The Fantasist - 1986

 Where to start with this one, yikes.

The Fantastist is an oddly named movie that somehow fits to this odd Irish-British horror movie that is not a horro movie, not a drama, not a thriller, but sorta just a watch and barely pay attention what-have-you.

The essential plot, I guess, is someone is calling women and sexually coming on to them and then mudering them.  You wouldn't really know that's happening because it doesn't, really, after the first opening scene.  Instea,d you follow some random denizens of this small town and you eventually zero in on this one woman and follow her as she is generall affected by the crimes and starts to date odd and problematic Danny.

Even though this is from the director of the classic The Wicker Man, and even though it apparently had Level 42 in it, this movie is nearly incomprehensible in feel.  I could not really tell you what happened in this movie.  It was absolutely ridiculous.

There's some nudity and all, but overall this is a dud with two capital Ds.  I give it zero stars.

The Last House on the Left - 1972

 Wes Craven, I always say, defined horror in three different decades.  You would count either this or The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984 , and Scream in 1996.

Such an influencer, and while I had heard of this movie and I've seen almost every single Craven movie, this one I actually had not seen!  So, well, here we go.  Also, this is of course continuing my watching marathon of the Video Nasty flicks from the 70s and 80s.  

Here's a thought:  there was a time in film wherein original films, sci fi, drama, horror, what-be-it, were orginated as porn and for some reason they became something more.  This is the type of thing that is lost to the ages.  People set out with a budget and a bunch of producers, and either way porn doesnt sell these days so that avenue is limited.  Last House began as a porn film and Craven et al decided to make it not, basically and the rest as they say is hostory, hence, my conclusion being, in the modern day this film does not happen?

Porn influences include a scene of lesbian rape which still has dialogue about it in the movie but it is not seen, multiple rape scenes, and an obviously tinged idea for including more.  The plot of the beast is your basic rape revenge, a group meets some psychopaths, they torture and eventually kill them.  Then the pychos stay with the parents of the main girl they killed, parents catch on, and now its revenge.

I mean, it's odd to look back on this moment of film.  This whole series is all but forgotten; I ask you, what is the best known rape revenge movie?  Kill Bill attempted to resurrect the idea but it omitted the rape, so I ask you, what is it?  It might be this, and this is mostly known because like I said Craven redefined horror many times.  

This is above standard for this fare, and I'll give it 4 stars.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - 2001

 If memory serves me right, I went to see this movie in theaters in 2001.  I may have dragged my mom or brother with me.  What can I say, I was curious and it looked weird!

This famously unsuccessful CGI story was weird then and its weird now.  Directed by the creator of the video game, Hironobu Sakaguchi, it took over 2 years to animate at an estimated 200 years of effort by a large team of animators working around the clock.  It went overbudget, it was riding a wave of unspecified anxiety about what it was, and then it came out and lost an estimated 95 million dollars and folded Square as a film production company.

Rewatching this today, as perhaps the third time I've seen it, I remember a lot about the film when it came out and my perception.  Basically, I think there were multiple reasons for this as a failure but one of the major reasons comes down to that it is not that interesting of a story, that doesn't have clear resolution or clarity at all really.  I could not tell you what really happens in this movie.

Bare bones of the plot are that there is this invading ghostly race of aliens called Phantoms which are deadly and dangerous and now on Earth post a meteoric strike.  A team of Aki Ross, a bunch of soldiers, and an old scientist are on the case, especially once it's revealed that Aki is actually infected with the alien presence somehow, and it is contained within her; her being the first to survive such an encounter.  Now they have to collect spirits or something from all over in order to stop the aliens...I guess.

The CGI characters are well rendered, and the entire affair is a fun little romp, it just gets buried in the plot of it all, which I really couldn't tell ya about.  I like this movie more than most, but I will admit it is definitely not like, good, or anything.  I'll give it 2.5.

Something Evil - 1972

A while ago I watched The Sugarland Express, digging into the early filmography of Steven Spielberg, we'll call them the "pre-Jaws years".  I am not into plugging many other things on this blog, but I will plug Film Encounters of the Spielberg Kind, a podcast going through the films of the original "cute little guy" Stevy Spiels.  I watched this because of them.

Something Evil is about...wait for it...something evil.  Yeah.  In this case, a house, and specifically, one which a man kills himself at in the early opening of this movie.  Cue a couple who are on a drive and see the for sale sign and decide on a whim to purchase the home.  The house is evil, as said because houses are a verb and thus "things" as in "somethings".

Spielberg had directed Duel at this point which was a bigger success than it had set out to be, but I guess it was determined that he wasn't quite ready for the real thing yet, and so the studio made him direct this made-for-TV movie of the week for CBS.  

I'm not stranger to the realm of made-for-TV and specifically made-for-TV horror, which this is.  This is basically your average sorta demon infestation haunted house movie, with a slow plot movement and a few more character moments than expectd, as well as some well executed flourishes from a young go-getter like Spielberg who was showing off and trying to get noticed.  

I basically gave the plot earlier, but to close the loop on it, the wife starts hearing weird noises, the son seems aloof and distant, and hubby is now constantly gone because the commute to his job is much longer.  Woman is going crazy and that's the plot.  Also worhty of being noted is the odd choice of having the hubby's job be a television commercial filmer and the stupid Apple Bar product commercial he's making is legit hilarious stuff.  Seems like it is unintentionally making fun of itself.

The movie is good, it moves fine and the ending is weird.  I doubt anyone is going to look this one up anytime really soon, but it is on youtube, and I would still give it a standard 2.5.

Batman and Robin - 1997

 On rewatch, Batman from 1989 is great and somehow still underrated, Batman Returns from 1992 is fun and crazy maybe a bit overly long, Batman Forever from 1995 is worse than you remember and similar to Batman and Robin in 1997.  And Batman and Robin is...  yeah, awful.

I'm watching these cause I am showing my girlfriend the films of Christopher Nolan, and it is intersting to view Batman Begins through the lens of "this is in reaction to where Batman had gone" as well as its cool to watch Forever and Robin cause its like "this is why the franchise sat there in squalor for almost 10 years after very quick sequels."

Batman and Robin brings in George Clooney to star as Batman, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.  The movie is gracefully 30 minutes less that Batman Forever, but it really camps it up, it does add nipples to the Bat-Suits, and it lets everyone chew the scenery as much as they should desire, which lets be honest here, lots of them wanted to.

I always wonder when these came out how many people were comparing it to the 60s TV show.  At this point off the air for almost 30 years, is it safe to say that it wasn't in the public consciousness, especially considering the movies had always at least a little bit been aimed at children?  That said I don't give this movie as much of a hard time as others, leaning into the kids stuff seems obvious at this point, being a good ten years before Iron Man and the MCU.  We forget just how sneered upon these ideas and genres were at this point.

My point is not, though, that this is good, it is that this is understandable, but do I like it. no.  It is too much and it's too bad to be so bad its good.  I'll give it a 1.5.

America 3000 - 1986

 Also known as Thunder Warriors.

Actual dialogue from America 3000: Vena: "That effin Plugot tricked me..."  Lakella: "Plugotz got neggy smarts for tricking nobody Vena."  Ooof.  Yes, in the year 3000 we're gonna have stupid lingo that overruns our language and we're going to sound like preschoolers.

We are in the future in this one again, which means the apocalypse has happened and thus the remaining humans are greasy oily guys wearing animal furs and firing crossbows, but it also means there's remnants of the advanced society that led to the end of everything.  We have a sprawling story set in the Israel desert where 80s women with majorly blown out hair hang out and say dumb dialogue like that above to each other all day long.

Then we have our main character, who is really a side character but provides us with obviosuly tacked on narration they added when told, "this story is so hard to track, you gotta clarify what the heck is happening here."  

This does join the long list of post Mad Max rip offs that jumped on the post-apocalype bandwagon, and you know its kinda a bummer tha Max Max Fury Road didn't reignite the genre, or even make too much of an impact seemingly...  I dunno, I miss genre films.  Genre films, regular movies that were cheap and actually got released, they were't premiering on Netflix to no fanfare.

Plotwise we have a society where women rule and men are used for breeding or castrated at worst.  The lead male wants to rebel and our main character and others follow, and it helps a lot when they find an ancient technology stash where they can get access to better shit.  From there, they fight and dialogue happens and if you don't think a large part of the plot revolves around a boombox and a desert yeti, you are dead wrong.

Pictured:  the actual scientifically verifiable year of 3000.

3000 is a good movie, its kinda dumb and low budget but I liked it and I'll give it 3 stars.

Beeper - 2002

 I was thinking of a funny trilogy or even more you could throw together with this movie.  "Movies based on passing technologies".  Obviously Feardotcom, Phone Booth, Trapped by Television, and then Beeper.  What would the sequel be?  Dial Up Internet:  The Movie?

I believe I saw a trailer for Beeper on a VHS circa 2001-2002.  Even then, Beepers were a thing of the past.  My mom had a beeper when I was in elementary school, so we're talking about the 90s there.  I understand that the tech is still around, and is sorta a joke cause its primarily used in drug trades, but hey that does not mean I can't make fun of it.

Beeper is a low budget thriller thing, decidedly low scale, in which a doctor visiting India with his son has his kid go missing when he's doing a conference and finds a ransom note.  This leads him to the cops who almost blow the deal and now its up to the doc solo to investigate this thing, with the help of a girl cop he finds and then later Harvey Keitel as a mob boss who is mostly out for himself.

Beeper, well, I wanted the beeper to be involved more first of all.  In my head this was a hilarious romp in which he's getting beeped a lot and having to call people to get directions on where to go next.  Whatever the story was I needed that tech front and center.  And it wasn't really, it gets stolen pretty early on and a lot of the movie is actually trying to track down the beeper.

Its not as funny as it could have been, and instead it waffles around as a middle of the road thriller that you'll instantly forget.  2 stars.

Thunder - 1983

 Also known as Thunder Warrior, Drug Traffickers, and The Fury of the Warrior.  Well, I was off in guessing filming locations.  I guessed New Mexico and it was in fact Arizona.  

There's a throwaway line in First Blood which I just rewatched where they are describing Rambo for some reason and they mention he is part Native American.  This is part of the whole them of the movie really, who else would have this intrinsic instilled knowledge of the land, of the rights and wrongs, of the truth behind society and why evil exists and...  Yeah, its cause there was an unspoken truth at this point in time, Native meant mystic and we could write off bad writing with just that.

Thunder is an Italian production shot in Arizona with a few local stars like Bo Svenson, the plot concerns a near total rip off of Frist Blood as a partially Native American is dissed and beaten by the occupants of a local town, including the police therein, and then he basically goes postal to use the oft used phrase.  A quarter or less of the dialogue from the film First Blood is employed, as we watch our main character fight the law, will the law win?

This movie is pretty boring, despite my seeming enthusiasm for it.  It too often goes to overlong scenes of dubbed actors saying stupid dialogue.  Our main character is gone for massive lengths of time with little to no explanation.  There's very little progression of the story despite the seeming addition of tension with the idea of now he had a gun or now he has a car or now he has a tractor or whatever it is.  

Thunder has the guy from the MST3K classic Escape the Bronx, and it is a fine movie to watch, its also gracefully under 90 minutes, but it is still too long and not very good.  1.5 stars.

Rubin & Ed - 1989

 My aunt Lucy recently recommended this to me, then the next time I saw her she had written the director of this on Facebook or something, and had obtained a signed DVD copy which I am now watching.  Weird huh?

Crispin Glover stars in this little known indie buddy comedy flick.  Made on a small budget and definitely leaning into the "weird" side of things, the movie is a road trip/buddy comedy/who knows unclassifiable niche experimental one off.  Sounds like just the sort of thing Glover would be in, right?

The strangest thing about this is the tone.  Neither character is likable, and the fights between the characters feel actually real, not in an entirely good way.  That said, the comedy also feels real and the jokes are actually funny.  The movie is a weird one, thats the bottom line, and I'm not surprised someone in my family would own a signed copy, thats for real.

Plotwise, weird loner Rubin is told by his mom he has to make a friend or he won't get his boombox back.  Realty schlup Ed is a misfit who wants to redefine his life with success after his wife left him.  They team up after Ed finds Rubin's cat dead and Rubin swipes his vehicle to go bury the cat in the desert.  Wacky shenanigans ensue from there, and some of the stuff is insane and some of it straight forward.  

Overall the script is better than it sounds and it moves quickly.  I thought this would be a super low budget mess but it's actually cohesive and I liked it more than I thought.  I'd give it a solid 3.5, and I'll tell my aunt I enjoyed it.

Murder By Numbers - 2002

 When you're flying cross the country and you have 5 hours to kill, sometimes you end up watching a movie you wouldn't expect. There's very little choice on a lot of planes and so the fact that this 2002 unknown action thriller was available made me put it on.

Murder By Numbers is a apt title for a pretty much by the numbers thriller film. A well-written and perhaps well inspired film, but also one in which there's very little takeaway and there's not going to be a ton to say. I called that this was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case, a real life case in which two very intelligent men thought they could smart their way into getting away with murder.

Michael Pitt and Ryan Gosling Star as the two men and Sandra Bullock stars as the investigator, we know pretty early on that they did it and we know pretty early on that she thinks maybe there's something suspicious about them. The rest of the film is putting the puzzle pieces together as to how they did it, who did what, and why.  

That's all well and good, and it executes it to the average degree. What I found the differentiated this from certain other movies is that the character stuff is well written. Sandra Bullock's character is very strange and slightly comical and slightly dark. The two kids are well written and they have an odd dynamic. Side characters are pretty well fleshed out and each one delivers a very solid performance. I appreciated that this was more of a character piece than one would need for plot like this and that the character pieces that were attempted were done well.

That said it's the only thing that makes this stand up a tiny bit above the average mystery thriller and I give it a 3 out of 5.

Rambo III - 1988

 Everyone knows First Blood, it's the actually good overlooked psychological look in on a veteran who returns home and faces difficulty from a cop. 

Part two that same veteran is sent to rescue POWs in Vietnam. It's a steep drop off from the first. Then... what the fuck happens in part 3?!  That is why I'm choosing to review that one even though I watched all 3. 

Rambo 3 is the one where Colonel Troutman gets kidnapped while he's sent on a mission and then Rambo choses to go in and rescue him alone. That's the gist of this one. But as I started it I just kept wondering is this one any good or do I just forget about it constantly, is it just too much of the same thing?

For both 2 and 3, these movies had been on a trajectory of losing dramatic interest and instead opting for action.  I think that the reason this one jumps the shark is because it takes a relative side character in Troutman and not only focuses a lot on him but chooses to do so in an action lens. Richard Crenna is a good actor and the movie is not terribly written but I think I end up not caring because it's not what I came for.

Troutman is the secondary character in this, and beyond that you have some Middle Eastern family that Rambo's sort of adopted.  I only now realize both 2 and 3 don't really have central villains... They're fighting governments, lands, entities. The first movie had Brian Dennehy. Just something to note. 

Rambo 3 is fine to put on in the background and it's very forgettable but it's not like it's going to hurt you.  It's still better than Rambo and the recent Rambo Last Blood. I'll give it a 2.5

Twisted - 2004

 Dude c'mon with this title. The year is 2004 and Ashley Judd had been implemental to the post Se7en nu-metal soaked post millennium world. Why not capitalize with a film titled Twisted?!

Geez you guys. This movie is exactly that though. You have Bone Collector and Double Jeopardy and such, and this is arriving a bit late to the scene to say, "hey how about that whole thing again? I have something you say!"

But does it tho... You know.... Does it? Not really basically. This movie switches things up by having Judd be a short haired sexually charged cop who is also an unreliable narrator. They just looked at those stops and said fuck it pull em all out. 

Sam L Jackson, Leland Orser, and Andy Garcia fill out the cast, and the movie goes along minding its own business. They show Judd is a tough cop in a new precinct and a new body shows up- it's someone she's slept with. She instantly gets a bad omen and sure enough, soon other men she's fucked begin to turn up dead. 

Twisted is a product of its time, yet without leaving full into an R rating it leaves it feeling uncertain what it wants to do. Also, the end is entirely predictable. I'll give it a 2. 

The Burning - 1981

 I guessed later in the 80s. Hm. 

The Burning is a slasher. Wait, a slasher in the 80s? First for everything. 

I dunno. The Burning is a movie I've seen a few times, honestly had to check to see if maybe it'd been put on this blog before. This movie is a lot like Sleepaway Camp, which is of course a lot like Friday the 13th. 

I'm not calling the Burning completely unoriginal. In fact when I first saw this I liked it, and I watched it again now and liked it again. There's the slasher I'm trying to remember where the kids play a trick on someone in the beginning... Terror Train, of course. Anyways in both Burning and Train the beginning shows the future killer getting spurned by dumb teens, giving them the need to kill. It's a weird idea to front load the reason, but then again I guess Friday the 13th had a strong reason in the end... Huh I dunno. 

The Burning has a pre Seinfeld Jason Alexander, it has some titties, it has some decent deaths, and the ending is fun and fast paced. There's not much to dislike. I'll give it 4 stars. 

Maniac - 2012

 I first saw Maniac fairly early on, perhaps in 2012. I was pretty into Alexander Aja at that time, and I saw an independent movie produced by and starring Elijah Wood also produced by Aja so naturally I watched it. 

Maniac was so recent but so long ago. Long ago in that Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, and probably other stuff I can't think of had recently been remade or sequelized, and also graphic "horror porn" was still sorta in the zeitgeist. 

This is sort of a remake of the William Lustig 1980 same titled film which I actually rewatched recently and both times I've watched Maniac 2012 I've thought how was this a remake? I get it basically it's a horror movie where the killer is obsessed with mannequins kinda, but other than that they're pretty unrelated. 

Elijah Wood is a maniac killer whose eyes we literally see out of in the rip off of the idea in Enter The Void. He goes around slicing off women's scalps and having freak episodes, and basically that's the plot. It's made with a gimmick in mind, that of seeing from his point of view, which I will give it credit for in that it is original, and never caught on in any significant way. 

Is the movie good? I mean, interesting question. Gimmicks can work, I will not dismiss them outright. Director Franck Khalfoun certainly made a unique, highly watchable movie. Almost certainly made on a shoestring budget with a lot going to the gimmick, it doesn't feel cheap. Also it is eerie and memorable. For years I been sitting here saying, remember that first person slasher movie I saw once?

Maniac is not essential but it is a good movie and worth a watch. 4 stars. 

In the Year 2889 - 1969

 Larry Buchanan previously appeared in the blog with Its Alive, a monster movie I hated about 5 years ago. 

Fast forward to now and I haven't watched much more of his movies and indeed haven't watched much this year even, at all. I am again tempted to say blog over, let's settle for now by saying blog changing. Blog slowing. 

In the Year 2889 is a talky sci fi flick about isolation and suspense type stuff. It's a movie type I generally like because it's so simple and stripped down and rides on the writing. If you're not a good writer, see movies like The Devil Girl from Mars. Either way I appreciate these movies as a challenge to themselves and the crew.

2889 has a small group get trapped with an old man when a deadly fog sits in the hills, bringing with it awfully mutated killer guys.  One of the trapped people is a hothead guy who wants to run the show but the oldman has a gun, and another guy is a scientist. There's the girl and viola, movie. 

It's a relatively slow and generically kinda boring movie, but tbh I was expecting worse. It's doesn't have absolutely zero happen, some stuff does happen. Not a lot, but ya know. You can basically predict it so I'll spare you more plot detail. 

I'll give it a 2.5. It's straight down the middle with not much to say about it.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes - 1970

 I've seen the original 5 Planet of the Apes films, I remember them from back in high school or middle school or whenever I saw them.  I was always into the original film, since who knows when, and true story my DVD once played at the theater I used to work at.

I did not, however, remember a single thing about the 4 other films in the series besides some of the latter half ideas of this movie.  In this movie, another astronaut named Brent comes to the Ape Planet and discovers the ape civilization.  He meets Nova, Zira, Conelius and all the other characters from the original movie, and pretty soon he's on the run with Nova.

This is the one in the series with the strangest turn from my memory.  That's because Brent finds a group of hyper-evolved humans that speak telepathically and worship an atomic bomb.  Its a choice, I guess, and the end is a huge weird moment that does not speak to 3 more sequels.  

The effects in this movie are okay until the end, where the slashed budget of the movie is apparent.  It's still not that bad looking, and I enjoyed the movie a good amount.  It's not that which makes the movie suffer too much, if anything the plot is what sinks this movie.  So much of this movie is cryptic for the sake of being cryptic and then when the big reveal comes, the plot is so completely stupid, and on top of that acted poorly?  It's just unfortunate.

I was interested enough to put the next movie onto my library queue however, so take that as you will.  3 stars.

The Unholy - 1988

 Porn store VHS here. I exclusively got fun looking stuff. 

The Unholy is a religious themed horror movie, and while those are automatically not my favorite, some are decent. This one, not one of the decent ones. 

Some priest is tempted by evil seductresses in this movie. I'm tempted to say that's it, that's the plot. Cuz truly that's basically almost it. What else... I dunno, actually, that is it. 

This movie is slow, it's long, and it's boring. The good religious movies keep things going with kills or effects or whatever, this just plods along. It does have Hal Holbrook and Ned Beatty in small roles and there is a cool monster at the very very end, but at this point you're already tuned out. 1 star. 

The Bear - 1988

 I have been once again collecting VHS that I see around, as I mentioned earlier.  I have about 11 more, and I do intend to keep this going, as I like the gear shift that comes with random VHS.

The nature documentary is not a new genre, though it has regained popularity with Planet Earth et all that have been coming out recently.  This is not a documentary, but it is very close.  Minimal dialogue, music, and even a respectful non-invasive method of filming make it spiritually akin to the real thing.  Jean Jacques Annaud directs this extremely realisitc film.

The Bear stars real bear Bart, who I just read was considered for a Academy Award nomination for his role, until the Academy decided non-humans could not be nominated.  Real story.  Bart is a big ol' bear that a cub finds when its mom is killed by a couple humans who are going around hunting bears.  The two of them go around and do bear things while in the meantime the two hunters are still out there, guns loaded.

This is very minimal, as already stated.  That is a real bonus for it.  The bear is also real, as is the cub, and that makes it really cool to watch.  This could never be made with CGI, if it was it would completely suck.  Instead, its fucking fantastic, beautiful and really captivating.  The movie moves at its own contemplative, meditative pace, and varies between tension and elatedness a lot.

The Bear is a unique film that you should probably watch, and I really enjoyed it. 4 stars.

The Postman - 1997

 The Postman is almost as well known as the other Keven Costner helmed and starring vehicle Waterworld.  These movies were well known then and now for being huge, bad, bomb movies that were publicly mocked.

I saw Waterworld dozens of times, and its a fucking classic man.  Somehow though, I never saw The Postman, until now. 

One time in the last few years my grandma, 88 or so at the time, griped about my mom moving to Mexico.  "They don't even have a post office," she gave as an example,  "how can a country run without a post office?"  I thought of what arrived in the mail these days:  things that say Current Resident, magazines you didn't want, and things asking for money.  I shook my head and silently thought to myself, "I'm sure they're fine without it".

Kevin Costner stars in this futuristic sci fi flick about a world ended by war and reduced to desert and rogue communities, things have really steered in the wrong direction in the far off year of...2013.  Yup, ten years ago that apocalypse struck and we had no mail, and then some actor from Waterworld saved the world.  Remember that?

Anyways, he gets inspired around the 50 minute mark to do his part by delivering the mail, and you know... can I ask...  how the fuck did this movie get made?  It's so much a product of it's time, the people who were young in the 60s getting to where they could make their own vehicle, and making some psuedo community save the world flick about how bad things are but how the spirit is still good.  

The Postman is a dumb, weird romp through a specific time and a place, and it's a classic.  Its a bit slower and not as effects heavy as Waterworld, so it'll get minused a few points for that, I'll just give it a 3.5.

Revenge - 1986

 More of the VHS from the porn store with a perhaps not quite as rare and not quite as amateur film here, the 1986 cleverly-titled Revenge.  John Carradine and a vague plot, lets make the movie.

This needs to be mentioned in the same breat as ISOYGT from last time not just because they were bought at the same store, but also because like I said, this is in the same amateur vein, just not AS MUCH.  This movie had some production, even if it mostly took the form of them simply hiring a known actor for one day of filming.

Revenge is also known as Blood Cult II, the sequel to the 1985 film which is something of a cult classic.  It is directed by the same person and has similarities, so it might as well actually be Blood Cult II, but it is not titled that way.  It is the sequel though, I guess.  

Revenge is basically about a cult of some sort which is killing women and leaving a little totem on their bodies.  Some people are going to this area and are killed, repeat, repeat.  John Carradine is a cult leader guy, and I kid you not, probably on set for one day.  I don't really remember much else plot-wise.  It's extremely straight-forward.

Revenge has some kills and some trashy fun, but it's not as fus as ISOYGT.  It is pretty much just a cheap horror flick with little going on between the ears, but it's fucking fun enough man, it's fine ENOUGH.  I'll give it like a 2.

"I'll Kill You... I'll Bury You... I'll Spit on Your Grave Too!" - 1995

 Wow dude.  Just wow.

I went to visit my friend in Bremerton WA recently and we stopped in at an adult video store.  If anyone lives in the area, check out Mylo's I think it is called.  This store had everything we remember from the mid 2000s adult video stores before the internet really completely overlapped physical format.

Mind you, this is not an adult toy shop or even a store with an adult section.  It's an adult video store with a "preview" room in the back that I'm sure is 100% legit, crazy $30 prices on unknown compilation DVDs, and a oily overweight guy in a skin tight blue shirt behind the register.  This is the real deal, and it is not long for this world.

They had a rack of VHS porn over the back corner.  My friend Matt made a comment that he saw a movie over there, True Lies or something.  I laughed, figuring it as a joke that this store had real movies too.  But he was right, they did.  I browsed the selection, astonished at the amount of completely unknown films there I had never even heard of.  This was one of them.

At this point, I can spot a rare movie, and I can also spot something which the world has forgotten about.  I'll Kill You... I'll Bury You... I'll Spit on Your Grave Too (YGT from now on) has no official DVD release.  The VHS is rare, selling on eBay for anywhere between $50-100.  YGT has no wikipedia, and basically nothing about it can be found online.  A hidden gem.

Or is it?  It is almost unnecessary to point out no one in this movie has any other credits, this was certainly shot direct to VHS with no budget, made by random horror fans and their friends.  That said, it's actually pretty good.  I thought this would be a porn movie, honestly, and that was not helped by the three nude scenes in the very beginning, but this is just a nudity filled horror movie, and it ain't bad at that.

The acting is atrocious, but the music and the effects are actually not bad.  Additionally, it does kind of move quickly, and it toes the line often into so-bad-its-good territory, while also just occasionally slipping over into "almost legit slasher movie" territory.  The year being 1995, you have to know that some of this was intentional, and given that, I give this movie mega props.  

Plot wise it's straight and simple.  There's a kill in the beginning, cut to some years later the killer was never caught and now there are some teens heading into the area where it happened.  Gee, ya think the guy could still be out there?  Like I said plenty of nudity and stupid teens having fun.  This feels like the kind of thing where seriously everyone did have fun, and that is something I just love.  

I kinda talked myself into loving this while I wrote the review.  My girlfriend has certainly never seen anything like this before, and she said she'd give it a 2 out of 5, so I mean that is not bad for this type of thing.  I knw these movies a bit better which is why it gets...

Starman - 1984

 Closing in on reviewing all of John Carpenter's films here maybe, if that is indeed the goal. 

Between Christine and Big Trouble in Little China there was this drama road trip movie that seems to have been relatively forgotten.  I'm also watching Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which I actually do not think I have seen before!

Starman stars Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen in a alien-comes-to-Earth film.  Karen Allen is a broken person after losing the love of her life, Scott, Jeff Bridges.  An alien lands beside her house in the night and comes in, finds a picture of Scott, and replicates his appearance.  Karen Allen walks in to see the alien growing from a baby into a picture perfect replica of Scott, and from here it turns into a weird road trip movie to get the alien back to Arizona.

The tension and the feeling of this movie range all over the place.  It starts as a hostage situation where Jeff Bridges pseudo kidnaps Allen because he does have a gun and he asks her to drive him.  As they bond, he reveals he would never hurt her and it's around the time they started to get along anyways, so now she's doing it out of love and to see this thing through.  Meanwhile, they have various adventures and Bridges learns about humanity.

Like I said it's got some bizarre tension to it, and throw in the fact they're being chased by Charles Martin Smith as a SETI guy, this movie does keep you interested.  

I thought it was fine, basically.  The story is pretty straight and it's a tad too long, but overall, it's fine.  It's not one you'll need to rewatch or study or anything.  It basically is what it is, in all it's weird self.  2.5 stars.

The Terror Within 2 - 1991

 When you vaguely remember The Terror Within because of the werewolf on the cover, and cause it came out trying to capitalize on The Howling and Wolfen and all the others, well that is when you watch the sequel.

C'mon, let's admit first off the title begs reexamination. How about The Terror Without first of all- or The Terror Within You? Guys, he creative. 

I only vaguely remember the first movie, which if memory serves, is werewolves. I say this because in this movie it's really not.

There's a pandemic on, see, and people are sort of rotting/seeping blood and becoming gross blood monsters. R Lee Ermey and some other people are in an underground bunker in the desert and thus relatively safe. Some newcomers come to the situation and now it's a game of try to survive. 

90s trash, yes. If you were wondering. Maybe it's the film quality. Maybe it's the acting. I couldn't say what it is for sure, but there is a distinctive feel to 90s movies.

By the way this is only 4 years off Full Metal Jacket, and Ermey is aleady in Z grade direct to VHS bullshit? Geez he deserved better. 

1.5 stars

Dark Tower - 1988

 I'm feeling a bit more like watching horror flicks and reviewing them, plus we up here in Idaho had another cold snap n 6 inches of snow, so....

Dark Tower has Michael Moriarty of Q The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, he's playing another square who's called in when a window washer falls to his death from a big ol tower. The window he fell from was that outside of Carolyn, so now she's dragged into the investigation. 

This movie is a minimal, cheap dumb horror flick. In fact, that's a term that I would say exists to describe this exact type of thing- if the set at any point is, say, hastily put up unpainted walls, if your set has exposed wood or lighting from just exposed lightbulbs, if your set has empty cardboard boxes around... It's a flick.

Dark Tower is a flick, and in those terms, which themselves predispose for middling, Tower is a middling one. It's average, it's whatever, it's a "sure, ok". 

If you haven't gotten the picture yet I'll say this, another necessary thing to define a flick is that you'll pretty much never think of it again, it's anywhere from 1.5-3ish stars, but hey, you also weren't looking away from the TV screen the whole time with boredom. 

I'll give this a 2.5 

From a Whisper to a Scream - 1987

 I was cruising Amazon and this movie was recommended so why not.  I had been feeling like a slasher and I thought for a minute this might be one.  It's not, but it did fit the bill regardless.

Vincent Price leads us on an intro where I'm wondering where this will go, then we cut to the first story cause you guessed it!  It's an anthology film.

Segment one is a story of a dorky guy that goes on a date with a woman and when she rebuffs him he kills her.  Then he kills his sister, before a mutant baby creature shows up and kills him!  I must've missed that this was supposed to be the baby of him and the woman he killed.  I must've missed that somewhere.

Second segment, some asshole guy owes some gangsters and flees to the swamp and is saved by an old black man who practices voodoo.  The asshole comes to believe the man might be over 200 years old and tries to get him to share the immortality secret.

Segment three is a story of a carnival glass-eater who is in love with a woman.  He wants to leave the curcus and be with her, but the circus is hella evil and they don't want him to leave.  What lengths they're willing to go to...now that's the horror.

Segment four is a civil war thing where a squadron of officers finds a small secluded house where evil children live.  They kidnap the soldiers and slowly kill them off, leaving Cameron Mitchell to be tortured.

Vincent Price is in the wrap-around, and shit, what else do you need?  Some unexpected and unusual nudity, in that it is from an older woman, some good kills, some of the more unusual villains and ideas.  I'll take it!  Hell I'll even give it 3.5 stars.

Maciste in Hell - 1925

Damn yo, I guessed the year right first try!

This is on the boxset and I ask you is hell not the ultimate Nightmare World?  I say it is.

Maciste is an Italian hero from the silent film era, and in this he is brought down to hell by Satan to get tested by the creatures down there.  He is put through tests both spiritual and physical, and must endure with only his strength of body and will.  

There was a funny slide in this movie that described Maciste, it was a while ago and I didn't write it down but it was something like "Maciste with his power slightly more than average man".  I just liked that they basically downplayed him like, guys he isn't that strong.  Just a bit.

Hell in this movie is pretty badass I have to say.  A lot of the imagery was based on an Italian artist Gustave Dore, and this shit does look like the movie in a way:

This movie's got a bit of tinting to it as well, it was black and white but early on it's more like yellow and black, then hell is definitely red and black.  With cool costumes and satanic things all around, with a frame rate that makes things move quick and choppy, hell indeed looks brutal as fuck.  Surprising also is that hell has scantily clad women!

I have not seen a ton of black and white silent films, but if someone made a list of films stylistically akin and fast paced like this, I would check some of them out!  This is damn entertaining!  I'll give it 4 stars!

When a Stranger Calls Back - 1993

 Goddamn it I was off by one year in my guess!  I guessed 1992.

I watched and was impressed a while back when I watched When a Stranger Calls.  This film, though I had never seen it, shocked me with just how much a true horror movie it was, and it's grim and more realistic view of a serial killer.  So then, why not watch the made-for-TV sequel movie that came out 14 years later?

Well, it's a bit of a decline, in case the words "made for TV" didn't clue you in.  When a Stranger Calls Back takes the same idea, basically does it again, but instead of upping the stakes, it sort of turns them down.  Then as if to over-compensate throws you one of the most insanely incongurent end sequences of all time.

WASCB has some act issues for sure, such as the long, long middle section where essentially nothing happens, except that the plot pieces that have happened happen again.  Basically, a woman is watching a kid in a house while the parents are away, and someone comes knocking at the door saying his car is stalled down the street.  He asks the babysitter to call a tow truck.  Picking up the phone, she realizes the cord has been cut, and this guy continues to terrorize her.

WASCB isn't bad by any means, and the scenes of the door interaction and then figuring out that maybe the killer somehow got inside are truly scary.  It's just a little bit slow...  and like I said, it's not a bad ending, especially if it was in a different movie, it just does not belong in THIS movie.  

I'll still give this 3 stars though.

Toxic Zombies - 1980

Also known as Bloodeaters, Bloodeaters: Butchers of the Damned, The Dromax Derangement, and Forest of Fear.

I've been craving zombie movies lately, and this came up as a suggestion when I finished Zombie 3 on Tubi.  Guys, get on Tubi, it has the most cult films I have ever seen on one platform.

Toxic Zombies was the vision of one man, a man with a bizarre story to tell:  Senior Vice President at a corporation Charles McCrann.  This guy was a corporate America big wig who worked in the fucking Twin Towers and died there on September 11th, but that was 21 years after he wrote, directed, produced and starred in this fucking weird ass zombie movie?

The movie starts promisingly.  A girl bares those big ol titties and rubs em down with water while people wander through some marijuana fields.  Awesome.  The idea is that out in the mountains somewhere theres this illegal weed farm, and these inbred rednecks dump some sort of experimental toxin all over their weed crops, and it ends up turning them into zombies.  Naturally.  

This movie is a blast.  It was labeled as a Video Nasty, again, and so I'm working my way through the list of those that exist.  It also had a weird history, obviously, and when things are this strange, they usually as a total wtf situation.  This one joins those ranks.  

It's not bad either!  I mean to an average movie watcher they'll hate it but to us, to me, it's good!  It's a good culty smokey drive in horror movie with dumb zombies and some good kills and it comes from the heart!  I wonder if Charles McCrann was happy with it?

I'll give it 4 stars.

Mistress of Atlantis - 1932

Part two of oldy-timey excursions on this set is this set, after The Lost City, this too is about Atlantis. 

In this bizarre remake, a group of explorers is wandering through the Sahara desert, as people do, and they find a mysterious entrance to Atlantis. Turns out Atlantis is run by a evil acting queen, and now they have to conflict with her in their quest to escape and survive. 

This movie does have a strange look to it, probably from the age, where people move in unnatural ways, choppy and odd, which really helped it. Especially with the Atlantians, it gave them an otherworldly and demonic presence.  

Otherwise, this is a often done plot, though I suppose this was one of the first in actuality. I wonder what the big deal with Atlantis was in the early 1900s? 

This is a bit slow and it's a product of its time. I can't slam it. I again wonder the usual stuff, like how well known this is, what it's individual legacy is. Will anyone ever rewatch it, relish in it?

I did find a review on IMDb where someone raved about it though, and frankly, that kinda stuff makes my heart swoon. Its not for me really, but I'm glad there's someone out there where it IS for them. 

I'll give it 2 stars. 

UFO: Target Earth - 1974

 Also known as Target Earth. 

This boxset is going to have some peaks and valleys, I can tell already.  I'm about to start on a string of bad 30s-ish sci fi related movies on the set. 

UFO is a clearly experimental 70s alien movie, very much leaning into the weirdness, you dig man?  There's a lot of really strange moments of bizarre sounds or screen effects or the actors clearly being given the direction to "look weird and disturbed".  The entire end is a 2001-ish colorscape of "trippy", "Pass the bong" teehee oddity, but you know what?  I loved all of that.

Unapologetically 70s, this movie just is what it is and it has no other era it could have been made in. 

Plotwise, I mean it's like, waaaay out there.  This guy is receiving strange signals from space and wants to find out what it's all about.  He gets this psychic woman and they trace the sources to a lake.  It turns out there's aliens in the lake, and they can only communicate through him.  That's about it, and it's also blessedly short at just around 75 minutes.

I would say that a lot of people might now love this as much as I did, but it is so wonky and out there it immediately gets in as a cult film.  I'll give it 4 stars.

Unknown World - 1951

 Also known as Night Without Stars.

Ok I just want to say if this had still had the name Night Without Stars, it would be a example of better name than movie. Unknown World fits it well because it's generic, bland, unnoticeable just like this movie. 

Most of this movie takes place in a grey room where "conflict" ensues, and if that sounds boring...well, it is! It's quite boring. 

Some stuffy scientist is out to prove some theory about hiding from radioactive age now that the atomic age is upon us, so he gets some guys and heads into the earth with 4 other bland people. 

There's the girl, the two guys who have conflict, scientist, and some other guy, and they have a few obstacles and explore the inner earth, and honestly that's about it. There's not much to this. 

It's a very middle of the road dramatic 50s movie with a slight sci fi edge to it, and that's about it. I don't mention these types of things unless they're really quite bad, but this is: the audio is so muffled that I missed a ton of what is said in this movie! It's remarkably bad. 

Overall, it's lifeless. 1.5 stars 

Ring of Terror - 1962

 I'm going through this new boxset right now, and it had a MST3K film in it, Ring of Terror.  Fuck it dude.  I'm a veteran of these boxsets and I voted that I could just rewatch the MST3K version. 

Ring of Terror is not one of my favorite MST3K films.  I cannot imagine this movie without the treatment these guys did on it, it's just a bad bad movie.  This was the episode that gave us the long-running "Puma!" callback they did for a while, that and the constant jokes about the age of the actors are the best jokes from this MST.

Ring of Terror aside from that is an insufferably long, slow movie about college medical students who are joining a frat and must pass their initiation tests.  There's a few of them thrust into this, and each one is tested to their own strengths and weaknesses pretty much, and that's basically all there is to it.  

The truth about the MST3K "old" jokes is very true.  According to what I can see here, some of the actors playing college students were in their 30s or even 40s.  That's problem number 1.  Problems 2, there is just not enough here to make this even marginally interesting, let alone scary.  This is like a supposed thriller drama with absolutely zero thrills and very sparse drama even.  

If I had watched the movie without MST aid it would for sure be a zero.  The MST version is barely a 2, its not my fave episode.  So, yeah, zero for this clunker.

They - 1974

 Also known as Invasion from Inner Earth and Hell Fire.

Bill Rebans makes another appearance on this set after The Alpha Incident.  Now, in that review, I talked about how surprised I was that I was liking a Bill Rebane film after my previous knowledge of him from Monster A Go Go, and hey maybe thats just his worse film and its all up from there?  Cause a few minutes of research reveals I also kinda liked his movie Rana early on in the blog.

They is similar in feel to The Alpha Incident in minimalism.  Alpha was all basically in one room with minimal amount of actors and happenings, and this movie is as well a lot in one room, or shot outside, with a minimal amount of actors and happenings.  They both suffer from essentially similar problems as well, in that to keep minimalism going you need a good script, and both don't quite have an adept enough hand, but also have plenty of entertainment value nonetheless.

Early on in They, a couple of isolated people way out in the middle of nowhere are only tenuously connected to the rest of the Earth by a radio, a radio which they begin to hear strange reports on.  It seems the world is descending into chaos, and all sorts of crazy happenings are going on.  When they fly to a nearby town, they're told not to land, and the air traffic guy literally throws himself onto the tarmac to stop them from doing so.  Seems there is a crazy new disease spreading, and it's basically total chaos.

This movie had some interesting factors rewatching in 2023.  The elephant in the room here is that it felt reminiscent of Covid, especially my experience, where I lived in the backwoods of Idaho and mostly heard about things going on in cities and around the world, where my own experience was seeing nothing and having my daily life change very little.

It felt more like they had something to do with the characters in this over Alpha Incident, but this movie still had some lags, and I think it also had a few plot holes.  There's a recurring bit where the people in the house gets calls from a weird alien voice over the radio, and I guess it's not a spoiler to tell you, we never figure out what that was all about.  Its hinted at for sure, but then again there is never a clear resolution to what happens in the movie at all, and the ending is a great wtf moment for sure.

I liked this and I thought the music especially was awesome.  I'll give it 4 stars.

The Horrible House on the Hill - 1974

 Also known as People Toys, The Devil Times Five, and Tantrums. 

Put on this multi-named horror while I was working and you know what? Actually didn't want to multi task or distract myself away from it! A good movie!

This is why people do this. I mean the whole Grindhouse cult thing, why people keep watching them, is to find hidden gems like this that are not obvious. We dig and dig, watch and watch, and eventually, statistically speaking, you will find one. 

People Toys is low budget and flawed, sure, but it's always about what is done right. The movie has good actors, style, some deaths, nudity, and it's cozy as heck, filmed in the snow swept countryside somewhere. 

A bunch of kids and a nun escape a bus crash early on, from there they roam around until they find a chalet where some people are staying. The kids are all a bit weird acting, but so are the people at the chalet, so we dismiss it, that is until we see the kids kill someone.

Numerous times, this movie uses a weird slow motion with bizarre sounds and effects, and in this case it adds to the strange feeling of this extremely odd movie.  The tone is offbeat but not bad, and the plot moves quickly with a lot of characters and deaths to keep you going. Its got the feeling of a true sickness to it that I appreciated. 

I was surprised! I'll give it 4 stars. 

Alien Zone - 1978

 Also known as The House of the Dead

Continuing the boxset, I was thrilled when the plot of this movie sounded like an anthology.  A wandering businessman meets a crypt-keeper, who summons him in, and tells him stories about the bodies stored there?  How did these macabre deaths happen?  Stories told are:

1. a dead schoolteacher whose dislike for children amounts to them getting revenge.

2. a photographer and serial killer who likes to film his murders.

3. an American crime detective ala Sherlock Holmes who meets his British counterpart.

4. a busines man who dislikes a homeless person, and then through a series of completely insane torturous circumstances, becomes one himself.

These range from pretty straight forward (the first two) to incredibly weird (the last one).  The longest is the Sherlock Holmes inspired one, and that one is pretty tame all the way around.  The best is by far the last one, where they just go for it in the crazy shenanigans that happen to this businessman, and everyone's favorite torture device a spike wall in it!!

The audio and video quality on this movie is aggressively bad.  I'll say that straightup.  I thought of it as I watched it as it was in the language of Muffle and should have had English subtitles.  Similarly, the shots are awful, and there's some awfully lit shots and shots where you completely cannot tell what's happening because of the cameras being misused by inadequate idiots.

Overall an anthology makes for easy viewing, especially when there's essentially 5 stories it tells and the entire movie is only 75 minutes long.  This one was a breeze.  3.5 stars.

The Lost City - 1935

 I wasn't sure if I should do this as one entry or two.  The DVD set has it as two films, part 1 and part 2.  I am not sure if that means this is technically a 49 movie boxset, or if it is indeed 50?  Whatever dude.

The Lost City was a serial, with 12 original installments and presumably with little cliffhangers at the end of each one which then they would come back to the next week and solve.  The plot is a sort of plucking the best (opinion, naturally) parts of a few classic plotlines:  the lost civilization thing, mad scientist thing, hollow Earth thing, and then the African tribe / blatant 30s racism thing.

The bare bones in this 3 hour 15 minute thing is that there's a scientist who is in Africa which our hunky heroes need to confront because the scientist is casuing earthquakes.  The scientist is trying to get into the Earth or is trying to find a lost civilization or both, and they need to go stop that shit.

Once they get there, they have to deal with this primitive African tribe the scientist has enslaved, and that includes their giant Boyo.  There's romance, there's action, there's intrigue...meh, that's the sales pitch anyhow.

It's super long.  It's really, really long.  90 minutes in the first movie, 105 minutes on the next.  It's 3 hours 15 minutes as said before.  In order to not have the repetition caused by the cliffhangers, they edited all those out, which makes the plot not have the dramatic effect either, which makes it incredibly slow and boring.

Maybe there was once interest in this from someone somewhere.  Maybe someone out there now would still enjoy it.  I won't slam that as a prospect.  But it's not for me.  I'll give it .5 stars.

Star Odyssey - 1979

 It's been a little while since I saw any of these weird Italian Star Wards rip offs, and one of them was on the boxset....so....yep here we go.

War of the Robots Battle Beyond the Stars War of the Planets and now this, I've watched all 4 of Alfonso Brecia's Star Wars rip offs. 

Thee movies trademark is their near incomprehensibility.  I was thinking when I was watching it of a great "pitch" or summation of the things with these movies:  This series of Star Wars rip offs might take the prize of "Films of which it matters the least if you know what is going on or not".  These flicks DO NOT matter if you're paying attention, if you know who character A B or C are, if you know who's fighting and why.  They just sort of exist, in a bizarre mishmash of color and sound.

I reread the Wikipedia article on the film just now, which goes through the plot.  Apparently, Earth is auctioned off to an evil space guy, who kidnaps earthlings as slaves.  The good guys get involved and they fight the space guy, and of course, they have force powers and glowing swords because remember after all we are ripping off Star Wars.

The 4 of these movies all have some things in common.  They all feature blond men who play robots running around willy nilly, the supposed Stormtroopers.  They all feature the Star Wars force power, which is usually unexplained.  They all feature robots, which are usually played for comedic effect just like in the regular Star Wars. 

The fun thing about these is usually what DOES work in this hodgepodge, and there's things here.  The effects are noticeably cheap, but some of them like the robot men and stuff look really cool.  The makeup and the look of everything is surprisingly entertaining as well.  

I saw a great summation on Wikipedia, which I'll second, which says it depends on your mood.  If you want to see what gets lost in translation and "what could have been" these are really interesting documents.  It also made me for one recognize just how much of a lightning in a bottle stroke of luck and genius Star Wars really was, because it contains a TON of stuff that doesn't make sense and isn't explained.

I give these generally like 2.5 stars.

Frozen Alive - 1964

 I'm chompin away at this boxset slowly but surely.  When I looked through the remaining movies, I had a crisis of faith because there are a lot of really old black and white serial looking things left, and that does not excite me.

I chose Frozen Alive because it sounded intriguing.  It claimed it was about a scientist who freezes himself when he is pinned for a murder he did not commit, and the concept of "will the future hold a man responsible for a crime if he wakes up way after it has been committed"?  Or something like that anyway.

Frozen Alive, lemme tell ya, mismarkets itself a bit here.  The things in the synopsis do happen, but I knew I was in for a long movie when nearly an hour in, no one had died, no one had been frozen, and indeed nothing had happened.  What had the movie been about so far you ask?  Nothing, in short.  An alcoholic woman plays the fool, a scientist tolerates her, and we watch this happen in real time with no interest.

Then, in a seeming rush to have a plot, the alcoholic woman shoots herself on accident, the scientist quickly freezes himself, and we careen carelessly into the crux of the story; is he still responsible.  But I thought, I guess wrongfully so, that some amount of time would pass between freezing and being investigated.  I was wrong.  It's like days later, and so the whole idea "will he be prosecutable in the future" is not valid...?

If it's sounding like there was no reason for this movie to be made, well guess what you're spot on.  Perhaps the DVD plot breakdown gave me a false hope but if this wasn't about a frozen man put on trial what was it about?!  That is the plot, but its extremely minimal, with basically nothing given emphasis for the entire hour 20.  Which basically means it sucks and is pointless.  Half a star.

House of the Living Dead - 1974

 Also known as Doctor Maniac, Shadows Over Bridge Farm, Curse of the Dead, and Kill Baby Kill.

A slew of alternate titles is a common occurrence in these grindhouse style movies I watch, and this has five titles so it must be good right?  No, not really.  I have tried to find a correlation between the amount of alternate titles and the quality of the films, but so far nothing doing.

House of the Living Dead was filmed under the title of Shadows Over Bridge Farm, and the clear distinction between that title and House of the Living Dead was the inclusion of something alluding to "Living Dead" ie zombies.  Yeah, they changed the name to try to cash in on the craze for undead at the time, and you know what, no shade on that...  BUT!  But, the movie has no undead, no zombies, nothing even close, so shame on them.

The plot is that in South Africa these rich white guys live a life of luxury, and local Africans don't like them so they're regularly practicing voodoo of some sort to unknown nefarious intent.  The white family is made up of brothers Michael and Breckinridge, and Michael gets a new wife Maryanne who comes to live with them.  She discovers Breckinridge creeping around and spying on her and supposedly never leaving his top floor room, and in the meanwhile scares start to happen.

Meh.  It was slow.  Really, really slow.  I mean, I don't mind slow but this movie crawled.  It inched.

The movie, I dunno.  It was extremely average in almost all ways except for how slow it was.  Also, when your main characters are stiff British blokes in high necked shirts, it's like do you want us to hate these people we're watching or not?  I never know the intention.  I'll give it a two.