Doctor Jekyll and the Werewolf - 1972

Man, I was off by one year when I guessed. Shit.

Paul Naschy returns to the set in this bizarre crossover that I didn't know existed. I haven't seen many werewolf movies, and I haven't seen a single Jekyll movie. So I'm a noob.

In the beginning of this one, there is a werewolf terrorizing a small village. For me this was the best part of the film. For the first 20 minutes or so there is a real atmosphere, there is some excellent tone and dark, eerie images. We don't see the creature and naturally I forgot which movie I'd put on so I was pleasantly surprised when the werewolf shows up, but I was also loving the not-knowing before it did.

Once the werewolf does show up and the movie takes it's plot forward, we see the werewolf has his identity known and is trying to rid himself of the curse. He knows someone who had heard of Dr. Jekyll and Jekyll's formula of transformation and soon enough they decide to give the fomula to the werewolf. Apparently I guess the two curses will duke it out and both will no longer affect him? Of course, we know that won't be the case though. We know that instead he'll have BOTH curses!

So yeah, once the whole Jekyll thing starts to happen, the movie gets way less interesting, and I was checked out for sure. The atmosphere gone, we instead get plenty of lab scenes. This movie is the one where the Pure Terror DVD menu music comes from, a weird sciency theme. It's not great, but it's not bad. Which is generally how I'd describe the entire film.

There's a few well known sequences and good parts, but it's also obviously low level B movie entertainment in general. So, it serves it's purpose. Great beginning though.

Curse of Bigfoot - 1975

I'm a bigfoot afficianado. Does that mean I believe in bigfoot? No, not really. I don't believe that there has been a bigfoot creature in the time that modern humans (the last 150-200 years) have existed. But, I think it's clear and obvious that there could have, at one point, been something similar to bigfoot which would be the genesis of the modern story.

Curse of Bigfoot is a 1958 movie given a sprucing up and rereleased in 1975 with bigfoot attached. Originally, this film was just about a prehistoric humanoid monster being risen from the dead. Then the bigfoot thing happened and got into a spotlight after the infamous Patterson-Gimlin Film in 1967, and soon this swept in to capitalize. It's pretty clear this was not originally bigfoot in the movie, because it doesn't quite look like the bigfoot we imagine:

I mean, why does he have fangs? That aside, what I loved about this movie was just HOW 70's it was. This was super of it's time, in a fun fun fun fun fun way. The fuzziness, the acting, the look, the sideburns, the clothes, the low quality. They are all present and glorious and front and center in this schlock-o'clock. That's my new term I'm coining.

This film feels a bit padded out and overly long, but it is still fun and bigfoot is actually a mummy raised from the dead. So it's an undead bigfoot. Random. But yeah, it is a lot of fun and it all works and the pistons are firing, and you could potentially have a great time with it.

The Tell-Tale Heart - 1960

When I was in middle school or somewhere there about we read Edgar Allen Poe in class. I remember The Raven more than I remember The Tell-Tale Heart, but I did remember the basics of this movie before embarking on it in the Pure Terror boxset.

I started this up and it's really crummy black and white footage, but somehow that fits the aesthetic and the movie captures an atmosphere for sure. I don't remember exactly how the story went, but in the movie we start with the main character Edgar suffering from delusion and seeing his floorboards move in a pulsing heartbeat fashion. Then we flashback and watch how he got here.

Edgar is dating Betty and thinks she is cheating on him. He watches her with his friend Carl and pretty soon he is after Carl to kill him. Edgar kills Carl and buries him under the floor of his home. Thinking he got away with it but having a guilty conscience, soon enough Edgar begins to be bothered by normal sounds, and once they go away, he begins to be haunted by something even worse: The faint sound of a beating heart, coming from the floorboards, getting ever louder and louder...

This film version of the book captures an atmosphere, and it works. That's the shortcut of the review. It's a bit slow, after all it is from the 60's, but it is better than average in that regard. The acting is fine, and there is little to be an effect, but later the sequences of the sounds and the sequences surrounding the heart are cool. When all is said and done I'd catalogue it as a worthy film version, which is saying something when you take into consideration the fantastic source material.

I give this one 4 stars.

The Devil's Possessed - 1974

Alright, so I guessed it was a shitty title translation and I was right. The movie was in another language quite obviously, so I won't detract too many points for the stupid name.

Paul Naschy stars in The Devil's Possessed. Honestly you guys, the title. Its the devil. The devil doesn't need to be possessed to be scary, aight? The direct translation fo the name is "The Marshall of Hell" Which is guess is sorta like saying the leader of hell. Satan. I guess the title should've been just "Satan".

The Devil's Possessed is a medieval sword and sandal swashbuckler affair, featuring an evil tyrant ruler and a bunch of....other guys. Seriously, I'm reaching here. You wanna know the truth of this movie??

I sat here for 90 minutes, looking at the time the movie was taking, wondering how much longer there could be, wondering what the fuck I was doing with my life. I sat here, wondering "why me, god".

I had started Mutant. Mutant turned out to be Night Shadows from 1984, which I'd previously reviewed on this blog. I opted not to rewatch it. Instead, I switched to a random other movie on the boxset and I chose this one, woooo, what a mistake.

This was a slow as shit, pondering, meandering, nothing of a movie. The mild action and the would-be scary plot is nothing of interest, you'll wonder what the fuck is going on as you watch bland actors in leather costumes saying stupid things or having a badly choreographed fight. Seriously, I'd never be the one to say, "there's bad choreography here" until I saw this and realized, "OH! That is what bad choreography is like"

I give this stinker a 1. It is not quite a zero. Mind you, the mild erotic tension and the occassional moments were decent enough.

X-Com: UFO Defense - 1994

I don't know, but I sorta wanted to write...so, here we go. I've reviewed TV shows and I've reviewed one book (sorta) and why not throw in a random video game into this blog? It's not like anyone is reading this thing anyways.

I was in high school when I met Derek Raymond. I don't remember how I started hanging out with him, how we became friends, any of it. What I do remember is that we hung out briefly and then we stopped randomly. In that short time, he told me about but never showed me X-Com. I remember he gave me the disc and eventually I was able to get one of my really old computers to play it. This was a DOS game, and I had to dowload DOS box or some shit... I dunno. Good times.

I decided to include this game ultimately because last night I put it on again, played it for about 3 hours, and once again was engrossed by how good it is. It's turn based strategy in genre, and you control a group of humans who has to reply to an alien threat to Earth. You start by positioning your base, building a fleet of soldiers, and then the aliens begin to arrive.

You have to contend with a much more powerful opponent for most of the game, and it is only through learning their patterns and discovering their weaknesses can you ever hope to win. The game really is quite hard. I've never put in all that much effort, the type of effort I'm sure some people do when they play games, but I believe I've only ever won the game once. Usually it's not because I lose, I usually give up at a certain point and just never get back to the game I've started, but that is beside the point.

X-Com offers some genuine horror and suspense moments. The eerieness of the game is front and center, and the sequel Terror in the Deep is much harder and also equally creepy. I have not beat Terror. The route I've figured out to beat the game in X-Com is from mostly reading and being told by Derek. I'm sure there is a route to beat Terror, but I haven't done as much research.

X-Com is from the best era in videogames, it is also on a randomizer engine and is thus slightly different every time you play. It therefore offers endless gameplay action, and I really enjoy myself every time I reboot up Steam, which is how I play it now. Highly recommended.

Bloody Pit of Horror - 1965

The Marquis de Sade is possibly the most influential single figure in the genre of exploitation. Now, I thought of this opening line but then I remembered the entire genre of Brucespoitation. But I still stand by, and Bruce Lee aside, Marquis de Sade is certainly front and center.

This says at the beginning it is based on the writing of the Marquis, and it is 1965 looking a lot like a 70s. This is prime 70's feeling schlock-orama. The story begins with a killer known as The Crimson Executioner being executed back in medieval times. His body is sealed in a tomb in a castle and soon enough, we're in modern day and a group of people are wandering around, and they come in to the castle. There is a private and secluded guy living there now, and he has a legion of striped shirt goons. As the group of people wander through the castle, the seal on the tomb is broken and bodies begin to pile up!

This movie was exploitation, and I'm honestly surprised that it was 1965! There is a whole thing about the group of people being killed, and they are killed in super creative ways. This is a obvious precursor to Saw and that type of film, and a precursor to the 70s exploitation themes that were going on. The kills are awesome and creative. You have some old school torture type deaths, you have some new things that fit right in, and there's some random whatever deaths along the way.

The weird thing about this and something that did stand out a lot, and makes more sense now that I know the year, is that there is no nudity at all. They actually have several moments where the girl is topless and everything, but they carefully shoot around the nudity and don't show anything.

Another awesome thing about this movie is that the killer, when he appears, looks like a fucking luchadore:

This movie was really zany and a bit nutso. I don't think it was full tilt Insanity like some of the ones I've seen on this blog. It stars a young Mickey Hargitay, who is an actor with many credits but one I have not seen. Actually he was apparently in The Loves of Hercules, which was riffed in MST3K. Also, he was in Lady Frankenstein, which I reviewed back in 2015.

The Exorcist III - 1990

I saw this in Amazon's Halloween instant watch list, and I thought it was the infamous Exorcist II The Heretic. I put it on and instantly this is "actors I know exclusively from one role" fest. Nicol Williamson, the landlady from The Mask, and George C. Scott.

Exorcist III follows older George C. Scott as he investigates a string of recent killings. He is in his late 60's in this, playing like a retired cop or something. The weirdness starts early, and I don't really remember a lot of the early stuff, but I know there's weird scenes in churches and also a great scene where a clock stops while two people are talking.

Eventually it comes out that some of these new deaths match the profile of dead serial killer dude The Gemini Killer. George C. Scott finds a connection to some prisoner somewhere where it seems that the Gemini Killer, played by Brad Dourif, has taken over another imprisoned guy. He's trying to convince everyone that Dourif is the Gemini and people are continuing to die, and it goes from there.

Why is this Exorcist, you ask? In the end, there is an exorcism scene, and it's pretty bland and I guess the good guy doesn't win but also doesn't lose. Who knows.

There were a few creepy parts to this movie I did like, but overall it's a forgettable average possession film. George C. Scott really elevates the story, even though he is terribly cast in it. I dunno, just another movie to watch some random day in life.

Frankenstein 80 - 1972

Wow, forgot I started this one. But I'm not going to rewatch the beginning for completionist sake. I might rewatch it for fun, but not for completionism.

Frankenstein 80 is essentially trying to live it's name. "Let's take Frankenstein and modernize it for the hip world of the 1970's! As 1980 approaches let's translate the story into our swaggerific times!"
Frankenstein 80 is so fucking 70's. It has a main character with a huge turtleneck sweater, tweed jacket on over it, bell bottom jeans, and flocky long hair. In fact it has several of these guys, and they're all cavorting with young supple nubile woman who take off their shirts a LOT. This is one of those movies made with the nudity in mind, and in fact front and center.

Second to the nudity and the 70's there is a monster running about killing people. I'll say that despite the obvious fact these guys made a stupid exploitation movie, they stick to the Frankenstein story decently. Dr. F created the monster, the monster is not named Frankenstien! So many Frankenstein movies do this wrong!

So anyways, Dr. Frankenstein makes the monster, he's the typical array of sewn together people, and he goes on the typical rampage, killing all sorts of people. Mostly he seems to kill girls in a state of undress. He can also teleport. I mean, it's not said, and they never show it, but he will randomly go from girls dormitory to the horse race track to someone's house, in broad daylight, without ever being seen by anyone.

This didn't border the so bad it's good, this was made to help define it. This is pre self-aware so bad it's good, this is smackdab why that term exists. It is self aware, meta, and trying, but it is also fucking authentic and it tries! It's a hard definition to draw, but there's countless blogs about it, I'm not making shit up bro.

Anyhow, Frankenstein is being tracked by baffled detectives and his creator, and shit culimates and it all ends in a movie less than 90 minutes. Great minutes. No lie, this shit was just plain entertaining. It is not 5 star type of entertaining, but I'll give it a high 4 any day.

Death in the Shadows - 1985

And thus we come to the first thing that I didn't like about this movie. The terrible, trite, boring, overused name. First line of the review how could I remark on anything but the name? In the original language this is titled The Prey, a not-much-better title.

Death in the Shadows is a movie from Holland. It has no actors in it I've seen in anything, it has a director I have never heard of, and I'm in the cabin writing this without any internet to find information about this obscure ass film.

We begin by following 17 year old Valentine. She is a confident, but in-over-hear-head and naive young woman. She is taken for a turn when her mother dies suddenly, hit by a car. Soon enough, this is added to by a police detective coming around and telling Valentine that her mother was not actually her mother. The woman who raised her and just died had never had children. Soon enough, someone is also after Valentine as the mystery deepens....

I really loved this movie. What is it about slow building suspense mysteries I love? This movie reminded me a lot of the tone and feeling present in Footprints on the Moon. Footprints and this both share a bizarre, ambiguous and ethereal feeling. There is a "otherness" to this movie, a unknown factor that makes it really great.

But let's stick to known factors for now. And...I scrolled down and I seriously forgot the terrible title of this movie because it's not at the top of the page here. Fuck it, let's start on the bad actually:
First of all the fucking dubbing is terrible. Bland and lifeless, these people seem like they are in a black room without being told what their characters are thinking, going through, hell these voice actors don't even know they're being recorded.
Secondly in a short list, it is a bit uneven just like Footprints was. Intense deep bizarre mystery is evenly met by long, nonsense scenes that could have been cut. The first hour of this movie flies by while the last 30 minutes was slow.
Okay, back to the good stuff about Death in the Shadows. Number one, the music. The music in this is SO good. It's weird, it's all over the place, it's zany and miraculous. Honestly, I would get the soundtrack to this movie. Straight up.
The acting. the dubbing aside, the acting in this movie is great. The main actress is confident, childish, mature, energetic, morose, and smart enough. She kills it in the movie. The police detective, the few other characters are all great in their small roles. Minor characters like the boyfriend are greatly written, and each given enough to make them likeable.

In the end, there is not really horror aspect to this as much as the other films in the boxset. There is a killer after Veronica, but mostly this is a straight mystery. I'm glad it made the boxset though, I'm ecstatic with this film.

I can't quite justify 5 stars though, I'll give this 4 stars.

Terror in the Jungle - 1968

I'm still trying. I haven't given up, though I'm obviously slowing down and I don't retain either of my hopes I started out with originally.

Terror in the Jungle has a great first 30 minutes which gets me all pumped for a classic so bad it's good type experience, then slows down a bit and dwaddles out until it finishes. It's not a terrible, not a great, not especially memorable film, but it is on the boxset and it does have a similar plotline to one of these other cannibal Amazon jungle tribal type movies I've seen before.

The plot of this movie is that there is a kid on a plane that crashes in the Amazon jungle. This is around minute 23, and the kid is a blonde haired blue eyed young lad of maybe 6 years old. He survives the crash and gets put into a coffin(?!) that acts as a boat whereas the other survivors of the plane crash all either got exploded or were attacked by crocodiles in a hilarious sequence.

Blonde kid eventually gets discovered by indigenous tribal Amazonians, and they see the blonde hair and think him to be something special. Instead of killing the boy they take him to their leader, who decides the kid is special and holy and soon the village is practically worshipping him. In the meantime the kids father learns of the fallen plane and gets it together to go out and try to rescue the kid.

Terror in the Jungle wasn't too bad. It moves, it has great moments in the first 30 minutes especially and scattered throughout the rest of the movie. The movie wasn't one I'd watch again, but it is way better than the recent fare on the boxset. I would give it about 3 stars.

Warrior Queen - 1987

Wow. Total random guess and I got the year first try.

Warrior Queen is the type of movie I didn't want to write a review for. I sat here for a day, two days, thinking of the shortness of the review that it would have. I thought of the nothingness to say about the bland late 80's sword-and-sandal entry. I thought about the fact I didn't pay very much attention. Then I decided to write the review anyways.

Warrior Queen follows the illustrious line of movies on this blog which were made only to have lots of tits in them.

I don't remember the how or where or why of anything in the "plot" of this movie. What I do remember is many mostly naked women in the beginning, slowly petering out to not as many naked women in the end. Things happened, people said lines, occassionally I got a glimpse of a story about slaves or something, and then the movie was over around the 80 minute mark.

Director Chuck Vincent was a director mostly of porn, and that's obvious if you watch any of this movie. Despite the nudity and the director, I don't remember any actual sex or even kissing in this movie, which is weird. I kept expecting these two women to kiss, and frankly, the movie would've been a lot better if they had. Whatever. I give it a star.

Peeping Tom - 1960

Peeping Tom is often mentioned alongside Psycho, and given this and the other things this movie revolutionized, it's amazing that I haven't ever seen it.

As the movie begins it's a revolution right from the get go. We see, first person, as a killer approaches and hires a prostitute and hires her to take the cameraman up to her room. Then, we watch as an entire sequence happens as the killer goes after her. The very first first-person thing done in a horror sense, and it's a kill scene nonetheless.

The killer in question is Mark Lewis. He's a private, quiet, solitary man living a life of relative obscurity in a camera related position on films and he also has a side hustle as a shooter of erotic photographs. He is a maniac, through and through, and we are curious as to the nature of his madness. The movie puts a love interest in his life in the form of Helen, a curious next-door neighbor. Things go from there as he murders people, as the courts the young woman, and as various other things happen.

THis movie is innovative, enjoyable, and well paced. The acting is good, the leading man is really great as is the girl interest. The obvious comparison here is Peeping Tom versus Psycho. While Psycho has a lot more suspense, this is a much more human story. Yes, this is thinly written, but somehow it's pulled off very well. Psycho obviously wins out, but this is an overlooked entry and a hot contender.

I'll give this one 4 stars.

War of the Gargantuas - 1966

My library here has a little "new to the library" section on their website which has stuff cycling through whenever you go to their homepage. On that, out of nowhere one day, appeared War of the Gargantuas. I clicked on it and hit reserve without thinking. It had been a while, thought I. It might be fun.

Yeah, I've seen this before. I don't know which kaiju films I've seen and which I haven't seen, but this one I know I've seen. I was always interested in the more obscure, unheard of entries to any franchise. I love things like the two Bond films with Timothy Dalton, I love the bizarre unheard of crossover movies that exist later on in franchises when they get weird. I love things that exist in a state of obscurity, and appeal to little. I think it's something about the process of finding a "hidden gem" which people don't know about. That is a really cool prospect to me.

War of the Gargantuas was apparently a inspiration for Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and many others. Why, is anyone's guess. At this point, 12 years had passed since Godzilla had come out, and there were about 6-7 Godzilla films out. There had been a cesspool of other kaiju films in Japan, and shit, I count a quick 18 kaiju films in total released by this time. This was one of many released in the year 1966, the others being Ebirah Horror of the Deep, Gamera Versus Barugon, and all three Daimajin films.

Given the quick cluster of kaiju films around this time, for me, it's very hard for them to stand out. Far as I can tell, Gargantuas was made to introduce Frankenstien to the kaiju theater. Originally, it was going to be Frankenstien in the King Kong Versus Godzilla film. The original Gargantuas film was called Frankenstein Conquers the World, and I believe the Mary Shelley estate stepped in and told them not use the name anymore. Or something like that. Hence the Gargantuas name in this film. Ah, who knows, who cares.

I didn't quite enjoy this film. it felt like every other. First they try to kill the creature, then that doesn't work, then there's two of them with one being good and one being evil and mankind thrown in being all scared. People do stuff, things get destroyed. Obvious miniatures are thrown around. Eventually, there's big kaiju fights and the film ends. Yup, seen this before.

It's not my favorite. 2 average kaiju film stars.

If... - 1968

I've wanted to watch this well known Malcolm McDowell film for a long time, and I found it free on Amazon. So, I finally got around to it.

This is the film role which got Malcolm McDowell noticed by Stanley Kubrick and ended up getting McDowell into A Clockwork Orange. This film is also well known for being revolutionary in being rated X when it came out, for bringing on controversy with the British Ratings Board, and for being called everything from vile, to disgusting, to completely godsend. Such a film likely can and will be divisive, and I went in without knowing the first thing about it.

About 35 or 45 minutes into If, I paused it and exited the Amazon player. I said aloud "Does this movie have a plot?" From IMDb: "In this allegorical story, a revolution led by pupil Mick Travis takes place at an old established private school in England." And yes, in the end, that is what this film is about. If you sit through about 90 minutes, that does happen in the last 20 minutes.

The first thing I noticed about this is the bizarre, nonsensical randomness that happens. It's a halucinatory, visual film, stuffed full of bizarre artistic shots such as odd women, slightly offbeat surreality, and cryptic imagery. Although that sounds cool, you might only get one of these every 20-30 minutes, so don't get too excited. For the most part, the majority of the time, you're watching British kids wandering around, saying stuff to each other, going to school and absolutely nothing happening. Yes, this movie is VERY slow.

I didn't like If for most of the time I was watching it. I found it to be ponderous, self indulgent, and if it was supposed to be justified that the end took the angle that it did, that certainly was never explored. If leans heavily on Malcolm McDowell, which you can tell was the right move, and he fucking kills it as Mick Travis. No Malcolm, no movie in this case.

I don't know. I didn't like it when I watched it, and now the flow of it is sitting with me days later and I'm liking it more. I do wish it was at least 25 minutes shorter. You don't even meet Mick Travis until like minute 15 or so, and you don't need ANY of the stuff before he comes along.

I'll give it 3.5 stars.

The Embalmer - 1965

I just finished "watching" The Embalmer. I'll admit I paid little attention. The boxset has to have a few I don't pay attention to, otherwise I'd never get to say "I should rewatch this" after all.

I was struck early on by the fact that The Embalmer had a bit of good cinematography. That didn't last too long. Overall, it's a murder story, a mystery, a thriller I guess. It's really shitty black and white film. I always wonder about that, because there were so many color films by this point, and because even black and white films at this point looked better. But, low low budgets will bring in bad bad quality.

It was a bland, slow, talky movie from what I could tell. I texted friends about whiskey, I looked up some other stuff online, I watched the movie. It counts. It's "good enough". I don't think I missed much. 2 stars.

The Undertaker And His Pals - 1966

I'm going through the list of movies on this boxset, watching the shortest ones first. So far, I'm not finding any lurking 2 or 3 hour films thank god.

The Undertaker and His Pals. Okay, so in the title I'm guessing that they're going for an alt/comedic approach? And yes, they are...uuugh. I thought of something in the realm of comedy as I watched this, I'll explain here:
There's this idea in comedy, and I will first say I don't find it funny. It's the John Waters approach, similar in Undertaker here, and it's the idea that "gross" and "classless" is just soooooo funny. I never find this kind of comedy very funny. So your redneck or your trans actor says something gross and makes a weird face while wiping their ass with the American flag. Is that funny? No, I say no.

Undertaker follows that approach with it's comedy a lot, and when it's not doing that, it follows the same plot of The Corpse Grinders. Some guys are using dead bodies to provide food, this time it's for people instead of cats. They run a shitty greasy spoon restaurant where no one comes anyways, and they dress up in stupid costumes sometimes to chop up and kill people... yeeeeep.

The Undertaker and His Pals is a ok horror comedy with no horror and no comedy. The characters try, the movie tries and you can tell. But it's too amateur to be anything but a dumb flick. With no skin, no real development, and nothing else worth mentioning, it ends up in a weird grey middle are where I feel bad for slamming it, but I certainly didn't enjoy it. 1 star.

Guru, The Mad Monk - 1970

Well, I had to get a clunker on the new boxset eventually. Guru was pretty lame.

First of all, this is not THAT bad. It's not even 1 hour, it's amateur as fuck with terrible actors, but I am sure it has a following of cult weirdos.

Andy Milligan is yet another little known cult filmmaker in this vast movie landscape we live in. He had loose connections to Andy Warhol, he made off off off Broadway plays that got him into making horror, and these eventually had followings.

Guru is about what one would expect given this knowledge. Terrible actors delivering awful dialogue as they wear clearly theatrical robes... Guru borders so bad it's great territory, but I wasn't in the mood for it.

Not necessarily a clunker for everyone, Guru is about a 1.5 star film for me.

The House by the Cemetary -1981

Lucio Fulci is a well known, well documented Italian schlock hero, Zombi and all the others being true giallo classics if you love B movies.

I watched House here not knowing it was Fulci. I might have paid more attention had I known that. but, I don't think I needed to. I don't feel like I missed much of anything.

House begins with Michael and his wife and their son Bob moving into a old Victorian house by a cemetary. The house immediately seems spooky to the wife, and son Bob begins to see a phantom girl no one else can. There's a locked basement door that's spooky, and wierd sounds coming from different corners.

The initial build being fine, we look to the end, where shit naturally gets whack. It's sheer insanity from one moment to the next, and the last 20 minutes is gold.

I think I liked this! I'm inclined to look back, I felt like I'd seen Fulci do better, but this was not a bad movie. the music, settings, camera work, nudity, practical effects, weird monster. It's all here. once the monster really shows up, there was no where else I wanted to be.

I'll give this one 4 stars.

Death Warmed Up - 1981

Sometimes you can just tell when a movie has a cult following. And sometimes all it needs is to be made in New Zealand.

Death Warmed Up has a plot synopsis listed on IMDb and Wikipedia. They might be accurate, for all I know. I don't remember this movie having a plot at all besides "random shit happening and characters reacting". In the beginning of this movie, some guy Michael and a few of his friends are driving around and pretty soon all sorts of crazy shit is happening to them. There's a cult that's after them and pretty soon demons and such show up.

I could tell that this had a cult following because it was really over the top, really fast paced, and really stupid. I never knew what was going on, but I was entertained, and that's something.

I'm unconvinced about the plot, but it's better than a lot of movies, boxset or not. 3 stars.

Dead Ringers - 1988

I am in a rewatching marathon right now, and you know what? It's the good shit. It's not the usual rewatching of stupid fluff that I rewatch for god knows what reason. I'm reawatching actual good movies. Imagine that.

David Cronenberg. How did I learn of him? I have no memory of it. I have no memory of what I saw first and when. I know that I was in high school-ish age, and that I got in deep and fast, watching all of them in a line. Pretty much. It was circa 2000, and lil' Theo was slamming through Cronenberg, Lynch, Kurosawa, and many other great directors. Man, I miss those days.

Dead Ringers has Jeremy Irons as twin brothers Beverly and Elliot are both brilliant, charming, attractive gynecologists who who apparently have it all. They are young, successful, and their relationship is so close and intimate that it's scary. They live together, they practice together, they are basically one, to the point where most people cannot tell them apart. When an comes into their lives and Beverly begins to fall in love with her, it creates a rift between the two brothers, and when she introduces Beverly to drugs, things start to really go awry.

This movie is so great. It really is wordless, descriptionless, amazing and powerful. The acting is next level as Jeremy Irons creates a slight distinguishment between the twin brothers. The idea is a consuming, immediate threat as we see the quick road towards destruction we're following. The effects, the darkness of the film is complete, and we get a deep sense of foreboding along with a total mystery as to how the film will end. The music, the whole thing is in effect here, shining bright that these are people who know what the fuck they're doing.

I want to rant and rave about this. When I first saw this, I was very disturbed by it. The gyncological angle that happens in this film is really creepy. These guys invent these weird tools to the treatment of "mutant women" and I found that to be extremely disturbing. There is incredible restraint though, because this movie shows very little until the end. It's powerful when the implication of violence, horror, and the unnerving is worse that the actual experienced horror.

I have to rewatch M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, and then I might be done. I would enjoy seeing History of Violence and Eastern Promises again, to see if they're better than I remember, but I'm also not gonna force it. I could rant and rave for hours, but instead I'll say it's a great film, and one of the necessary ones.

Anatomy of a Psycho - 1961

Great name for a great movie. I went on the Wikipedia just now and you know what? One big ol' name bright and center as writer: Ed Wood. Hey man, this script wasn't anything stellar, but this might still be the best thing Wood ever made?

Anatomy of a Psycho stars Darrell Howe as Chet. Chet is a tough as nails young man whose brother is sentenced to death. Chet believed the brother to be innocent, but he's the only one. His brother is put to death and soon thereafter Chet is after his revenge. Revenge against who is hard, his anger unfocused at first soon gets honed down when he finds the son of the man who was a witness against his brother.

This movie was pretty great. The dialogue is tight and to the point, and the acting elevates a simple story. Darrell Howe plays a tightly wound, flawed and deeply humane main character in Chet. They capture a huge amount of suburban anger, pent up teenage aggression, and frustration. The cops are in the mix, Chet's gang of troublemakers is there too, and the plot keeps us interested as things progress.

This story is also has the simplicity of "getting in too deep" going for it. It's really easy for these characters to spin a small lie, to deceive a little bit. But as the lies and the actions keep on stacking up, they get dug in deeper and deeper and deeper. A giant spinning top that gets out of control, we're in it as the audience, curious about the outcome.

A couple issues were present in the film, for one the script has dramatic slow downs and speeding back up. The trial towards the latter half slows things down in a huge way, and sometimes there's no point to some of the scenes. They throw in a romantic angle for Chet's sister that feels awkward and rushed, and the whole end is a bit too convoluted to be as powerful as it could have been. That said, I do think the end was refreshingly realistic in many ways.

This is a good new boxset do far! This might have the best run of films in it so far, but I better not get too optimistic huh...? Anything could await me. I'll give this one 3 stars.

Spider - 2002

I remember working at my lil' theater and having the Spider poster on the wall. I was excited because it was David Cronenberg and the title was creepy, and I was in prime Cronenberg mood at the time. I don't remember if we ever played the movie or not, but this was my introduction to it.

I remember that when I saw Spider, I was very disappointed. Now, I will also say that it is likely I partially conflated this movie with something else, some unknown "other very strange" film. I remembered Ralph Fiennes character character having gross physical deformities and being a lot more of a twisted, arcane character. I'm wondering what movie I would've confused this for that DID have the imagery I remember, because whatever that movie is I want to rewatch it too.

Spider is the story of Ralph Fiennes as a weird, mentally impaired man. He is a mystery, a mentally challenged individual but high functioning and 100% we know there is aome "reason" for him acting the way he does. He arrives at a home for people with mental problems early on and makes his way towards an existence there. As the story unfolds we begin to see the genesis to his problems, how he got the way he is. Turns out his parents were having many relationship difficulties when he was young, leading towards a fight...

Spider is one of those movies where I want to go through each little plot part, not because of how interesting or cool it was, but because with the simple sotry outline above you might think it's about some certain thing, while it is about many other things too. It all boils down to a slow burn story of mental illness, of fucked up childhood, of many other things.

Coupled with the plot, we have a great acting by all around and some cool imagery. But overall I didn't think this was great. I guess I'm trying to remove it from the "Cronenberg filter" in my head. I'm trying to look at it like a movie, and not "a Cronenberg movie". But either way, it feels a bit incomplete. It feels a bit lacking, and not just from the vague ending. I get it, it's a dark and fragmented story open to interpretation, but it still didn't feel "all there".

Hm. I dunno. I'll give it 3 stars.

Terror Train - 1980

I am listening to and thoroughly enjoying In Myers We Trust with Gyers and Rust. I also rewatched Halloween II recently and this got me into horror mood, as one is wont to do.

Terror Train kept Jamie Lee Curtis in the spotlight as a 80's Scream Queen. I never quite realized how many horror movies she was in in such a short time. She was in 5 horror movie in 3 years, and 7 total in the early 80s. That's a scream queen right there.

In the beginning of Terror Train, Jamie Lee Curtis takes part in a ritual hazing type thing where a bunch of kids scare some weird scrawny dude. For some reason, the beginning already threw me off. Minute 5 and we already know who the killer is and why they're killing. It's stupid. Come on, have you heard of something called "suspense" ever? Movie?

The whole of the high school or college or whatever goes on a train trip, which is admittedly super cool. It's also near Halloween and everyone on the train is in costume. The train idea is a huge sell point for the flick and has to be what go this movie made. Anywho, they're all on a train and the killer is there too. As the killer kills people, he takes their costume, meaning that no one knows who the killer is and we as an audience aren't ever too sure what the killer will look like next.

The kills are average to boring. A couple boring stabs, a throat slit maybe. Blah. Not a highlight. So what then is the highlight? Hm. Was there one? I'll admit, I didn't particularly like this movie. It had nothing to keep one interested.

Terror Train is too slow first of all. We know what's happening and exactly when and why it's all happening. The train adds a tiny, tiny bit of interest because of mostly the cool power of the train, but that is it. It's barely used also. Instead, they focus on a shit ton of magic tricks by David Copperfield, randomly riding in the train entertaining the high school kids. Okay...?

It's not like it's fucking terrible, but it ain't great. I'll give it 1 star.

Blue Velvet - 1986

600 motherfucking entries, motherfucker! I'm dancing with the big boys.. Or something, yeah I dunno.

I watched eXistenZ recently, which led to me renting several other David Cronenberg films from the library, and in my mind David Cronenberg always links up to David Lynch. It's "the two David's" who are both doing something awesome and unique in film, and I love both of them in different but also similar ways.

First of all, 1986? Nineteen EIGHTY six?!!! This movie feels so much more 90's, so SO much ahead of it's time. The controversial plot stuff, the characters, the darkness, the weirdness, this feels so much later on in time as a film. The style and the characters all feel more 90's, the bleakness and the storyline feels like that return to nihilism present especially in the early 90's. I thought it was 91, 93. I forgot this came before Twin Peaks, and that was also part of it.

David Lynch exploded onto the scene with Eraserhead, wowwed critics with his seriousness and pathos in Elephant Man, proved he could do sci fi even if the studio interfered with Dune, and then made this movie, Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet is one of this more linear films. I just counted right now, and according to "what I think" exactly half of David Lynch's films are in the "fucking weird" category and the other half are a lot more linear than I ever remember. Brief breakdown.

Eraserhead: weird as fuck, likely the weirdest thing he's made, though Mulholland Drive is close.
Elephant Man: linear, character based, performance based, feels like a return to 60's noir and mystery influence
Dune: Linear. There is no weirdness in this, at all, except the druggie extras with the blue eyes. Lynch decides not to do main stream.
Blue Velvet: Linear. I remember this one as weird, but it's not. Not really. It has strange elements and creepiness, but not weird.
Wild At Heart: linear. His idea of lovers and oddballs is the only weirdness here. Love the snakeskin jacket.
Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me: I'm not really counting this one, but it is a more linear version of the TV show, which had only a bit of weird.
Lost Highway: Weird. Very weird. Third most weird for me, and very layered.
The Straight Story: obviously linear, feels like the weakest of any movie he ever made.
Mulholland Drive: It's close up there in weirdness level to Eraserhead. I love this movie. Love, love love. Might be my favorite.
Inland Empire: The least weird, but that might just be because of the sheer length and the chore this was to watch.

So actually less than half of his movies are weird. And as I said, I remembered Blue Velvet being one of the weird ones. And let's be honest here, it has been many years. I think the three things anyone remembers about this movie are super weird: Dennis Hopper using helium to get high, Dennis Hopper yelling lines such as "Heineken?! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!" and Dennis Hopper having strange mommy fantasies when he's high, fucking Issabella Rossellini. I mean really, this is a character which defines and makes this movie, and it's pretty much the only part one is going to remember many years after last watching it.

In the beginning of Blue Velvet, Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey finds a ear laying in a field by his house. The plot, the idea behind it is similar. What if you found something like this, and spurned on by curiousity, you investigated it? And I think it's extremely realistic in that it shows you'd discover something truly awful, truly horrible to be the cause. In this case, Dennis Hopper has kidnapped a woman's child, and is using that as leverage to rape and abuse her. The cops are involved as eventually shown, and only because Jeffrey is a innocent man who gets in too deep and is too good of a person to back the fuck off, do we as the audience get brought into this dark, twisted storyline.

There's quite literally endless things to talk about here. Whether it's David Lynch's style of taking us exactly where we don't want to go, or his horrible, hateful, but somehow extremely realistic characters, or his amazing acting and cinematography, or the music or the colors or the sets or the minimalism striking up perfectly against extremity... It is ALL here.

This is the type of film where it is needless, absolutely OBVIOUS that it is a masterwork. Every single thing is here, and there's also a sweet love story which doesn't feel rushed. This is the type of film to make you realize what high barometer a 5 star film really sets. This is up there with the other films I've rated which make me wish I didn't hand out 5 stars to ANYTHING else. Cause this is really and truly next level directing and writing. All of the stars. All of them.

HydroSphere - 1997

Also known as 2103: The Deadly Wake.

Malcolm McDowell should've been in more movies. Or at least, better movies. The guy looks awesome, was a great actor, has a fucking sweet accent, and proved he had what it takes really early on with roles in Clockwork Orange, If, and Caligula. He is a bit "controversial", is that why mainstream widespread success eluded him? These same big weird roles relegated him to B movie hell?

HydroSphere is what it's called on Amazon, 2103 is what it's called everywhere else. This is beginning to be a recurring theme, a sign that a movie probably sucks. If you have no confidence in the name, how can you have confidence in the movie?

Michael Pare and Malcolm McDowell star in this low budget 90's oddity of a film. It's a film in which there's a mutated talking baby immersed in a tube of water that characters interact with. It's a film in which there's a kinky black clad stormtrooper-like female agent that goes around killing people in tunnels. It's a film in which Malcolm McDowell's character swigs whiskey like it were going out of style, yet never acts or seems intoxicated in the least.

2103 is on the cusp of leaning towards so-bad-it's-good territory. It overstays it's welcome and is overly long, with altogether too much needless dialogue and nothingness happening. It's in the realm though, it's in the biosphere of so-bad-its-good, and I would say it makes it.

The plot online says the movie is about Malcolm McDowell discovering the cargo on a ship he is given is made up of inmates. The plot description also says there is a bomb onboard the ship. I don't remember either of these plot points. Instead, the end scenes involve the kinky black Predator in a classic Star Wars-esque electricity fight with an unexplained angelic lady. We also never find out wtf was the deal with the Predator. This movie made no fucking sense, but it is a fun enough watch.

I give it 3.5 stars.

Blood Sabbath - 1972

Choppin' my way through the boxset. I think my silent, not promised goal right now is to make it through in just two months. If I do that I could finish it by the end of the year. I am going to keep trying to do two movies every time I sit down to watch it. Hey, if you're gonna commit to one, you can commit to two.

In this weirdo flick, drifter David is walking along early on and gets beer sprayed on him by some passing teenagers. It's a strange intro to a strange film. David is a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and as the film goes on we learn a little bit about that.

David is hanging out by a creek when a girl comes swimming up and they spend some time together. David and her instantly fall in love, but this girl claims she is "of another world" and is a water nymph. David just sorta goes along with this. Meanwhile, there is a group of witches I guess nearby, and David can be with his water nymph if he loses his soul. He thinks the witches could do that for him.

This movie was made for 4 reasons: Boobs, Butts, Crotches, and stupid weirdness. Yeah, there is a shit ton of nudity in this. Fully nude chicks dance around, showing their best assets, cause those assets sure aren't acting. David is also a boring actor. I don't think he needs to have a soul removal. I think he already didn't have one.

Nothing really happens for most of the movie. Eventually David gets his soul removed and that changes him. There's very little to write about, and in the end it's a low budget nudie flick that tried and failed to have a horror edge. The weirdness and the nudity elevates it to about 2.5 stars.

Metamorphosis - 1990

Happy anniversary Metamorphosis! The movie turned 30 this year.

Metamorphosis got in my mind because I just watched and enjoyed George Eastman in Hands of Steel. George Eastman is a very prolific Italian writer, director, actor and producer. He primarily wrote films, known for Italian schlock like Porno Holocaust, Antropophagus, The Great Aliigator and Dog Lay Afternoon. Yes, that last film is about a woman who has sex with a dog.

In this Eastman wrote and directed entry, a brilliant, attractive, and successful scientist was recently given $200,000 for a research grant. His research comes into question, and it turns out he has been studying immortality, and has also tracked the human genome. Interesting that now we have actually tracked the genome! Anyways, all the other doctors naturally freak out, and soon enough our rejected doc is injecting himself with a radical untested drug he's been developing.

I watched this in part because several things online talked about how the doctor eventually turns into a T-Rex. I was excited to see a stupid late entry Italian horror film about a dude turning into a dinosaur. But, as we all know, sometimes these movies don't live up to their synopsis.

First of all, the movie is drag-your-ass-in-the-dirt-slooooooww. The beginning is interesting as we get to know the characters and such, our doc gets with a woman, and seeing him inject a needle into his eye was cool. But then, it's dialogue and nothingness as I guess things sort of happen. It seems the doc begins losing chunks of time, it seems he is transforming somehow in unknown ways, and his relationships get hurt because of these factors. Blah blah blah.

We only get "the T-Rex" part of this movie in the last 5 minutes, I kid you not. It's another great fucking costume too, or prop, or whatever it is. There's been some good makeup effects along the way I suppose, but it's all been too little, too late in my critical opinion. It's just ssssllllooowwwww and duuuuuulll and I was waiting for it to end.

Matamorphosis was on my infamous list of films I'd wanted to see. Now I've seen it, and it kinda sucked, so oh well. It happens. 2 stars.

Hands of Steel - 1986

Well, not only am I keeping up with the whole 2 movies off the boxset in one day thing, but I also rewatched a movie previosuly reviewed on this blog, in another Mill Creek boxset! Here is my previous review of Hands of Steel.

I re-read my review, which I have to say was in a lot more detail than I remember writing it. I thought this was one where I completely didn't pay attention, perhaps being out of my mind of weed and beer at the time. I guess I had short attention from being tired, but anyways, I'm just going to touch on a few things I didn't mention in the original review.

Number one, everyone in this movie is likable. That was something I picked up on this time. Daniel Greene, Janet Agren, John Saxon, Geroge Eastman, they're all just doing fantastic work and they play good characters. Pac Querak is a thinly written character to be sure, inspired by the likes of The Terminator obviously, but in that role many actors would fail. Daniel Greene plays him with a brutality which is really suited to the film and makes you take it more seriously.

There's bad stuff too. The middle of this whole movie just lags and slows down. There was a lot of debate in my head about if I change the rating from 3.5 stars to 4. I feel in a lot of ways like this is a 4 star film. However, the whole middle section with endless nothing happening, very drawn out and mostly pointless arm wrestling, and stuff like that does keep the score at a 3.5. I wish this had been higher budget, and these had been real action scenes instead of fucking arm wrestling. I feel like that is 100% because they didn't have enough money for anything better.

Also unforgivable is that the movie has one reveal waiting and obscured. The reveal that Daniel Greene is a cyborg could have been a huge, fun part of the film. Instead we see him win the arm wrestling, cut to his robotic hand open and being worked on. What a stupid, stupid waste of a cool idea. I'm almost talking myself into a 3 star rating, but I did thoroughly enjoy this nonetheless. I'll give it a 3.5, and I'll even say it's worth watching twice- five years apart.

The Thirsty Dead - 1974

Laura Gemser stars in.... oh wait. You're telling me that isn't Laura Gemser?

I can't see how pics will look anymore but anyways, the actress in this I really thought was Gemser.

This is back on the boxset, and since I'm not going to rewatch The Werewold of Washington or They Saved Hitler's Brain, I skip those to and dive right into this super low budget, Philippean made "thriller". Cirio H. Santiago and Roger Corman could do justice to the Philippeans, this movie not so much.

In the beginning we have three white women that are indistinguishable and Laura Gemser hanging out doing whatever when some weird Jawa looking guys kidnap them. They put the girls on a boat and take them to a underground dungeon where an evil cult is sacrificing girls because that's what evil cults do. There is a sympathetic guy played by John Considine who helps them out, and slowly, eventually, an escape plan is forged.

Whoooo this movie was a chore. The dialogue and audio is pure shit first of all, and the movie moves about as slow as shit too. This movie needed, in order to succeed, SOMETHING it brought to the table. Movies bring horror, violence, effects, nudity, strong characters, predicaments, all these things and more make a movie fun. THis movie had zero of that. Instead it settles for skimpy clothed women standing around and mumbling to each other.

The best part of the entire movie was pretending that the guys in huge hoods are Jawas. They appear in the first 5 minutes and then never again. Half a star for fake Laura Gemser (who barely exists in the movie at all).

eXistenZ - 1999

I just finished rewatching this Cronenberg film for about the third time, and dang if I don't feel right now like I want to rewatch a bunch of his older work It's just so damn weird!

I've seen eXistenZ possibly the most of any of his movies. Seems like a strange one to pick, especially since in my mind I like Videodrome and Naked Lunch more, and I love Crash and Dead Ringers.Yet, I do like eXistenZ and I think it's as good as a lot of his work, and perhaps less known.

Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh lead up an all star cast in this insane and for sure slightly confusing entry. In the beginning, Jude Law is at a demonstration of Jennifer's new video game eXistenZ when a man in the audience gets up and tries to assassinate her. He shoots her in the shoulder and Jude takes her away, and soon the two of them are embarking on a strange journey in both the real world and in the game world, and of course the lines between the two begin to blur.

My first thought watching this was, damn, I miss these effects. Real and extremely strange, props and devices and decorations are always present in Cronenberg films. There's the famous bone gun which I've remembered for years, and there's the vidoe game consoles themselves, which are part insect and part genitals. Every time these characters jack into the game, they fondle this weird small pink thing that is decorated with things that like like orifices or nipples. The sexual connotation is high as the main characters also have sexually significant "ports" installed into their backs that they finger or tongue sometimes.

This movie was super ahead of it's time. It predicts a world in which people are overly consumed with games to the point where they believe more in the game than their real life. Once these people play the games, they just want to stay there, and it's fucking fucked up just like our current world is. This predicted the ugly turn games would take, and in this movie there's a strong theme of being against the technology of the game.

Second to that, the movie was obviously outdone by The Matrix, but this sort of plot was surely huge at the time. The whole fake reality thing might seem contrived right now, but this was made at the same time as Matrix, and should not be looked at as a copycat.

Not Cronenberg's best, but for sure a 4 star film.

Dungeon of Harrow - 1964

This fuzzed out fuckery of a film really fucked me, dude. I barely made it.

5 minutes in I was checking the time. I was wondering what was happening.

in the beginning, the Marquis de Sade is living on an island somewhere and a couple arrive, and soon enough Sade is fucking with 'em.

Nothing really happens, it's dull, and when something does happen, it doesn't matter. yawn. no stars

Double Exposure -1982

I've been doing two movies off this boxset every time I put in a disc...so far. If I kept that up I'd finish the set in just 25 days!

I put this movie on, and something about the acting or the style early on I knew I was in for a treat. Main actor Michael Callan is not someone I recognize at all, and is not leading man type, but he's great as a sorta weird enigmatic photographer. The style of the film is apparent immediately as well, great cinematography and music and editing.

The plot unfolds slowly, we follow the main character, photographer Adrian. He's a bit of an oddball, charismatic but strange and offbeat, and he takes pics and takes women to bed without nary a thought about it for the first like 30something minutes until he has a dream where he murders a woman. He goes to his therapist and talks it over, and we don't really know the reality of it until later when we see him killing people and he DOESN'T wake up, meaning it's real?

The film is quite ambiguous for a while even then as he goes on to date a new girl, and he has a weird relationship with his brother, and so on. We see him once begin to cheat on his girlfriend, and while he does so, flashbacks show us her death at his hands. He's looking pretty guilty and the law is hot on his heels.

The movie goes on, and it's really unique and fun in a shitload of ways. The casting is great and has a few known faces to legitimize it. It feels retro and very 70s a lot of the time, walking a thin tightrope of self aware and self deprecating at times.

I knew this one would have a cult following, and it does. It's extremely big online and even got a reissue on dvd recently by Vinegar Syndrome.

A thoroughly entertaining romp, it's a Bonafide 4 star film.

The Corpse Grinders - 1971

Ted V Mikels is an unheard of lower budget director most don't know anything about. I know of him from MST3K favorite The Girl in Gold Boots... Talk about an underrated episode.

In the Corpse Grinders (which I discovered is only two steps away from Larry Buchanan on IMDb) we have a no-name cast in a very low budget, minimal exploitation flick. This is a return to the really, really low budget and slow, slow ass filmmaking I haven't seen in a little while. And, despite being 75 minutes long, this movie takes forever to get anywhere.

This was in my amazon queue and it reminded me of when I used to watch stuff like this a lot. Returning to this after a year of hardly any exploitation, and also a year of really offbeat wtf 70s movies exclusively including the Swinging 70's boxset, I am left to wonder exactly what is wrong with me that at one point this was what I watched almost exclusively. This stuff is just plain bad, in summary.

There's a cat food company somewhere that is putting human flesh into their cat food, they're paying people 2 cents a pound for human bodies and they are continually running short because apparently this cat food is very popular. This naturally leads to people being killed to fill the increasing demand for cat food. It's a shoddy plot, but it's a shoddy movie. This happen and mild thrills are had as you basically just wait for these guys to get caught somehow.

I'll give it about 1.5 stars I guess.

Cujo - 1983

I have always had a interest in the Stephen King movies, probably stemming from reading his books as a young kid. To be honest, I don't remember at what age I read any of his books, and I don't remember which of his books I read. I remember I lost interest in his books before I was 14, because we moved out of the house I remember at that age and I didn;t read any of his books ever again after that. I never read Cujo.

Cujo stars Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone amongst others, and in that way this always felt similar to The Howling, the original Halloween horror movie of mine which...I should really rent tonight and rewatch before I offically go off the booze for a little while. Dee Wallace is having a affair with another man and is raising her young son with her husband. The kid is played by Danny Pintauro and turns in an annoying character but extremely well written and acted, thought I.

In the beginning of the film, Cujo is a huge Saint Bernard that chases a rabbit into a hole and gets bitten on the nose by a bat that lives inside the hole. Rabies being the culprit to the events that follow, we have about 45 minutes of character building and the cheating by Dee Wallace I spoke of earlier. She would later get married to Christopher Stone and become Dee Wallace Stone, and their chemistry is undeniable. She takes their car to the shop around minute 45 or whatever, and it promptly dies there. Meanwhile, Cujo has had the rabies sit in, and he's gone fully off the deep end.

The dog in this is fucking incredible. This movie was the one that got me into animal attack films, I realized midway through it. I really have to think it was this. The dog is insane, and it looks vicious as shit. It's covered progressively with more and more blood, slime, and drool as the film goes on, and looks like a goddamn monster.

Why isn't this film more well known?! This is my Jaws. honestly, I've always talked about this, I think Jaws is massively over-rated, and I'd take Cujo over Jaws any day. The Dog in this is a character, he is smart and vicious, intense and unpredictable. He looks fucking awesome, and is fully believable as not only a acting dog, but as a legit deadly threat. I think director Lewis Teague should've gone on to great things, and he did create some known stuff, but it's too bad this is probably his best work. The animal work in this alone deserves note, and the acting and cinematography help it along as well.

This is one of my childhood horror movies, I am biased, this is a five star film.

The Twilight Zone - 1959-1964

I'm legit trying to remember if I had or seen this show before middle school. It seems sort of unlikely, but the truth of the matter is that, as suggested on this blog before, I was raised without a cable TV connection and we only had our VHS collection and what we saw at friends houses as "our TV time".

I checked the IMDb just now to see if there was trivia about this show being aired, or being pitched, or anything. I wonder if there is a documentary or something about it, because I'd have to imagine it pissed people off, scared people, broke records, the like. There is SO much here. Just so much, whether it's the horror elements, or the more extreme underlying themes. I can't see how this show didn't garrner controversy.

Rod Serling introduces each episode of this well known series, a series which for me introduced me to many actors and was a launching place for really well known writers, directors, actors, and other screen icons. The range is of course all over the place. I had never seen the entire show before now, when I sat down and watched all fucking 5 seasons, but I had seen many of these episodes before. I was spurred on to buy the series because I wanted to see them in order, nazi that I am, and because I had never seen any of the season 4 episodes which changed the show from 30 minutes to an hour. The plots are always something alien, something new, something different from what was being shown on TV at the time, and connected by a theme that they're all otherwordly. Otherworldly because, as said by Rod, this is the Twilight Zone.

A great many of these episodes have stuck with me throughout the years. I've found myself being able to randomly recall such episodes that I saw first such as The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street or Time Enough at Last. What I didn't know when I started watching the whole show was just how many episodes involve time travel, time travel which is usually around 20-30 years spans. That plot came up again and again, as did the whole war thing, having the war come out differently or having something remaining from the war. World War II being only 10 or 20 years in the distance cemented this, and it's not a bad thing or anything. Just unknown to me.

Now that I've seen every episode, including the hour ones, and they were all in order, I wonder a lot about the show as said in my first paragraph. I also wonder if I'll ever watch the whole show again, like I have with The X-Files or Star Trek. I'm confident I might play an episode for someone here and there, but I don't know if some of these I'll ever need to watch again. The show is great, it's tremendous and obvious, but it is a long, long show and it takes a long time to get into it. Sometimes, though, late in the cabin, watching 3-4 episodes in a row, felt really awesome and I'll miss those nights.

There is no rating other than a 5 to give this, it was so far ahead of it's time and so influential in obvious and extreme ways.

Glass Jungle - 1988

I bought this one randomly on VHS from a local store. It looked fucking stupid, I need no explanation besides that if you've ever read this blog. Dog.

Joe Canalito was either a boxer or a football star, I don't remember, but he wanted to switch to acting like so many others, and had a brief stint in Hollywood where he was cast in this dumbass movie. In this one, he's a LA cabbie driving people around and getting mixed up into the plans of baddies and goodies alike.

He is a entirely charmless character, thinly written and badly acted. We start with the fact it always sounds like he is reading directly off a page, emoting nothing, and it goes from there. This is a great riff material movie. I am frankly shocked Rifftrax hasn't done this movie yet. This is right in their wheelhouse.

He gets involved in some crime, I don't remember the details, and he gets entangled with the girl, and we have a flashback about how his last girl died, and there's other irrelevant stuff as well along the way. There's also plenty of scenes where he drives around, doing cab fares or not, and they even had their own 3-4 minute Glass Jungle song that plays at one point! That was hilarious.

I liked this in a so-bad-it's-good type of way, and was excited to watch it with my friend while we drank, but I was actually surprised that he didn't enjoy it. It's not even 80 minutes when the credits roll, so I thought it was perfect, but I guess I mean to say you'll either like or hate it. He described it as insanely slow....which it really, really is.

I will give it 3 stars still though.

The Evil Dead - 1981

It's Halloween time again. And I was browsing through Netflix with my girl and saw that this was available and shit yo. I can't think of a better way to celebrate Halloween early.

Bruce Campbell stars in the Sam Raimi directed early 80s horror film about a bunch of people going out to a cabin in the woods. Back then, it wasn't quite as over used but even this was aware of that as a trope. And this is aware of a lot of those things because it's also one of the first best horror comedies. I forgot how fucking great this movie is.

The effects start early and they start often, with members of the friend circle becoming Undead. There's the infamous tree rape scene which leads to the first girl turning into a creature and getting locked in the basement and then there is slowly by slowly girls turning into the zombies. I do say girls because it is all the women who turn into monsters first, as if making a statement about chicks and stuff in general. It's a subversive film with an agenda for sure but it's also really really well done.

Bruce Campbell is great in it and the action Keeps us interested. There's a shit ton of jump-scares and there's a lot of wondering what's going to happen next. The extremity of the violence and the blood is laughable and that's where the comedy comes in. And there's also some great camera work and truly great effects at different points. It's no wonder that this guy went on to do some great horror.

I remember this movie being barely legible as a film and it being Evil Dead II that was the great film. But while we were watching this I was struck with how good it is... and I know that Evil 2 is generally accepted as better, but this still gets 5 stars in my book.

The Naked Jungle 1955

Charlton Heston and some lady star in this slow, slow a movie about ants, but really it's about Charlton Heston and the other girl not getting along.

in the beginning we see that Charlton Heston is some guy living in the Amazon who sends for a mail-order wife. When she arrives the woman wants nothing more than to love him, but apparently she's married to the biggest assholes of all time and this guy just wants her to shut the fuck up.

I'm serious though he's a total ass the whole movie and no explanation is ever given. He's downright abusive and yet she wants nothing but to be his wife and it's very demeaning towards women. Not to sound super woke or anything but this is a type of film that I'm surprised that was ever made because of how unnecessarily offensive it is.

a long time goes by without nothing happening until the last 30 minutes random ants appear in Charlton has to fight them. The effects in their are pretty okay but overall the really slow movie that is really really bad. Despite the fact that I got it used with a sticker that says a great film stuck to the front of the VHS.