Invisible Agent - 1942

Recently I wandered around the library in Chinatown, perusing the whatever selection of DVDs, Blu-Rays and what have you.  I had gotten off work early, as is often the case during these holidays, and I was just killing some time.  I picked up a Universal DVD pack, five Invisible Man features on one boxset.  Win!

It was never my intention to watch all of these films, fuck, I would've been happy not watching ANY of them but simply having the DVD at my house with the option to watch them.  But I was in a weird mood last night, I poured myself an oatmeal stout, and I put on Invisible Agent, chosen at random from the DVD set.

I haven't seen anything old in a really long time.  I realize that I've been marathoning 70's films, I've been slamming down slashers like they're going out of style (and truly, aren't they?) and I've been having fun with recent films.  I haven't gone back to the black and white, or the 40's especially, in a long motherfucking time.  So this was nice to have a quick, fun, simple film, right towards the end of the original "golden age" of horror.

This was the fourth in the Invisible Man series, at this point we had seen the Invisible Man, Invisible Man Returns, the Invisible Woman, and now this.  In this, we have the supposed grandson of the original Invisible Man who is now in hiding, and in the beginning he's tracked down by government agents, trying to get the invisible formula.  We're at war, see, and the Nazis are up to no good.  We need to infiltrate behind enemy lines, and only an invisible man can do it.  Invisible Man Frank Raymond quickly agrees, and barely 15 minutes into the movie he's already invisible and parachuting in over Nazi Germany!

I had a thought as I was walking to work today, that in a way this is the Marvel movie of it's day.  No wonder Universal tried to reboot the classic monster series again!  This is quite literally taking the established character, who'd had a origin movie and maybe a sequel or two, and then you're pitting him against a superpowered villain.  In this case it's Nazis instead of say Thanos, but the construct is pretty much the same.

Invisible Agent is pretty slow, and it relies heavily on gimmick and eye candy, but then so does the Marvel cinematic universe.  We watch in spellbound glee as a cup of coffee drinks itself, as clothes get put on a person we can't see.  We wonder, when anyone's talking to him, where he is.  Every time a door is opened we don't know if the Invisible Man came in, or left, etc.  It's for sure kitschy, but it is fun nonetheless.  Even in the effects driven world of 2018, where a movie like Aquaman comes out and they probably built a total of three sets and the rest was all CGI, Agent still has it's draw.

At less than 80 minutes, Agent flies by, and even with a lot of unnecessary dialogue, it still flows by quick as a waterfall.  It's harmless fun, extremely of it's time, and fun in that way.  I'll give it 3.5 stars!  Why not right.

Oh!  I do want to mention one thing.  Again, product of it's time.  They have Peter Lorre, a decidedly white man, playing a Japanese general in the film.  And seriously, I didn't even know until the very end he was supposed to be Japanese.  I mean, I know it was commonplace at the time to do this sort of casting, but sometimes they'd use makeup, or do other terrible effects like that.  Nothing.  They just thought with maybe a very ambiguous accent people would think he was Japanese.  And honestly, it's horrible.  It's ridiculous.  But hey, 1942.  I guess that's how it goes.

Jason X - 2001

I was doubtful if I was going to review this movie or not.  Sure, I have reviewed a lot of the Friday the 13th series and I was always against reviewing any of them at all, because I didn't think they fit the "nature of this blog".  But who am I kidding.  There's no reason to do that.  No one cares.

Jason X was scripted and made while Freddy Versus Jason was being conceived and in development hell.  There was a brief stint when they wanted to make another Jason movie to I dunno, remind the audience who he was.  They got a random assortment of people involved including director David Cronenberg, and at some point the idea came up, take Jason to space.  Okay.  Sure?

Jason X is by no means a real movie.  This isn't real, right?  This is some alternate dimension where the Jason series would've made sense going to space.  Of course, this wasn't the first nor the last horror movie to randomly take it's franchise and it's killer to space.  Hell, I even reviewed the Leprechaun movie where the Leprechaun goes to space.  Ugh.  Why, god?

Jason X in the beginning is in the far off year of 2010 when we have technology to effortlessly freeze people with cryogenics.  He is killing people at the cryo lab and eventually main girl Rowan gets him locked in a cryogenics freezing chamber.  He's frozen along with her, fast forward to the year 2455 and now it's the future where Earth is gone, Earth 2 is around, and amazing space technology exists.  They bring Rowan back to life and of course Jason comes back to life soon enough as well, and now Jason is on the loose again!  In space!

And...it's not that bad.  It's pretty lame and stupid obviously, but it's dumb enough to be fun, and it is for sure making fun of itself.  Eventually there's a robot that kills Jason, and these robot ants rebuild Jason into "Uber Jason" and he's got a metal body and a new mask, and it's somewhere around this point you just accept your lot in life, and take it for the nacho cheese flavored dipping sauce it is.  This is by NO MEANS made to be taken seriously, and in a way it's almost making fun of the very idea of Jason just by existing.  It shares a similar feel to the self aware horror movies that had been coming out previously like Scream.  It also reminds me of the huge departure made with Slumber Party Massacre II.  But that was a significantly bad film, whereas this one is more baffling.

It's hard to rate this.  This is not a horror movie, nor is it a proper sequel.  I could be extremely harsh on it, yelling about it's lack of really keeping with the series.  But then, I would have to throw Jason Goes to Hell, probably Manhattan, and definitely Jason VII and probably Jason V under the bus as well.  I think it's only fair to say that most likely, this is not canon.  Hell, what the fuck does canon even mean anymore?  Does anyone really care?  I sure fucking hope not.

I guess it can have a middle of the road 2.5 stars.  Not sure what else to give it.  It does entertain, it's for sure one to watch with friends while you drink and smoke.  Not a movie to ever critique as an actual film, that's for fucking sure.

Blood Massacre - 1991

I'm following up on the dangling threads that I've promised to no one really, and Don Dohler is one of those threads.  I said that I would check out all the films he's made since I've enjoyed several of them, and now I'm closing that gap with Blood Massacre.

Don Dohler completed this film in 1987, and I'm stealing right from the IMDb trivia right now:  "When filming on the movie almost completed, director Don Dohler sent what had been made up until that point to his investors (as a show of progress). The investors then requested that he re-shoot the entire movie on lower-quality film. When Dohler completed the film the second time, the investors took the master-print and disappeared. They (and the film) resurfaced years later, when they attempted to present the film with a different title (and poor-quality editing, as well as unnecessary padding). After that, the director begrudgingly released the film, and made no attempts to fix what the investors ruined; he said in an interview that he wasn't in the mood to, '...shoot the film a third time.'"

That sucks.  So basically, some people tried to steal this film away from him.  And I watch this, and I honestly really, really wonder why.  Why the fuck would you try to steal this movie?  Now, I loved my intro to Dohler.  I watched The Galaxy Invader and I liked it for it's kooky weirdness and backwoods creativity.  It was amateur but embraced it and the pacing was good.  Nightbeast was even better, dialed up in cheesiness factor and bizarre qualities.  The Alien Factor was fun and strange, his first movie. Fiend was slower and less engaging, a sort of quasi-thriller/mystery where neither of those elements existed and instead it was replaced by inept half ideas.  Which leads to this film.

Blood Massacre sounds on paper like a decent idea.  A group of petty criminals pull a robbery at a video store (?) that goes wrong and they escape.  They hijack a woman on the road and force her to take them to her house.  They hold her and her family hostage, but there's a surprise in store for these criminals!  The family is actually all cannibals, and soon its a game of who's hunting who!

However, the problems with this are multiple.  When it actually comes to intrigue and acting, these are not Dohler's strengths.  Makeup, effects, and bizarre are Dohler's strengths.  If you actually sit through this movie, you'll get the treat of a nice makeup shot in the very end, but other than that, it relies heavily on bad actors, an undeveloped script, and clunky pacing.  Some might appreciate this, as it's the classic bad bad movie type thing, but I like my bad movies covered in cheese factor or weirdness or anything!  I don't just want dimly lit, slightly out of focus, emotionless actors saying vague lines of dialogue.

The acting by some of the house cannibals is decent, and the end sequence of the last 20 minutes or so is okay.  The movie is not even 90 minutes, so I would be lying to say I was bored.  I wasn't bored, but I also was not entertained at all.  It just sort of played out, and I watched, mostly out of a firm determination to get through it instead of anything else.

If I had seen this film of his first instead of one of the better ones, I might have chalked the whole of his filmography up as bad amateur Z-grade similar to Robert Emenegger.  I'm glad I saw his better movies first, but I have to say, this one was pretty awful.  I will give a star I guess.  For the makeup and occasional riffability factor.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie - 1974

Also known as, and I quote Wikipedia here: "In total, the film was released under more than 15 different titles internationally." So in other words, a lot.  One of those happens to be Don't Open the Window.  Don't... returns.

I was reading about this on Wikipedia, like I was saying, and I found something.  Something which, if I was cooler, I may have known about before.  In the 2007 release of Grindhouse, it's well known that they made a bunch of fake movie trailers to be shown in the mix of those movies, to give a somewhat authentic experience of the 70's.  One of those was a fake trailer for the movie Don't.  I have to say, this is remarkably prescient of what I've been saying about this series.  For further breakdowns of Don't movies, see this and this.

Sleeping Corpses was absolutely titled wrong if it was ever called Don't Open the Window, and I struggle to think of why you'd ever make that name be your alternate title.  There was maybe one scene with a window in the entire film. This was not only falsely lumped in with other Don't movies, this was lumped into the astronomically huge Zombie or Zombi series, which itself is a fucking disaster zone of alternate titles, false sequels, and various other shrug-inducing antics.

I should see all of these, right?

So hence, I should maybe include my links to Zombie and to another version of Zombie 3 I've seen, Nightmare City?   Okay, this is getting old.  But I find it fascinating.  You just don't see this sort of massive false advertising and fake sequels anymore.  There's a whole different era of movies that existed before us.  And an era before that, and one before that, and shit, it's amazing yo!

George and Edna are thrown together in the beginning of this movie because Edna hits George's bike.  They drive to the remote countryside, get lost, and discover some scientists using utlrasonic radiation to kill bugs.  Edna starts seeing a creepy guy wandering around, and he comes after her all zombie like, but no one believes her.  Soon enough, the cops get angry at the antics of Edna and George and go after them, while in the meantime zombies keep getting raised from the dead and going after everyone else!

This one was fast paced, quick and fun.  It's another worthy entry into the zombie movies we all know and love, and it stands the test of time.  Main characters that are likable, good music and sound effects, minimal in approach, great location, it's got it all.  It's a movie that would look exactly the same if you made it now, just add in two lines of dialogue about how their cell phones don't work, obviously cause they're in the middle of nowhere.

I have virtually no complaints.  It was solidly entertaining and I'd highly recommend it for people who love a zombie movie.  It was on my list a long time, and I'm glad I get to check it off and give it a...huh 4 or 5 star rating.  I guess 4.5 it is.  Really solid.

Black Demons - 1991

Alright.  Fucking finally man.  I have been watching these movies at the increment of about one a year for a long ass time, and I believe!  I believe with this one I am finally done.  This is a series that I've seriously been watching since the start of this blog with:  Demons, Demons 2, Demons 3: The Ogre, Demons 3:  The Church, Demons 4, Demons 5: The Devil's Veil, and Demons 6: De Profundis.

Where does this one belong?  This one is the third one to be labeled as Demons 3.  Hence, this is also known as "Demons 3:  Black Demons".

First of all, this is not Demons 3.  This is a entirely different idea from the first two, and while I could see the relationship with the raising of the dead and stuff, there is not much more that holds it together besides the fact that there are undead creatures in this movie.  But, you know, I honestly don't think this was seen as a true "series" to anyone, more like similar ideas.

In the beginning of this, Dick is a straight-arrow kid who spots some black children playing on the street.  He meets an old blind black man who invites him to some ritual where Dick passes out, unknowing of what happened there.  Then Dick and his friends Kevin and Jessica are driving to Rio de Janeiro when their Jeep breaks down.  They find a nearby house with friendly Jose and his maid Maria.  They stay there for the night.  Dick wanders out and finds a graveyard.  Suddenly a ritual flashback occurs and six zombies pop out of their graves, coming for everyone!

This movie walks a very fine line between racist and just plain crazy.  Sure, it definitely has some racial things going on here.  Every black person in the film is evil or a stereotype, and the black gathering that Dick goes to is straight out of some 1950's racial stereotype where the black people dance around with spears and beat on drums.  When the zombies, who are also black people, are raised from the dead, they're all former slaves, out for revenge, which is nice, but it still feels exploitative.  And finally, Maria is black, and Jose is a real asshole to her constantly.

All that aside, the movie is pretty good!   It's probably one of the more linear, easy to follow Demons entries, and it's minimal approach helps that.  The actors are decent, the effects are decent, and it moves along quickly enough.  It was shot in Brazil and looks nice, and the whole feel of it is super 80's, which for 91 may be an insult, but it felt nice to me.  Like one of these classic 80's giallo films.

There's a ton of eye gouging and eye effects in the film.  The first two kills involve both girls getting their left eye gouged out...  How much ya wanna bet that they liked the way it looked the first time and were like, shit let's just do that again?

There is a lot of blood, and there is a lot of fire.  It's a decent enough movie, and I didn't dislike it.  With a bit of nudity it may have been near perfect in fact.  It has some weird racial stuff that is offputting, and it's a bit old looking for 91, but given that it's sort of the "last reach of the classic giallo feel"  I will give it 4.

So, technically Cemetery Man with Rupert Everett is sometimes called Demons 95.  Like the year 1995.  I have seen it, a very long time ago, and I sort of remember it.  Do I rewatch it and review it for completion?  I'm not saying no, I'm not saying yes.  We will see.  Maybe.  No promises.  For now, I'm calling it a done franchise.

Christmas Evil - 1980

I'm on a bit of a theater binge lately, especially since the last time I went out to a horror movie it was The Manitou, and I loved it.  I remember that after I saw The Manitou I made a note to myself saying "you should do that every Tuesday".  And given that this is Christmas time and given there's so many Christmas themed horror movies out there, my local Alamo Drafthouse played Christmas Evil.

"Christmas evil?" I exclaimed, not knowing which one this was, all I knew was that it wasn't Don't Open Til Christmas.
That British fluff with it's head held high, and this for-sure-shot-in-the-70's movie with many a sigh.
I attended the theater with a crowd full, and there I sat waiting, while the movie started out dull.
"We're following the killer again, he's our main actor?!" I thought in my head, and I reduced the score by a factor.
The actor was okay but the script asked for a lot, didn't they know that it was overwrought?
But I gave it a chance and there I sat through it, in my opinion not worth it, cause it was bad and it knew it.

Wow, alright!  That worked out fairly well.  That above it to be done to the key of Twas the Night Before Christmas, by the way.  And honestly, yeah that's pretty much my sum up.  Mistake number one, follow the main killer, mistake number two, ask him to do a lot and ask for a broad range on a pretty slim script, mistake three have bizarre pacing, mistake four it was just bad.  Just bad bad.  As I watched and I heard the audience laughing at parts, I did think that maybe it was enjoyable to others...but I don't know, this one just felt bad pretty thoroughly to me.

As a child, Harry Stadling watched Santa come deliver him gifts.  Then he crept back downstairs and watched Santa fondling his mom, as it was obviously his dad in a costume.  This screwed him up somehow, and now he's a disgruntled toy shop employee who's got this idea of what Christmas should be, and of course no one agrees.  I also loved that the flashback happens in the year 1947, then when it cuts to Harry as a man it says "present day".  So present day like, now, 2018?  Cause then Harry is like, 70 something years old....if he was at the youngest 6 or so in the flashback...

Anywho, Harry is taking on Santa's duty of keeping a nice/naughty list, he's upset that his job is more concerned with their company than the toys, he's taken advantage of, and it all eventually prompts him to turn himself into Santa.  A Santa who rewards the nice, but takes vengeance on the naughty.

The problem is that what was for sure going to originally be a psychological almost drama got turned into a not-horror movie.  I say not-horror, cause seriously this isn't even close. Harry randomly kills three people outside of a church when he begins killing, and then there's like 30 minutes before the next.  I'd be willing to bet a lot that there was only one kill originally but then they added more cause it wasn't fun enough.  Either way it's still not fun, and the movie just plods along.

The pacing is a serious problem.  The movie follows him too much and he's not that interesting, and it for sure felt at times like we were just killing time.  An hour and 40 minutes where for sure 20 or more could have been cut, it just keeps going, and every time it gets dark or good, the mood changes and we watch inept nothingness for way too long.  They try to make some observations about Christmas and the nature of consumerism, but it's not well written or well performed enough and honestly it's not like they're ever suggesting any alternate ideas or bringing in anything new.

It was a cheap ticket, I got to take a nice walk first, and I enjoyed my time out, but then the movie was for sure a disappointment.  I'll give it 1.5 stars.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - 1988

This is as far as I'm going to go in my reviews for this series on my blog.  I have no intention, I swear to you, of reviewing the first Friday, or Part 2, or Manhattan or Jason X or Freddy Vs Jason.  Okay.  I might watch and review Jason X actually, but it wouldn't be for the completionist in me, it'd be for the part of me that wants to riff on it and have a laugh.

Freddy Vs Jason had been in the talks for a long time, ever since I think 1985 or so.  Shit got in the way as it always does and they kept spinning their wheels while releasing single movie sequels for both the Nightmare and the Jason franchise.  They had this cool idea though, of having Jason fight someone who was actually a challenge, since all of the time he was going after teenagers and a few adults.  It wasn't exactly the most fair fights.

Enter the idea of a woman with vague mental powers, and basically it's Jason versus Carrie.  Carrie in this case is actually Tina, a young woman who as a child had her father die in Crystal Lake.  She returns to Crystal Lake early into the movie and in a moment of sad lament, uses her powers.  Her powers have the unexpected result of raising Jason from the dead, having been left chained to the bottom of the lake in Part VI.  Jason is in full on kill mode, and the whole kill cycle begins anew.

This movie was not the best entry into the franchise.  Online they make mention of all the violence cut out of the film, all the blood that would get slashed from our viewing pleasure, and what this results in is a largely bloodless movie.  There is of course the sleeping bag death, which is cool, and there's head crushing and machete slashing and such, but it does seem a bit calm compared to say Part IV.

Tina as a young heroine is fine.  She spends most of the movie in a state of waffling between doing what she wants and doing what the therapists and such want for her.  Her therapist has a side story that maybe he's been exploiting Tina's powers for unknown reasons, and Tina's mom is in her corner most of the movie.  Eventually Jason and Tina are in the same area, and it all results in a final showdown, which is pretty fun, but ends in a weird way.

This would start the Jason series on a really bad, almost done-for-comedy series of follow-ups.  With this one, Manhattan, Hell, and Jason X, these four movies in a row are pretty bad, pretty much bottom of the barrel, and very much part of what gave slashers a bad name.  When I was younger, Scream was almost the only slasher someone was allowed to like.  If you liked a slasher besides that, or even horror, you were probably made fun of.  That was the fun of being young around the year 2000.  It wasn't until later that horror became cool again, which I think was originated by Scream but then further legitimized when torture porn became a thing.  Why torture porn would "legitimize" horror is anyone's guess, but that's the fun of being 13-21 or so, "gross crap" was/is cool.

This one was also not fun in any of the ways some of those later Jason movies could be.  It didn't have the comedy in it, it didn't reach for anything that made it self aware.  It was just an unexplained girl with mental powers and Jason in full on zombie mode, and by the numbers kills.  Which I guess gives it a low point for the series with 1.5 stars.

Treasure of the Jamaican Reef - 1975

Again IMDb says one year and Wikipedia says another.  I'm going with Wikipedia on this again.  Life, huh?  It just don't stop.

So I had a bit of a movie marathon last night and I watched two of the 70's set, this being the second one.  I again had a moment where I wanted horror and I leafed through my description booklet, remembering that one movie said something about a shark or a haunted ship or something.  I am going to have to go back and reread the description to this, because I seriously thought it said anything about sharks or ghosts or ANYTHING, but there was none in this movie.

Instead, Treasure of the Jamaican Reef is about a group of people that go out treasure hunting in, you guessed it, the Jamaican Reef.  Cheryl Ladd of Charlie's Angels stars as part of the gang made up of pretty random-ass people also including ex-football star Rosey Grier.  They head out to the beautiful waters searching for their bounty, and gather up their snorkeling and scuba gear to hit the warm waters.  And in the warm waters they stay.

Seriously at least 50-60% of this movie take place underwater.  And I'll say, it looks fucking amazing.  Given this said shark (I swear it said it somewhere) and given the creepiness of the underwater barges and ships and stuff, I was genuinely interested in this for quite a while.  We see amazing documentation of the ships, and the narration in the film provides a nice backdrop for "what they're doing" which I wouldn't have known otherwise.  Seriously, watching this I felt like I learned a lot about how one might find and excavate an underwater ship, and they use all sorts of marking techniques, technology, and other stuff to search for the treasure.

In the meantime, they're followed by a small group of baddies who don't get enough screen time to be memorable and who promptly die still a ways away from the end.  Also, there's a bit about storm and a missing buoy and a crashed airplane, none of which are big subjects, but merely touched on in this film as it flies by without a care in the world.

I'd say this was high budget by the looks of it.  On this DVD set it is the only film which has been preserved in 2.39 to 1 scope formatting, and easily the best looking of any film in the set.  The audio is another story, as the levels jump all over the place, and there's many times you won't have a clue as to what they're saying as the water swells, the ship rocks, and their words become random nonsense carried off by the wind.

I did like the underwater scenes, the highly detailed tracking of the gold, and hell even the acting is good.  This would make the ultimate weed movie, cause it's highly entertaining and yet has no significant plot at all.  Nothing really happens per say in the entire length of this thing, but it's still fun enough, and there's even a nice sense of tension in the early water scenes if you think a shark might be coming.  I stopped hoping for a shark 50 minutes in, I remember.  I will give this 4 stars.  Fuck it right?

Hustling - 1975

Not to be confused with the movie 'Hustle' also from 1975.

I would have to guess that movies being made for TV had really only started in the 70's.  I've never thought of that before.  The popularization and the acceptance of television was probably not enough in the 60's the justify a TV movie, at least not until the very late 60's.  Quick moment of research goes by here....Wikipedia tells me the first true example was in 1964 with See How They Run.  So, it started a bit earlier, but I can imagine it was still a novelty in 1975.

Lee Remick stars as Fran.  She's a tough independent woman reporter working for the paper, at a time when journalism was still respected and these people had every right to do whatever they wanted.  She notices, along with the general public, the amount of prostitutes that are now out there on the street in New York, and decides to write an article about it.  At just that time, tough talking street walking Wanda has just been arrested, so Fran pays the bail and makes her an offer, $50 an hour to write about Wanda's life.

What we have is the story of the friendship between the two women, each outspoken and rebellious in their own way, each a tough soul just getting by in their own world where they don't make the rules but they can bend them a little sometimes.  An exposé on the life of a prostitute is given- we see the seedy motels where they do their work, the characters they consort with, the places where they're unwelcome and the general bad vibes they get from people at times.

What I liked about this is that it's not directly about Wanda being saved, as such, and it's also not only about how "bad" prostitution is.  Sure, they have Wanda get beaten and raped at one point.  They have the usual conflicts with the pimp.  They have the young plucky other prostitute who eventually commits suicides.  But in all that, we also see the loves and challenges of any independent woman who controls her own fate, and we also understand that in her own way she is proud of what she does, accepts it, and makes peace with in and the people it effects.

While uncovering the work of a street walker, eventually Fran uncovers that with all the work someone like Wanda does, she should be making lots of money, but she's not.  So eventually it comes out that other companies, other businesses are taking cuts.  Whether its the landlord who owns the hotels they stay at or whatever, Fran discovers that the haughty aristocrats who look down on Wanda are a lot more involved in her life's work than they'd care to admit.

This one was fairly decent.  It moved along pretty quickly, it made you think, and it even had a good point or two about the nature of prostitution.  In my lifetime we have seen the start of legal prostitution in the United States, and we have seen the stigma of it change a bit, with large groups clamoring for the rights of what are now called "sex workers".  Like so many things, it's a subject which has gradually made it's way towards dignity and acceptance, helped a bit by things like this movie and the article is was based on.

I could give it high marks for that, for sure, but honestly I'm looking at it as a film first, not a document of the state of America.  I will give it 3.5 stars though, and recommend it.

Jane Eyre - 1970

Alright, we're digging back into the realm of randomness the 70's box has delivered in it's infinite wisdom.  This time it's a made for TV adaptation of the classic story by Charlotte Bronte.

Jane Eyre (which I confused with a story by Jane Austen) is that sort of typical stuffy old timey British love story.  No wonder I confused it for Austen.  This is a genre which I haven't seen very much of, and it's pretty obvious as to why.  Unless it's a ghost story or maybe about Marquis de Sade, I'm just not that interested.

Jane Eyre is a orphan, going through hell as a young girl.  She eventually escapes that and begins working at Thornfield Hall.  Thornfield Hall is run by George C. Scott as Edward Rochester.  If you think I kept on smiling when I saw him because I thought of Dr. Strangelove, you are absolutely correct.   That aside, he does a good job as a loving but mysterious man.  Rochester and Eyre fall in love and he wants her to marry him eventually.  But turns out he has a secret, and she's about to go through a bit of a life change.

It was certainly a bit talky and very long, but I didn't hate this.  It's so simple and well acted that it's hard to have any violent reaction to.  I mean sure, I wanted to dislike this as a 2018 rebel who might still be considered a youth to some.  But I don't know.  It's certainly not offensive. It just sits there light as day, no glaring omissions or issues, and it presents a story of some people who have issues but ultimately, who the fuck doesn't?

One thing which I sort of hate about these older style things is that people fall in love and get married at the drop of a hat, and we're supposed to buy that this is real and legit and it's destined and will last forever.  It's seriously like after talking for 3 weeks and having a few mild flirts they can assess that they truly love each other.  Then they just get married immediately, and hey whadayaknow it was real love and they live happily ever after.  It's a gripe about the idea in general, not specifically just this movie.

When I have no effects or whatever to write about these certainly get shorter huh?  Oh, it did have music by John Williams.  So, that was cool.  I'll give it a 3.

Border Cop - 1979

I remember for some reason I got really intrigued by Telly Savalas a while back.  After I saw him as Blofeld and after I saw him in Horror Express I did some deep dives and tried to find horror movies with him.  I think my interest soon turned to other things, and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen him in anything since.  So imagine my joy when I got a Savalas movie in the 70's set.

Imagine my excitement (which wasn't much to begin with, mind you) as I watched this long, talky, bland as fuck late 70's border-concerned cop drama.  Imagine as I watched it, hoping that it was originally a made for TV film just so that it wouldn't be very long.  It was the full 90 minutes though, so no luck with that one.  Also, some of the movie is in Spanish.  There is no subtitle option on this DVD, and I had no idea what they were saying.  Sure hope it wasn't important!

Telly plays...  wait, oh shit.  Teleplays?  Telly plays...teleplays?  See what I'm doing here?  Telly plays Frank Cooper.  He's a cop on the border of Mexico and the US, fulfilling Trump's dream of keeping all them illegals out.  He's sympathetic sure, but he's also got some racial ideas of his own it seems, and he's not the most likable guy ever.  He clashes with the usual border-crossers, the local street gang thugs and prostitutes, and generally upholds the law.

And shit.  What the fuck does one say about this movie?  There's not much.  I'm looking for something interesting to say about it, and here's what I found.  Border Cop does feature a real cow being killed.  On IMDb, they list the year for the movie wrong.  Sorry IMDb, I'm going to assume my 70's boxset is right on this one, since Wikipedia agrees as well.  And lastly, IMDb trivia tells me "One of the first US indie films to premiere in the US on pay cable TV (HBO) without a US theatrical release."  So, that's kind of cool I guess.  But to imagine paying for this dreck, ouch that sucks.

I read another review right now which made me feel like I missed this being potentially not that bad, but in the end, do I fucking CARE?  No!  I don't care.  This could easily have been not awful.  But I got through it, in my memory I wasn't totally drunk or anything, and it fucking counts whether I have anything to say about it or not.  I'll give it 1.5 stars for Telly Savalas.

Good Against Evil - 1977

Well now, here we are with another basic as fuck name.  What was the other one?  Ohh yeah!  Stunts.  Pretty plain right there.  And this, well shit it's about good guys fighting bad guys.  But since the devil or whatever is involved it's the "evil" concept.

I wonder, again, if there's a movie called "Good guys fighting bad guys"?  Well that's it guys! I finally stumped IMDb.  I finally got so basic that there is no movie on IMDb called that.  In fact there's not even a "good guys against bad buys".  There is however "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys" starring Robert Mitchum.  I vote that for the inclusion on this blog, I watch it.  What say you?

Back to this movie.  Good Against Evil.  Now, here is something I've been struggling with.  I want to watch horror movies.  This Swinging 70's set doesn't have much in the way of that.  So I scoured the description booklet for something that sounded like a horror movie.  I found a few candidates, and this one won out.  It said it had exorcism and cults and Dack Rambo, how could I say no?!  Y'all know I love me some Dack.  Or is that dick I love?  Therein the question.

This is for sure an awesome idea they had here.  What this is, as I've mentioned many a time on here, is another fucking TV pilot they turned into a movie.  And it would've been pretty good as a show, I think!  The Exorcist had come out, The Omen had come out, they had been popular, and how could we translate that fad onto the TV so that everyone everywhere could watch it?

The answer came, as it always does, in Dack Rambo.  What a cool name!  Okay no, but the idea is that there's this girl who is being watched by this cult.  She's their sacrificial virgin or something, and they need to control her life.  They say early on they have to make sure she does the right things, and obviously keeps herself pure for their purpose.  But then Dacky Duck intervenes and meets the girl and they quickly fall in love.  The cult says no no and they try to get a horse to stomp Dack, then later they end up hypnotizing the girl and steal her away.  Now Dack has to get her back!

That would conceivably be like the first two episodes or the first 50 minute episode.  Episode two, girl has been kidnapped, and on his way to track her down he runs into old flame Kim Cattrall.  Kim's daughter has been writing pentagrams and otherwise acting evil, and there's getting the priest, there's the exorcism, and then Kim wants Dack to stay but he's too set on his first love, and so he parts ways to find her, and...that's it, we end on the cliffhanger since that's all the show they filmed.

I guess Dack would follow the cult and the girl from spot to spot, encountering their evil roadblocks and trying to figure out the grand scheme of things.  Presumably she'd find out she's the sacrificial virgin along the way, and develop a way to stop being hypnotized, etc.  Now, hear me out - this is an awesome idea for a show!  A show where literally the whole horror genre could be at your disposal, cause you could say the cult just "taps into that demon" and uses it against Dack.  They could grab an ancient book, summon a golem, or maybe a ghost, and then Dack would find an occult book or spell and fight it, next episode it's saving a child who can't talk because of some spell, etc.  Sounds like a fun show to me!  And there's not a lot of horror themed shows in general, definitely not from the 70's.

Despite sounding off about how cool this was, it's wasn't a great movie per-say.  It was too slow in the beginning, drastically changing tone later.  It was hard to follow at times.  They really rushed the love story of the two characters, but I get it too.  They wanted to get right to the horror, which I do appreciate.  It was surprisingly good looking and somewhat creepy, for a TV show.  High budgeted.  The acting and the look of it were good too.  I don't know!  I may have liked this.  But yeah, dude, the pacing was pretty awful for the first 45 minutes or so.  In the end I think it's around a 3 or 3.5.

Grotesque - 1988

How could something with so great a poster be so awful??

Get ready, patient reader, because I haven't seen anything I disliked in a very long time.  I was in a self-defeating, angry, weird mood yesterday.  I left work, I went home, I bundled up cause it's fucking cold right now, and I put on Grotesque.

What did I want?  Something that either of these two posters would promise me.  Poster on the right here looks like a fun 80's romp filled with Linda Blair and stereotyped film punks.  Left looks like a weirdo arthouse thriller.  Sure!  Give me either of those!

The actual delivery however...  Oh man.  Holy fuck.  This one was BAD.  As in B A D bad.  I'm literally tying to think of a good thing about it.  I'm not going to give it too many points for topless female nudity, nor am I giving it anything for having a washed up Linda Blair in it.  I don't know if it gets ANY points!

Linda Blair and her friend are driving to Linda's dad's house in the mountains.  He's a Hollywood effects guy who retired out there, and they're gonna go visit.  On the way, they run into a broken down VW van full of punks.  These are the punks you'd expect: overacting to an insane degree, inconsistent, sometimes really tough other times completely idiotic.  They try and get tools from the girls to fix the VW but the girls drive off.  They go to Linda's dad's house, but pretty soon the punks show up to exact revenge.

I'm going to have spoilers present.  Cause if that was it, sure, fine whatever.  Works for me.  But instead...  The punks promptly start killing the family, and everyone dies.  30 minutes or so in and you kill the known actress.  Now these overactors eventually find a hidden room, and inside, a deformed guy!  Deformed guy gets out, and starts killing the punks!  Then some of them escape and go to the police, police suspect the punks killed the family but have no evidence.  Eventually the punks get cut loose, get kidnapped by Linda's dad's brother, and he reveals he too is deformed!  Then we have a projection issue and pull out!  And Linda Blair and co are all alive, in a theater, watching what we've seen so far!  Then Frankenstein and the Wolfman are in the projection booth, and they decide to go terrorize them all!  Then Grotesque ends!  WHAT THE FUCK!?

The self awareness was awful, the comedy was awful, the acting was awful, the effects were awful, the locations...were good, but if that's the best thing about it...Really?!  The best thing, literally, is that Linda Blair and Robert Z'dar got paychecks.  Probably not for a lot, mind you.  But that has to be the only redeeming factor.  Which still gives it a zero in my book.