I oddly remember some of the marketing for that movie, besides the totally 90s naming of adding an X but trying to be cool by calling him Ecks, around that time I was a bit of a fan of Lucy Liu thanks to the goofball Charlies Angels and she was bad at hiding her real feelings about matters. So it was clear that she fucking hated Bill Murray and she fucking hated this film.
Tom Latham is the leader of an English biker gang named the The Living Dead. Sure he's having fun terrorizing the town, but he wants more. His mother the psychic knows how to defeat death, and he tricks her into revealing the secret. He kills himself, comes back and then reveals the secret to his gang. Soon, almost the whole gang are really the living dead, and Tom has big plans. His only holdout is his more good than bad girlfriend.
This was fun. The gang leader Tom is a spoiled rich kid playing at being a thug. Only when he comes back, he sees that he now had *no* repercussions to his actions. That's where most of the horror comes from - he leaves a body count now that he knows he can't be hurt or killed.
There's a little bit of stunt motorcycling, but this is more an occult story than an outright horror movie. The gang is a weird amalgamation of biker gang and hippie culture, like a 70s movie written and directed by people who didn't actually understand the youth culture. There's a little bit more than a cheesy "biker gang comes back from the dead" movie, but it can be enjoyed at face value, too.
A Korean horror about a family being targeted by an evil spirit. The children ask help from their uncle, a priest who is having a crisis of confidence due to a failed exorcism. Some genuine scares here, and some interesting twists. The main problem I had with it were no clear set of rules. The demon's powers seemed to vary on the whims of the script. The demon can take anyone's form, but one of the teens is killed in secret and it never assumes that form. It's pretty clear that this was a lame workaround for some problem with the production, like the actor's availability.
Not really a recommend from me unless you are an exorcism movie completist.
I watched Zach Synder's Army of the Dead, and it was basically OK.
The premise is: A Japanese businessman hires Dave Bautista's character to pull 200 million dollars out of a Vegas vault 2 days before the US is going to nuke the city.
If you like Zack Synder's style, you will probably like this movie. Otherwise, it's a big, dumb movie.
I could put this in a bunch of places, but this is the thread where I've mentioned Joe Bob Briggs. Every week the show gives a "Silver Bolo" award to someone in the horror community. This is usually a nice way for Shudder/"The Last Drive-In" to signal boost a smaller creator in the horror community. Usually, it's a podcast or video channel, they say some nice things about the creators and put a link on the screen.
Basically, it's come to light that John Bloom worked for a white nationalist publication for a short period of time in 1997, he's also received some more recent flak for his less enlightened Joe Bob rants and discussions, especially around LGBTQ issues. (One of his rants seemed to be basically a long "I identify as an attack helicopter" joke.)
I have "receipts" to back up every bit of what I'm saying. I can show you how he's been fighting for trans rights (and losing jobs over it!) since back in the 70s. I can show you how he's had numerous death threats made against him by the KKK for standing up against them. I can show you the dozens of email conversations he's had with people who took him up on his offer to actually go to him directly if they had a grievance about anything he said so they could talk it out, and how almost all (I'd say 100% but I can't be completely sure of that) of those conversations ended up creating peace and better understanding between both parties. I could also show you that some of those same people who apologized privately for thinking the worst of him and jumping to conclusions based on inaccurate information are now back attacking him publicly about the SOS, which is really frustrating and heartbreaking, honestly.
It a form of privilege to be privately inclusive but unapologetically bigoted in your act. I also think Bloom is that weird Libertarian kind of anti-bigotry, which is basically OK with institutionalized racism.
I have always been on the fence about this. Joe Bob Briggs is an act, but he seems to be happy to let the public blur his personal sentiment with his persona. This is not growth or inclusion. If he were so inclined, he could try harder to show the Joe Bob act is just that.
I've been avoiding the latest season of "The Last Drive-In." It hasn't been that hard, really. I don't fault the person who rejected the award, nor do I really judge the people who continue to watch and enjoy.
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ta-
DAVE!!!
Last edited by specious_reasons; 05-31-2021 at 05:28 AM.
Reason: Get the name of the show right.
I watched Zach Synder's Army of the Dead, and it was basically OK.
The premise is: A Japanese businessman hires Dave Bautista's character to pull 200 million dollars out of a Vegas vault 2 days before the US is going to nuke the city.
If you like Zack Synder's style, you will probably like this movie. Otherwise, it's a big, dumb movie.
I tried, but am starting to discover that I will never get through another Zach Snyder movie again.
The whole premise is based on a plot hole and it falls apart from there.
It just galls me that Snyder keeps doing shit like this and they keep giving him more money to make films.
"Beyond the Door" was an Italian horror movie about a pregnant woman being possessed by a demon. It's pretty wild and not very good. This is a sequel in name only, being loosely about demon possession, too.
A group of American students are invited to a small Serbian town for a cultural festival. They are supposed to be cultural ambassadors, I guess. The class is a bunch of loud American assholes and Beverly. Beverly is a Serbian-American with mixed feelings about her heritage.
Not surprisingly, the Serbian town is the home for a Satanic cult, and Beverly has been marked as Satan's bride. The others were brought in for sacrifice. In a surprising turn for a movie like this, once the first person in the group gets killed, they all quickly leave town and jump on a passing train. This movie then becomes a runaway possessed train story. The driver, engineer and conductor are all killed by the train, and the train does all sorts of implausible things, like continue to steam ahead even though no one is fueling it, or veering off the track to behead one of the Americans.
The rest of the Americans die off in gory and stupid ways, and the Satanists are thwarted because they stupidly revealed Satan's plans to Beverly.
I sort of liked this, but it's not very interested in making much sense. The movie seems to be structured around the special effects they could produce. The people who die mostly do very stupid things, and some may be possessed, but it's not clear. The gore effects are pretty good, and it's apparent that's where the budget went.
Oh, and I recently watched both Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky. These are perfectly fine Child's Play sequels. Curse is better, mostly because Cult introduces a really stupid idea and gives it a really stupid explanation.
I have been on a MST3K kick, mostly because I'm back in Illinois, trying to get my mother's life in order, and I need a good laugh to end the day. So, I'm watching "The Gauntlet" - MST3K's final Netflix season. This run is slightly better on average than the previous Netflix season, but I liked both. "Mac & Me" is probably the best, but I've liked the whole season.
Today was "Killer Fish", 5th of 6. Since I recently watched "Ator" - I'll probably skip that one.
I also watched "The Case of the Bloody Iris" because it's a Giallo starring Edwige Fenech. I would watch almost anything starring Edwige Fenech.
In this case, the movie is a pretty decent whodunit. A woman is murdered in an elevator by an unknown man. The neighbors are shocked at this. Meanwhile, a property manager Andrea (George Hilton) consults a photographer for advice on a new apartment complex, and chooses a model (Mizar, played by Carla Brait) that happens to be one of the neighbors that witnessed the murder. While he's at the photographer's, he gets lovestruck by Jennifer (Fenech)
Soon, Mizar is killed, and Andrea is the main suspect, because he was the last person to see her alive. For an unknown reason, he puts Jennifer and her friend in the apartment where Mizar is killed. More people dies, and we get a few suspects, but the police still think Andrea is the prime suspect.
I always wonder why Italian police have the worst theories. Andrea is shown early on to be repulsed by the sight of blood, yet the commissioner suspects that might drive his compulsion to kill. Is it a reflection of the stupid ideas that the actual police have, or do Italian filmmakers have the worst set of prejudices and biases? I suspect a bit of both, but I think the latter has more influence on the script. For example, Clair Brait is black and this seems to be a distinct fetish in Giallo films, both in text and as seen through the lens.
At any rate, with a few shots of Bourbon in me, this was quite enjoyable - even if my prime suspect was revealed as the killer.
A serial-murdering "English" lord has been attacking women who remind him of his late wife, and he's the protagonist of the story! I guess he's slightly less evil than the people conspiring against him?
Lord Alan's redheaded wife died in childbirth, but only after he suspected her of being unfaithful. This drove him "mad" in the typical Italian Giallo way. After his initial treatment, he meets a blond woman who captures his interest. They soon get married, but then he starts being haunted by his first wife's "ghost." Is this a plot to drive Alan mad... well dysfunctionally mad? You bet!
I hated that the movie was rooting for a serial murderer. Otherwise, this was a competently executed murder mystery.
There is one and only one reason to watch this movie, and that is Grace Jones' iconic performance as the head vampire.
Otherwise, this is a really basic vampire movie. Three college idiots drive into the city with the express purpose of hiring a stripper for a frat party. They choose a seedy nightclub that happens to be run by vampires, and things progress about as you might expect.
I was a child in 1982, basically primed for a movie like this. I knew I wanted to see it even if it probably was bad. I could convince no one to take me, and mostly forgot about this. Mostly.
Today, I listened to the Musicalsplaining podcast talk about "Xanadu" - they basically wrote off the male lead as a boring nothing. That lead was also the leader of "The Warriors" and the 2nd in command of "Megaforce." Megaforce! Was this worth $3 to rent? Probably not, but I did it anyway. So, today is when I finally got to see this, and it's about as bad as I could expect.
The plot is nonsense. Duke Guerera (Henry Silva), a mercenary with armored forces leads incursions into... some country, but he slips back over the border before he can be stopped. The military leaders of this country (a pre-"Knight Rider" Edward Mulhare, and post-"Star Trek" Persis Khambatta) recruit a secret, elite international military force called Megaforce to help them. The leader (Barry Bostwick) comes up with a plan to draw Guerera back over the border, but the plan runs into politics, and Megaforce is stranded behind the border and must confront Guerera's tanks directly.
Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit) knows enough about making a movie that all this is established well enough, but there is only enough there to provide an excuse to show motorcycles and dune buggies battle tanks. There are 2 kinds of special effects here. Actual vehicles driving around while things explode, and terrible ones.
There's a classic Stuart Gordon movie from 1995 called "Castle Freak." It starred Gordon regulars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. It's about a shitty guy (Combs) and his family who think they are having a bit of good fortune when he inherits a castle. Unfortunately, that castle also has a secret freak living in the walls. It's trashy and sleazy and fun.
The 2020 reimagining starts out with a similar premise. Only this time, it's a hot young shitty lady who inherits the castle. She brings along her even shittier boyfriend. They get to that castle, people start dying, and then it veers way away from the original in a few weird twists.
I was really disappointed. The story had some promise, but the execution was poor.
I wanted a bit of background entertainment, so I picked 2 movies that I've seen before and was sort-of watching these. My opinion hasn't radically changed for either, but this wasn't a careful re-examination here.
Sleepaway Camp is a low budget slasher that is not particularly scary or very clever. It's legendary for the twist ending.
Frankenhooker is a horror comedy that I found a bit funnier this time around. Jeffrey is a classic mad-scientist type. He's experimenting with medicine, but he's been kicked out of medical school and now works for the electric company. He's got a nice girlfriend, Elizabeth, who dies in an automated lawn mower accident.
He has Elizabeth's head, all he needs is a body. Obsessed with bringing her back, but better, he decided to do what all modern mad scientists do, murder a hooker. His plan backfires, and he winds up with 6 dead women, all exploded into parts, and a pimp looking to either get his women back or get revenge.
Frankenhooker is not very realistic and rather silly.
The only scary thing about Sleepaway Camp is the bizarre way they presented the "twist" (which comes out of nowhere, with zero hints along the way until a last-minute flashback, iirc, and thus in itself is really damned stupid).
Spoiler for anyone who cares:
For the sudden revelation that the main girl was a boy the whole time, the director taped a still photo onto the male stand-in's face, of the main girl's face sporting a rictus-like grin. With the lighting, the practical effect isn't apparent unless you're already looking for it, and it hits this depth of uncanny valley that looks (IMO) really fucking disturbing. You can find it on the youtubes and skip watching the rest of the crappy film.
P.S. - it's simultaneously hilarious, since "she" has just decapitated a boy with her bare hands and rolled the head away like a bowling ball, yet the surviving onlookers shout, "She's a boy!" like that's the real shocker.
Oh, and yes, WARNING - FULL FRONTAL PENIS in that scene, but it really doesn't factor into the creepiness at all (ymmv).
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hide, witch, hide / the good folks come to burn thee / their keen enjoyment hid behind / a gothic mask of duty - P. Kantner
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Last edited by Sock Puppet; 09-24-2021 at 04:01 PM.
Reason: ffp
Once again, I wanted to watch some movies while doing other things, and I didn't want to be too worried about it if I missed parts. I picked some movies I have previously seen. The bulk of The Stuff was watched while I was making dinner.
Cup of My Blood is a low budget religious horror movie with a lot of big ideas and weird execution.
Jack is a photographer who once was a celebrated artist but after his wife died, he can only bring himself to do porn pictures for a website. Through a series of events, he becomes the keeper of the holy grail. Everyone around him seems to be more than what they seem, including a beautiful new woman who inspires him to take up his art again. If a beautiful woman half your age seduces you right after you come into the possession of the holy grail, you might want to consider that she might be a supernatural entity after the grail. There are lots of choices in this movie, and not all of them are because of the low budget.
The Stuff is a more traditional 80s horror-comedy. It's a parable about 80s corporate excess. "The Stuff" is a hot new dessert that's low calorie, addictive and also takes over your body. Dairy executives hire a corporate spy to find out what the stuff is.
It's a great idea for a movie, and there are some neat scenes and special effects, but I didn't enjoy it. The movie seems poorly edited, and the final act relies on a right wing racist militia leader as the savior of the country.
I actually rated The Stuff slightly higher on Letterboxd. It's a generally more competent movie with better actors overall.
In the process of watching the Elvira 40th anniversary special on Shudder. The movies are:
1. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
2. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
3. City of the Dead
4. Messiah of Evil
Finished #1. I watched this back in May 2020, but I apparently didn't log it here. My opinion of this hasn't changed since last year: "Elvira" is a lightly plotted comedy that really only serves as a vehicle for suggestive jokes and puns. ...but I love suggestive jokes and puns!
It was nice having Elvira do a few bits before, during and after.
In the process of watching the Elvira 40th anniversary special on Shudder.
Did you see she came out in her memoir the other day?
Yes, I also ordered it and should be getting it Saturday.
It made me a bit sad thinking that the "horror community" 19 years ago would probably not have taken the news that well. I'm sure some people still don't like it, but the public figures I follow are all some variation of happy for her.
I doesn't matter that much to me now - Elvira is a character, and I enjoy the character. I guess teenage me watching the movie might be more judgemental.
Finally finished the memoir and the rest of the special,
"House on Haunted Hill" - a classic William Castle film. It's a B movie made better by Vincent Price.
"City of the Dead" - A low-budget B&W horror featuring Christopher Lee. A young student goes off to do research in a cursed town, she goes missing and her boyfriend and brother find a witches coven have something to do with it.
"Messiah of Evil" - the movie is pretty slow and lame, and Elvira contributes a bit more to this than the previous three. I'm thankful for that, because it would not have been worth it to rewatch otherwise.
I love Elvira, but except for the last movie, there's less screen time of her than a typical "Movie Macabre" show. Ultimately a bit disappointing, but if she does anything like this again, I will watch it, of course.
Take Roger Corman's "The Tomb of Ligeia," replace Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd with Richard O'Brien and Elvira, you get "Elvira's Haunted Hills."
As a medium for Elvira's corny jokes, this movie is fine. It's a deliberate homage to the Roger Corman and Vincent Price Poe movies, "Ligeia" in particular. O'Brien is having fun intentionally hamming it up as a parody of the melodramatic acting in the Corman films.
The only problem is the movie's very low budget. The musical score is particularly poor, and the lighting is flat and uninteresting.