Horror Movies

[DJ]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Holy crap! How did we miss this one guys?
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse

The previous entry was a surprise cult hit, getting good ratings pretty much everywhere, the batshit crazy Aussie zombie flick Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead. That one was a pretty fun romp with fast zombies that exhale usable fuel blended with psychic mutants, a totally insane doctor all chasing each other around the outback like even more violent Mad Max rejects. From the trailer this one might have even more outright craziness than the first one......!

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

YOU'RE THE THING!!

 

[UVA_Guy81]

YOU'RE THE THING!!


View attachment 294590

Childs was definitely The Thing in my opinion.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

The Night House.

There are some nice shots and the acting is fine, but I can't help but feel like nothing was fully fleshed out. The movie is about a woman learning to deal with her husband who killed himself when she never thought anything was wrong. She slowly begins to discover that he had this other life that she never noticed. I don't think they are exactly spoilers, but I will leave out what that life was. This movie discusses life after death, love, and grief and doesn't dive deep enough into the life after death part and I feel that way because as the movie progresses, that really feels like the focus annnnd just as it feels like it is going to climax and bring an understanding about wtf is going on, it ends.

Personally, I hate when movies do that or leave things up to the imagination of the audience. I want you to tell me a story, a complete story. I don't want to guess or assume what happened, is going to happen, or what it is really about.

6/10. Could have been a lot better.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Return to Horror High (1987)-

A film producer decides to make a horror movie about a bunch of murders at a high school. To save $$ (and get publicity) they decide to film at that same high school, which has been shut down. Of course the killer, who was never caught, re-emerges and starts offing the cast and crew.

This one is yet another strange one. A A A very ambitious storyline for an '80s slasher, but also very convoluted.
Because they blend both what passes as "reality" and the filming of the movie it is often hard to know what is going on. You think you are watching the "reality" and suddenly a guy pops up and yells "Cut!", and you need to re-evaluate what you think is going on. I actually watched it twice to try to figure out what the full story is. Sadly, I liked it more the first time than the second, if that tells you anything.

The good:
*An interesting story attempt. At times it is kinda cool, and has some genuinely quite funny moments.
*Gratuitous young George Clooney!
*Marsha Brady/Maureen McCormick has at least 2 hilarious scenes as an cop on the murder scene, where she gets turned on by the gore, and another where she describes it while eating a sandwich. Kudos for her on taking the role and weirding it up a bit!


The bad:
*The story is frustrating and makes no sense. But, as mentioned, it is still kinda fun and has some good moments. The fake limbs and stuff are fine I guess.
*Acting. It generally isn't good, and is too often downright bad.
Alex Rocco is slumming here and is ok. You were in The Godfather, Alex! Have some pride!
*FXs- I hesitate to put this one here because there are a few decent ones, but generally speaking the fxs are very light on actual stuff and just has a bunch of blood laying around. Maybe I'm seeing a cut version?

After the first watch through I probably would have given it probably in the 6 outta 10 range despite the poor filmmaking but after the second viewing when I wasn't as baffled, I'd be hard pressed to go higher than a 5 outta 10.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Return to Horror High (1987)-

A film producer decides to make a horror movie about a bunch of murders at a high school. To save $$ (and get publicity) they decide to film at that same high school, which has been shut down. Of course the killer, who was never caught, re-emerges and starts offing the cast and crew.

This one is yet another strange one. A A A very ambitious storyline for an '80s slasher, but also very convoluted.
Because they blend both what passes as "reality" and the filming of the movie it is often hard to know what is going on. You think you are watching the "reality" and suddenly a guy pops up and yells "Cut!", and you need to re-evaluate what you think is going on. I actually watched it twice to try to figure out what the full story is. Sadly, I liked it more the first time than the second, if that tells you anything.

The good:
*An interesting story attempt. At times it is kinda cool, and has some genuinely quite funny moments.
*Gratuitous young George Clooney!
*Marsha Brady/Maureen McCormick has at least 2 hilarious scenes as an cop on the murder scene, where she gets turned on by the gore, and another where she describes it while eating a sandwich. Kudos for her on taking the role and weirding it up a bit!
View attachment 294722

The bad:
*The story is frustrating and makes no sense. But, as mentioned, it is still kinda fun and has some good moments. The fake limbs and stuff are fine I guess.
*Acting. It generally isn't good, and is too often downright bad.
Alex Rocco is slumming here and is ok. You were in The Godfather, Alex! Have some pride!
*FXs- I hesitate to put this one here because there are a few decent ones, but generally speaking the fxs are very light on actual stuff and just has a bunch of blood laying around. Maybe I'm seeing a cut version?

After the first watch through I probably would have given it probably in the 6 outta 10 range despite the poor filmmaking but after the second viewing when I wasn't as baffled, I'd be hard pressed to go higher than a 5 outta 10.

A couple of clarifications:
*The synopsis wasn't clear: the movie that they are making within the movie is based on an actual event in that universe.
(I'm not sure if that actually clarifies anything!)
*The note about the "fake limbs being fine" was supposed to be under the FXs section.

Carry on!

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

 

[R.J. MacReady]

Another oldie dump!

Vampire (1979)-
(no trailer available, but here is the whole movie)

A surprisingly well done late 70s made for tv movies.
This one is a bit odd in that it does everything relatively well considering the time period and budget, but the story itself is a generic Dracula type tale that brings little to nothing new or interesting to the table. During my reviews here I often run into good stories that are poorly executed in one or multiple ways, but it seems a bit rare to find the opposite of solid execution but lacking in story depth.

Regardless, the always fun as a bad guy Richard Lynch plays a wealthy bloodsucker who is awakened from his long slumber when a new church is built. He takes revenge for this disturbance by killing the architect's gf (seems a bit extreme!), which leads to the architect and a retired detective to try and hunt him down.

*The cast is great, with the aforementioned Richard Lynch playing the baddie, Jason Miller as the architect (he was the young priest in The Exorcist and a Pulitzer winning playwright), and EG Marshall as the old detective.
*The direction and production are solid. The characters are fairly well developed, the story flows well, etc.

I'd go about a 6 outta 10 area, which is quite good for 70s made for tv fare. A more ambitious tale might have helped it a bit.

Contamination (1980)-

Yes, yet another Italian job, but this one is directed by someone other than Fulchi, Argento or Bava as Luigi Cozzi helms this.

A freighter without a crew drifts towards NY and the authorities investigate. It turns out that the ship is full of big green bumpy eggs that blow up and spray slime that makes people start bleeding out of their orifices, and then literally explode all of their guts out of their chest cavity! So a gruff cop and a scientist chick track down the lone surviving astronaut from a Mars expedition, and they team together to track down the egg source. Eventually they find an egg warehouse in South America and face off against a giant green one eyed octopus creature.

*This is definitely weird concept but is unfortunately more filler that is interspersed with cool stuff. Too much sitting around, traveling sequences, etc taking up time between chest explosions.
*Some cool gore fxs! They did it quite a bit, including a pretty awesome 3 at once shot. But overall the fxs other than that were questionable. The final boss looked pretty B-grade (and that is generous!)
*Standard questionable dubbing. Feels very dated.
Overall probably a 4.5 outta 10 range imo, and that is with 1 added point for a bunch of bloody full front gut explosions, and the Goblin soundtrack. Otherwise, watch it for that and not much else.

Night of the Comet (1984)-

A comet passes near Earth, and dumps a bunch of dust into the atmosphere. It gives the sky a disturbing orange hue. It also disappears 99.9% of the populace, leaving only some obnoxious gangs, zombie cops, and our 2 kinda annoying teenage girl leads. The sisters meet a boy, have a big clothes and gun scavaging/shopping montage, and are captured by a post apocalypse mall employee gang? They are then rescued by scientists with evil intentions and have to fight to escape.

This one has a big cult following and has high ratings (79% on RT, 6.3 on IMDB), but I can't really agree. It is an awesome concept that ranges from average to bad execution.
*It was supposedly a big influence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and this does glimpse into that type of feel but the Buffy tv series did it better.
*The fxs can be cool, but are also cheesy.
*Bad 80s dialog and questionable acting throughout.
*A very, very 80s soundtrack but the songs were either not memorable, or just plain bad imo.

A 4.5 to 5 range for me. For such a broad concept not much happens, and what does happens varies in quality.
If you are going to watch an 80s "Night of....." movies, then stick to Night of the Demons, and Night of the Creeps over this one.

Every time I see Ricard Lynch ...I think of Invasion USA


"Under Chuck Norris's beard, there is no chin ...just another fist"


.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Every time I see Ricard Lynch ...I think of Invasion USA

"Under Chuck Norris's beard, there is no chin ...just another fist"

Best Richard Lynch from Invasion USA:

 

[DJ]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Holy crap! How did we miss this one guys?
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse

The previous entry was a surprise cult hit, getting good ratings pretty much everywhere, the batshit crazy Aussie zombie flick Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead. That one was a pretty fun romp with fast zombies that exhale usable fuel blended with psychic mutants, a totally insane doctor all chasing each other around the outback like even more violent Mad Max rejects. From the trailer this one might have even more outright craziness than the first one......!

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

 

[DJ]

Looks good, a lot of good actors in it too.

 

[Podunkparte]

Lots of classic Raimi horror in Doctor Strange 2. Surprisingly graphic for the MCU.

 

[DJ]

 

[DJ]

 

[DJ]

 

[returnofjakedog]

View attachment 296006

Ummm.......I think I qualify as a horror fan but I have no idea what this is!

 

[DJ]