and the songs are fun. Generally I feel that most of the changes are not improvements; the film loses the character and specificity of the original’s 60’s milieu. The decision to cast Liebkind as Hitler makes no sense; they ought to want this nut kept away from the production so that he can’t see that they aren’t making some reverent elegy for the Fuhrer. And there isn’t a strong reversal of fortune for the show; we’re robbed of the specific moment where Bloom and Bialystok, certain that their scheme is proceeding as planned, are dismayed by positive word of mouth from theater goers during intermission. Indeed, it’s sort of puzzling why the audience comes around on the show here; come to think of it, the beaming crowds who come dancing out of “Funny Boy” at the beginning sire don’t look like they hated it, and they have such big smiles on their faces as they sing about how bad it was. Just... needs a bit of consistency. You can have an angry song about seeing a bad show. You can portray audiences as having bad taste. But the movie has the priorities of a broadway show, priorities it mocks but doesn’t dare break from: keep it light, keep it gay. The moment when Mostel suggests that they kill the actors is a dark and ugly one, but Lane, we know, can’t possibly follow through. He doesn’t even try to blow up the theater.
- DirectorMichael HerzLloyd KaufmanStarsCarolyn BeauchampSean BowenRick WashburnA group of assorted Americans survive a plane crash in a Caribbean island, and discover it is infested with crawling snakes and other venomous beasts. Even worse, terrorists are preparing a full out war on America with a biological weapon.Last drive in. A plane full of obnoxious character actors crashes on a decidedly temperate desert island (actually Long Island, NY) and find themselves in the middle of a war... or something. Is this the inspiration for “Lost”? Could be! It is not very good. Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman and his wife were on hand to discuss the making of the picture, and he and Briggs are peas in a pod: charming old dinosaurs who you find yourself trying to forgive for their abrasiveness, though they do not make any apologies. Kaufman is a huckster in the Larry Cohen mold, though without much of Cohen’s wit and ingenuity. Cohen made cheap pictures, but they had a purpose and a point of view. Kaufman’s work is that of a nihilist, gleefully pandering to the lowest common denominator, not much of a philosophy behind it but self promotion, brand extension, selling selling selling. He personally is fun to listen to. His brand however soon grows tiresome, and I think I’ve seen plenty of it.
- DirectorClive BarkerStarsAndrew RobinsonClare HigginsAshley LaurenceA woman discovers the newly resurrected, partially formed, body of her brother-in-law and lover. She starts killing for him to revitalize his body and escape the demonic beings that are pursuing him after he escaped their underworld.Last drive in.
- DirectorMichael LehmannStarsWinona RyderChristian SlaterShannen DohertyAt Westerburg High where cliques rule, jocks dominate and all the popular girls are named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and mysterious new kid to give teen angst a body count.Last drive in
- DirectorJason HowdenStarsMilo CawthorneJames Joshua BlakeKimberley CrossmanTwo teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives.Last drive in. Evil Dead horror and heavy metal worship thrown in a blender with deadpan Kiwi comedy. Nothing terribly original, and the plot is kind of silly; outside of the incipient apocalypse, most of the characters’ problems could simply have been solved at any point in the movie by talking to each other. Still, looks great for a budget of less than a mill, with slick practical effects and a few good laughs.
- DirectorJohn GrissmerStarsLouise LasserMark SoperJulie GordonA boy kills a man and accuses his twin brother of the murder, and the innocent brother ends up institutionalized, while his psychotic twin goes free. 10 years later, the innocent twin escapes, which triggers his brother into killing again.Last drive in: Dinners of Death. A re-discovered 80’s slasher, released several times under multiple titles, here called “Slasher” per the title reel. Twin boys sneak out of the car while mom’s on a hot date at the drive-in. One finds a hatchet in a pickup bed and hacks up a jock canoodling with his girlfriend, then he hands the weapon to his stunned brother. Years later the murderous twin is a callow college preppie and his innocent brother is about to get out the nuthouse.
- DirectorBrian YuznaStarsJeffrey CombsBruce AbbottClaude Earl JonesDoctors Herbert West and Dan Cain discover the secret to creating human life and proceed to create a perfect woman from dead tissue.Nonsensical sequel. Lots of special effects work here, with creatures by Yuzna’s go-to guy Screaming Mad George, and numerous others, of note particularly being the gnarly work of KNB EFX; their “tissue rejection” sequence at the end is a highlight. The Screaming Mad George stuff is... imaginative... and disturbing (something of a trademark for him) but it looks like effects; if the best test of an effect is a suspension of disbelief, he rarely cuts it, but I suspect that’s not what he’s going for. I guess that’s an impossible standard. Whatever. Anyway, the story here is junk, and the character motivations make no sense. Why is Dan still partnering with West? Why does the cute Italian freedom fighter they met in Peru (?) seek Dan out for a date when she saw his partner experimenting on and executing soldiers? Is Bruce Abbott that attractive, that a girl can overlook that he’s in cahoots with a murdering mad scientist? It’s understandable that Yuzna would bring back Combs and David Gale, though Re-Animator ends with things... looking pretty grim for both their characters. And though Combs acquits himself well enough, the material is just such plain moldy cheese. In the original he’s a brilliant scientist and a credible doctor; here he’s stitching together random reanimated body parts like some bored psychopathic teenager. And when he shows Dan Meg’s heart, which they sew into the titular bride (along with the feet of a dancer, the legs of a hooker, the womb of a virgin, the hands of a... lawyer, and the head of a reasonably attractive terminal patient) it’s played as a dramatic moment, but the premise here is just too dumb to elicit pathos, or even laughter. For this story to have worked, they should have brought back Barbara Crampton for the role; putting her heart in a Frankenstein monster is just a silly symbolic gesture, and it’s stupid that Dan would be smitten with the bride just because she has his dead fiancée’s heart. Then at the climax we have West pivot from crowing about the superiority of his creation to dismissing her as “a pile of dead parts” within the space of a sentence, with no good justification for this change of perspective. Okay, so that’s more than enough words wasted on this movie.
- DirectorJim Van BebberStarsPaul HarperJim Van BebberMegan MurphyOne last job separates the leader of the Ravens gang from an early retirement. When he finds his girlfriend beaten to death by members of a rival gang, he seeks revenge, knowing that he may be dead by dawn. Will more blood bring her back?Cinema interruptus.
- DirectorTodd PhillipsStarsJoaquin PhoenixRobert De NiroZazie BeetzDuring the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.If you remade Taxi Driver as a comic book movie, mashed in bits of The King of Comedy, and made it all quite thuddingly obvious, you’d have something like this. Dedicated work from Phoenix can only take it so far.
- DirectorWilliam Peter BlattyStarsGeorge C. ScottEd FlandersBrad DourifA police lieutenant uncovers more than he bargained for as his investigation of a series of murders, which have all the hallmarks of the deceased Gemini serial killer, leads him to question the patients of a psychiatric ward.Last drive in. “The Exorcist III” was William Peter Blatty’s second and final film as a director, ten years after his debut oddity “The Ninth Configuration“. It’s a strange movie, made stranger by a number of studio-mandated changes: Morgan Creek wanted it to be called “The Exorcist III” instead of “Legion”, Blatty’s preferred title, the better to explicate its connection to the first film. They wanted Jason Miller in the movie for much the same reason, though his alcoholism was already taking a heavy toll, and so he shares the role with the much more riveting Dourif. And there was a glaring lack of exorcisms in the film, unbecoming of a film called The Exorcist III, so they mandated $9 mil for reshoots to remedy all that. The resulting film feels a bit choppy. And it was already overwritten; you can tell that Blatty is a writer first and foremost, not a director, and definitely not an editor. (He sure as heck ain’t no Billy Friedkin.) There’s a juicy monologues about a carp in a bathtub, that ought’ve every been cut, and far too often Blatty chooses to have the cops describe the murders rather than showing them. A screenwriter ought to know to show, not tell.
- DirectorShin'ya TsukamotoStarsTomorô TaguchiKei FujiwaraNobu KanaokaA businessman accidentally kills The Metal Fetishist, who gets his revenge by slowly turning the man into a grotesque hybrid of flesh and rusty metal.Last Drive In. Nutty, kinetic horror finds a Tokyo suit transforming into a metallic monstrosity. Definitely a movie that’s hard to parse.
- DirectorMark GoldblattStarsTreat WilliamsJoe PiscopoLindsay FrostA cop is killed investigating a strange case of resurrected corpses. His partner and a pathologist resurrect him, but he only has a limited time before he starts to decompose, and he uses it to chase down the diabolical man who killed him.Last Drive In. Far from great, in fact it’s illogical, confusing, and frequently just plain dumb, but I appreciate it a bit more on rewatching just the same. Treat Williams (as Detective Roger Mortis) and Joe Piscopo are mismatched buddy cops who stumble into a horror movie plot: after a shootout with a pair of armed robbers who refuse to die no matter how many times they get shot, our heroes follow a lead to Dante Pharmaceuticals, whose scientists have may found out how to cheat death. The specifics of how the resurrection process works are never clearly spelled out, and it seems to vary drastically from one subject to another for no particular reason. Lindsey Frost’s character keeps changing her back story, and each time it makes less and less sense. And all the while, even when faced with mortal danger, zombie monstrosities, and the death of fellow cops, Joe Piscopo keeps tossing off terrible ad libbed one-liners, approximately none of which are funny. The effects are pretty nifty; there’s a memorable scene where they detectives confront a person of interest in a Chinatown butcher shop , only to be attacked by reanimated meat and poultry. Written by the elder brother of Shane Black, who quit his job as a programmer to take a creative writing course, which is where he wrote this beauty. I imagine afterwards he went back to his day job.
- DirectorTi WestStarsJocelin DonahueTom NoonanMary WoronovIn 1983, financially struggling college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger.Last Drive In. Pretty good mumblegore from the genre’s brightest star. Ti West evidently does not like to be thought of as a horror filmmaker, and indeed has made a lot of other stuff: guest directing tv, lots of horror series but also “The Resident” and others, “Trigger Man” which is probably more survivalist horror than action per se (then again, I’ve not yet seen it), and a western.
- DirectorColin EgglestonStarsJohn HargreavesBriony BehetsMike McEwenWhen a suburban couple go camping for the weekend at a remote beach, they discover that nature isn't in an accommodating mood.Aussie couple go camping, and their disrespect for nature gets paid back in full. Pretty good. A bit like Day of the Animals if it were a much better movie.
- DirectorKyle RankinStarsMaria ThayerMichael CassidyJulie BristerAfter a girls' night out, endearingly awkward Deb wakes up in the apartment of the most attractive guy in Portland, Maine. Pretty boy Ryan only knows it was a mistake and ushers her out the door into a full-scale zombie apocalypse.Dull, flat and derivative zom rom com. Adult spazz Deb meets cute, or more accurately meets cringingly awkward, with a hot guy. They hook up... or do they? She blacks out from drinking, and we never see exactly what happens. He seems to remember more about it than her, which makes the hookup a bit skeevy, but at other times it’s suggested that both of them blacked out. Anyway, on the walk of shame back home she stumbles into the zombie apocalypse. This is a movie that suffers from a complete dearth of likable characters. Deb herself is grating, where she’s clearly supposed to dorky and relatable. Her romantic rival, her hookup’s scheming gold digger fiancée, is so screechingly terrible that you hate him just for being with her, which is a bad miscalculation on the part of the filmmakers. He’s a joyless scold, anyhow. You don’t see what Deb sees in him, and that just makes Deb seem shallow and worse, even dumber than she already is supposed to be.
- DirectorBruce PittmanStarsLisa SchrageMichael IronsideWendy LyonThirty years after her accidental death at her 1957 senior prom, the tortured spirit of prom queen Mary Lou Maloney returns to seek revenge.Last drive in. Pretty good 80’s slasher, though nakedly derivative of other, better films. You got a heroine in the Carrie White mold, a killer ghost with a few tricks out of Freddy Krueger’s playbook, and a dash of Exorcist-style Catholic horror, though not nearly so sanctimonious. Some nifty effects and memorable kills: a tragic stinkbomb accident, impalement by crucifix, a locker room death, a cheesy electrocution, a possessed rocking horse with a bit of that clown from Poltergeist energy, only... pervier. It reminds me a bit of House, another 80’s horror flick that throws in everything and the kitchen sink, only House was terrible and this was pretty good. Surprisingly good. Not great, but enjoyable.
- DirectorCourtney AndujarHillary AndujarAnthony CousinsStarsJon Michael SimpsonLuxy BannerSydney HuddlestonChad, the owner of Rad Chad's Horror Emporium, recounts a series of bone-chilling, blood-splattered tales to illustrate the rules of the horror genre to his newest employee.Last drive in. Tedious horror anthology. Might finish this later.
This and Hogzilla made for just about the worst double bill ever featured on the program, and go figure, both feature prominent performances from Briggs. But they’re terrible in very different ways. Hogzilla is cheap, poorly written and amateurish in every technical aspect, but it’s more purely an exploitation film: cheap and sleazy is part of the brand. Scare Package is bad in a different way: this is the work of young filmmakers who are passionate about horror and are affectionately spoofing its conventions, and who are a bit too woke to engage in exploitation, but none of the material is anywhere near as clever as they think it is. The horror stuff is so broadly parodic that is has no chance of being scary, and as a comedy it’s no better, aiming for campy but falling on manic and uninvolving instead. - DirectorDiane JacquesStarsJohn BloomWilliam A. ButlandZachary DubaleA tabloid news crew ventures into the backwoods of Central Florida to investigate reports of an aggressive feral hog who the locals call Hogzilla. What they find, though, are demons, devils, creeping things and pure evil.Last drive in. Bottom of the barrel nature-run-amuck flick spends far too much time on the endless petty bickering of its unpleasant and poorly written characters and not nearly enough time on their demises. Then again, each victim is killed by a shaky camera...
- DirectorTony RandelStarsDoug BradleyAshley LaurenceClare HigginsKirsty is brought to an institution after the horrible events of Hellraiser (1987), where the occult-obsessive head doctor resurrects Julia and unleashes the Cenobites and their demonic underworld.On my new favorite movie showcase. I might have liked this more without the interviews and color commentary. But I don’t think so. Certainly not MUCH more.
A few gory moments aside, Hellbound doesn’t have much to add to Hellraiser. Well, yes it piles on mythos, and adds a few new characters who are mostly wet blankets, but it adds little of value. The film at its best feels like a variation on the first; as Kirsty is trapped in a asylum after the events of the first film, her doctor is canoodling with her undead wicked stepmother. Clare Higgins is a good villain, icy cold, vain, but not without a certain haughty vulnerability; we don’t need her to say that she is like an evil queen in a fairy tale, but the script unfortunately has her do just that. But eventually we all go to hell, and the movie goes from passable sequel to chore pretty quick. A dumb new villain emerges, and the Cenobites go from eldritch monsters to hapless redshirts in no time at all. - DirectorDonald G. JacksonR.J. KizerStarsJulius LeFloreRCBRoddy PiperAfter a worldwide nuclear war, where 68% of the male population was wiped out and virile men becoming a rarity, Sam Hell, a scavenger and a highly virile man, is assigned to help rescue a group of fertile women kidnapped by humanoid frogs.Last drive in. Rowdy Roddy Piper is the most virile man left alive after nuclear war. Feminazis hellbent on repopulating the world arrest him, for rape by the sound of things (though this is not an aspect of the story that is much dwelled on), and frogmarch him out into the wasteland to rescue and impregnate a group of young maidens being held hostage by horny mutant frog men. Reminds me a bit of “A Boy and His Dog”, though sleazier and probably made with a bit more money and a bit less wit.
- DirectorEnzo G. CastellariStarsJames FranciscusVic MorrowMicaela PignatelliJames Franciscus tries to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a Great White Shark starts terrorizing the area.Rifftrax. Never listened to them before. Well, that’s not true: Rifftrax is of course the Mystery Science Theater 3000 trio of Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and Mike Nelson reunited under a new name for their signature well-honed shtick. Long time MST3K watcher, first time Rifftrax viewer. It’s pretty much... exactly the same, only there are no interstitial scenes or shadows on the screen, no framing narrative, just straight riffing from some of the best wisecracks in the business. I miss the MST3K trappings, for sure, but this is a suitable replacement.
Quibble: I could barely hear the dialogue on the movie itself, where the volume of the riffing itself was more than adequate. Surely better audio mixing would be possible.
The flick is a woeful Italian “Jaws” rip-off, with a great white menacing a small American beach town just as they’re gearing up for their big windsurfing regatta. Bland stock B-movie leading man James Franciscus is on hand as the Chief Brody surrogate (and also the Hooper surrogate). Vic Morrow meanwhile plays a poor man’s Quint. “You all-a know me. You know-a how I make-a my living,” the guys crack when he pops up. The third wheel is occupied by a local business man slash gubernatorial candidate, tasked with the role of keeping the regatta on schedule in spite of a worrisome uptick in shark attacks. Nothing great, but there are some amusing shark attacks; the shark brushes against the underside of a dinghy and sends a mannequin rocketing thirty feet into the air; the candidate takes on the shark with a helicopter, a roast on a hook, and no discernible plan, with predictable results. - DirectorBob ClarkStarsOlivia HusseyKeir DulleaMargot KidderDuring their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.Last drive in. Creepy proto-slasher. Feels very timely, in a way: the creepy possessive boyfriend played by Keri Dullea, Olivia Hussey’s resolve to have an abortion, the strict father of a missing girl frowning with disproval when confronted with the fact that his daughter (though ridiculed as a prude) was entertaining gentleman callers and occasionally imbibing on alcohol... The is a very feminist movie, very aware of the conflicting expectations placed on women. And it’s somewhat ingenious; you couldn’t end a movie like this nowadays, people wouldn’t stand for the open-endedness, yet it works so well. I never recognized Andrea Martin when last I watched (probably didn’t know who she was back then). And Hussey I am intrigued by; always keen to see more from the star of “Turkey Shoot”.
- DirectorWilliam LustigStarsJoe SpinellCaroline MunroAbigail ClaytonA psychopathic man goes on a killing and mutilation spree in New York City.Last drive in. Cinema interruptus yet again. There’s Bloodsucking Freaks, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Deadbeat at Dawn, and now this too.
- DirectorDon CoscarelliStarsA. Michael BaldwinBill ThornburyReggie BannisterA teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber, known only as the Tall Man, who employs a lethal arsenal of unearthly weapons.Last drive in. Doing my first Phantasmathon. Pity part 2 isn’t featured here, as that is my favorite. But part 1 is better than I remembered. First viewing I was put off by the it-was-all-a-dream ending. In fact, I’d say now that it’s probably objectively the best in the series, with solid performances by the amateur stars, a relatable story grounded in childhood fears of death and estrangement, and wonderful direction with low budget ingenuity from Coscarelli. Eerie synthesizer score. A creepy dreamlike atmosphere.