The Fantasist - 1986

 Where to start with this one, yikes.

The Fantastist is an oddly named movie that somehow fits to this odd Irish-British horror movie that is not a horro movie, not a drama, not a thriller, but sorta just a watch and barely pay attention what-have-you.

The essential plot, I guess, is someone is calling women and sexually coming on to them and then mudering them.  You wouldn't really know that's happening because it doesn't, really, after the first opening scene.  Instea,d you follow some random denizens of this small town and you eventually zero in on this one woman and follow her as she is generall affected by the crimes and starts to date odd and problematic Danny.

Even though this is from the director of the classic The Wicker Man, and even though it apparently had Level 42 in it, this movie is nearly incomprehensible in feel.  I could not really tell you what happened in this movie.  It was absolutely ridiculous.

There's some nudity and all, but overall this is a dud with two capital Ds.  I give it zero stars.

The Last House on the Left - 1972

 Wes Craven, I always say, defined horror in three different decades.  You would count either this or The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984 , and Scream in 1996.

Such an influencer, and while I had heard of this movie and I've seen almost every single Craven movie, this one I actually had not seen!  So, well, here we go.  Also, this is of course continuing my watching marathon of the Video Nasty flicks from the 70s and 80s.  

Here's a thought:  there was a time in film wherein original films, sci fi, drama, horror, what-be-it, were orginated as porn and for some reason they became something more.  This is the type of thing that is lost to the ages.  People set out with a budget and a bunch of producers, and either way porn doesnt sell these days so that avenue is limited.  Last House began as a porn film and Craven et al decided to make it not, basically and the rest as they say is hostory, hence, my conclusion being, in the modern day this film does not happen?

Porn influences include a scene of lesbian rape which still has dialogue about it in the movie but it is not seen, multiple rape scenes, and an obviously tinged idea for including more.  The plot of the beast is your basic rape revenge, a group meets some psychopaths, they torture and eventually kill them.  Then the pychos stay with the parents of the main girl they killed, parents catch on, and now its revenge.

I mean, it's odd to look back on this moment of film.  This whole series is all but forgotten; I ask you, what is the best known rape revenge movie?  Kill Bill attempted to resurrect the idea but it omitted the rape, so I ask you, what is it?  It might be this, and this is mostly known because like I said Craven redefined horror many times.  

This is above standard for this fare, and I'll give it 4 stars.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - 2001

 If memory serves me right, I went to see this movie in theaters in 2001.  I may have dragged my mom or brother with me.  What can I say, I was curious and it looked weird!

This famously unsuccessful CGI story was weird then and its weird now.  Directed by the creator of the video game, Hironobu Sakaguchi, it took over 2 years to animate at an estimated 200 years of effort by a large team of animators working around the clock.  It went overbudget, it was riding a wave of unspecified anxiety about what it was, and then it came out and lost an estimated 95 million dollars and folded Square as a film production company.

Rewatching this today, as perhaps the third time I've seen it, I remember a lot about the film when it came out and my perception.  Basically, I think there were multiple reasons for this as a failure but one of the major reasons comes down to that it is not that interesting of a story, that doesn't have clear resolution or clarity at all really.  I could not tell you what really happens in this movie.

Bare bones of the plot are that there is this invading ghostly race of aliens called Phantoms which are deadly and dangerous and now on Earth post a meteoric strike.  A team of Aki Ross, a bunch of soldiers, and an old scientist are on the case, especially once it's revealed that Aki is actually infected with the alien presence somehow, and it is contained within her; her being the first to survive such an encounter.  Now they have to collect spirits or something from all over in order to stop the aliens...I guess.

The CGI characters are well rendered, and the entire affair is a fun little romp, it just gets buried in the plot of it all, which I really couldn't tell ya about.  I like this movie more than most, but I will admit it is definitely not like, good, or anything.  I'll give it 2.5.

Something Evil - 1972

A while ago I watched The Sugarland Express, digging into the early filmography of Steven Spielberg, we'll call them the "pre-Jaws years".  I am not into plugging many other things on this blog, but I will plug Film Encounters of the Spielberg Kind, a podcast going through the films of the original "cute little guy" Stevy Spiels.  I watched this because of them.

Something Evil is about...wait for it...something evil.  Yeah.  In this case, a house, and specifically, one which a man kills himself at in the early opening of this movie.  Cue a couple who are on a drive and see the for sale sign and decide on a whim to purchase the home.  The house is evil, as said because houses are a verb and thus "things" as in "somethings".

Spielberg had directed Duel at this point which was a bigger success than it had set out to be, but I guess it was determined that he wasn't quite ready for the real thing yet, and so the studio made him direct this made-for-TV movie of the week for CBS.  

I'm not stranger to the realm of made-for-TV and specifically made-for-TV horror, which this is.  This is basically your average sorta demon infestation haunted house movie, with a slow plot movement and a few more character moments than expectd, as well as some well executed flourishes from a young go-getter like Spielberg who was showing off and trying to get noticed.  

I basically gave the plot earlier, but to close the loop on it, the wife starts hearing weird noises, the son seems aloof and distant, and hubby is now constantly gone because the commute to his job is much longer.  Woman is going crazy and that's the plot.  Also worhty of being noted is the odd choice of having the hubby's job be a television commercial filmer and the stupid Apple Bar product commercial he's making is legit hilarious stuff.  Seems like it is unintentionally making fun of itself.

The movie is good, it moves fine and the ending is weird.  I doubt anyone is going to look this one up anytime really soon, but it is on youtube, and I would still give it a standard 2.5.