Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Dec 9, 2014 10:20:08 GMT -5
New blog post. Keeping up with the "mainstream" trend and following up with my 2-weeks-old post. 1990 Directed by John Lafia Starring Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Christine Elise and Brad Dourif When the original Child's Play was released, I don't think that ANY of the wizards of smart could have predicted exactly how successful it would be. By horror movie standards, it was an absolute blockbuster, with both the character of Chucky and the concept proving quite formidable with the public at large. Thus, while the original flick had a budget that was marginally higher than a #7 value meal, it didn't take long for Universal to order up some sequels. It ALSO didn't take long for writer Don Mancini to crank out what I consider to be the best movie in the entire series. Moreso than any of the other films in the franchise, this flick really is all about yin and yang. It's got its serious moments, sure, but it also brings in the humor that the later entries would crank up to the nth and sometimes annoying degree. The balancing act that Mancini scripted out here, however, is pretty close to ideal. Once again, it was a big hit with the public, making its budget back in the opening weekend alone and making those very same aforementioned later sequels possible. With that, let's get to it. I'll be the first person to admit that most horror movies that bring back characters from earlier installments are asking for trouble. The Nightmare on Elm Street series managed to pull it off with Kristen Parker and Alice Johnson, but others...not so much. Andy Barclay, the little kid whose body Chucky was trying to possess in the first film, is back here as your star character. He's still played by Alex Vincent, and the kid still does an admirable enough acting job. This time around, he's in foster care, his mother having been taken away from him due to her lack of deductive reasoning skills in not going against her kid's story that the doll that killed babysitters, teachers and other assorted characters was alive. Quick word of advice to all mothers who find themselves in this situation: lie. You'll be doing yourself a favor. Before the end of the first act, we meet Andy's new foster parents, played by Gerrit Graham and Jenny Agutter (she of many tasty nude scenes back in the day - Google it, kids). Also present in his new home is Kyle (Christine Elise of 90210 relative fame), requisite "bad girl" teenage character who serves as your veritable final girl in this entry. The character isn't exactly a classic, but Elise does anything but phone it in, managing to make the semi-big-sisterly bond that she forms with Andy semi-believable. Three hyphens in one sentence. I'm really starting to suck. ANYWAY...the fine folks at the Good Guys toy company have taken a big hit due to all the bad publicity that Andy's possessed doll story gave them. In a plot that screams "great idea" to anyone who happened to be in this board room, they decide to reconstruct the burnt-up doll to prove that the story was untrue, and it isn't long until Chucky is back, once again voiced by Brad Dourif and headed for Andy's home in an effort to claim his soul. A few words on the C-man in this flick: my review of the first film had a long bitching paragraph about just how cheesy the doll looked whenever it was moving around in that film, but that problem has been more than rectified here. He might be shown a lot in close-up, but the animatronics had come along nicely by this point. Combined with what is nothing short of a HUGE by time period and horror movie standards $13 million budget and we've got a pretty cool Chucky. The "rule" of the series, as it goes, is that Chucky has to claim the soul of whoever was the first to learn his true identity, meaning that Andy is still his prime target. The parents have bought Andy a brand-new Chucky doll in the process, but the REAL Chucky (confused yet) promptly buries it when he reaches their household and swaps himself out. What follows is a second act consisting of some pretty damn suspenseful stuff as Andy barely averts certain disaster and having no penis in doll form for the remainder of his life, combined with a couple of classic death scenes. My favorite is the bit involving Andy's teacher and the ruler, although it IS a little unclear just how Chucky manages to get around everyone's neighborhoods so easily. Maybe the dude is just really, really good at speed-walking. As the film goes on, eventually we get down to Andy and Kyle. As opposed to the first film, this one has done a much better job making its climactic scenes seem like a big deal. The budget doesn't disappoint, either, giving us a finale in the Good Guys toy factory itself that drives firmly into silly territory at times but manages to stay suspenseful. That, and it might have one of the longest "NOOOOOOOO"-s in cinematic history at the moment Chucky realizes that it's too late to escape his doll form. No closing words for this flick are needed. Everything spelled out above should make it pretty clear what to expect from Child's Play 2, and it's a pretty damn fun time in front of the TV. If you're up for a taste of the ol' Chucky series before it went full-on spoof, look no further. *** 1/2 out of ****. Recommended, brutha.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Dec 16, 2014 11:12:29 GMT -5
New blog review for an oft-mentioned but never-reviewed spectacularly bad horror flick. 1985 Directed by Bill Leslie and Terry Lofton Starring Ron Queen, Beau Leland, Michelle Meyer and Rocky Patterson I've mentioned this flick a few times in passing here on the blog, but never launched into the full-fledged review for one simple purpose. No amount of typing can possibly do this movie justice. You might have seen some bad movies before, but almost nothing that I've seen before or since has managed to achieve the sheer levels of ineptitude that Nail Gun Massacre aspires to be. For that reason only, this is a movie that everyone should see before they die. Watching this movie today actually makes me a little sad, because they don't make movies like this anymore. Most modern horror films tend to shoot for "passable at best, mind-numbingly boring at worst" as a benchmark, and that's a damn shame, because movies along the order of Nail Gun Massacre are infinitely fun to watch. We don't get train wrecks of this caliber hitting the Netflix queue, and I doubt we'll ever get anything remotely like it again. And no folks, I don't count the SyFy original pictures and their ilk, because those things are so soul-free that they might qualify as some sort of nightmarish bizarro-James Brown clone. Horrible metaphor alert, launch. All I've got to say is that if you're a fan of literal titles, this is the movie for you. It delivers the goods when it comes to nail guns and then some. The movie starts with a dingily-shot gang rape scene at a construction site and never looks back, promptly launching into a series of murder scenes involving the various perpetrators of said crime. People, for years, I never dreamed that it was possible for a movie to have more disposable stock characters than Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, but this has it beat by a long shot. Even more amazingly, it came out the SAME YEAR. Freaky. Our star character, if you want to call him that, is the local doctor (Patterson), who along with the Sheriff (Queen) put together a very Keystone Cops-esque effort to stop the murderer. No, you will not remember the faces or names of anybody that eats the nails in this movie, but it doesn't matter. Because the beauty of Nail Gun Massacre lies in the things they do. For starters, there's plenty of female nudity to be had. Unfortunately, it's also accompanied by plenty of male nudity, usually with large, hairy-backed men who look like they would likely own any prison that they ventured into. And then there is the star character himself...the killer. The various murder segments that make up the film all star this dude, a leather-jacket-wearing psycho wearing a motorcycle helmet and utilizing a voice that sounds like a cross between Cookie Monster and the Black Scorpion. Every time he's onscreen, it prompts nothing short of hilarity that make a group viewing of the film nothing short of Eddie Murphy early years spectacular. Combined with the finest score that a ten dollar Casio keyboard could grant and we're talking Richard Pryor quality. What else is there to know? Not much. This really is just your standard revenge movie with a heavy slathering of slasher. The identity of the killer isn't even really that much a mystery; once we know the background of the woman who was raped in the prologue, tracing the breadcrumbs together is fairly straightforward. It all just kind of comes together in the third act after the movie gives us essentially 70 minutes of "introduce characters and then promptly kill them off, likely just after doing something annoying" followed by the exposition and the big mystery reveal. And...that's all folks. There's no depth, no scares, and no real joy to be had in Nail Gun Massacre. But then again, why would you expect it? I suppose I should wrap this review up into a nice little bow. I've said in the past that people watch horror movies for different reasons. Generally, I watch them because I enjoy being scared. This one won't scare you in the least bit, nor will its characters compel you to follow their story. If you get the impression that this movie is bad from this review, I've done my job, because this is some bad movie. Still, you can't appreciate just HOW bad until you take it in, its gamut of bad qualities running a gauntlet so long and tough that it somehow becomes watchable as a test of endurance and a test of just how loud you can laugh in the company of others. 1/2 * out of ****. This is an EXCELLENT movie for some MST3K-style riffing, but by yourself...yikes. Stay away. Stay FAR away.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Dec 23, 2014 10:51:34 GMT -5
New blog review, and it's a dandy. 1990 Directed by John Harrison Starring Deborah Harry, Christian Slater, David Johansen, William Hickey, James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong I was a late bloomer to the charms of Tales from the Darkside, the 1980s TV series that spawned the movie in question today. Most of my childhood was taken up with the Crypt Keeper and the Midnight Society, and trying to get the few classmates unlucky enough to share a room with me that gathering in the middle of the goddamn forest and telling scary stories wasn't a losery thing to do on Saturday night. When I found it later in life, though, I made up for some lost time. Rest assurred, it's an awesome series, and this flick that serves as the de facto climax of it is a pretty damn good movie. While it was a modest success in theaters, this is definitely one of those movies that qualifies as a cult classic. It has small pockets of fans, an those pockets run very deep. So deep. So deep, it could put her butt to sleep, but Ice Cube is putting it better than I ever could. It's also got one of the more ingenious framing devices of any anthology film I've seen, with a young kid played by Matthew Lawrence (yes, folks, the brother of Joey "Whoa" Lawrence) reading three stories to a witch who is about to eat him, Hansel and Gretel style. Remember, kids, if you're ever captured by a cannibal, reading stories is the ultimate weapon. It worked for Shawn Hunter's older brother and it can work for you. With that, let's get to the stories. First up is "Lot 249," an adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle short story of the same name. This segment has some cast, with Steve Buscemi playing a vengeful graduate student who utilizes a mummy to exact revenge on two other students (Julianne Moore and Robert Sedgwick) who framed him out of a scholarship. The scares are few and far between in this segment, but the beauty of it is in the acting, with the name actors (plus Christian Slater in full Jack Nicholson mode as Moore's older brother) giving everything they've got to the proceedings and adding plenty of emotion to the admittedly pretty out there story. It's also got one hell of an ending twist that is right up there with anything we would get on Tales From the Crypt, and that's never a bad thing. Next up is "Cat From Hell," based on the story from Stephen King's collection Skeleton Crew. Much like pretty much everything King wrote before...oh, 1991 or so, the whole story is filled with this amazing sense of foreboding. The story concerns a rich pharmaceutical magnate (William Hickey) who hires a hit man (David Johansen) to kill a black cat that he believes to be evil incarnate. The background of the hit is explained, and it is the stuff that campfire scary stories are made of with just the slightest bit of a modern touch. And folks, if you thought the last segment had a good ending twist, wait until you see how this one kicks you in the nuts in the final third. Both Hickey and Johansen are aces in their roles, and the material doesn't disappoint. A home run of a segment for sure. Finally, we've got "Lover's Vow," a story that felt very familiar as I had already seen the classic J-horror epic Kwaidan. Lo and behold, the story is indeed based on the story of the Japanese yuki-onna ghost. Instead of a spirit in the woods, it's once again back to the mean city streets, as down-on-his-luck artist Preston (James Remar) witnesses a hideous helldemon committing a brutal murder. The monster agrees to let him live, just so long as he never speaks a word of what he saw to anyone. And I think you know where this is going. The segment may be predictable, but it doesn't matter, because this segment is all about the emotion. Once again, the actors are more than game, with both Remar and Rae Dawn Chong owning it as a seemingly happy couple before a telegraphed-yet-effective final twist. There were some talented people associated with this flick (Doyle, King and George Romero, who wrote the screenplay for the "Cat From Hell" segment), and it shows. This is the kind of horror movie that we almost never get these days, one where the love of dark stuff, spectral boogeymen and all things paranormal is celebrated with no hint of cynicism. All the stuffy trappings aside, this is just a really, really fun movie that every horror fan should seek out at some point in their life. *** 1/2 out of ****. The first segment might be a bit below the others, but the sum total of Tales From the Darkside can't be ignored. Check it out.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Dec 30, 2014 11:39:30 GMT -5
New blog review - I'll be surprised if anyone has seen this one, regardless of the main dude. 2002 Directed by Jim Gillespie Starring Sylvester Stallone, Tom Berenger, Charles S. Dutton, Robert Patrick, Polly Walker, Jeffrey Wright and Kris Kristofferson Folks, the flick we're looking at today has to be nothing short of one of the most infamous flops in horror history. Boasting an absolutely mammoth budget of $55 million and the star power listed above, D-Tox (perhaps better known by its video title Eye See You) qualified as a finished product that the studio quite simply had no idea what to do with or how to market, making it sit on the shelf for three years after completion before finally turning it loose on video shelves. There, it died a quick death, and the only evidence that I have that anyone has ever seen the film is the one wintry night back in 2002 when myself and a couple friends spent 90 minutes chuckling at the TV screen. I'm not quite the research nut that I used to be with movies of this nature, but this is what I can gleam. Stallone was in that VERY rough period of his career in 1999, long before the irrefutably awesome Rocky Balboa would resurrect his career and when he struggled to get his movies screened theatrically. This script must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Horror was still relatively hot in the wake of Scream, and Jim Gillespie, the director here, also did the duties for I Know What You Did Last Summer. Big problems: all of the main characters were dudes and decidedly old, a clear lack of gratuitous nudity (which, given the aforementioned factoid, is a big plus), and a plot that qualifies as cliched and hackneyed to even the most seasoned slasher movie fan quickly ensure that Universal pictures saw the whole project as a big wash. With that, the movie. Stallone plays FBI agent Jake Malloy, a guy who has been tracking a serial killer who targets law enforcement officials. The dude's method of operation is actually pretty cool, as he prefers to ring a doorbell, wait for his quarry to look through the peephole, and insert a drill through said peephole. The killer has a grudge against Jake, as he informs the officer via the ever-popular late-'90s taunting phone call plot device that the agent pursued him several years back for some prostitute deaths, and he is out for revenge. This results in the movie's first real money scene, as the killer does a lobotomy job on Jake's girlfriend Mary (the certifiably hot Dina Meyer). Jake chases the killer down, finding him dead from an apparent suicide and setting us up for the rest of the movie. The movie gets its title from the setting for the remainder of the movie. Jake descends into alcoholism after these incidents and promptly tries suicide (preferably right after listening to Titanica's "Try Suicide"), making his supervising officer Chuck Hendricks (Charles S. Dutton) send him away to a rehab center specifically for law enforcement officials. It's a nice little stronghold out in the wilderness, surrounded by snow and trees as far as the eye can see, and populated by what is admittedly a pretty damn good group of actors playing Jake's fellow rehabilitators. Check that list above for proof. They're actually all given fairly fleshed out backgrounds as well, with Robert Patrick's character standing out amongst them as one of the better red herring suspects. Red herring, you ask? Well, it isn't long before a snowstorm hits and bodies begin piling up. Having just watched the movie again after more than a decade of forgetting its existence, I'm having trouble remembering any of them. They aren't very creative deaths. There also isn't much emotional weight going on here, because while the flick did do a decent job establishing character traits for all of its actors it was nowhere near as admirable when it came to making the characters sympathetic. Jake actually is sympathetic, and Stallone did not appear to be mailing it in. Not having a box office hit in many years will do that to you. But the setup to D-Tox is just a lot more interesting than its payoff. I will give the movie this - it has take on the "take group of characters and isolate them" slasher movie trope that, while not unique in the least bit, at least FEELS new with all of the characters being tough guy cops. The movie's big budget also shows, as Gillespie shoots the movie with plenty of love and affection that $55 million can easily afford you. But emotional bearing is a big deal with me, and that's where the movie is sorely lacking. Coupled with the fact that it just feels as cookie-cutter as all get out for the vast majority of its second and third acts and we're talking criminal boredom. Although it does have a scene at the end where Sylvester Stallone gorilla press slams the villain onto spikes, so +5 points to the movie there. ** out of ****. It has moments, but moments are just about it. Good early-afternoon falling asleep fodder and little else.
|
|
|
Post by 'Foretold' Joker on Dec 30, 2014 18:58:57 GMT -5
Stallone was in a horror movie? That isn't the tenuously horror film Death Race 2000, blimey!?
|
|
|
Post by mysterydriver on Dec 30, 2014 21:22:10 GMT -5
When I saw D-Tox, it was titled "Eye See You."
Felt bummed that it tipped the hand on the killer with a brief shot during the beginning that helps you write off like half the suspects.
It's such an interesting and fantastic cast that I actually remember liking the film a lot. Maybe I should give it another look and see if it still holds up to me.
|
|
|
Post by DSR on Dec 30, 2014 21:54:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I've heard of the film as Eye See You.
|
|
|
Post by DSR on Jan 3, 2015 0:59:03 GMT -5
Earlier tonight, I was lucky to catch the John Carpenter classic THEY LIVE at a local movie theater! Prior to that, though, was a screening of SHOCK VALUE: THE MOVIE. SH:TM is an anthology of student films that Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon (of ALIEN fame), and others created while they were students at USC. The films vary in quality and mood, but the important thing is seeing the metaphorical snowball roll down the hill that would become an avalanche of creativity in horror throughout the 70s and 80s.
Check your local arthouse theaters' listings. If this comes to your area, I strongly suggest you guys check it out.
|
|
|
Post by Kash Flagg on Jan 4, 2015 22:44:03 GMT -5
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 5, 2015 22:16:38 GMT -5
Slightly earlier than normal, got a brand-new blog review. 1987 Directed by Michael Gornick Starring Lois Chiles, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour and Tom Savini For some mysterious reason, I never got around to watching Creepshow 2 until my college years. The original flick is one of the most downright fun horror movies you'll ever see; all five stories in it are somewhat lesser degrees of each other, but the sum total is fantastic. Coupled with enough genuinely WTF moments to have you and your friends giving it some good-natured chiding (Ed Harris' dance FTW) and we're talking one of the all-time great party movies, brought to you by your friends Stephen King and George Romero. Upon seeing the sequel for the first time, I actually liked it BETTER than the original. After some repeat viewings, my rose-colored glasses/nostaligia for my college days have been tempered somewhat, because there are portions of this flick that qualify as downright dopey. Fortunately, those portions are a little few and far between, peppered in between some pretty good atmospheric stuff. Well, except for the first story. That one is pretty dopey all around. With that, let's get to the movie. Much like the original, this movie is anthology to the core; three tales of terror, all held together with a wraparound story involving a kid reading a comic book that the stories come from. Just like the original, we've also got Stephen King as the inspiration, with Romero (who directed the original) penning the screenplay. If nothing else, I've got to hand it to this movie as far as the sequence goes, because they lead off with what is undoubtedly one of the more tedious segments in any anthology movie I've seen in "Old Chief Wood'nhead." In it, we have George Kennedy as the proprietor of a general goods store in some nondescript Southwestern town that finds itself under siege from the local group of street hooligans, led by a man with the most luxurious mane of rock and roll hair I've ever seen. And folks, this section of the story REALLY drags; we get a long, not terribly tense series of events with Kennedy and his wife dealing with the thieves followed by the murder of Kennedy. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the store's resident cigar store statue has recently received a visit from a mystic Shaman, and I think you know where we're going from here. Anyway, this segment isn't particularly scary or memorable, and you're much better off skipping ahead. When I was in junior high, "The Raft" was one of my favorite Stephen King short stories, and the film version that follows in Creepshow 2 is only slightly less awesome. The story this time concerns four college students who decide to go swimming in a lake that is far, far away from civilization. Great idea alert. Upon reaching the titular raft in the middle of the lake, they see a mysterious oil slick floating toward them. It seems harmless enough...until it absorbs one of them in its gooey mass, never to be seen again. This segment is everything that "Old Chief Wood'nhead" isn't, in that it ramps up the tension halfway through and never looks back, boasting this palpable sense of claustrophobia and entrapment at its core. It's also got some very nice titshots and one of hell of an ending twist an added bonus, so sports fans of the world take note. The third segment isn't quite as strong. Entitled "The Hitch-Hiker," it's about - you guessed it - Frank Stallone. Nope, it's about a ghostly hitch-hiker, more specifically one who tails adulterous wife Annie Lansing (Chiles in a decent amoral protagonist performance) after being run off the road in a hit and run accident by Annie. To be sure, this segment is a little predictable and repetitive, but it's also got a lot going for it in the atmosphere, the ungodly creepy look of the reappearing hitch-hiker itself, and a pretty fun little cameo from King in the process. It's also got a line of dialogue that might just stick in your head long after the film's running time, but that's a different story altogether. And...that' all folks, from there, we hit another segment of the wraparound story as Comic Kid's bullies get one hell of a comeuppance followed by the ending credits. Longtime readers (and savvy horror fans) undoubtedly know that the original Creepshow contained five stories, while this one takes the "lean and mean" approach of three stories. It turns out that the length cut was due to budgetary reasons, and I've got to believe that the powers-that-be were kicking themselves after this flick turned out to be a modest hit with a $14 million box office take from a mere $3.5 million investment. Come on, guys. Throw another $5 million at your movie and shoot for the moon. One of the planned stories, "Cat From Hell," would eventually be filmed for Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, so not all was lost. Still...man. Just, man. Creepshow 2 is nowhere near the classic that it's original film is. Very few movies can top that one, both for atmosphere and for impact. Indeed, "Old Chief Wood'nhead" had this one limping out of the gate from the get go while the first film had us all wanting our damn cake already, but the movie manages to regain its footing pretty well in the latter chapters. In addition, it's also the only movie that I've seen that contains the moral lesson to not fondle a hotty coed's tits when attempting to evade a murderous oil slick in the middle of a lake. *** out of ****. Skip the first story and you should be alright from there; otherwise, stick to Creepshow 1.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 14, 2015 10:02:06 GMT -5
New blog review is up, a day later than usual. 2002 Directed by Steve Beck Starring Gabirle Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington and Isaiah Washington By and large, horror movies know how to get your attention, but I still have yet to see any horror flick that tops the opening that Ghost Ship has. It's one of those things that just has to be seen to be believed, and it goes deeper than just a kill scene. It's just AWESOME, and I'll never forget seeing it in theaters with more than a few audible "holy shit" comments from the other people in that dark room. Unfortunately, there's little else in the movie that warrants quite the visceral reaction that the opening scene does, although I do consider myself amongst the grassroots cult fandom that the film has garnered in the decade-plus since its release date. For starters, it's got an acting crew that seems to actively give a damn about it, something that can't be overstated when it comes to movies of this nature. It's also stylishly shot and has a twist leading into the "final girl" sequence (yup, take a guess as to who survives out of that actor list above) that admittedly caught me pretty off guard. In between, it can get pretty dopey, but we horror fans take what we can get. Our main characters for this go-round of 2002 horror are a boat salvage crew, with the two principals of this bunch being Captain Murphy (Burne) and Maureen Epps (Margulies). Most of the others pretty much immediately scream "cannon fodder" from the time we meet them, although it's always nice to see Isaiah Washington in supporting roles. Suffice to say, I'm a big fan. They're actually a pretty likable bunch, with Margulies in particular really shining as a tough-yet-relatable seafarer. Or maybe I've just got a thing for women in thick coats. Anyway, within the first 15 minutes, we get our exposition that sets the plot in motion as weather service pilot Ferriman (Harrington) gives them a tip about a ship that he saw adrift at sea. Eager to stake their claim and make a quick buck, the crew heads out to the Bering Sea. The name of the ship is the Antonia Graza, which (surprise) is the same ship that we saw in the aforementioned amazing prologue, set some 40 years before the events of this film. The crew quickly find that the ship contains a large amount of gold, but it's pretty safe to ascertain that nobody on board is going to be making this particular claim. The set designers do a really good job making the atmosphere of the Graza seem dark and forboding, making it all the more effective when their salvage ship (derp) explodes, leaving them stranded aboard the GHOST SHIP (ta-dum). This is the section of the movie that drags, which is amazing enough, considering that this is what the producers of the movie considered the "slasher movie" phase of the proceedings. The characters get picked off one by one due to various nefarious spiritual means. None of them are particularly creative deaths, and a large portion of this segment of the movie consists of milling around peppered in between occasional conversations that serve as red herrings to who the actual perpetrator of all this madness is. Fortunately, there's also an unexpected ace in the hole in the form of Katie, played by Emily Browning in one of her first movie roles and the ship's resident "friendly" ghost who clues Margulies in to the murderous past of the Graza just before the action-packed third act begins. Surprise, surprise, it's actually pretty tense stuff, even though it does have one of those eyeroll-inducing twist endings that I'm sick of to the point of delirium. With that, it's judgment time. According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, the early drafts of this script were much more psychological as opposed to the out-and-out body count fest that this movie became. Even with that knowledge, I think Ghost Ship is an okay little film, despite that near-suicidal 30-minute stretch in the middle. It's got good performances all-around, some likable characters, and one of the most downright "oh shit" scenes in horror history in the first five minutes. That should be about enough for a recommendation. *** out of ****. Nothing groundbreaking, but it's worth checking out. Give it a shot.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 20, 2015 10:22:52 GMT -5
New blog review, for a not-so-favorite movie from one of my favorite directors. This was my fourth viewing of the flick, and...it still kinda sucks. REINCARNATION 2005 Directed by Takashi Shimizu Starring Yuka, Karina Nose, Marika Matsumoto, Keppei Shiina and Shun Oguri Longtime readers of the blog are well-aware of my hard-on for the Ju-On/Grudge series and my reverence for its creator, Takashi Shimizu. Sparing everyone the excruciating details, I find the original Japanese cycle of films (weird-ass Ju-On: Curse 2 notwithstanding) to be the single finest horror franchise of the 21st century. Saw can eat a dick, these movies know how to bob-and-weave between multiple storylines - sometimes within multiple films - and keep your eyeballs surgically implanted to the screen the entire time. All the while, everything just makes perfect sense, and every new twist and wrinkle added to the formula just feels totally right, all ending with evil lil' girl Kayako ready to wreak some vengeance at the end of Ju-On: Grudge 2. I still go to sleep pissed every day that we haven't gotten the follow-up film to that. Not long after checking out that series, I sought some of Shimizu's other films. One of them, Marebito, is one of the single best mindf***s I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the only other Shimizu flick in my library is the one we're looking at today, and boy, is it an exercise in tepidity. Reincarnation (known as Rinne in Japan) was one of six movies released by producer Taka Ichise as "J-horror theater," and a year after that was one of the "8 films to Die For" in the inaugural After Dark HorrorFest. Is that still a thing, by the way? I don't even know. I can only assume that it got this attention due to the past successes of Shimizu, because the flick certainly isn't that impressive. With that background info out of the way, let's get moving. The movie is essentially one of those "multiple timeline" films that always confuse the holy hell out of me, particularly when I'm dealing with a foreign language. It opens with what is admittedly a pretty messed up scene as college professor Norihasa Omori goes on a rampage, killing 11 hotel guests, his own children, and finally himself - all while he films the entire thing. It's not quite up there with last week's Ghost Ship massacre, but it's a a pretty nifty way to start a horror film and really grabs your attention. Unfortunately, it' all downhill from here. Taking a cue from Ju-On: Grudge 2, Shimizu's plot device is that of a film being shot about the requisite horror movie "past evil" crime. Keppei Shiina does a decent job as Matsumura, a horror movie director who wants to make a film about the massacre. In one of the many sterling examples of many genius ideas in the realm of horror, he wants to film said movie in the very same hotel where the murders occurred 35 years earlier. His key hire for the movie is actress Nagisa Sugiura (Yuka), and it is with this character that we spent the vast majority of the remaining running time. With so much camera time, Yuka ranks somewhere between Kimberly Beck and Melanie Kinnaman on the likability scale, but unfortunately doesn't have a whole ot of depth beyond what little the movie gives her in the way of development. She is starring in the movie-within-a-movie as the Professor's doomed daughter, and a good portion of the first third of this movie revolves around the excruciating details of making a movie. We even get a good cameo from Takako Fuji as a hotel maid, something that made me mark the hell out, but all in all it's pretty slow-moving in the early goings. So where are we going? Well, Sugiura starts having nightmares, visions, and hallucinations about the past massacre, eventually believing herself to be the reincarnation of the character that she is playing. This is interspersed with a "B" story of sorts involving a college student (Karina Nose) and actress Yuka (confusing, I know, but this one is played by Marika Matsumoto), who auditioned for Sugiura's role at the beginning of the film. Yuka has her own remembrances of a past life, and these two characters go about trying to piece together just what in the hell is going on. Watching this movie after several years of it laying dormant on my shelf, I couldn't help but think that the movie had been a LOT better if these two characters had been the focus and scrapping the entire "film within a film" aspect, with Nose's papers supporting the theories of reincarnation and Matsumoto's character showing some psychic prowess being the things that drive the movie forward after both characters spend a night in the hotel and experience some weird, wild stuff (second /Johnny Carson joke in as many months). Don't say that I don't offer constructive criticism. This was my favorite aspect of the film, and I definitely could have done with more of it. Eventually, Reincarnation reaches a crescendo that shoots for the sort of wild, unpredictable finishes that the Grudge movies are known for. But everything has been thoroughly telegraphed up to that point, and it just falls incredibly flat. This is where the lack of emotional attachment to any of the main characters really shows; in Ju-On, we got to know Rika like our own sister, and her fate at the end of the film hits you in the gut like nothing else. My response at the end of this flick? "Eh, so that happened." So it is with Reincarnation, a movie that I have now watched on three separate occasions to see if there is an appeal to it that I'm missing. Alas, there isn't. Having said that, there are three more recent films by Shimizu that I will have to check out and review soon. Hopefully, the guy has found his groove back since this one, and this slow, slow, oh-so-slow burn that doesn't burn was just a hiccup instead of a new trend. * 1/2 out of ****. Not especially scary, interesting, or fascinating. Avoid.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 27, 2015 12:07:53 GMT -5
K-horror at its very finest in this week's new blog review. Have I ever mentioned that I'm a big fan of Asian horror? Here's yet more gushing. WHISPERING CORRIDORS 1998 Directed by Park Ki-hyeong Starring (get ready) Choi Se-yeon, Kim Gyu-ri, Lee Mi-yeon, Park Yong-soo and Kim Yu-seok I've been putting off this review for a while. Not because I dislike the movie or anything; Whispering Corridors, while it has its faults, is one of those horror films that anyone should see sometime in their life just for the sheer level of patience and atmosphere that it employs. But the story of this flick is not one that lends itself to an entertaining review. Since my success rate at those has been hovering somewhere around the 22nd percentile these days...what the f***, I'll go for it. Stripped down to its bare essentials, this movie is about a group of students at an all-girls' school in South Korea dealing with a haunting. It shares this theme with its many thematic "sequels" (and there are four of 'em), all of which explore this theme in a very different way with a new director and group of characters. From what I can gleam at the ever-accurate Wikipedia, this was actually quite the important movie in South Korea as one of the first films released after the military dictatorship subsided. Hence, the harshly authoritarian tone of the school's teachers, which, if I was moderately intelligent, would be meant to represent the harshness of the formerly controlling government or something. But you don't pay me for those details. Let's get to the show. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got another movie in the "get the hell going" category here, with a murder scene gracing our presence within the first five minutes. The victim? An old bat teacher at the Jookran High School for Girls, who we see get attacked by an unseen force before being found hanging in the schoolyard. Creepy stuff, and it gets the ball rolling very well. Our ACTUAL star characters are two of the young students, and the contrast between them makes for quite the interesting plot device. Folks, without exaggeration, Choi Se-yeon deserved award consideration for her performance in this film; I can't say I'm familiar with her filmography or anything, but her portrayal of the movie's "timid outsider" character is just simply top notch. Kim Gyu-ri isn't far behind, with her character being a talented painter whose creations gradually take on a more macabre tone as the weird incidents begin to pile up. Really, though, just about everyone in this movie is top notch. For most of the movie, we watch this class as they deal with their dictator-like teacher (Park Yong-soo). For anyone out there who thought that an authority figure couldn't be more hardcore than R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, think again. Yeah, this dude chews scenery every time he's onscreen, but it's damn necessary, entertaining, and at times downright riveting stuff. At the end of it all, this IS a horror film, but there isn't much in the way of death or blood or goblins. It's more all about the mood, the sheer oppressiveness that the director creates with the claustrophobia of the school and the rumors and gossip that the students partake in. Hence the title. Deep stuff, I know. One more note for those considering whether or not to check this movie out for the first time. I know I've talked a lot about pace in past reviews, but it's doubly important here, because everything here builds up ULTRA-SLOW. There are long passages in the movie that casual viewers of Asian horror will think are leading to absolutely nowhere, and the first time I watched this flick, I spent the first 45 minutes desperately trying to think of something else to do. Take my word for it - all of that build actually does lead somewhere, and the final 20 minutes or so of Whispering Corridors qualify as electric stuff. Suffice to say, this is the height of what is affectionately referred to as the "Ghost School Trilogy" (of five films - don't ask). Oh, you want a rating? *** 1/2 out of ****. It dodges the perfect rating just because the middle section goes on a BIT too long, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a horror flick from the past 20 years or so with a better atmosphere than this.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 3, 2015 9:28:21 GMT -5
Enjoy! 1966 Directed by Harold P. Warren Starring Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree, Jackie Neyman, Tom Neyman and John Reynolds Mark this flick down in the "movies everyone needs to see before they die" list. Seriously. Manos is just so oddball, so unbelievably out-there and downright incomprehensible at times that it simply must be seen to be believed. The fact that it contains a half-man/half-goat with the most hauntingly soothing musical score accompanying his scenes also doesn't hurt in the least bit. Combined with a good two dozen moments and/or scenes that truly qualify as some of the best "WTF" stuff in cinematic history and you've got a real winner, actual quality of the film or not be damned. This movie has a long, bloody history that I'll try to give the short, short version of. It was financed, directed, produced, written by and STARRED Hal Warren, El Paso fertilizer salesman who made a bet with a friend that he could make a horror film ultra-cheap and ultra-easy. How easy? He started outlining the script on the napkin at the restaurant where the bet was made. Hiring actors from local theater groups and a modeling agency, he hammered out a script involving a family being trapped by a polygamous, quasi-Satanic cult in the middle of the desert, rented his film equipment, and shot this movie. The complete story is much longer, involving the years that the finished film sat obscure and undiscovered before Mystery Science Theater 3000 came along and made it a cult phenomenon, but I think you get the gist. By this point, this IS a cult film, with a somewhat ironic but also very real fandom despite its badness. So, what exactly happens in this movie with such an interesting history? Manos: The Hands of Fate is the very definition of "less is more." It's 74 minutes long, it has no opening title sequence, and its music is of the very piano-y mood-filled variety. Put very simply, it's the story of a family that takes a very wrong turn and finds something bad on the other side, only you've never seen any other movie that depicts the trope quite like this. Character-wise, we're given Warren himself as Michael, the father, with Dianne Mahree and Jackie Neyman as his wife Margaret and young daughter Debbie, respectively. Their acting skills, as can be expected, are quite suspect, with Mahree in particular coming across like Wendy Torrance -7000, but I digress. In search of a seemingly mythical "valley lodge," their wrong turn takes them to a creepy old farmhouse on the outskirts of anywhere lorded over by a strange-looking man named Torgo. Let me tell you guys a little bit about Torgo. Played by John Reynolds, he's essentially supposed to be a satyr, as clearly evidenced by his herky-jerky walking style complete with horn-infused "creepy music." His speech pattern is also all over the place. Say what you want about Reynolds, but you can't say that he didn't dive into this role 1000%. As such, I've instantly got more respect for him than I do, say, Rooney Mara. A LARGE portion of the middle of Manos is given to Torgo, as it first simply seems that the guy is smitten with Margaret. We also see a strange, Night Gallery-esque painting of a moustached man with a demonic dog that Torgo helpfully informs both Michael and the audience is "the Master," the man who ACTUALLY takes care of the house. After a creepy incident wherein Torgo attempts to seduce Margaret and tell her that the Master intends to make her another one of his wives, we are taken to the back of the house, where there are a bunch of women tied to wooden poles. Folks, I am not making this up. These would be those very eponymous "brides," as the Master - whoever the hell he is - is revealed to be a Pagan polygamist preacher. Whoa, alliteration alert. This is the beginning of a long night of decided non-horror as the Master eventually comes to life, and he is none too pleased with Torgo attempting to steal his newest wife. This is a horror movie, but there isn't much in the way of horror. The body count is essentially non-existant. What Warren was trying to do with this movie was disturb audiences, and at that...I think he actually succeeds. It succeeds despite ANYTHING that the intellectual part of your mind can think about, but I defy anyone to watch this flick and not feel the slightest bit skeeved at the idea of a Satanic dude living in the middle of nowhere harvesting wives and (potentially) living forever. And one who has the ability to turn people into shriveling, burning husks with the use of his magical burning hand/wand. He can also hypnotize people, a plot device that becomes very important in the epic finale. Slight spoiler alert. Tom Neyman, the guy playing the Master, also dives completely into his role. He's like a silent film villain cranked up to a thousand, granting the movie tons of unintended comedy with his Freddie Mercury moustache and admittedly ridiculous Pagan get-up consisting of a black robe with red "hands" painted on. Oh, and he's got a fantastic evil laugh. What else is there? Well, there is a bit of drama involved with the Master's wives, who argue about what to do with the recently captured females. One of them suggests that the young Debbie (who is MAYBE eight years old in this film) will eventually grow into a woman and be one of the new wives. One of the final images in the film shows this very thing, cranking the skeeviness factor up even further. Tension-wise, what we've got from here on out is a game of stalling, and that's where a majority of just how crappy this movie is comes from, as the stakes of the movie are spelled out fairly early on - will Michael allow his wife and daughter to be possessions of the Master - and there's virtually nothing in the way of chases or good jump scenes from that point forward. A roller coaster, this movie is not. Still, I CAN'T call Manos a total failure. This movie is frequently listed by a lot of internet geniuses as being one of the worst movies ever made, and I don't think it's even CLOSE to hitting that. I've seen Nail Gun Massacre, people, and that has this beat by a long shot. Is it good? Definitely not. Its gamut of bad qualities, from bad editing gaffes to bad acting to a very questionable scripting structure ensure to that. But it actually does hit on its aforementioned intended purposes to disturb, mainly with a combination of its grainy theater-print look and its soul-destroying piano score. I'll take a movie like this, an ultra-cheap movie with a simple intended purpose, than...well, pretty much any modern blockbuster, that boast budgets 737 times as large but are so passion-free that it makes bile rise into my throat. Thus, while this movie IS pretty bad, it's essential viewing for that comparison alone. * 1/2 out of ****. If you're looking for a good horror movie that will scare and terrify you, don't look to this one. For a fun night on the couch with friends, few movies are better.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 10, 2015 9:29:34 GMT -5
New horror blog is up. 1994 Directed by Jeff Burr Starring Andrew Robinson Ami Dolenz, Soleil Moon Frye, Hill Harper and Linnea Quigley This is yet another one of those flicks that used to beckon me from the video store aisle. Just check out that video box art. Perusing my local mom & pop video store as a kid was practically a hobby, and the "new release horror" section was always my favorite. Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings. Hell, I didn't even know that there was a Pumpkinhead I at the time. A demon crawling out of the bottom of the box toward the viewer? Count me in, although I was sufficiently terrified at that time to not even consider giving this movie a rental. Flash-forward 10-odd years. I'd seen the original movie by that point when I saw the mythical flick with the crazy box art come up on the AMC (because apparently this movie was a "Classic" - remember when that channel was primarily about movies as opposed to TV shows that are just so enjoyable in watching dark antiheroes spiral downward to some kind of bittersweet comeuppance? Those were some good days). And...it kinda sucked. It wasn't TERRIBLE or anything, but just kind of there, and aside from the presence of scream queen Linnea Quigley, that's an opinion that hasn't changed much for me after watching my $2.22 DVD copy. Now, the first movie is pretty damn good, with a DEADLY serious tone to its subject matter and Lance Henriksen turning in a tour de force performance as a father who wants vengeance for his son's death and lives to regret it. That vengeance comes in the form of an indestructible monster that the local witch doctor is able to call upon. This time around, our 1958 prologue introduces us to the concept of a weird-looking orphan named Tommy that the eccentric Mrs. Osie is taking care of. A group of marauding teens happen across said orphan and begin chasing after him with whatever weapons are handy. Long story short, they are successful...and ladies and gentlemen, that is a prologue. Flash forward to the present day, where we meet our cast of teenage characters in the town of Ferren Woods. Our "stars," as they are, are Sean Braddock (Robinson) and his daughter Jenny (Dolenz), recent transplants to town after the former got offered the job of town Sheriff. A good deal of the preamble consists of Jenny making friends with the local trouble-making hooligans, and I'm guessing that this is the point that a lot of people decided to forget this movie existed the second they returned this video. Retro-chic wardrobes aside, none of them are particularly memorable or nuanced, with only Danny Dixon (J. Trevor Edmond) standing out as someone with a vague personality. As the first act spirals out of control, the teens head out into the woods, where they happen across the same witch seen in the opening scenes. There's a slightly convoluted series of events that leads to Danny stealing some vials of blood (don't ask) and accidentally-on-purpose resurrecting Tommy as the new Pumpkinhead. There's your setup. Commence series of deaths. That's pretty much your story, kids. Well, that's not entirely accurate, as there is a side plot involving Danny's father - the town's Judge who was one of the people who murdered Tommy all those years ago. Upon the resurrection, it's all of the people connected to the Judge who begin dying in slightly-better-than-boring ways, and Sean reinserts himself into the story by finding out some vital clues from Mrs. Osie about how to kill the Pumpkinhead. The third act actually does pick up a little bit, particularly after Judge Dixon gets offed and the monster starts going after Danny and his friends. Not quite enough to lull me out of the half-asleep state that I was in while watching the DVD, but it picks up nonetheless. Time to wrap up this dog and pony show. The original movie was something that grabbed my attention; Pumpkinhead II...well, it's just kinda there. Particularly the characters. Even Punky Brewster herself couldn't save this one, and that says something. In addition, Tommy/Pumpkinhead himself doesn't look particularly menacing. He's more laughable than anything else, and LOADS different from the Stan Winston-created masterpiece in the original. Pacing-wise, it's also very stilted, going from start-to-stop like WWE booking. With that, I'm all tapped out. * 1/2 out of ****. Vanilla to the core. Avoid.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2015 22:06:04 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by DSR on Feb 13, 2015 22:58:54 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by mysterydriver on Feb 14, 2015 2:39:18 GMT -5
New horror blog is up. 1994 Directed by Jeff Burr Starring Andrew Robinson Ami Dolenz, Soleil Moon Frye, Hill Harper and Linnea Quigley This is yet another one of those flicks that used to beckon me from the video store aisle. Just check out that video box art. Perusing my local mom & pop video store as a kid was practically a hobby, and the "new release horror" section was always my favorite. Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings. Hell, I didn't even know that there was a Pumpkinhead I at the time. A demon crawling out of the bottom of the box toward the viewer? Count me in, although I was sufficiently terrified at that time to not even consider giving this movie a rental. Flash-forward 10-odd years. I'd seen the original movie by that point when I saw the mythical flick with the crazy box art come up on the AMC (because apparently this movie was a "Classic" - remember when that channel was primarily about movies as opposed to TV shows that are just so enjoyable in watching dark antiheroes spiral downward to some kind of bittersweet comeuppance? Those were some good days). And...it kinda sucked. It wasn't TERRIBLE or anything, but just kind of there, and aside from the presence of scream queen Linnea Quigley, that's an opinion that hasn't changed much for me after watching my $2.22 DVD copy. Now, the first movie is pretty damn good, with a DEADLY serious tone to its subject matter and Lance Henriksen turning in a tour de force performance as a father who wants vengeance for his son's death and lives to regret it. That vengeance comes in the form of an indestructible monster that the local witch doctor is able to call upon. This time around, our 1958 prologue introduces us to the concept of a weird-looking orphan named Tommy that the eccentric Mrs. Osie is taking care of. A group of marauding teens happen across said orphan and begin chasing after him with whatever weapons are handy. Long story short, they are successful...and ladies and gentlemen, that is a prologue. Flash forward to the present day, where we meet our cast of teenage characters in the town of Ferren Woods. Our "stars," as they are, are Sean Braddock (Robinson) and his daughter Jenny (Dolenz), recent transplants to town after the former got offered the job of town Sheriff. A good deal of the preamble consists of Jenny making friends with the local trouble-making hooligans, and I'm guessing that this is the point that a lot of people decided to forget this movie existed the second they returned this video. Retro-chic wardrobes aside, none of them are particularly memorable or nuanced, with only Danny Dixon (J. Trevor Edmond) standing out as someone with a vague personality. As the first act spirals out of control, the teens head out into the woods, where they happen across the same witch seen in the opening scenes. There's a slightly convoluted series of events that leads to Danny stealing some vials of blood (don't ask) and accidentally-on-purpose resurrecting Tommy as the new Pumpkinhead. There's your setup. Commence series of deaths. That's pretty much your story, kids. Well, that's not entirely accurate, as there is a side plot involving Danny's father - the town's Judge who was one of the people who murdered Tommy all those years ago. Upon the resurrection, it's all of the people connected to the Judge who begin dying in slightly-better-than-boring ways, and Sean reinserts himself into the story by finding out some vital clues from Mrs. Osie about how to kill the Pumpkinhead. The third act actually does pick up a little bit, particularly after Judge Dixon gets offed and the monster starts going after Danny and his friends. Not quite enough to lull me out of the half-asleep state that I was in while watching the DVD, but it picks up nonetheless. Time to wrap up this dog and pony show. The original movie was something that grabbed my attention; Pumpkinhead II...well, it's just kinda there. Particularly the characters. Even Punky Brewster herself couldn't save this one, and that says something. In addition, Tommy/Pumpkinhead himself doesn't look particularly menacing. He's more laughable than anything else, and LOADS different from the Stan Winston-created masterpiece in the original. Pacing-wise, it's also very stilted, going from start-to-stop like WWE booking. With that, I'm all tapped out. * 1/2 out of ****. Vanilla to the core. Avoid. Going on five years ago, back when I tried to blog and other nonsense, I watched Pumpkinhead 2 and actually kind of liked it. The blog I did was "Mind to Mouth" which was essentially me taking notes and just pasting them into the blog. Very lazy. I probably would've done a tone of them if I hadn't forgot my password to it for like three years...but, that's rambling. What I'm replying about is this: There is a 20 minute documentary about the making of the film...and I found it daggone fascinating. The link to my whole recap is here: mind-to-mouth.blogspot.com/2010/05/pumpkinhead-ii-earning-your-blood-wings.htmlBut a few notes I still recall: ~ They only had 90 days total to make the film. Not just filming. Everything. Casting. Everything. Pre-Production. EVERYTHING. ~ President Bill Clinton told the producer of the film that he would watch the film in the Oval Office since his brother was in it. ~ The guy who gets killed by "chicken pecking" being exceptionally proud of his acting.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 16, 2015 9:53:32 GMT -5
A day earlier than advertised, it's a very special (like, Saved by the Bell levels of special) new blog entry. Anyone who is anyone knows about The Twilight Zone, the game-changing, sometimes mind-bending series created by Rod Serling that gave us enough twist endings to make M. Night Shyamalan cream in his pants. And not even the annoying kind - the GOOD kind. But the way I have it figured, every other internet nerd has already done some kind of TZ retrospective. No, sir, what we're looking at today is Rod Serling's OTHER TV series - Night Gallery, which began with the 1969 pilot movie of the same name before being spun off into its own series a year later. Now, I've already reviewed that movie (which gave one Mr. Steven Spielberg his big break in the entertainment business), and it's awesome. The series, as a whole, is almost equally awesome. They went for broke with the trippy, the bizarre, and the outright macabre, and more often than not hit that target. Now, to be sure, the series had its fair share of clunkers, particularly the season 2 "blackout" comedic segments that padded the length of a few episodes, and the majority of the Season 3 30-minute episodes that occurred after Serling lost creative control and more or less disowned the series. Still, the series definitely has some shows that qualify as must-see viewing. Thus, I present the five episodes of Night Gallery that everyone should buy/rent/search out on Youtube. Now that's a sterling recommendation. 1. "A Death in the Family" I've seen some disturbing horror movies and stories before, but "A Death in the Family" has got damn near all of them beat. The final two minutes or so of this yarn will stick with you long after those credits roll, and that's without a single drop of blood being spilled. For the vast majority of its running time we only have two performers - E.G. Marshall as a gentle undertaker and Desi Arnaz Jr. as a runaway criminal who finds himself taking refuge at said undertaker's funeral home. Only this...is no ordinary funeral home (/lightning crash). The twist in this episode isn't one of those things that hits you over the head - it is gradually revealed, and audiences can take an educated guess as to where it's headed roughly halfway through. But the final reveal still hits you in the guts like nothing else. Check this one out, kids. It's a winner. 2. "A Question of Fear" Now HERE'S the classic case of a story that floors you with an unbelievable twist. Leslie Nielsen stars as an Army Colonel who is afraid of nothing - even a haunted house that supposedly drives anyone who spends the night insane. After accepting a $15,000 bet, the Colonel heads out to the house, where a night full of eerie chills ensues, only for the story to take a RADICAL shift halfway through and become about something else entirely, and one of the characters involved in making the bet turns out to be something that we would never suspect. This story is a great example of having a message and not beating the audience over the head with it, something very much appreciated in Lick Ness Monster Land. 3. "Green Fingers" This is the episode that I remember most vividly from actually watching it live on my local retro station. Rod Serling wrote the script for this one, the story about a brutal tycoon (Cameron Mitchell) who is trying to force an old woman (Elsa Lanchester) off of her land to do some developing. How bad does he want this to happen? He hires someone to remove her from the premises forcefully. The woman's near-obsessive talent for gardening is the focus of the episode, a talent that rears its head in the story's final trimester as Mitchell makes his way to back to the house to claim his property. Why the guy's assistant drives away and leaves him hanging is never explained, but he's in for one big surprise... 4. "Keep in Touch, We'll Think of Something" The insanely hot Joanna Pettet starred in four episodes of Night Gallery. All of them were pretty good with the exception of Season 1's "The House," and this is my personal favorite. Our main character is Erik Sutton (Alex Cord), a man who has been obsessed with the woman he has seen in his dreams ever since his college days. When he sees the very same woman that he has imagined in real life so many times in the form of Pettet's character, it starts a chain reaction that results in...wait for it...another pretty damn cool ending reveal. The real treat of this one is the dialogue sequence between Sutton and Pettet as everything gradually becomes clear, as the writing is absolutely electric stuff. 5. "Lindemann's Catch" Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. Perhaps more than any other story featured on the show, "Lindamann's Catch" has that in spades, with its constantly dimly lit boat compartments and soul-destroying early '70s synthy score. The story is almost as good, as our titular (what a great word) Lindemann is a sea captain who brings aboard the best catch he's ever had - a beautiful mermaid. Stuart Whitman is excellent as the borderline obsessive Lindemann who doesn't want to give up his new female companion, eventually finding a way to wish for his charge to gain a body. Of course, the Monkey's Paw that is Rod Serling writing has different plans for both Lindemann and the mermaid. Take my word for it, people, this series is well worth the $10 or so that you can grab the season sets for on Amazon. Atmosphere, scares, twists, and a really badass opening theme equal total coolness, and a series that will stick with you long after that final ending credits sequence rolls. Check these out.
|
|
Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
|
Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 24, 2015 9:39:26 GMT -5
New blog post, part 1 of many this year. If you're a horror fan, you've undoubtedly heard the news that this is a pretty big year for Friday the 13th. Not necessarily the film franchise itself - the actual day. Yes, folks, we get three of 'em this year, the first of which was last Friday as I write this, and if you're a mutant like me you've undoubtedly had the single greatest slasher franchise of all time on the brain. Come June, the Friday the 13th film series will effectively be 35 years old. While we haven't had any news (that I'm aware of, anyway, but then again I'm nowhere near the upcoming movie hound that I used to be) about the next movie in the series about the most badass guy with mommy issues in the history of cinema, 2015 amounts to nothing short of a total celebration of this landmark in American horror. And I'm not just talking about the big guy himself. I love almost everything about this series, from the creepy backwoods locations to the "faux- Psycho" Harry Manfredini soundtracks to the victim characters and their propensity to engage in incredibly reckless behavior that leads to their untimely deaths. It's that latter group that we're going to take a look at today. These films boast loads of great, memorable characters that stick out in your mind for all of the right and wrong reasons, but one of my favorite things about the series are those characters that get introduced...and then that's pretty much it. Sometimes, the series goes "body count over substance," and while I'm all about emotional investment, sometimes it's just hilarious when a character gets introduced with what any stuffy English major thinks is the beginning of an arc only to get offed like minutes later. Thus, I present... THE FIVE(ISH) MOST EXPENDABLE FRIDAY THE 13TH VICTIM CHARACTERS 5. Vinnie and Pete from A New BeginningReally, you could pretty much just list Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and be done with it. The flick is infinitely fun to watch, but if you want to hop on the characters' bandwagons, this one is rough to watch as it brings characters out of the woodwork only to eliminate them with savage voracity minutes later. Case in point - the two greasers who serve as (SPOILER ALERT) crazy Roy's initial victims on his revenge/all out kill-crazy rampage fest. Immediately after Vic kills Joey, we're blessed with the bickering adventures of these two retro stylistos in the middle of the woods as their car breaks down, complete with Pete and his signature top 40 hit "Rad-a-Tooie." There are definitely sequences that go on LONGER in this movie, but these two are the ones that stick out immediately as "cannon fodder" from the get go. 4. Dan and Judy from The New BloodThe crux of Jason's seventh go-round is a birthday party being thrown for Michael at his family's lakeside house, and almost all of the victims have something to do with either this bunch or psychic mover-and-shaker Tina Shepherd. Except for these two. Totally random campers who find themselves on a totally random patch of woods that the totally randomly revived Jason just so happens to happen across. We get Dan doing his best Arnold Schwarzeneggar impression before heading out to get some firewood. Of course, he's offed, but it's Judy's death that really let fans know that director John Carl Buechler wasn't messing around as he grabs her sleeping bag - Judy fully enclosed - and bashes it against a nearby tree. To this date, one of the three or four best death scenes in any Friday flick, and legendary anciliary characters. 3. The Hitchhikers from Jason Goes to HellI always used to hate this movie, but a few more repeat viewings over the past couple Halloweens has changed my mind. It's different, but it's also got plenty of chutzpah, and it's also got some of the most hilariously expendable victims that the series has graced our presence with. In the first trimester of the movie, Jason (or rather his African-American stunt double) has made his way back to Crystal Lake, unbeknownst to the group of hitchhikers who catch a ride with our main protagonist Steven Freeman. Almost immediately after finding a suitable site and planting their tent spikes, it begets one of the tastier bits of in the series compliments of Michelle Clunie, followed by one of the sickest kills in any movie I've seen. Awesome stuff. 2. The WOULD-BE Hitchhiker/Banana Enthusiast from The Final ChapterFriday the 13th: The Final Chapter is one of the greatest slasher films ever made, bar none. It's fast-paced and brutal, with a group of characters ranging from funny (Jimmy and Ted) to genuinely intriguing (Corey Feldman as the improbable Jason killer Tommy Jarvis). Hidden in all that, however, is thais lovely little aside just as the madness is getting started, as the group of vacationing teens head out to Crystal Lake and refuse to pick up to the slightly dumpy woman on the side of the road who wants a ride. And she doesn't take insults from passer-bys lying down. I'll admit to feeling pretty bad for this girl, as the fact that she doesn't get the ride leads to her untimely death, compliments of an awesome Ted Savini stabbing closeup. 1. The Random Evil Bikers from Part IIIHere we go. The solid gold Cadillac of expendable F13 victims. The folks above were hastily introduced. These guys, conversely, take over the movie for a stretch. When we first meet Ali, Loco and Fox, they're customers at a convenience store who give our resident nerdy hero Shelly a hard-time in front of his would-be girlfriend. This confrontation leads them to Higgins Haven where they have every intention of (I think) burning the barn down. Only...it doesn't quite work out that way. In a tense, epic sequence that lasts all of five minutes, all three of them get some glorious 3D death, and the characters that we spent the previous 10 minutes of our lives pontificating on what their epic back story was are gone. More or less. (SPOILER ALERT) Of course, those are just a few. To be fair, this series was very successful at getting audiences to feel sympathy for some of its victim characters, particularly in the earlier films when Jason was human and the series wasn't intentionally poking fun at itself or its conventions yet. Sometimes, however, it's good when the screenwriters and film-makers simply let loose and threw some bodies in there just for the f*** of it. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and no series did it better than Friday the 13th. As the year goes on, we're going to be looking at more hockey-masked madness from slightly askew angles. Stay tuned.
|
|