Dead of Winter - 1987

Roddy MacDowall never achieved a high level of fame apart from his roles in the Planet of the Apes series of films. He became a B and C and Z movie actor, TV actor, and died with only Planet as his major claim.

Hence we have 1987, 10ish years after the most sequels of the series, and Roddy is in this subsubpar 80s made for TV feeling "thriller". Also starring Mary Steenburgen and Jan Rubes.

Mary plays three roles. First she's a woman murdered in a car. Then, the main role, an actress who meets Roddy for the lead role in the film. She's taken to a doctor's house where it turns out the doctor and Roddy as his assistant have nefarious plans for her. Then she also plays the neighbor, a woman who turns out to have a connection to these two.

Well, it's a dumb plot, and its a dumb movie. Seriously, I saw the cast and I said yes before thinking about how bad this could be. I'm an optimist I guess. But this is bad. Its telegraphed, predictable, it's been done before and again, and it has nothing to differentiate it from the others.

If you have a brain you'll guess the plot twists before they happen like I did, you'll know how it'll end like I did, and you'll marvel that there isn't a hidden B story or reason beyond those apparent.

When it comes down to it, it's a plot of major convenience, hinging on just one critical thing, and when you think about it, the story doesn't even work. Ugh. But I guess I was still mildly entertained. Its a one.

Wishmaster - 1997

Wes Craven was a king in the 90s. He'd established Nightmare on Elm Street and soon enough would create Scream, but in the meantime why not produce this Nightmare-lite horror flick?

This is a flick too. It's a B movie through and through, starring horror icons in mostly cameos but shoving Andrew Divoff as its actual star, the titular Wishmaster.

Early on, a drunk dockworker spills his drink and drops a box on some dude, breaking a statue open and revealing a red ruby containing the Djinn. The Djinn comes out and he's the classic evil genie, interpreting all wishes in evil ways. Our plucky heroine has to eventually deal with said force.

Wishmaster has passable effects, passable acting, etc. It's all fine really, I truly don't have much to say about this one. Some good kills and lots of them elevates it, like the cameos. It's a fine B grade average 2.5 starrer.

The Fog - 1980

There's a weird dynamic bizarre quality about John Carpenter films. I feel like when he has a thing he leans into, like the atmosphere or the horror or the pacing, the movie turns out good. But when he doesn't lean into one of those, the movie is not as good.

I don't know exactly how to quantify this problem, because even when his movies aren't great, they're not that bad. Back when I reviewed Vampires, I had the same problem. If someone else had directed it, I might give it more credit. But it was shallow, undeveloped, and sort of reeked as if no one cared enough to settle on exactly what it was supposed to be. The Fog is similar.

We open with a old man telling a scary story around a campfire. Great beginning. Something about lepers coming in fog to kill people who stole their gold. Then it's sort of like we cut to that story. A small Northern California beach town, which was in reality Point Reyes area, has a single jazz radio station run by Adrienne Barbeau. Jamie Lee Curtis meets Dan Atkins on the road and they ride into town just as a fog arrives.  The fog has said lepers in it, who kill random people on a search for their gold, which turns out was stolen ages ago by a former priest.

Except we don't know most of that until later. What we do know is that pirate looking things want to kill six people, reason unknown, and the town is terrified of them. Which works, and let me say straight up: the atmosphere in this movie fucking works. Great original John Carpenter score of course, good acting, good effects.

But the bad, I mean, it's a long list. Two things occur to me to mention before I get into the bad: number one, this is clearly going for a retro, 70's style horror feel, and I think that's very intentional. Carpenter was a forefather to 80s horror but was directing in the 70s, and this feels like a traditional slow-burn 70s thriller. Number two: it is all in the beginning; this is a campfire story, told to campers in the oldschool way which would NATURALLY have plotholes. Urban legends are full of plotholes, the how and why and "what are the rules" questions are virtually endless for all the hook-hands, ghosts, demons, virgins, and mythical figures in history.

This movie is not here to answer any of those questions, and though it does a good job of covering all this with character and tone, the characters other than Adrienne Barbeau have nothing to do, aren't explored, and don't matter. Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Atkins are incredibly shallow sexpots with no payoff, the priest is an alcoholic with a fart for a story arc, and nothing else really matters. The deaths are ok, I guess, and the fog is creepy as shit, but it would have been nice if anything was linked to the "story" i.e. the stolen gold, which is thrown in as a last act quick "get out" for why this happened instead of being weaved organically to the storyline.

It's not as bad as all that though. Like I said, I believe honestly in the listed reasons for why this might be written weird, and it still achieves atmosphere and thrills. It's lke a 2.5, I'd say.

Memories of Murder - 2003

Midway through Bong Joon-ho's second film I realized I'd seen it before. He burst onto the scene in a big way right after this with his film The Host in 2006, bringing him more attention in the mainstream Western audience.

However, one should not think that it was only The Host and later of course Parasite that showed promise in this director. Bong Joon-ho spins a in-depth, personal, funny, and intimate story in Memories of Murder, a trait of his which we'd see repeated in his humane and layered films.

Memories of Murder is loosely based on Korea's first real serial killer, a string of murders which happened from 1986-1991. Leading the investigation is frequent Joon-ho collaborator Kang-ho Song as a tough but slacker cop, a in-over-his-head small town cop who discovers the first body. The little police station he works for is inbalanced, especially after a specialist from Seoul is sent in to help on the case. They work as more bodies show up, as false leads arise, and as actual clues eventually show their head.

Memories blends together good atmosphere, plenty of comic moments, and at it's center a dark mystery with macabre and voilent tone. These things are all very well balanced over the 2+ hour running time, and with great perfomances and a well written, concise script, you can see this crew is going somewhere. See Parasite, please, and if you like it, give this cool murder mystery a shot!

Highlander 2: The Quickening - 1991

The Highlander was a somewhat unsuccessful, but easily huge cult movie with Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert and an original song by Queen. Princes of the Universe indeed.

Christopher Lambert returns in this one, and in the far away distant year of 2026 the earth has a solar radiation shield and eternal storms, and Christopher Lambert has some weird croaky thin voice, and ninjas with eyepieces are after him, and... What the fuck happened to this series?

The plot is murky at best, but basically its the idea of the Highlander, which is that immortals are fighting on Earth, and they all have to compete until only one of them is left. Lambert as Connor MacLeod is up against Michael Ironside, a long hair having, scene stealing villain, Katana. MacLeod summons his OG Sean Connery as Ramirez, and the rest of the movie is, well, actually quite a lot.

Cause FUCK is this thing long. 2 hours feels like 10 as we get a lot of dialogue, a lot of pointless scenes, and we wait forever to get information as to what happened, where we are, and what will happen next. I mean what was their idea here? To expand the world I guess, but there is a lot of scenes here where the information is both unnecessary AND uninteresting.

When we come down to the last confrontation, MacLeod and Katana face off in their immortal duel, and the fight is over pretty quick. Virginia Madsen is also there as a love interest, and she's good in this, but the movie is way too cluttered. Probably a 1-er.

Never Cry Wolf - 1983

Wolves. Animals, right? Right.

Years ago when I started writing this blog, I followed a few different bad movie/cult movie blogs, linking to them on here sometimes with my reviews like Spawn of the Slithis. The only blog I kept up with since then though is the glorious blog Every 70's Movie. Although largely inspirational, I do want to go on record as saying I individually loved 70's movies already, it was not because of this blog.

Never Cry Wolf was written up on this blog as being "one of the best nature films" and it didn't take much more than that for me to watch it. In the beginning we follow bookish introvert Tyler, a nerdy scientist who gets sent to the Arctic circle to find out if wolves are killing the caribou population there. He is dropped off without a clue of what to do, nearly dies, and is rescued by a Eskimo aboriginal.

As the film goes on, we see a deep meditation unfold as Tyler finds the wolves, as he gets to know them, as he gets to know the Eskimos, and as he begins to understand the environment in which he now lives. Never Cry Wolf is one of those movies that that doesn't have much of a plot beyond the setup, but instead replaces it with atmosphere and character growth.

The magic of the environment which Tyler witnesses is beyond words, even though you can tell they used trained wolves and shit. The humbled feeling brought to him, the uniqueness of his journey will leave an impression on you to be sure. It's a movie wherein the story is about the bad inside man, how man is corrupted, and how out of touch man is with nature. One person learning about the beauty of nature is nothing compared to the untold millions who see it as a "resort" which they could use to make money.

Sometimes I will finish a movie and I won't want to watch another. I finished Never Cry Wolf early on into the night, and I sat there wondering what to do. Because the reality is, it sits so hard on me emotionally that I don't want to lose the emotional impact by diving into another, different story. I sit there, angered, saddened, dispondent. I sit there and I stew. Never Cry Wolf is a emotional, turgid story hiding behind the visage of a nature film. But what me and others might know is, nature is brutal, sharp, and will fuck you up. Just like the watching of this movie.

5 stars.

Gamera Versus Jiger - 1970

Who knows when I first saw a Godzilla movie. Young, to be vague. I made it through my whole childhood without seeing or hearing of Gamera, and I believe I heard about it as a teen when I revisited the Kaiju genre.

MST3K famously lampooned 5 Gamera movies, and they deserve it. Their main character is a goddamn flying turtle that can shoot rainbows! You don't need more than that. I haven't seen any of the movies not ridiculed by MST until now.

I was on vacation for 3 months and ever since I got back I have been in a funky ass mood. I've been only able to watch tv shows, too depressed and bored to watch a full movie. But somehow the noncommittal nonsense of Gamera worked through that.

My belief after doing zero research is that Japan created Gamera which would purposely be for kids, the "kids Godzilla'. Godzilla had gone towards kids around this time, and had succeeded, so why not do the same thing again?

Gamera and Godzilla movies don't work differently. Threat appears, Gamera comes and fights it, loses, and then using XYZ "thing" somehow regains strength and beats it. This movie is exactly that. Jiger is a huge lizard thing that appears with something like a spear, and they fight. Blah blah.

The movie is exactly what these all are, and its middle of the road whatever status. The kids are always terrible main characters. 2.5 stars

Kansas City Confidential - 1952

I'm taking a stab at the year here and I might be wrong. I'm back from a three-month trip and I'm ready to get back into the movie reviews.

Kansas City Confidential had a DVD that claimed it was classic or a film noir, or something. I don't remember. either way it was a impulse rent, and i watched it in two sittings.

The movie is about a "perfect crime".  A couple guys are recruited by mysterious man in a mask, they are made to wear masks and they don't know who each other are.  They also do not get to get the money right away, they have to sit on it for a minute and that makes them potentially more likely to get away with it. The job involved framing a flower delivery driver, who is now out for revenge, and he can use the tactics police can't....

The movie has decent performances, highlighted by Lee Van Cleef as one of the criminals who pulled the job. He really commands the screen, and although he achieved some success I wonder why he isn't more well known. The plot goes as you expect it will, and there's not a lot to say about this one. Overall, I guess I'd say it's ok.