Play Dead - 1983

 Part of the allure of something like a slasher is to see what tropes exist, how the movies are similar, how they’re different. The idea of “what do you do with this thing that is inherently prewritten, but can still be unique“?

It’s interesting that horror tropes exist in all genres, but they are are only known in a few. People talk about slasher as the most trope filled horror sub genre. What about ghost movies, what about devil movies, what about anything else? I had an idea like “I should see all of the animal attack movies” in part because I’m curious, does it have its own tropes and if it does, what are they.

Also, I recently went through all of the Video Nasty, and now I’m going through my whole list of every movie I’ve ever added... This is proof my brain has always worked this way. It’s the “let’s investigate all of this one specific thing”. I’m sure at times, the list contained more animal attack movies and I have whittled them down. Such as Dogs, and my ultimate search which was the Tippi Hedren movie Roar, of which I read the book. Still need to see. 

Play Dead follows the near supernatural angle for an animal attack movie.  Jilted and jaded elder woman Hester has a new Rottweiler named Greta, and uses voodoo or black magic or incantations or something or other to will the dog to her power.  In this case its increasingly suspicious looking deaths.  The dog causes a car accident, it puts a hair curler in a tub, and people are suspecting just about anything else.

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies - 1995

 You put on the third of this series after watching the dismal second and you don’t expect anything better. Immediately, my hopes are lifted when this at least has an alien in the first few minutes of the film. Now this is the hidden gem that I was looking for. 

I’m at the point where I can watch a movie and I can say this would be great for Rifftrax and then I call it and they’ve already done it. Because this has the wacky shenanigans, it has the effects. It’s fast paced enough. It has the silly moments and the fun characters and the rubber suits, puppets and goo and slime and it’s a rocking good time. 

I really did enjoy this, even if I couldn’t really tell you the plot beyond there’s aliens and they’re fun looking and people are fighting them. It felt kind of like it was a rip off of X-Files even though it was before and it also felt like it was just every horror movie ever about aliens. I really enjoyed it though, and it was very fast paced. 

Despite being meta with a narrator and with a kitschy 50s throw back opening, this thing doesn't lean into it too much to make it unbearable.  It has the moments where you can tell they're trying too hard but it does not dwell in it the way the modern movies might.  They also employ some CGI at a time when its a riot too, its bad and if they used it more it would be rough, but its used sparingly here like the meta shit, just enough.

What a dynamic change from the second part of the series. I hope that the first one is a lot more like this cause I would watch this every day. It’s definitely a one to watch with friends. It’s a great drinking movie, smoking movie ,laughing at movie, riffing on, if you wanna be like Mike and the Bots, just watch it okay?

Xtro II: The Second Encounter - 1991

 I'm really trying to think of this one being added to the list.  I think Xtro is a movie I had confused with another movie.  There was an indie lower budget sci fi gem that I read about, and hell maybe this was it, and if it wasn't this than I certainly forgot about it since.

I'm watching these out of order because only Xtro 2 and 3 are on Tubi, I'll watch Xtro 1 on youtube after these, continuing my trend of watching things out of order.  Xtro 1 I have seen is a different plot, these movies are only related due to them being alien in theme with no carryover characters or even specific plot points.  They're just "alien related: the series" basically.

Xtro II is a pretty apparent Aliens ripoff.  It's like the talker, less effect filled Aliens or kinda Alien and Aliens ripoff.  A team is sent to another dimension and is attacked by an unseen creature.  The team is attempted to be rescued but now of course the creature is brought back with them.  Nicholas Lea, the only actor in this I knew, is a grunt and one of many that are now in dialogue filled danger from the creature.

I didn't want to trash this thing cause there's individual moments that are decent.  The heating duct crawling, the creature when you see it, the action can all be pretty good.  They are just in the movie SO little it's almost downright insulting.  The majority of this is pretty bad actors saying pretty bad dialogue and uninteresting first take type scenes where nothing really happens.  Its pretty bad.

I said a loud a few times, "this is so bad" and I paused it a few times to see how much was left.  This picked up a little bit in the second half but yeah man.  Its a bit of a slog.  So I give it 2 stars for what it gets right.

Torso - 1973

Also known as The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence and Carnal Violence.

This will be considered in that realm of "why were the tame Video Nasties labeled that way, while this one was not"?  It's not that this is incredibly violent or pornographic, doesn't have surgery scenes, but its way more insane than, say, Madhouse.  Arbitrary shit dude.

Torso was a pretty well known Giallo, one which I had on a list of many of its type and saw some and just never got around to this one.  Which is a shame, cause it is a good one, and one that is at least fairly well known in it's realm.  Directed by Sergio Martino who we saw with Your Vice and Island of the Fishmen.  I've seen a fair amount of his work, and am usually a fan.

Slasher adjacent as many of the Giallo type tend to be, this has it all.  The body count, the fetish of the knife, the unseen killer, ample ample nudity with some light lesbian scenes, lots of blood including some grisly saw dismemberment scenes, and fun energetic final girl that faces off with the killer.

Early on a kill happens where a black and red scarf is used to choke a woman.  The killer is loose and the four friends of the woman run off to the countryside to escape the threat.  They have a nice big house where the doctor, the bread and milk guy, and the townfolk all are coming by.  There's sexual tension and the list of suspects is small, it could be someone nearby or anyone at all.

This is not the best of the best but it's probably top 50ish?  Its got everything but the soundtrack and some of the camera work that some others do better.  I'll give it like a solid 4.

Pin - 1988

 What is the terminology for this type of thing where it is “take the known entity and subvert in either a horror or sexual way and capitalize on that“?

Pin is added to the list of a time when I am looking for horror, versions of movies, and I watch things like Neil Jordan‘s werewolf movie and the horror version of Red Riding Hood. Some of these I add because they’re so bad they’re good. Some of these I’m genuinely interested in what is the horror version. There is multiple evil Pinocchio movies some of which I’ve even reviewed on this.

Coming out the same year as Child’s Play, there’s an immediate comparison, especially because I watched Play recently with my girlfriend. There is a world in which this was the more successful evil doll movie and this has perhaps a sequel to instead. That’s a world I want to live in. I love Child’s Play, but I really liked Pin a lot and it’s because of the minimalism which it has a start contrast to the maximalism of Child’s Play. 

David Hewlett stars in the “is the doll alive or is it all imagined“ plotted film where, with no blood and practically rated G, you have a tense who done it thriller that delivers. I don’t know what to say man, I’m kind of blown away by how good it was.

What makes it interesting is multi layered. It’s the lack of explanation as we have Terry O’Quinn, as a doctor with an anatomical ventriloquist dummy that he uses in his lab. He terrorizes his kids with it, and eventually after dying in a car accident, the kids are still attached to the doll, especially Liam, the boy. Pin is given more and more importance and Liam is now possibly voicing, Pin or Pin is alive or both, and we go from there as that influences his relationship with his sister. 

There’s a lot going on here and there’s a lot of hints towards things at multiple times but all you really need to know is that it’s an excuse for who done it thriller type stuff and cool creepy scenes with dummies. Any fan of ventriloquist base horror would be overjoyed. I’d say slightly under explored trope for me, so it’s one that I enjoy seeing here and there, and this is a great example of it so I’m gonna give it like a 3 1/2. I keep wanting to go towards four, even. 

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama / A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell - 1988/1990

 Haven't done a double in a while and these two certainly had some things in common.  First of all, a double 7/10 on the clunk-ometer for these names.  

These are both added to the list at a time in my life where I'm watching things like Dollman and Gingerdead Man and I'm doing it alone, trying to see how much fun these cult movies are when you're flying solo.  These are some of the Full Moon Productions or Troma trashy "fun cult movies" that I discover and add to the list and then as I look over the list now I'm like, there are more of these with Nudist Colony of the Dead and Frankenhooker.  These are going to be a haul.

The truth is, I never got a ton out of watching these solo and I still don't.  The fun to be had is and was always with groups, where you can laugh at the movie together and take rips from the bong and drink Hurricane High Gravity and not touch any girl.  These are the fun things I used to to, and even then, like Hell Comes to Frogtown, which I had in that very experience once or twice, there's a glass ceiling.

You need something well paced is the key to this sort of thing.  Sorority Babes is close.  Is had a monkeys paw "be careful what you wish for" sorta thing as teens wish to be prom queen, to have sex, and for money.  An evil Imp grants these wished, but naturally has it's own agenda.  It has nudity, a medium to good amount of fun factor, and you know, it would be a fun drinky smoky group movie.  I give it a 4.

Nymphoid Barbarian starts with self-aware audacity, introducing the character and declaring "look here audience.  its a fuckin' nymph movie in a dinosaur world, this is going to be a goddamn blast" and the thing with that is, you must deliver when you promise that fun.  So the idea here, is does it work?

Well, you know, not really.  Number one, if the title Nymphoid wasn't there, you wouldn't connect anything sexual with this movie.  Barely nudity, no sex, no shenanigans or jokes.  Barbarian?  I mean, loosely I guess, but honestly not as action oriented or as cool as that sounds.  Dinosaur Hell?  How about sure, dinosaurs are kinda there but generally it's just humans fighting to save on budget for stop motion.  And then the whole thing together, Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell - well no, because that implies we follow the character, which we kinda don't?  She's around... but also largely absent and largely dialogue-less?

It’s the classic bait and switch in what would at best be a 2 star whatever joint but with that switcheroo… no stars. Fuck you too movie.

Invasion of the Blood Farmers - 1972

I'm writing this review a good two weeks after watching it due to a blog snafu as well as 10 days in Spain.  Ya try ya know, and ya fail.

Invasion of the Blood Farmers is a super low budget hokey dumb "blood sacrifice going on in a small town" sort of a thing.  Creepy druids are hooking tubes into people and draining them of their blood for the god Onhorrid.  That and a lot of people are talking about a lot of things while doing a lot of nothing.  Those two plots go on while it's countdown to the inevitable peter out of nothing...I mean end.

There's like a body count of two, and the threat is more obscure than even this above description would make it seem.  

Likely added to my list in some search for obscure 70s horror gems, this is just sorta boring and talking and at the very best background whatever.  I give it a 1.

Avalanche - 1978

 I've reviewed Earthquake and Towering Inferno and Airport?  I'm guessing?  Nope.  I just watched Airport.  And I believe the sequel as well...

I do love this era in epic disaster film from yesteryear.  The formula was very well established by Avalanche, and this was in the latter end of this era.  It was a bomb, losing in the battle to Roger Corman's Piranha at the time of release.  This was about when the genre as a whole would be satirized by Airplane as well, just two years after this.  Much like Scream which hurt horror movies for a while I do think that satirisation hurt this genre significantly.

Avalanche follows the formula, like I said, which had by this point been cemented for films of this ilk.  Establish a few different characters and their "game", and lets get really into their love lives, their job stress, their interpersonal drama.  Waste about an hour on that before the disaster happens.  Then queue the disaster, which will be cool and be an effect fun 30 minutes.  15 minutes of plot resolution and tolls, end of movie.

Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow and Robert Forster are the main actors in this one.  Hudson is David, the owner of the new ski resort and ignorer of the warnings that this is in an avalanche zone.  Forster is the one who's the expert, warning people when he can about the avalanche, and presenting a new fling for David's love affair Caroline played of course by Farrow.  A plane crash starts an avalanche and we're off.

I have to say, with the styrofoam snow chunks and the miniatures, this movie's disaster does look cool.  It's a long and fun segment where we get to watch the happenings and see people getting these things dumped on them.  Then cut to a miniature and it gets destroyed....extremely, extremely fun.  

Then there's the aftermath sequences.  There's people trapped under snow and one guy stranded on a ski lift.  Thats a personal favorite sequence.  There's also, oddly, nudity in this movie, which I really didn't expect and certainly is a difference from most movies like this one.

I am a fan of these for what they are and the era.  These are formulaic, but isn't you know?  I give this like a good view rating of 3.5, check it out if you like this kinda stuff.

Chinese Hercules - 1973

 Well, I guessed later in the 70s.

So I think this is likely on the list because I was always into Bolo Yeung, and I cannot remember how I heard of this, but likely I thought this was a Bolo star vehicle.  It's not.  He's not in it very much.  I probably thought it was a gimmick-laden Bolo martial arts film, and its more of just "average martial arts" film.

To be honest, this one is a snooze.  I was checking this like every 2 minutes to see how much was left because it just refused to budge.  I might try again, but I doubt it at this point in my review life. 

Its one of those plentiful plots where the guy who promised never to fight again has to come back because of the bad guy gang, and Bolo is one of em, typecast as usual.  Its fine, whatever, but I was not feelin it.

Ironmaster - 1983

 I think it was in a post of mine I reread recently where I said I missed these sorta cash-ins that used to happen.  Mad Max would come out and we'd get cheap Italian rip-offs.  And then in this case, Quest for Fire would come out and we'd get a few Italian rip offs.  Such as Ironmaster.

It's like the Italian Star Wars stuff, and this is again like that because you watch this and you wonder "did they even watch the original movie?"  

First and foremost we have plentiful dialogue, in English (well, Italian, then dubbed) and it's not even written as unsophisticated.  These guys have full control of language as a concept and discuss ideas and options constantly.  They even have voting or systems in process to work through issues, as happens in this film.

The tribe has to come to terms with one of the members that's a little uncontrollable.  Italian legend George Eastman is Vood, and he kills two of the elders and goes into exile for that.  Soon enough he comes up on some lava eruption and finds metal basically.  Whatever it is, later named iron, has been forged into a club shape and could be used as a weapon.  He figures this out and with weapon in hand returns to his tribe to show his newfound usefulness as a member.  But there is another tribe out for him and soon conflict arises.

This movie starts strong but really lags as it goes on.  There just was a lack of anything really good, I dunno.  The music is decent but holy man, like WE GET IT.  About 20 minutes or so too long I'd say.  Other than that, it's kinda just "fine" so 2 stars.

Quest for Fire - 1981

 A while ago I watched Jean Jacques Annaud's film The Bear, and I ended up really liking it.  That leads me to what I thought was a rewatch but didn't feel that familiar, Quest for Fire.

This felt similar to The Bear, for certain.  Filmed with the same minimalistic approach, we open with a group of maybe 20 or so Neanderthals.  This film has no recognizable dialogue and no subtitles for the grunts and noises that are present, and yet we follow a very clear plot of them losing their fire source, selecting a few of them to go search for new fire, and the ensuing quest.

Ron Perlman and Everett McGill are in early roles in this, and they're excellent actors.  The other guys are great in this too, in such amazingly thankless roles.  Expressed all through body language, looks, feels, and that ambiguous energy that actors can convey, its a regular adventure film shot in incredible locations.  They encounter an opposing tribe with a female who takes a liking to them, they confront woolly mammoths and sabretooth tigers, and learn along the way.

This is so much more of the vibe than a hard plot, but that's not to say the plot is vague.  It's just incredibly simple.  And it relies on artistry to carry the movie, which can be bad depending on the talent behind it, but fuck yo, when it works it works.  This works, and its a beautiful and somber toned movie that has that ethereal "otherness" I search for, and often find in minimalism.

This movie kicks ass, and gets ya thinking.  For that, 5 stars.