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Post by Rorschach on Feb 25, 2011 5:10:40 GMT -5
NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986) Directed by: Fred Dekker Starring: Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow, with an awesome cameo by the late, great Dick Miller. Night of the Creeps truly is a love letter to our beloved genre. Guys today like (UGH!) Fuller and Form and ALL of those Platinum Douchebags can sit there and claim they have a love for the genre (cough*BULLS***cough*) but one need look no further than Night of the Creeps to find a whole film chock full of guys that can not only say that, but prove that they mean it from the bottoms of their hearts. Guys like director Fred Dekker, and actor Tom Atkins whose love for the genre bleeds through in damn near every frame of this movie. It’s not the Gone With The Wind of the horror genre, but it IS a nice shot of something you rarely find anymore: a film BY a horror fan FOR the horror fans. Ok, enough of my verbal blowjob for the film…onto the synopsis! Our film opens with a chase between three short, chubby aliens aboard their spacecraft. These guys are UGLY as hell and it’s sort of hard to tell who exactly is the bad guy here: the ones chasing or the one being chased. All we’re given is that the chasee has something in his possession that the chasers desperately want. So the alien being chased crawls into an escape hatch and shoots himself out into space, streaking like a comet towards, where else? Small town America in the 1950s, of course! Told ya they were UGLY little bastards! Now here’s the interesting and awesome thing about Night of the Creeps: at this point in the movie, it literally could have stayed in black and white, set in the 50’s and told the entire film from that standpoint as an homage to the creature features of yore. And it would have worked out just as brilliantly. But the film decides to treat us to a little hack n slash action via the old “escaped madman on Lover’s Lane” urban legend brought to life as one particular couple goes chasing off after the meteor they just saw. Big mistake, as when the boyfriend goes off to investigate the crash site, his lady friend becomes prime chopping material for the Mad Axe Man. Of course, BoyToy doesn’t fare so well either, as he is attacked by some sort of slug-like creature just as he opens the pod, and he collapses dead. Cue a rookie cop coming upon the scene in the car, with the Axe Man still chopping away. We see the cop unholster his gun before the movie time-warps forward thirty years to the week of the big prom, in the year 1986. Here, we meet both our main protagonists in terminally shy Chris (Jason Lively, turning in a strong role as the nerd turned hero) and the disabled and on crutches J.C. (Steve Marshall, playing the good-hearted sidekick to a “T”) along with the douchebag to end all douchebags Brad (played so convincingly by Allan Keyser that I had to fight the urge to bitch slap my TV every time he was on screen..talk about GREAT heel work!). Chris spots a beautiful young lady named Cynthia Croenenberg (the ever lovely Jill Whitlow, who strongly reminded me of Mickie James in this role) at a mixer dance. Chris is too damn shy to talk to her, so J.C., being the bang-up guy he is, goes over on his crutches and creates a diversion so Chris can introduce himself. No go….Chris just WON’T take the chance. *SIGH*. I’ve been in Chris’ shoes and they’re not very comfortable. Major kudos to Lively for making this scene so painfully realistic. So the hottie escapes and goes back to her Sorority House, while Chris and J.C. try to devise a way to get her to fall for Chris, and decide that pledging as frat boys is the way to Cynthia’s heart. Enter brother Brad, so full of douchy charm and smarm you’d swear he was destined for politics. Brad tells the boys that they only have one shot at pledging in HIS frat…and gives them a specific task to perform that will indeed become the catalyst for the main horror of Night of the Creeps. Next, we cut to the main authority figure in this film, Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins, in one of his most iconic roles.) But for some reason, Detective Cameron is dressed in a lavish white suit, sitting on a beach drinking rum out of a coconut…and in a smart, clever, and hilarious nod to JAWS, we see him watching a swimming beauty on the beach just as Brody did in that film. Seriously, the same wipe technique, the same “close up/far away” dynamic Speilberg used in his blockbuster is mimicked here flawlessly. Just as the beauty is about to be pulled under…..a phone rings and startles the rumpled, napping Detective awake in his easy chair. Seems there’s been a break in at the school’s cryogenics laboratory, and a specimen has gone missing; thus his presence is requested forthwith. Grumbling the first of what will be several hilarious oaths under his breath, the grumpy Detective dons his trenchcoat and heads off to investigate further. *HRRM* This will eventually lead him into contact with Chris and J.C, setting up our trio of “good guys” for the hellacious fight they have ahead of them come prom night. See, the task Chris and J.C. were given was to steal a corpse from the school morgue….however, they happened on the cryo-lab instead and decided to try and abscond with the Boy Toy from the 1950’s…you know, the one with the alien parasite inside him? Yep, the school has been studying him for thirty years trying to figure out why he’s not quite dead and not quite alive either. In the process of grand theft cadaver, the corpse shows a spasm of life, causing Chris and J.C. to drop him and flee in terror “howling like banshees” as the janitor will so memorably put it in describing the attempted theft to Cameron. But as soon as the Boy Toy’s body is thawed….DOZENS of the alien slug creatures are loosed upon the college campus, and in the end, it will be up to a trio of unlikely heroes to stop this infestation. Honestly, watching Night of the Creeps again, it has aged very well, and could very well be released in theaters today with no one being the wiser that this was a film from 1986. Slap a “retro” or “Grind House” tag on it, and if you were to release it during Halloween, I think it would make big bucks. It really honestly IS the inspiration for so many of these “college campus in peril” movies, and for the “bodily invader” movies of this generation like SLITHER, which if I may be so bold seems to be a straight up homage to Night of the Creeps. Bottom line….if you don’t already own this movie….what are you WAITING for? An EASY ***** rating, and highest urgings to check it out. And be on the lookout for Dick Miller in his cameo as the police munitions officer that Cameron goes to in order to acquire...well, THAT would be telling. ;D Oh, and one more thing:
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Post by Doctor Tull-eus S. Venture on Feb 25, 2011 8:36:12 GMT -5
So I watched Cannibal Holocaust last night.
One scene I forgot about before was the scene where the ritual punishment for adultery took place.
It takes alot to make me cringe, but that scene just did it for me. Gah.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 25, 2011 11:40:11 GMT -5
NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986) Directed by: Fred Dekker Starring: Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow, with an awesome cameo by the late, great Dick Miller. Night of the Creeps truly is a love letter to our beloved genre. Guys today like (UGH!) Fuller and Form and ALL of those Platinum Douchebags can sit there and claim they have a love for the genre (cough*BULLS***cough*) but one need look no further than Night of the Creeps to find a whole film chock full of guys that can not only say that, but prove that they mean it from the bottoms of their hearts. Guys like director Fred Dekker, and actor Tom Atkins whose love for the genre bleeds through in damn near every frame of this movie. It’s not the Gone With The Wind of the horror genre, but it IS a nice shot of something you rarely find anymore: a film BY a horror fan FOR the horror fans. Ok, enough of my verbal blowjob for the film…onto the synopsis! Our film opens with a chase between three short, chubby aliens aboard their spacecraft. These guys are UGLY as hell and it’s sort of hard to tell who exactly is the bad guy here: the ones chasing or the one being chased. All we’re given is that the chasee has something in his possession that the chasers desperately want. So the alien being chased crawls into an escape hatch and shoots himself out into space, streaking like a comet towards, where else? Small town America in the 1950s, of course! Told ya they were UGLY little bastards! Now here’s the interesting and awesome thing about Night of the Creeps: at this point in the movie, it literally could have stayed in black and white, set in the 50’s and told the entire film from that standpoint as an homage to the creature features of yore. And it would have worked out just as brilliantly. But the film decides to treat us to a little hack n slash action via the old “escaped madman on Lover’s Lane” urban legend brought to life as one particular couple goes chasing off after the meteor they just saw. Big mistake, as when the boyfriend goes off to investigate the crash site, his lady friend becomes prime chopping material for the Mad Axe Man. Of course, BoyToy doesn’t fare so well either, as he is attacked by some sort of slug-like creature just as he opens the pod, and he collapses dead. Cue a rookie cop coming upon the scene in the car, with the Axe Man still chopping away. We see the cop unholster his gun before the movie time-warps forward thirty years to the week of the big prom, in the year 1986. Here, we meet both our main protagonists in terminally shy Chris (Jason Lively, turning in a strong role as the nerd turned hero) and the disabled and on crutches J.C. (Steve Marshall, playing the good-hearted sidekick to a “T”) along with the douchebag to end all douchebags Brad (played so convincingly by Allan Keyser that I had to fight the urge to bitch slap my TV every time he was on screen..talk about GREAT heel work!). Chris spots a beautiful young lady named Cynthia Croenenberg (the ever lovely Jill Whitlow, who strongly reminded me of Mickie James in this role) at a mixer dance. Chris is too damn shy to talk to her, so J.C., being the bang-up guy he is, goes over on his crutches and creates a diversion so Chris can introduce himself. No go….Chris just WON’T take the chance. *SIGH*. I’ve been in Chris’ shoes and they’re not very comfortable. Major kudos to Lively for making this scene so painfully realistic. So the hottie escapes and goes back to her Sorority House, while Chris and J.C. try to devise a way to get her to fall for Chris, and decide that pledging as frat boys is the way to Cynthia’s heart. Enter brother Brad, so full of douchy charm and smarm you’d swear he was destined for politics. Brad tells the boys that they only have one shot at pledging in HIS frat…and gives them a specific task to perform that will indeed become the catalyst for the main horror of Night of the Creeps. Next, we cut to the main authority figure in this film, Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins, in one of his most iconic roles.) But for some reason, Detective Cameron is dressed in a lavish white suit, sitting on a beach drinking rum out of a coconut…and in a smart, clever, and hilarious nod to JAWS, we see him watching a swimming beauty on the beach just as Brody did in that film. Seriously, the same wipe technique, the same “close up/far away” dynamic Speilberg used in his blockbuster is mimicked here flawlessly. Just as the beauty is about to be pulled under…..a phone rings and startles the rumpled, napping Detective awake in his easy chair. Seems there’s been a break in at the school’s cryogenics laboratory, and a specimen has gone missing; thus his presence is requested forthwith. Grumbling the first of what will be several hilarious oaths under his breath, the grumpy Detective dons his trenchcoat and heads off to investigate further. *HRRM* This will eventually lead him into contact with Chris and J.C, setting up our trio of “good guys” for the hellacious fight they have ahead of them come prom night. See, the task Chris and J.C. were given was to steal a corpse from the school morgue….however, they happened on the cryo-lab instead and decided to try and abscond with the Boy Toy from the 1950’s…you know, the one with the alien parasite inside him? Yep, the school has been studying him for thirty years trying to figure out why he’s not quite dead and not quite alive either. In the process of grand theft cadaver, the corpse shows a spasm of life, causing Chris and J.C. to drop him and flee in terror “howling like banshees” as the janitor will so memorably put it in describing the attempted theft to Cameron. But as soon as the Boy Toy’s body is thawed….DOZENS of the alien slug creatures are loosed upon the college campus, and in the end, it will be up to a trio of unlikely heroes to stop this infestation. Honestly, watching Night of the Creeps again, it has aged very well, and could very well be released in theaters today with no one being the wiser that this was a film from 1986. Slap a “retro” or “Grind House” tag on it, and if you were to release it during Halloween, I think it would make big bucks. It really honestly IS the inspiration for so many of these “college campus in peril” movies, and for the “bodily invader” movies of this generation like SLITHER, which if I may be so bold seems to be a straight up homage to Night of the Creeps. Bottom line….if you don’t already own this movie….what are you WAITING for? An EASY ***** rating, and highest urgings to check it out. And be on the lookout for Dick Miller in his cameo as the police munitions officer that Cameron goes to in order to acquire...well, THAT would be telling. ;D Oh, and one more thing: I fracking love Night of the Creeps. I caught it back when I was in college at, like, 3:00 in the morning some long ago Friday night on AMC, and was both enthralled and laughing my ass off at every minute of it. At any rate, this is definitely a movie that deserves every bit of praise that it gets from horror fans. As for Brad...I love that even his license plate says "Bradster." You can't get much more douchy than that. One more thing - no IHR induction this week, due to the fact that I was busy writing some new 'Crap Horror Hall of Fame inductions. I think everyone should be very pleased with them.
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Post by DSR on Feb 25, 2011 14:00:37 GMT -5
Awesome review, 'Schach. I remember catching NIGHT OF THE CREEPS on TV all the time when I was a young 'un. One thing, though... Dick Miller isn't dead. Unless you're talking about a Dick Miller other than the one I'm familiar with.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2011 14:28:30 GMT -5
That will always be one of my favorite lines in cinema, the "Good news, bad news..." line. Atkins delivers that with such awesome, it's infecting. ;D
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BearDogg-X
Vegeta
Still lurking in the shadows....
Posts: 9,382
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Post by BearDogg-X on Feb 25, 2011 15:32:28 GMT -5
Night of the Creeps is one of my favorite movies of all time.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Feb 25, 2011 21:46:08 GMT -5
New HAMMER HORROR REVIEWS!!
Paranoiac (1963) - This movie is fairly unique within the Hammer films catalogue (that I've seen, anyway). For starters, it's in black-and-white despite the fact that it was filmed years after the first Dracula and Frankenstein films had appeared in glorious color. Mostly, though, it's the tone that really sets it apart - the movie is a sordid crime drama rather than an out-and-out horror flick. Simon Ashby (Oliver Reed of Curse of the Werewolf) is a wonderfully devious character attempting to drive his sister (Janette Scott) insane so he can inherit the family fortune. All seems to be going to plan until the family's long-lost brother, long thought dead, shows up at the doorstep, setting in motion a chain of events that, while not scary in the slightest, is fascinating to follow and always keeps the viewer guessing. *** 1/2 out of ****.
Kiss of the Vampire (1963) - Originally intended as the third film in the Hammer Dracula series, the film was eventually re-written with all mentions of Drac-man removed. A honeymooning couple (Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel) are making their way through the countryside and find themselves stranded at a remote hotel. From here, they find themselves the unwitting victims of a sizable vampire cult, continuing the "vampirism as social disease" theme introduced in Brides of Dracula. Director Don Sharp brings some sharp imagery to the picture, but the story takes forever to get going, the leads are very vanilla, and even the lead vampire himself Dr. Ravna (played by Noel Willman) is forgettable. ** out of ****.
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Post by Sir Woodrow on Feb 25, 2011 22:07:40 GMT -5
Awesome review, 'Schach. I remember catching NIGHT OF THE CREEPS on TV all the time when I was a young 'un. One thing, though... Dick Miller isn't dead. Unless you're talking about a Dick Miller other than the one I'm familiar with. It's going to be a sad day when Dick Miller does go.
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Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
Posts: 90,480
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Post by Chainsaw on Feb 25, 2011 22:23:49 GMT -5
NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986) Directed by: Fred Dekker Starring: Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow, with an awesome cameo by the late, great Dick Miller. Night of the Creeps truly is a love letter to our beloved genre. Guys today like (UGH!) Fuller and Form and ALL of those Platinum Douchebags can sit there and claim they have a love for the genre (cough*BULLS***cough*) but one need look no further than Night of the Creeps to find a whole film chock full of guys that can not only say that, but prove that they mean it from the bottoms of their hearts. Guys like director Fred Dekker, and actor Tom Atkins whose love for the genre bleeds through in damn near every frame of this movie. It’s not the Gone With The Wind of the horror genre, but it IS a nice shot of something you rarely find anymore: a film BY a horror fan FOR the horror fans. Ok, enough of my verbal blowjob for the film…onto the synopsis! Our film opens with a chase between three short, chubby aliens aboard their spacecraft. These guys are UGLY as hell and it’s sort of hard to tell who exactly is the bad guy here: the ones chasing or the one being chased. All we’re given is that the chasee has something in his possession that the chasers desperately want. So the alien being chased crawls into an escape hatch and shoots himself out into space, streaking like a comet towards, where else? Small town America in the 1950s, of course! Told ya they were UGLY little bastards! Now here’s the interesting and awesome thing about Night of the Creeps: at this point in the movie, it literally could have stayed in black and white, set in the 50’s and told the entire film from that standpoint as an homage to the creature features of yore. And it would have worked out just as brilliantly. But the film decides to treat us to a little hack n slash action via the old “escaped madman on Lover’s Lane” urban legend brought to life as one particular couple goes chasing off after the meteor they just saw. Big mistake, as when the boyfriend goes off to investigate the crash site, his lady friend becomes prime chopping material for the Mad Axe Man. Of course, BoyToy doesn’t fare so well either, as he is attacked by some sort of slug-like creature just as he opens the pod, and he collapses dead. Cue a rookie cop coming upon the scene in the car, with the Axe Man still chopping away. We see the cop unholster his gun before the movie time-warps forward thirty years to the week of the big prom, in the year 1986. Here, we meet both our main protagonists in terminally shy Chris (Jason Lively, turning in a strong role as the nerd turned hero) and the disabled and on crutches J.C. (Steve Marshall, playing the good-hearted sidekick to a “T”) along with the douchebag to end all douchebags Brad (played so convincingly by Allan Keyser that I had to fight the urge to bitch slap my TV every time he was on screen..talk about GREAT heel work!). Chris spots a beautiful young lady named Cynthia Croenenberg (the ever lovely Jill Whitlow, who strongly reminded me of Mickie James in this role) at a mixer dance. Chris is too damn shy to talk to her, so J.C., being the bang-up guy he is, goes over on his crutches and creates a diversion so Chris can introduce himself. No go….Chris just WON’T take the chance. *SIGH*. I’ve been in Chris’ shoes and they’re not very comfortable. Major kudos to Lively for making this scene so painfully realistic. So the hottie escapes and goes back to her Sorority House, while Chris and J.C. try to devise a way to get her to fall for Chris, and decide that pledging as frat boys is the way to Cynthia’s heart. Enter brother Brad, so full of douchy charm and smarm you’d swear he was destined for politics. Brad tells the boys that they only have one shot at pledging in HIS frat…and gives them a specific task to perform that will indeed become the catalyst for the main horror of Night of the Creeps. Next, we cut to the main authority figure in this film, Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins, in one of his most iconic roles.) But for some reason, Detective Cameron is dressed in a lavish white suit, sitting on a beach drinking rum out of a coconut…and in a smart, clever, and hilarious nod to JAWS, we see him watching a swimming beauty on the beach just as Brody did in that film. Seriously, the same wipe technique, the same “close up/far away” dynamic Speilberg used in his blockbuster is mimicked here flawlessly. Just as the beauty is about to be pulled under…..a phone rings and startles the rumpled, napping Detective awake in his easy chair. Seems there’s been a break in at the school’s cryogenics laboratory, and a specimen has gone missing; thus his presence is requested forthwith. Grumbling the first of what will be several hilarious oaths under his breath, the grumpy Detective dons his trenchcoat and heads off to investigate further. *HRRM* This will eventually lead him into contact with Chris and J.C, setting up our trio of “good guys” for the hellacious fight they have ahead of them come prom night. See, the task Chris and J.C. were given was to steal a corpse from the school morgue….however, they happened on the cryo-lab instead and decided to try and abscond with the Boy Toy from the 1950’s…you know, the one with the alien parasite inside him? Yep, the school has been studying him for thirty years trying to figure out why he’s not quite dead and not quite alive either. In the process of grand theft cadaver, the corpse shows a spasm of life, causing Chris and J.C. to drop him and flee in terror “howling like banshees” as the janitor will so memorably put it in describing the attempted theft to Cameron. But as soon as the Boy Toy’s body is thawed….DOZENS of the alien slug creatures are loosed upon the college campus, and in the end, it will be up to a trio of unlikely heroes to stop this infestation. Honestly, watching Night of the Creeps again, it has aged very well, and could very well be released in theaters today with no one being the wiser that this was a film from 1986. Slap a “retro” or “Grind House” tag on it, and if you were to release it during Halloween, I think it would make big bucks. It really honestly IS the inspiration for so many of these “college campus in peril” movies, and for the “bodily invader” movies of this generation like SLITHER, which if I may be so bold seems to be a straight up homage to Night of the Creeps. Bottom line….if you don’t already own this movie….what are you WAITING for? An EASY ***** rating, and highest urgings to check it out. And be on the lookout for Dick Miller in his cameo as the police munitions officer that Cameron goes to in order to acquire...well, THAT would be telling. ;D Oh, and one more thing: One of my favorites of all time. And I do have that shirt, too. And in case you were wondering...
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Post by Michael Coello on Feb 26, 2011 12:04:43 GMT -5
In case anyone cares, Cinemassacre put up a commentary track with James and Mike for the movie "White Zombie", with Bela Lugosi. It's public domain, so they also show the movie in full as they talk about it. www.cinemassacre.com/(language Warning, if only cause the poster of the vids is called "Mother F***er Mike") I'm only 30 minutes into it, but it's interesting to see the movie, as well as hear some random info about something considered the first zombie movie.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 12:25:40 GMT -5
So umm...wow, has anybody heard of this new Asian movie coming out called I Saw The Devil?
This looks pretty incredible. Even though I smell a remake coming from a mile away. BTW, for those wondering, I did post the red band trailer, but there's hardly anything in there that can be considered "red band". They used that so they could show the blood in the trailer.
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Post by Rorschach on Feb 27, 2011 0:41:58 GMT -5
Just looked it up, DSR, and you're right: Dick Miller is still with us. As I was writing that, I had thought that Dread Central had posted an obit of him. Someone that HAS, sadly, left us this month is David F. Friedman. www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-david-friedman-20110215,0,6021297.story If you've ever been a fan of low rent entertainment and soft-core "sexpploitation"....you know of or have probably seen Friedman's body of work.
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Post by DSR on Feb 27, 2011 19:16:30 GMT -5
Just looked it up, DSR, and you're right: Dick Miller is still with us. As I was writing that, I had thought that Dread Central had posted an obit of him. Someone that HAS, sadly, left us this month is David F. Friedman. www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-david-friedman-20110215,0,6021297.story If you've ever been a fan of low rent entertainment and soft-core "sexpploitation"....you know of or have probably seen Friedman's body of work. Friedman also produced a few horror flicks in his day, including HG Lewis's BLOOD FEAST, COLOR ME BLOOD RED, and a favorite of mine, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS!. RIP Mr. Friedman. I've seen the film WHITE ZOMBIE, back in September or October. Was okay. I may have to check out that commentary. The trailer for I SAW THE DEVIL looked aces. Made me want to see the flick. Was the song towards the end supposed to be "The House of the Rising Sun" or was that just a coincidence, though?
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Post by Rorschach on Mar 1, 2011 7:21:02 GMT -5
Hey there, kiddies! Thought I'd hit you up with a little "double-header" review here....see, I recently watched both the original Night of the Demons and the recent remake, and I thought I'd do a side by side contrast of them, for your reading pleasure! {Spoiler}First up is the original 1988 film starring Mimi Kinkade, Linnea Quigley, and Cathy Podewell Directed by Kevin S. Tenney, this film about mischievous teens partying in a possessed mansion really hasn't aged that well visually, and most of the actors here aren't anything to write home about AT ALL. I mean, lots of folks complain about the hack actors that Syfy and the Asylum stick in their DTV flicks, but the cast of the original Night of the Demons (outside of Quigley and Kinkade, who knock their respective roles out of the park) is like someone just grabbed random people off the street and had them literally read lines off of a cue-card. But you know what? For all that, this film WORKS. The FX are all practical stuff, and pretty low rent too, but overall it gives this movie a real, honest to God, "midnight movie special" feel that just CANNOT be replicated in today's environment. This movie is horror HISTORY if for no other reason than the fact that it comes from an age which was DOMINATED by masked slashers and razor-knived dream demons, but it had the balls to cast two women in it's lead villain roles. Plus, for all of it's kitsch and corniness, it still feels like a labor of love, FROM a horror fan TO horror fans. I'd rate it a solid **** out of five. If you love B-movies, this original has everything you're looking for, plus THIS: What's not to love? ;D Unfortunately, despite giving us that iconic scene AGAIN, and literally DOUBLING the boobage quotient by throwing enormous fake boobs (Bobbi Sue Luther) and enormous REAL boobs (Diora Baird) at us, the pathetic 2009 remake is a reminder that sometimes, you just CAN'T go back again. Directed by Adam Gierasch and starring Shannon Elizabeth (remember HER? talk about your star fading fast) in the role of Angela, this update of the original has slick modern CGI, bountiful babes in teeny little costumes, and.....HOLY S*** what monstrous cane-toad swallowed Eddie Furlong? I mean, honestly, this bloated shell of a human is supposed to be our big romantic hero and main love interest? While I applaud the usage of someone who's outside the chiseled "Ryan Reynolds" stereotype of a hero, Furlong looks so bloated and out of it here that it almost seems like he signed on to play latter-day Elvis instead of the hero in a demon movie. Jesus...I don't mean to harp on it, but if you watch the movie, I'm sure you'll have the same reaction. Furlong's bullfrog looking appearance and croaking, sandpaper voice is so damn distracting that he could almost be said to have de-railed the entire film by his appearance alone....IF that hadn't already happened. See, this remake subscribes to the line of thought that "bigger, louder, nastier and shinier" equals BETTER. So therefore, we get LOADS of (shoddy) CGI demons, transformation scenes that can't hold a candle to the original's and in fact come off looking like something out of f*****g Looney Tunes (whenever Elizabeth transforms into a demon by simply doing the "head shake" thing that Bugs Bunny used to do after he ran into a tree, I kept hearing that "wobbity-wobbity-wobbity" sound in my head). And that's not the least of this film's worries. It amps up the boobs and foul language to the point of seeming to revel in that while forgetting to tell a story like the original did. I mean, I've already stated that the original movie wasn't anything more than a B-film and campy horror at BEST...but why go for the "Piranha 3D" style overkill on vulgarity and nudity here? You don't have to DO that to make a decent camp horror film. In fact, the nudity shouldn't be so gratuitous that the audience is not shocked when they see it, and if you want language to have an effect, you don't have every other word croaked by Eddie Furlong be the F-bomb. The original didn't NEED any of that to make an impact, and it's cherished by horror fans worldwide. So why go so damn over the top with the remake? And that's not even getting into detail on this version's story, which considering the "talent" they were working with, OUGHT to have stuck to the simpler idea of the original, instead of trying to work a "Skeleton Key" like complex hoodoo/voodoo plot into the mix. I give the remake **, and that's mainly for the cameo of Linnea Quigley at the very beginning, which is the most clever thing IN this flim. ANY of the original Night of the Demons films outshines this version any day of the week.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2011 23:41:58 GMT -5
Yikes, what happened to Eddie Furlong there? I don't mean the movie, I mean him in general.
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Post by DSR on Mar 1, 2011 23:53:05 GMT -5
Yikes, what happened to Eddie Furlong there? I don't mean the movie, I mean him in general. He had a very small part in THE GREEN HORNET as a low-level drug-dealer. And, uh, he looked perfect for the part.
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Post by Rorschach on Mar 1, 2011 23:59:29 GMT -5
Yikes, what happened to Eddie Furlong there? I don't mean the movie, I mean him in general. He had a very small part in THE GREEN HORNET as a low-level drug-dealer. And, uh, he looked perfect for the part. No f*****g way. That's exactly what he played in Night of the Demons 2009. Guess he's just decided to method act? Seriously...he looked SOOOO bad in that movie. At one point, near the end of the film, he and the "spunky last girl" think they've beaten the demons back, and they do this little celebration dance....and Furlong's celebration was scarier than ANY of the demons in this film. I was honestly waiting for John Constantine to show up and yank a demon out of Furlong's ass, restoring him to his normal dimensions. When I realized that wasn't happening, and that Eddie wasn't wearing a fat suit...I felt really sad inside.
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Post by Michael Coello on Mar 2, 2011 0:00:55 GMT -5
Man, he's come a long way from Crow: Wicked Prayer.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Mar 2, 2011 10:34:59 GMT -5
Never saw Night of the Demons in any incantation. I might check out the original, though, after seeing that lovely picture in your review. ;D
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2011 14:23:34 GMT -5
You're welcome, TR.
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