Children of the Corn - 2020

 It looks like CotC: Revelation and the direct to DVD one from 2009 are both not online. So not sure what to do about that. 

This remake doesn’t follow the book or the original film. So, you know, start there. Children in the town of Rylstone have been angered by their parents deciding to raize the cornfield when their corn turns out bad.

The kids are up to all sorts of creepy other shit, making other kids go off planks, etc. Outsider Boleyn is tentatively allowed to view from the outside as the younger children of the town decide to start killing adults. 

The ringleader girl is surprisingly good, very measured and underplayed performance. The main issue isn’t that, it is that we have the evil surface at minute 20 and this is over 90 minutes and yet somehow SLOW and boring. It seems like we’re just waiting for something to happen a lot, even when ostensibly things ARE happening. 

We are finally treated to seeing He Who Walks Behind The Rows, and for a giant corn stalk monster it’s not that bad. I got my brother a silly Cryptid Babies book for my new niece, and it brought up the conversation of what is the difference between folklore, legend, and a cryptid? Maybe it’s part of the endurance of this series is that at times this feels adjacent to modern cryptids like The Mothman. 

This movie feels callbacky to the SyFy movies i used to watch and love in the early 2000s and you might enjoy it in the “so bad it’s good” and or “set your brain off” mode.  I give it like a 3.

Family Reunion - 1989

 I’m doing a long streak of Christmas horror movies here since I couldn’t find the next Children of the Corn streaming. 

Family Reunion is a fairly unknown 1989 thriller suspense kinda horror where a family drives to a ghost town and discover it means something to them. Also happening concurrently with that is a silent weirdo found in that ghost town who has mental powers. 

It’s loosely mentioned that it’s Christmas, otherwise it really doesn’t stamp itself to that time of year. A strange vibe in this that does work is the weirdness of the characters and the ideas combined with a constant off kilter soundtrack. 

A strange movie that’s not really horror but more mystery, or something, this is not one really to seek out or anything. I give it like a 2.5

Silent Night - 2012

 I really thought I remembered this coming into theaters, but Wikipedia tells me this was released to only 11 theaters, and I highly doubt I'd remember that.

This about marks the last time Malcolm McDowell was in a big movie, and even if I did not see this in theaters, I knew this came out, and I do think I saw this.  I think this was fairly recognized remake, at a time when a few classic horror movies were being remade.  The cover with Santa holding a flame thrower was pretty instantly iconic, and I believe I saw this and then forgot it ever existed.

This is also coming at the end of the Saw type of splatter trend that was on a kick for a while, and horror was in a bad place (see my review of 2011's The Howling Reborn).  The characters at this point wore their unlikeability on their sleeve, such as this unrepentant cunt of a teenage daughter that says "Fuck Christmas!" in this movie early on.

Along with the tone and Malcolm McDowell, this is clearly drafting a lot from the Rob Zombie Halloween movie.  Everyone is a disgusting slimy freak, grainy color soaked extremity is everywhere, and the film shoves it all in your face telling you that you like it and you should ask for more. Look, again, a bad time for horror specifically.

I’m trying not to overstate this and I’m also not laying it all to blame on Silent Night. But I’m going to say if horror had kept going this way and not transitioned into elevated horror, I might be out on the genre entirely. It’s a game of one-up-manship, it’s excess for the sake of excess. It clearly would have been tired by now. 

There’s still this type of thing out there, just not as in the spotlight. It’s not even a remake, so if someone from the original got a paycheck for this, good on them. This isn’t horrible compared to its ilk, it’s just an entire movement I never liked and has clearly aged poorly. I’ll give it about 2 stars. 

The Howling Reborn - 2011

 So here come to the end of another series. I’m a little sad!

Apparently taking more from the original novel than the second book this claims to be based on, Howling Reborn has possible sorta hybrid teenager Will confronting werewolves in his urban city. It’s a high school setting and there’s a degree of bullshit relationship and typical bully stuff in here as filler. 

Dumb music and a made for tv look aside, this thing doesn’t…like…hurt, it’s just very much a product of it’s time at a time when low budget direct to DVD horror was truly awful and horror in general was in a bad state. 

That made me curious. I’m googling “2011 horror movies”. Paranormal Activity 3, Scream 4, Red State, Hostel 2, Final Destination 5… need I say more? That’s digging too, most of these I don’t even remember and look incredibly stupid. Okay, Kill List and Cabin in the Woods. There’s two good ones. What the hell happened to Ben Wheatley anyways?

This movie has a very simple setup with one of those overdone beginnings of: "Hey guys I am a werewolf and let me tell you my story."  In fact, the main character and his bad voice over narration is all entirely bad.  But that beginning ruins perhaps the only thing this could have had going for it, which is the mystery of what is going on with our main character.  Instead, the first hour or so is just getting to the point where he knows.  Since we already do, it's all just tedium and boredom.

This plays like your of-the-times C grade werewolf movie clearly trying to jump in on the Twilight thing,  which means now it plays even worse.  Its very much lifeless and scareless, I want to give it a 1 but I think its probably like a 2ish star range.  I'll split the dif.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker - 1991

 I just checked to see if this was filmed back to back with the last film Initiation, but it appears it was not.

I checked because this movie shares multiple actors from the last one of these films, and I have to say since Mirror Mirror did that, and Star Trek does that, it is something I do like.  Just call them something else and have them be a different character is all, and hay I enjoy that.  It also makes me feel good about the relationship between them and the filmmakers, like they were friends or whatever.

I suppose the connective tissue beyond the actors (and perhaps what brought over the actors) is that this is also written by and produced by Brian Yuzna.  This time, there is a string of toys that are coming alive and killing people, first with a weird round Santa toy, and then a cool badass larvae toy.  Little kid Derek is caught in the middle of all this, and somehow a old toy shop in town ran by Mickey Rooney is also involved.

One of my favorite tropes in the comedic horror movie is the fifth hand added to a sex scene.  Either by a third person who's entered the room, or by a rogue hand monster or whatever, I feel like this has been in a few movies and it hits every time.  The uninvited hand will usually play with the man's ass, who of course likes it so much as to comment on it; "Oh baby, you're frisky, playing with my ass?!" I love this stupid joke, it gets me every time, its done to just the right degree where it's not overused.  Just as an aside.

I was sitting here thinking that the plot and the turns in this could land this in your horror version of Pinocchio watch along with Pinocchio's Revenge and then I realized the character in this is named Pinno...They were going for that.  Geez.  Am I dumb.

The end of this is a awesome thrill ride, and the effects and the creep factor is also great.  I dunno dude, the latter two of this series are actually quite good!  This isn't quite as dark and good as the last one, but I'll give this a solid 4 and its a lot more like a slasher than any yet in the series.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation - 1990

 Da fuuuuuck...?!

This one I did not see coming.  In any way.  I am a huge Brian Yuzna fan and I thought I had seen his best work.  His 80s and 90s stuff is all really solid, and I love the effects heavy creepy demented shit him and Stuart Gordon did in their heyday.  Well, I didn't know shit, cause I hadn't seen one of his true masterpieces.

Who'd have thought that 4 movies in, ditching the Christmas thing entirely, and taking this in a lesbian worm infestation plot was the right move for this series?  Now immediately, I'll say this movie should not have been titled what it was.  This should be a horror movie called Initiation or whatever, and should never have been tied to the SNDN franchise or series.  Likely this would be known more also if that were the case, and let me tell you, this should be known more.

Maud Adams from James Bond stars as the sexy lesbian-ish seductress who leads a female parasite cult type thing that main character Kim encounters and gets drawn into as she works as a reporter on a case of spontaneous combustion.  The combustion seems that it was caused by the women, and as they seduce her with Clint Howard as a creepy weirdo, Kim begins to get in deeper and deeper.

The practical effects in this thing are top notch, the lesbian stuff is all really sexy and done right, the main actress pulls it off, and the linear qualities keep you knowing whats happening.  When this hits full stride you're watching it truly pulled in, disgusted, titillated, and freaked da fuck out.

Disturbing, unique, and having the best of Yuzna is really nice, and Maud Adams as well, this thing just works.  Well.  I give this 4.5 stars.

Black Christmas - 1974

 I haven’t reviewed Black Christmas??! What? I fuckin for sure thought I had. 

Keir Dullea and Margot Kidder star in what is quickly becoming one of my favorite horror film slashers of all time. Seriously, this one is beginning to eclipse even John Carpenter’s Halloween. 

A sorority group of girls has been receiving crank calls from some weird voiced freak who says disturbing things about pussies or killing people, the girls listen with bizarre interest. Margot Kidder is sorta the alpha of the group and won’t take that shit, and she takes charge of the situation. Could the crazy calls have something to do with the creepy attic?

This is an interesting blend of whodunit, slasher, and interesting character study. Keir Dullea is a pained piano performer, there’s jealous other guys around, and there’s suspicions on different people at different times. 

Couple that with a really dark atmosphere and believable small scale scares, this is a completely formidable and intense horror movie. I’ve seen it either at Christmas or Halloween for the last 3-4 years and I seriously adore the ending to this.

Really awesome and on display in this a lot is the perfect mix of journeyman directing straight forward approach, mixed with a few perfect auteur artistic shots. There’s sequences, such as the famous eye shot, which are so well done you feel such delight, coupled with such a great steady hand in the rest of the film it really allows those to shine. 

As a spoiler, the end of this seems to directly inspire Halloween, and the darkness of the ending is so great that you’re just left with shivers. The best thing about this movie is that it’s genuinely disturbing and scary, from the weirdness of the calls to the isolation in the shots. Leaving without a resolution is so macabre that you can barely even handle it. 

Also, I’ve been long thinking about sequels and legacy. As a film goes, we try to divorce ourselves from bad sequels (see: Star Wars). But we still have seen those movies and they’re still tainting the legacy. It’s really awesome this has no sequels even though it’s left open ended. What a fuckin triumph that this wasn't revealed to be some terrible actor who looked stupid in the second movie. 

 A couple years before Halloween, i do consider this a slasher origin story as well. 5 stars. 

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! - 1989

 A random horror movie with three David Lynch actors in it?  Who'd have thought.

That's right, Laura Herring from Mulholland Dr., Eric Da Re and Richard Beymer from Twin Peaks are both in this dumb third part of Silent Night.  They jump the shark early as they throw in a blind girl with special psychic abilities who sorta somehow gets linked to the incapacitated, coma ridden Jerry from the last movie.  She raises him from his coma a la Friday the 13th part 7, and soon enough he's out killing people.

Not really a Christmas horror movie anymore, this one instead has a thankfully recast Jerry walking around with a glass thing over his head and lumbering like a Jason or Michael type, except he's woefully more boring.  

I'm glad they threw in a subtitle to shake things up, but it's not even really related to anything, and again you have a rated R movie which has so little of the good shit that'll get you an R rating it's like why did they bother.  This should be a fun romp with nudity and guts, instead its really slow and mild, with nary a memorable scene or moment in the entire run time.

I don't want this to sound like the worst movie yet, but it is, if only because at least the last one is so short and it has the ability to laugh at it or with it.  This one is just too boring to do that.  I give this 1.5 stars.

The Sign of Four - 1983

 I downloaded some movies onto my phone for my trip to Nicaragua this year and this was one of them.  After a few days of crazy Nicaraguan adventures, my girlfriend and I wanted to watch something, and this is what we put on.

The Sign of the Four was one of the longer Sherlock Holmes books, and I read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 2021.  I did vaguely remember this as it went, especially the revels as to the killers and their particular "characteristics" I guess you could say.

Holmes and Watson are there and they get summoned from Baker Street to a case involving a seeming mystery:  a dead man in a locked room with no seeming sign of struggle or signs of the murderer.  They start to assemble the clues and paint an odd picture involving one man with a wooden leg, missing jewels, and another killer who's either a child or child sized.  

Stuffy and talky, this hit the spot.  I still maintain if you're in the mood for this type of thing its no burden.  The mystery isn't really a mystery, nor was it in the book.  Meaning there is not a moment where there's a suspicion of someone who is later not the murderer.  They basically know who the murderer should be and then just have to find the dudes.  

Relying on old tropes like evil midgets and disfigured maniacs, the funny thing about Sign of the Four is a "other" types of horror this perhaps either invented or added to.  We still see horror and killer movies in which the killers are clearly these types of people, and its funny to see it as a Sherlock Holmes movie.  These feature a lot more monsters and atypical storylines one might assume, and if you though they were all magnifying glasses and pocket watches, you have something else coming.  

I give this a solid 3.5.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part II - 1987

 First one's a hit, make another.  That's how horror used to work... and I guess still does.

This movie is an hour 25 minutes with about 50 minutes of that being new footage.  That's because we get  a long and involved recap of the first Silent Night Deadly Night, which showcases exactly what made that movie likable in the first place.  Its a good movie you realize at the same time you're realizing this sequel...not so much as good.

Overacting Eric Freeman as a brother to the main character of the last film, Ricky Caldwell, is in a asylum of some sort at the beginning of this and is recounting his brothers story and then his own.  He describes the moment when he too decided that in the spirit of reenacting Santa killers, he would start killing people as punishment for being naughty.  He kills some folks including the somewhat iconic bad movie moment "garbage day" which is one of the many moments which show his drawbacks as an actor.

As a horror movie is okay, as a sequel its a far step down.  It makes you realize just how grounded and well acted the first one was, and that's not a grounded or amazingly acted movie - its just that this is worlds behind it.  

The series would go on to have 3 more sequels and a reboot, which I think I'll try to watch all of before Christmas this year.  This one can have 2.5 stars.

Silent Night, Deadly Night - 1984

 I think this series is the perfect thing to watch during this years Christmas season.

Silent Night Deadly Night I thought for sure I had reviewed.  I've definitely watched this is the time that I have been writing reviews for this blog.  This felt extremely memorable, it felt like I had even seen this in the last 5 years, though of course I do not remember.  It was not long ago whatever it was.

As a kid, Billy was in his car when they got stopped by a guy in a Santa costume.  Santa guy pulled a gun, shot his dad and began to rape his mom.  Billy grows up continually being persisted by Santas.  Whether it is Santa visiting his orphanage as a kid, or being forced to portray Santa at his job at a toy shop.  Its like he's plagued by the imagery.  He snaps on Christmas Eve, and begins to go around and kill people.

I do think that they hit on something here, the entire construct of a person who was traumatized reliving their trauma is not only realistic, it is common.  The example here is of course not one that has happened necessarily, but almost all killers come from some sort of trauma.

The movie like I said is very memorable.  There are some pretty iconic kills and moments, such as a beheading at a sled slope and the beginning, even the end is highly iconic.  I dunno what to say man, I remembered it all like it was yesterday, somehow.  The actor Robert Wilson as the adult Billy is surprisingly good, and the character has layers of empathy and pathos.  The story doesn't necessarily feel realistic, but it does feel grounded as well, and that helps.

They made 4 sequels and a reboot, I don't know if I've seen the sequels, so this might be fun!  I give this 4 stars.

Children of the Corn: Runaway - 2018

 Shot in the same building as Hellraiser: Judgment? One of these is slightly better than the other. 

CotC here is your average low budget “where do we go next with the series”. Anyone who looked at the original might say what happens to these kids, or what if one of them was not like all the others? A pretty realistic progression of the idea. 

Thus we have mystery woman Ruth with her son Aaron. They come rolling into a middle of nowhere little town and pickup work at a garage, make some friends and get a little place to stay. Everything is on the up and up until a mystery girl in a yellow dress keeps appearing, and the past gets brought back to haunt the present. 

What it also is:  a lot of slow build. I’m not going to dump on this but really an 80 minute movie which feels long is almost hard to do. It’s like there’s just no tension and the characters are interesting enough but we’ve seen this before… a lot before. 

The whole movie basically stays in the whatever mode and is basically rated R only for blood. Which sucks. This is fine n whatever but decidedly not as fun as the last one. 1.5 stars only for the actors being good. 

Children of the Corn: Genesis - 2011

 I watched 6 Children of the Corn movies back at the start of the blog and never finished.  Fuck it yo.  I only have a few left, lets do em.

Children of the Corn Genesis is a fun re-imagining of this story, set in a new place with no real connection to the original series except for someone saying Gatlin.  I haven't watched the movie that took place right before this, and much like Halloween as a series, this is a movie series in which 3 movies are named just straight up Children of the Corn - 1984, 2009 and 2020 all have one.

I haven't seen the one right before so I don't know if there is a lead in to this, but I do know that for a small scale, relatively straight forward horror movie, this thing actually does work.  I'm as shocked as I could be.

Billy Drago is a creepy weirdo living in the desert of California, two broken down 20-somethings find his house and ask to use the phone in the normal setup of these types of things.  They have to stay at his house and start hearing weird noises.  Going outside, the woman thinks she uncovers a kid trapped in a shed.  Cue the weird visions of corn related imagery, and the shit really kicks into gear then.

There's a really awesome moment where I audibly said "that was cool"  Any movie that can show you something that still somehow you haven't seen gets a good notch up in my book.  A cop arrives and because of magic or something he can't see or hear our two plucky heroes.  In a single instant he gets pulled up into the sky, presumably by He Who Walks Behind the Rows.  It was actually fucking cool.

This is a solid entry 8 movies deep into the franchise, and really an upswing from where I walked away from the franchise in frustration, throwing my hands up in disgust.  I give it 3.5.

The Pyx - 1973

 Did Tubi increase how many ads there are on the app or is it just me??

Also known as The Moon, and The Hooker Cult Murders.

If you want a 70s feeling movie, what do you put on?  Some of those 70s standards could very well be defined by this movie, and you're hearing that from a guy who watched an entire 70s boxset!  (Then I got distracted thinking about the 70s boxset and then I ended up on eBay putting the Pure Terror Mill Creek boxset into my cart.  This is my life ladies and gents)

The Pyx is a weird, slow, dramatic film which reminded me heavily of some of the slower dramas on the 70s boxset way back when I reviewed that thing. The Pyx stars Karen Black as a heroin addicted sorta prostitute I think in a talky investigation story of a dead woman.  On paper it sounds straight forward, in execution, it's completely unpredictable.  

Mainly this is due to the intensity to which it follows Karen Black and imbues her with empathy and pathos, and that's bolstered by her incredible acting.  Then it's also the weird songs she sings in the film which lend an ethereal, surreal quality to an otherwise pretty straightforward flick.  It almost feels Lynchian in its weird two diametrically opposed vibes which somehow inhabit the same film.

Something in the creepy segments of this film are extremely affecting.  This has a severe creepiness aspect to it that feels undersung in the great lists of influential 70s movies.  Bizarre distorted voices sing as characters smile with disturbed evil, drugs kick in and the camera distorts around shadows and cryptic imagery.  It's a very well done movie in that way.  

This movie reminded me of Rosemary's Baby where it is a slow build and a ramping up story that goes further than you would think and sorta comes out of nowhere with what it depicts in the latter bit.  This is for sure not talked about enough, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  4 stars.

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare - 1988

 In my old reviews I mentioned that I watched Howling 4 and didn’t review it. Then I finished up that series (almost). I will now finish it in my string of movie series completion projects. 

I did remember this for the most part. A couple is renting a cabin in the woods of a small town. The woman begins hearing howling and seeing creepy shit. No one else sees it and in the meantime her husband is seduced by an evil shopkeep. It all builds to werewolves at the tail end. 

There’s not a ton to say. It’s your average unreliable narrator, is she crazy or is it real thing where we as the audience know it’s real so we’re really just waiting for 65ish minutes for things to build for the end 20 minutes of showdown. There’s also a missing nun and a creepy bell thrown in to add set dressing. 

The nudity is tiny, they skip the transformation scene for the werewolf, and it’s really clear this is a C level budget reduced horror sequel. Except for one incredible body melt sequence there’s barely a special effect in this thing. The ending is cool and takes this to a slightly better than middle of the road 2.5 stars. 

Mirror/Mirror - 1990

 The first movie is stylized as Mirror/Mirror. I wonder if they dropped it just cause that’s one more level of dumb complication. 

It all started here, with Karen Black and William Sanderson in this 90s thriller. We begin with a woman killing her twin sister, cut to the present and Black and daughter Megan are moving into the house where it happened. They begin to have creepy things happening when they find the mirror in their home, and Megan senses great power in it and keeps it in her room. Cue the wishing power to begin where she can ask the mirror for things and it’ll deliver. 

Once the power of the mirror kicks in this movie has some awesome moments. There’s a pretty brutal kill in a shower (with nudity) and there’s a cool monster of some sort inside the mirror as well that will do the Megan’s bidding. 

There’s a lot of good in here, and fun, and one understands why this got sequels.  The vagueness of what’s going on leaves lot to be explored, and the power, drug, addiction angle is of course widely understood.  Character choices make sense in a flick like this, and so there’s a basic level of empathy. 

Mirror Mirror is a fun little transition movie from the 80s to the 90s and it’s got a fun enough couple things going on. Overall, maybe a little slow and or dialogue heavy, could have used more effects.  But I do like that they don't explain anything. 3.5 stars.

Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance - 1994

 I miss the word “retard”. It got canceled and when I see old movies with it I’m reminded of my youth when it was like the third most common insult. 

Mirror Mirror 2 either follows or establishes lore in the opening of a woman wishing for a punk band to learn a lesson when they call her brother a retard. A freak accident kills the entire band and she’s struck blind, now she is slowly regaining her sight and is drawn to the mirror. 

Roddy McDowell stars as the doctor in charge at this bizarre religious hospital I guess, and they’re all telling the main character she can’t dance. Mark Ruffalo is also in this, as a different character from part 3…? He’s kind a manifestation of the mirror or maybe a demon or maybe both. 

This movie starts well and really slows down. There’s kinda no threat in the film, and the main plot is just building the interest in the mirror while everyone else questions the mirror. That’s honestly an hour or more of the movie. Just that. In dialogue. Boring. 

The end jams it all in, but this is not evenly paced. I’ll give it a 3ish for the slightly above average moments.

Mirror Mirror 4: Reflections - 2000

 Mirror Mirror luckily ends before CGI would’ve surely ruined the franchise ala Witchcraft. Well done!

An old Irish lassie singing a song uncovers the mirror in storage and unleashes the vague and evil force within. This is the kind of thing only in movies. She plays with this mirror the way a kid would, posing and dancing and singing in front of it. 

This movie drops the constant nudity in favor of a slightly more linear plot… very slightly mind you. Billy Drago comes back as a homeless man and the ditzy chick he talks to says “I think that most people who are homeless are lazy”. This is about where the writing in this series is. 

It might help if I’d heard a real explanation and maybe there is one in the first Mirror Mirror, which I will watch next. 

This feels more fun and linear that Mirror Mirror 3.  Doesn’t make sense plot wise much… but fun. 3 stars 

Mirror Mirror 3: The Voyeur - 1995

Alright so Mirror Mirror 3 stars with Billy Drago having a sex dream and I’m instantaneously transported back to the good Witchcraft films. How about I watch all 4 of these? 

Why not. Why not a similar budgeted lurid hazy LA series? Fuck it man. Because Mirror Mirror is certainly not anyone’s known about series either, and I’ll tell ya it’s a roll of the die as to why this has 3 other movies in the same way Witchcraft has 16 of them. 

These really are flicks that feel almost like you have to sit there considering; did they see something I didn’t? When they green lit a sequel to this late night sleazefest flick chock full of nudity and bad actors in awful costumes blandly delivering basic bad dialogue. Why did they look at this and say… yes, more of this!

Produced in part by star Billy Drago, this also has a very young Mark Ruffalo in it. Billy Drago uncovers a cool blue mirror that brings back the woman from the sex dream, who I guess is his dead wife or something. Cue the 3rd sex scene in 30 minutes. Don’t worry… you’re only 10 minutes from the next one. 6 minutes after that there’s another.

This is low brow entertainment. Not horror, not even thriller, it’s kinda a genre less fluff thing that has mild stakes that don’t matter and no central villain…nothing really sticks out except the cast and the nipples on the multiple topless women that are shown in the flick. 

The reason this isn’t fun really though, is that it’s completely poorly executed. There’s multiple flashbacks to irrelevant things that have nothing to do with the movie.  There’s no lore, no bumbling detectives or demonic presence to fight.  Things just happen and you have no idea why or what even happened. And in that way it’s a 90 minute movie that feels long and boring, despite the breasts. There’s not even really a dead body until 75 minutes in.

Rest in peace Billy Drago. 2 stars. 

The Caller - 1987

 The whole thing with 2 character dialogue based movies… you need a good if not great script. 

Malcolm McDowell shows up at an isolated house one day and calls for a tow except he’s hiding something and the woman in the house is hiding something. Or are they? And who are they? And what is everything else?

I dunno dude. Twist twist twist could be the alternate title. Is he a killer, is she, did one character do this or did the other one make it look like they did… 

What actually happens in the movie is anyone’s guess. They start tracking “points” and it reminds me of one of those movies where you expect the whole thing to be some elaborate game they’re playing, except that would be better because at it is this makes less sense. 

The insanity of the ending slightly elevates the movie, but ultimately too much time in a flimsy cat and mouse where one is the cat the other the mouse, they switch roles, rinse and repeat.

I mildly applaud the attempt. About 2 stars of applause. 

Born of Fire - 1987

 The Astrologist and this film put me into a headspace as I watched, one where I began to wonder what is the weirdest movie I've ever seen?

This is a highly subjective question, and one which also needs to take into account all of the different definitions of "weird" and what we might consider "weirder" as a pyramid - is a film without actors weirder than a film with animal actors?  Is a film with no plot weirder than one with a highly confusing and nonlinear plot?  

Obviously I am going to talk here of my own personal interpretation of weird and also the allure of weird.  So first that last point.  I think a movie like Born of Fire, The Astrologist and one movie I reviewed The Shout keep coming back to me because they look good - they show true craftsmanship behind the camera, behind the acting, behind the stylization of the flick, whilst being utterly incomprehensible as well.  A movie like Ray Dennis Steckler's The Hollywood Strangler is not only narratively thin but also production value is zilch - it looks like what it is, whereas the other aforementioned films look good.

In a way, the real qualities the other films have make them more unsettling then, it is the familiarity and trust we place in the basic system of film which allows us to truly key into the psychopathic weirdness of Born of Fire.  It's not grainy handheld shots with visible boom mics which make us keenly aware of the amateur quality and thus prepare us for the idea that this may not be conventional.  It looks conventional, even professional, thus the weirdness is more disarming.  It is the same reason David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Gaspar Noe shock us.  There is clearly a trained and knowledgeable eye behind the camera, so why are they showing us such bizarre images?

Born of Fire is of this vein; that of a clear artistic talent with a clear idea here - what it is, you know, maybe a bit confusing, but it's there.  

Flutist Paul is playing one day and hears a phantom song coming from nowhere.  So does a mystery woman who confronts him and takes him to this weird mystery land where maybe an evil djinn has arisen and only Paul can confront the evil, through his power with the flute.  He'll team up with her and The Silent One to stop the djinn.

I mean...  like I said, this is one of the weirder movies I've ever seen.  Shot beautifully, well acted, and with unexplained hypnotic power, this thing pulls you in and keeps you there as the strangeness builds.  It is in that bizarre pocket with Jodorowsky movies of these otherworldly psuedo-religious inspired experiments that feel like you've truly walked through a portal into another realm.  For all that... 4.5 stars.

The Astrologer - 1975

 "This has nothing to do with India," a random quote from this movie which does arguably have nothing to do with India, though Indian cults and other stuff are in it.

Amateur films are weird man, what can I say, and this is definitely one of the case in point examples.  I wish I could say I followed the plot of this extremely amateur low budget thriller but really, I did not follow it.  Something about a cult in India and something about killing people, its heavy on dialogue to the point where the director himself described it later as "interminable".

The Astrologer is certainly that.  Bequeathed with a very slight modern cult status, this obscure ass flick will really make you examine the concept of dialogue when a woman says her husbands name Alexei about, oh I dunno, 600 times in 3 minutes?  

This movie also has my favorite font of all time, the font of The Astrologer below:

It's just the very definition of "70s font"

This is one to watch, for a weird and confusing unique experience.  I give it 2.5 cause it is not a good movie.

Fatal Charm - 1990

 I'm on an unintentional mini spree of made for TV movies, and this one keeps that going.

Fatal Charm stars Christopher Atkins, Amanda Peterson, James Remar, and the great Andrew Robinson.  It premiered on Showtime on February 22, 1992, which is the year I guessed instead of 1990.  Sometimes, my friends, you just nail it?

Christopher Atkins plays Adam, a man who is arrested in suspicion of a string of deaths that have been happening recently.  He is profusely proclaiming his innocence, and he finds support in young woman Valerie.  She is living in a bizarre situation as her stepdad James Remar is trying to fuck her, and she is having bizarre sexual dreams where she gets fucked doggy style by different men.  Anyways, she reaches out to Adam and starts a correspondence as he goes through his trial.

This movie is disJOINTED! I mean, the sexual dreams have nothing to do with the plot and are never explained number one.  It's just an excuse to have sexuality and nudity, since this is Showtime after all.  Valerie is never given motivation beyond that she's just a dumb kid, and when the twist happens, we never learn anything about the killer or about that motivation either.  

People often make the overused joke that some movies "feel like softcore porn".  Well, this might be the actual movie that is that joke.  This is not even very "porny" for softcore and could have used more.  It is fun though in that hazy gauzy late night grimy lowest common denominator factor, and I did enjoy it despite myself.  It is just by no means high brow entertainment.  3.5 stars.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 1993

 I sorta always knew that Buffy was based on a movie.  I had even seen the cover of it around, but had never picked it up for a watch before.  Felt like time, given I had just finished the TV show.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was written by Joss Whedon and his script was changed a bit during either production or before.  He was pretty upset with this, and he was determined to have more control during the TV show run.  Buffy in the film is played by Kristy Swanson, with a Watcher (sort of) played by Donald Sutherland as Merrick.  Buffy is a cheerleader in the movie and has a little posse including a young Hilary Swank, and the big bad in the movie is played by Rutger Hauer.

Buffy in this film is quite different from the show.  I think every change they made was for the better, and in the film it's definitely a different tone.  The Buffy in the film here is a popular, airhead type filled with some of those Whedon-y snarky comments, unlike the social outcast she is in the show.  Buffy also gets menstrual cramps when the vamps are near?  Wow, am I glad that didn't carry through.  

The vamps in this are fun, and Rutger Hauer is joined by David Arquette and Paul Ruebens as lower tier villain henchmen.  I don't remember if they had a plan or were just around, but either way they are a lot like the villains in season 1 of Buffy, and they do a fine job.  

This is a light breezy horror comedy which works and won't make you think or anything, and overall I give it like a solid 3 stars.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 1997-2003

 Buffy was one of the episodic TV shows on when I was younger much like The X-Files that I heard about and was curious about and missed during their initial run.  My ex-wife and I watched it in a void of knowledge out of nowhere in about 2011ish, and this is my second time through the entire series.

Buffy is a great episodic monster of the week series that evolves into something much bigger as it goes.  It had a great idea to have a monster of the week format while building to a "big bad" in almost every season, which would be the overarching story with its own recurring characters and would build in tension and complication throughout the season.

Season by season, briefly:

Season 1 a short season focuses on The Master and has Angel as a more possible baddie as well. 3 stars.

Season 2 Spike and Drusilla show up, The Judge and The Annointed One split Big Bad, Angel's and Buffy's love affair becomes a major plot point more. 4 stars.

Season 3 Faith joins as another slayer, Principal Snyder and The Mayor are the big bad, Willow gets into witchcraft, Angel begins his slow departure.  5 stars.

Season 4 Riley and The Initiative start, Adam is the big bad, Spike turns good, Willow is now a real witch, this one is solid, but a mild step down, 4.5 stars.

Season 5 Dawn joins the cast for an incredible season of trickery about the god Glorificus, witchcraft and the mystical "key".  Giles leaves the show and Anya is full fledged cast by now.  5 stars.

Season 6 is somewhat evident that they had planned to end the show at season 5, but 6 is excellent if only because of an incredible turn in episode Turning Red.  No real big bad sorta, the three evil "mastermind" dorks begin the turn of Buffy becoming a bad sitcom.  3.5 stars

Season 7 The First is a somewhat vague threat taking the form of dead people, Buffy has backing by a bunch of potential slayers, and it really seems like they sorta just kill time waiting to pull some triggers.  Comedy is bad, the characters seem a bit unfocused.  The ending is a good emotional moment but yea  2.5 stars.

This show really has some excellent and memorable moments and stand alone episodes, and the writing in season 4 and 5 is some of the best in television overall I'd say having basically only ever watched about 5 shows.  The B grade charm is front and center, it leans into "what if a soap opera had demons in it" cheese factor in just the right way at times.  I feel like the last two seasons are the added on end of credits extra at the end of a Marvel movie, but they're still fun for sure.  

Overall this is a highly entertaining show that story-line-wise is better than  the X Files for me.  While the X Files had more interestingly written stories, they all go nowhere (spoiler alert) and a lot of them just sorta drag on or die out without any resolution.  Buffy is great acting, writing, and fun from top to bottom.  4 stars.

The Canterbury Tales - 1972

 Slam dunked that fucking year broooooooo!

The Canterbury Tales is a collected series of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, written between 1387 and 1400.  They are loosely fable-like comedic and erotic stories with humor, and plot wise and character wise unconnected.  I mean in the movie at least, I haven't read the actual book.

Pasolini has his Trilogy of Life, with this movie, The Decameron, and Arabian Nights.  I have Arabian Nights in the same boxset as this so I will hopefully get around to watching it as well.  This one is certainly like The Decameron, albeit with a central "storyteller" figure that I don't remember Decameron having.  In this movie it is Pasolini himself as Chaucer, a wandering writer who seemingly just thinks up stories and writes them down - they don't seem to be things he's witnessing in the moment.

There's a lot of these stories in the movie, it's a 2 hour movie and the stories can be short, so I'm not going to try to recall them by any means.  The through line with them seems to be that most of them are somewhat sexual in nature, a lot of them center around an almost fable-like "lesson" that maybe we would learn or maybe we would have to be told, and most of them are humorous in intent.

There is also nudity in almost every one of them, I guess that's a through line as well.  

I'm not going to be able to remember all of these, but some are certainly better than others. There’s some memorable moments in no particular order: the singing Italian boy that has a threesome and gets executed, the guy getting the red hot poker up the ass, the guy pissing on people randomly, and of course the best sequence, a Noah’s ark parallel wherein they act as if a flood is coming to sleep with a guys wife. 

The thing about these is they are different degrees of fun and tedious. The film is a long 2 hours and it doesn’t have the warmth and vibe that The Decameron had. These feel almost oddly stilted and nonsense some times. I almost wonder if they’re over in the book, or if they are supposed to be so disjointed. Nothing against the writing, it’s 1378 and I’m not hoping for a 3 act structure. It’s just definitely different. 

Canterbury is a strange movie, and I will repeat a statement here: I’d love to see this kind of thing come back. If everything is truly cyclical, I’d adore to see something this strange and plotless and sexual and…oddly innocent come back. 

Because that is the unique tone here, same with The Decameron. Because it’s not necessarily cutting edge in comedy or sexual provocation anymore, these instead feel like watching weird Monty Python sketches, or something similar in that vein. You almost expect Michael Palin to come in as a shrew woman. 

This is not as good as The Decameron no matter what you do. It’s fun and it has its moments. 3 stars

Kagemusha - 1980

 Halloween 2025 features Akira Kurosawa and Pier Paolo Pasolini in a decidedly non horror focused review sesh!

I dunno man I been craving it so what can I say?  Kagemusha I believe I have ofter confused for other later Kurosawa fare, specifically Ran and Madadayo.  Things I saw in my youth that I don't remember and in the case of Ran,  another Shakespeare adaptation among many in Kurosawa's filmography.

Kagemusha stars Tatsuya Nakadai, a long time collaborator with Kurosawa and a veteran actor as the high Lord Shingen, the "mountain" leader of a large warrior clan in oldtimey Japan.  His position is a crux point and a controversial one, other clans are clearly inferior to him in either power or status, and he employs his brother as a double occasionally for security purpose.  They find another double, a lowlife on death row, and begin to court him as a stand-in, right at the time Shingen is killed watching the flute performance at the enemies castle.  Now, the initiate has to stand in as the other clans begin to start a conflict.

The Japanese title for this is The Shadow Warrior, a really good name, relevant to a great speech and theme in the film about stepping into a position of power, but also about how much the position is only a placebo, and it essentially means nothing and has no power.  Kurosawa adapts King Lear here, a book I have not read so I cannot compare.  But it's all about hiding and subterfuge with notions of power and the power behind being a good person or not, with some political turmoil intrigue thrown in for tension.

The major takeaway here I thought of during it however is this:  Toshiro Mifune is really underrated as an actor.  In my rewatch of Drunken Angel, High and Low, Seven Samuari and Throne of Blood, it is really incredible just how much screen he can hold and how magnetic his presence is.  Nothing against Nakadai here but this movie would be elevated to an all timer if it was Mifune.  

The thing is that there are moments when Shingen is supposed to be funny, cowardly, acting a part, a fool, a leader, its a dynamic and intense ass performance, and it takes a true genius to pull it off.  Kurosawa lenses it and readies it for that genius, and well.... it falls just a tad flat for me.  It could also be this fairly thin story and 3 hour length is a little bit daunting, but Kurosawa and Mifune can overcome that.  

This is a good later period entry from Kurosawa and its a good character study.  I give it basically a 3.5 towards 4, but honestly let's just say 3.5 here.

Bram Stoker's Legend of The Mummy - 1998

 What did Bram Stoker do after his success with Dracula?  He wrote more books, obviously.  Did I ever think of that?  No.

It's fairly obvious that a successful author would keep writing, and a horror novelist would keep writing horror, but why would I assume he would I dunno, keep on Dracula?  Of course he would branch out.  I just didn't expect it to be one of the other Universal Monster type guys.  

The Legend of the Mummy book was actually called The Jewel of the Seven Stars.  Now it obviously came before the movies, but I wonder if he partly responsible for The Mummy as we know it?  Did he popularize both?  And if so how come Dracula as a title is so good and this book is so bad?  

This movie employs evil cats and evil gems just like The Cat Creature and holy crap if this feels of the same era as well except for Louis Gossett Jr being in this thing.  According to some rich old guy with a bunch of artifacts nothing in his study was to be moved.  It was full of Egyptian shit and naturally someone moved something which caused the mummy to come to life.

The mummy in this looks really good and there are absolutely not enough shots of it doing cool shit.  Instead it seems to inhabit others to do its will, making them act like theyre being attacked and dying from an unseen attacker.  Another thing that dates this?  The neighbor from Home Improvement is in it.

This movie feels like it would have a guy from Home Improvement in it.  Its not that bad but it's really not very good except for the last 20 minutes or so.  I give it a 2.5

The Cat Creature - 1973

 I was telling my girlfriend as I put on The Cat Creature that there was a time when I wanted to watched every animal attack movie, and had a big list of 'em.  She was not surprised.

Not sure what the allure is and not sure how The Cat Creature escaped that list, but Tubi had it come up, expiring soon, and I flipped it on.  I did not call it was a made for TV movie, and that's always fun, less obvious ad breaks than some of these I've seen, I'll say.  From ABC on December 11 1973 to my living room today...

I noticed the name Robert Bloch on this movie's credits and took interest.  I didn't know his name was on so many movies, I only knew Psycho and actually he does have a fair share of credits on IMDb.  This movie also has one of my favorite tropes, random lore about Egypt and tombs.  You see, black cats are summoned by an amulet and start to kill people, and that's about it in this movie.

This is a fun enough B made for TV movie.  This has some good cat shadows and shots, some great scenes of many cats roaming around and some good Egyptomania bullshit.  Its not the most scary or fast paced but it's decent enough.  There's a subplot about a ring that leaves a mark, and there's some good investigating scenes. I liked it fine, 3.5.

Love - 2015

 When Love came out, I didn't hear about it.  I think after 5 or 6 years hearing nothing from Gaspar Noe, I likely googled him at one point in 2015 and found out Love existed.  If memory serves, I then looked up the film, and found it streaming.  I put it on immediately, which happened to be around 11pm, and I watched all of it until the wee early hours of the morning.

Noe has the rare power to upstage all of his previous works at times, and he has rocketed to number one for me at multiple times.  When I saw Irreversible I called it my favorite film of all time.  Then Enter the Void came out and I called that my favorite.  Then Love came out and I called that my favorite.  It has reverted back to Enter the Void since then, and on rewatch it remains Enter the Void, so what is Love?

Love stars actors Noe found in the club scene.  He likely had conversations with them very much like the ones seen in the film Love, where Karl Glusman plays a film director who wants to make a movie out of "semen and blood."  The plot involved him and his girlfriend having a threesome which then leads to him having solo sex with the third girl, getting her pregnant, and her having his child.  Then, in flashback, we reveal his relationship with his girlfriend Electra while he spins from the revelatory news that she has recently gone missing.

This hit me hard initially because I was in a relationship which felt like it had hit a real rough patch.  I split up with my wife maybe 4-5 months after watching this movie.  The darkness of the internal dialogue, the bleakness of the future the main character has, the cruelty of love turned into hurt turned into hate turned into revenge and with smatterings of love still mixed into all of those felt extremely relatable.  

On rewatch, it does feel a little unfocused.  Noe chased a gimmick here, filming the movie in 3D for the purpose of showing the graphic sex in a new way.  About 50% of the movie is graphic sex, depicting real penetration and sitting in it visually.  Then the other 50% is these memories and these moments.  We see how the three-way happened and how it went awry, and we see the relationship dynamics of Murphy and Electra and as the film goes we dive into their dysfunctional relationship.

Love still represents extremely well some of the depths and highs of a relationship.  It still is darkly comedic in certain parts.  It leaves you with questions and feelings, and in no way is it trying to cover all your bases.  There is motif of rain present in the entire movie, which I only picked up on this time.  The atmosphere is quite high here, and the sex is really hot.  

Another thought about it, I believe Love represents a specific time in our lives we hopefully grow out of. A time when we are making mistakes and when we are obsessed with our first loves. How we can hurt the people closest to us when we are young because of that childhood remnant of selfishness and or lack of familiarity with compromise and sacrifice. This all felt way more familiar to me when I was 10 years younger when this came out, less so now.  Not that it makes the movie worse, if anything it makes it better, because Noe is older than me.

Overall, this film is really powerful, but its definitely not better than Enter the Void.  It's part of a dynamic shift in Noe which follows into Vortex very much, with Climax being a slight deviation.  Love is a great film and great statement, and everyone should see it.

The Video Dead - 1987

 The Garland Theater in Spokane WA has had a few movies I've gone to.  I'm too lazy right now to look and see if I have reviewed any I've seen there.  I don't think so.

The Video Dead is a cult horror movie, one that is perhaps a bit overlooked and a bit under the radar.  Only a little bit after than the Evil Dead, one has to assume this was made partially because of that.  Not going to compare because the Evil Dead is a great film, is The Video Dead?

Early on, a mystery television is delivered to a dude.  It keeps turning on randomly, showing a zombie movie, the guy unplugs it and goes to bed.  It turns back on, and the zombies notice the house through the television, crawl through the TV and come into the real world!  They kill the man and escape into the woods and a new family then buys the house and are going to have to face the zombies.  A random dude from Texas also shows up to help with the zombies.

The Video Dead rivals Troll 2 in terms of campy awful actors with ridiculous dialogue and exactly one tone.  The plot moves okay, I will say it's not the most well oiled machine.  I checked the time about 45 minutes in thinking like, okay guys how much longer of this is left...  

Effects wise, it looks quite good and the 80's practical effects don't look like real but they do look fun.  There's lots of blood and gore, there's some good kills and fun logic to them.  This movie lives in Dawn of the Dead zone where the zombies are slightly smarter with slightly more personality.  There are maybe like 5 main zombies, and truly they all have their own little "deal" and are memorable.

It's not on the same level as some others, but it was great to see in a theater with like 9 other people.  3.5 stars.

Door - 1988

 I had looked up Akira Kurosawa on my Hoopla app for it to recommend The Snow Woman and this Japanese movie, Door. Neither of them have anything to do with Kurosawa. 

As for Kurosawa, I did rewatch Seven Samurai recently. Was going to review it, nah. It’s a five star great film though. Door is somewhat opposite to it in all ways just about, I’d say. 

Mrs Honda is a stay home mom with a young son and a busy husband who has to stay late and even stay overnight at the office sometimes. She does the house work and cares for the son Takuto, primarily. She gets the average amount of drop by salesmen and sales calls, and lately one of the callers has been more aggressive than most. 

Her husband must stay overnight for two nights at the office around the same time that the calls have been escalating and the man has started to show up in person. Honda hasn’t seen his face and the police haven’t been able to do anything so everything now comes to confrontation. 

This movie is the kind of thing that defines small scale horror thriller, and makes the best out of what it has. It has good actors, a tight taut script that really moves, fuckin cool music, and good tone management. 

The main villain character is genuinely creepy, the scene at the police station plays up how barbaric the outside world is, it’s like every choice was the perfect one for this movie. 

It feels deeply inspired by giallo and horror manga, but in only the believable and right ways. I dunno man! It’s like I am trying to talk myself into and out of 5 stars in my head. Trying to think of problems with it…? But the end is great also and sticks with you. It might be pretty perfect… 5 stars

The Snow Woman - 1968

 Am I the only one who watches this and thinks oh I’ve seen this! The full length version here I’ve seen before in Kwaidan!

It was my favorite of those shorts and here it’s given just under 80 minutes to spread its wings. I wonder how long the original story is?

Two Japanese wood cutters are out and they find a huge tree. They have to stay the night as the snow begins to fly and during the night the evil mythical Snow Woman comes. She kills the older of the two and spares the younger saying if he promises to never tell a soul he can live. He does but soon enough a beautiful woman comes into him life and changes things. 

This movie is really cool, and it doesn’t feel there is stretching from the shorter version to make this full length. They add more characters in this and have a fire festival and statue carving plot but it works to enhance the tension and the character depth. 

It’s got good acting and cinematography and it’s a fun mood for Halloween! 3.5 stars. 

Enter The Void - 2009

 There is so much to say about Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void.  In a world where subjective reality and opinions clash, in a world where we as a culture have either grown to or grown away from sex and reproduction as fact or as taboo or as "god" or as mechanical, where does Enter The Void fit in?

Oscar is a druggie guy who is living in Tokyo.  In the beginning of the film he gets high, gets a call to meet his friend, and goes to sell him drugs.  He is being tricked and Japanese police run out to snag him.  Oscar runs to the bathroom and is shot and killed.  Then, his soul exits his body and enters death, the ultimate trip.

We have evolved to be a culture that doesn't really understand sex, and even if we do, we certainly don't act as though we do.  There is mention early on in this film, a character saying he never felt better than when he was sucking on his mothers nipple as an infant.  During sex, a character goes to suck his partners nipple and in a flash, we see a child sucking his mothers.  This is the type of cultural denial or at least misunderstanding that is happening all the time: because of our fears of taboo, because of our own misunderstanding of childhood, comfort, taboo, sex, arousal, and more, we cannot see the link between when we did it then and when we do it now.

We do not manifest understanding of the unseen ethereal forces that bond us during love.  We cannot understand the maze like, hazy cultural values any more than the neon soaked cityscapes we cruise through in Enter The Void.  When Noe puts a red filter on Tokyo and turns it upside down, we see artistic expression, and not the fact that really the city makes as much sense in that viewpoint as it does when it is filmed normally; we are just used to the regular way.

Noe's Void is a world in which one building displays Sex Money Power, the next one displays Love, the next one The Void.  The people, the cities, the businesses are wearing the truth on their sleeve just like we do when we advertise, just like we do when we search for what we think we are alone in searching for.  The massive and unsaid hidden values, the misidentification of different needs is all here and its all addressed, just in twisted and convoluted ways.

This movie will make you think.  A lot.  Cryptic visuals, bizarre taboo relationships, awful and searing trauma.  Reincarnation.  Life experience.  The difference between drug induced vision, dream, reality, dream, hope, want need desire, dream, and of course interpretation.  Are any of them real, is any of life real?  

This film is about a lot, and more than anything its about memory and the weird experience that is emotion.  Anger, lust, loss, betrayal, hurt, deception - this is about trauma, this is about grief and forgiveness and reconciliation.  Its about the way that inevitably with all those things and more, wires get crossed, mistranslation happens, and what was once a stabbing pain is now a joyful smile.  This movie is picking at an old itchy scab you've had forever and looking in your eyes and knowing you enjoy its prodding.

When we watch this movie, we enter a tunnel.  We watch the happenings from behind the head of main character Oscar.  We see how deeply fucked he is.  But watching from behind we can project anything onto him.  I think one cannot help but project a passivity, which I think is intentional, but maliciousness or love or desire or need, these are coming from us ourselves.  

I'm fucking shocked that more movies have not tried to copy this film.  I'm shocked that Noe ever got 12 million to make this thing.  I'm also, and I will never believe this, so fucking HAPPY that we live in a world where this movie got made.  Where it exists and it is here waiting to change your life.  And all of it set to a weird throbbing dark soundtrack.

This film is why artistry is important.  It is why we live life; experience.  This movie is not going to change your existence, it IS existence, wrapped up in all the surreal strangeness that you experience every day, and challenging as it was to wake up groggy on a Sunday when it's raining and slowly wake up from a eerie and unreal dream.  Or was watching this movie unreal, and the dream my reality?

Dracula - 1979

 I accidentally typed 2979.  I wonder what Dracula filmed in 2979 would be like.

This version of Dracula I had never heard of.  Oddly enough, I'll tell ya, cause it does have Donald Pleasence in it.  Also Frank Langella as Dracula, which is cool, and he's definitely a compelling presence.  

Released the same year as Herzog's Nosferatu, this telling of the Dracula story is pretty good!  We have VanHelsing, Renfield, with Pleasence as Dr. Jack Seward.  The crowning of this interpretation though, is the excellent camera work, and the atmosphere created by it.  Accompanied by fog, a awesome castle, and great acting, this movie really does fit the bill as a Dracula tale.

The movie has enough to it to stand up to Nosferatu, even with Klaus Kinski.  I know I watched that recently, but I guess I did not review it.  I went through a long period of not feeling like writing.  That's life huh? Phases.

I dunno, this one is good, I kinda wish there were more good versions of these stories.  Like how come there isn't any other good Frankenstiens or Creatures from the Black Lagoon?  I wonder.  I give this 4 stars.

The Package - 1989

 Every one was on a Gene Hackman kick a little while ago when he died. I didn’t really rewatch any of his stuff. But now I put this on randomly. 

This Gene Hackman entry has him as a tough no nonsense military guy up against an insurgence of American neo-Nazi-esque dudes.  For some reason Hackman gets paired with Tommy Lee Jones, who pretty much immediately escapes and now Hackman in on the hunt for him.  Intermixed in this is Hackman getting framed for a murder, and running from the cops.

This was sort of a box office bomb when it came out, and I have to sort of wonder why.  Maybe it was too early for TLJ to be a big draw, maybe it was the confusing ass plot though.  I will admit I had drank a margarita, and I drank a big ol high alcohol beer during this, but I could not follow the convoluted plot at all.  It's filmed in confuse-ovision for sure.

I don't have a lot to say about this one.  Hackman is good and I do think Tommy Lee Jones is a little bit underrated.  When he's a villain in this and in Blown Away, I think he's really good.  Supporting cast is also nice, Dennis Franz, John Heard, and Pam Grier are in this in minor roles.  

I dunno, its not great and its not that bad.  Maybe 2.5

And Soon the Darkness - 1970

 I went on Wikipedia and read about this film expecting to see a lot about how it was generally considered a hidden gem, but that wasn’t there. Sometimes you really can’t tell. 

Soon as a movie has two bicycling women in France see a man at a cafe and one of them likes him. He follows them as they leave on their ride and pull over for a rest. They get in a fight cause the blond girl wants to go talk to the guy and the brunette wants to keep biking. As soon as she leaves though her blond friend is killed, and not the brunette is wandering around looking for her. 

It’s a small scale simple killer film, where we follow a pretty young female protagonist and there’s a mystery present. I tend to like these and I liked this one too. 

Sure there’s not a lot of intrigue and the characters are all unrealistically written! Sure there’s cops that act like bad guys and war vets who put underwear in their heads! Sure there’s an asshole grocery guy who never gets any explanation and disappears from the movie! But it’s a mystery and it’s compelling. 

Filmed in France the translation is an obstacle which I always like as well in a movie. Feels realistic to my life trying to do shit in Nicaragua and Mexico and stuff when I go. This is no masterpiece but it’s a nice 3 star thriller.