Laser Mission - 1989

I may have gone a bit crazy when I went off on Reb Brown for all his Vietnam films and various action nonsense. Lotsa bad actors are in action flicks. Case in point Brandon Lee.

I say bad actors, and I mean, I like Brandon Lee. I loved The Crow, I think he's charming, he's definitely good-looking, and he's just likeable somehow. He has charisma. But he is certainly not a good actor. Especially in this piece of shit film.

Laser Mission has all the ingredients of a stupid B action movie from the late 80s. It has Ernest Borgnine, it has Brandon Lee, it has some nameless bland female that he's paired with, it has a ridiculous but amazing title, it has some bad guy with some stupid plot I don't remember, and it has lots and lots and lots of really awful music. Literally the same song played again and again and again at random times throughout the movie.

This movie is exactly the type of thing that would make one realize that action movies can be a pretty lifeless genre when they're bad. They exist entirely on charisma and they exist on something being the It factor. When there is no It factor there is no movie.   It's very hard to describe what that can be, but it can be multiple different things. This movie has none of them.

It's not that bad, it's not going to hurt you, but it's certainly not a good movie and there's a lot of other things that I would rather watch. I've actually seen this movie about three times at different points in my life for some stupid reason. RiffTrax made a riff of this movie, and its generally well-known. Mostly because of Brandon Lee. But really it deserves no more than one and a half star.

Bail Out - 1989

I forgot the title to this movie about 4-5 times now.  That's not all I forgot.  I will also be guessing at plot lines, character motivations, and just about every other detail with this one.

I put on Bail Out because my DVD remote didn't have batteries, so I had to watch the first movie on a disc from the 80s set.  Couldn't select another movie, ya dig?  So I read through all the descriptions of the first movies on the discs, and I chose this because it starred Linda Blair and it was late 80s.  If you're a movie goer, you know that later in her career she was doing a lot of nudity and horror movies, so I watched this hoping for some titties.

Something that we never see in this movie, but I can see thanks to internets.

Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff star in this cop action movie about something or other.  I honestly don't remember the plot.  My friend was texting me during the film, asked what is it about.  I texted back, "some stupid cops or something."  I'm literally not even gonna google what this movie was about.  

It was dumb, predictable, no nudity, and the "funny" Mexican guy was annoying.  I give it half a star.

Psycho Sheep of Butte - 2006

Thanksgiving, 2019. I am spending this Thanksgiving in Butte Montana, a place I've never spent Thanksgiving before. My aunt Lucy has lived here for 10 years. And last night, she showed me a local video made here with her friend in a bit role.

Psycho Sheep of Butte is a indie, black and white comedy flick that was surprisingly budgeted decently and has moments of alright acting even. It stars no one and the director has no other credits.

Plot-wise the main character is a taxidermist who is in debt, and on his way to sell a taxidermy aardvark. It begins as a road movie which is his journey to the town where he's going to sell the thing, and along the way he encounters strange characters in strange circumstances. Thrown into that is there are sheep that are killing people, and somehow perhaps connected, a guy in a black robe who is ambiguous in intent.

There are moments of actual comedy in the film, I laughed perhaps a dozen times. It's not as bad as one might think. There's even decent CGI and it's not unwatchable. It is overly long and it got boring at some points. I would think if you're going to make an indie movie it doesn't always have to be 90 minutes?

It did make me wonder what makes a cult film, this has all the ingredients that I could imagine and it certainly has charm. It's kind of a wonder how things like this go completely unnoticed and under the radar, while other things explode. What's the deal with that anyways? I give this a decent two stars.

Spider Labyrinth - 1988

Going back to my list of movies I want to see.  What I do is, if they are on youtube, I just knock em out. Watch them.  Finally.  After who knows how long they've been on there, waiting for me.

So my first impression with this movie in particular is that I thought when I put this on the list that it was Japanese.  I remember thinking this was a Japanese or otherwise Asian horror movie, and that was one of the reasons I had wanted to see it.  I see now that it is actually Italian, and that makes it just one more 80's Italian horror flick.

Alan Whitmore is a young hot professor visiting Budapest, and he gets involved with some secret book containing information.  He starts investigating it, and it leads towards a cult or a mystery of sorts, and there's spiders everywhere, and...yeah, this one, plot was not so well defined.

Basically it's an excuse to have spiders and women getting nude, and I am all for any excuse to do those two things.  It is very plodding though, and also just felt talky even though it probably didn't have ALL that much dialogue in it.  The majority of things don't happen until around the 30-45 minute mark, and even the nudity (which you arguably shouldn't have to wait until the plot kicks into gear to see) doesn't come until way into the movie.

This had been on the list for a long time, and I'm glad it's done, but honestly I probably never should have had it on there in the first place.  I'll give it a 2.5 though, and say others might like it more.

Blunt the Fourth Man - 1985

So next I watched the actual Blunt the Fourth Man.  Again, I assume a comma.  Or a semi-colon.  "Hey bro pass me that Blunt" the Fourth Man stars Anthony Hopkins and probably other people in a story of some British guys who are trying desperately to hide something.

In the beginning of Blunt, we have a preamble about Communists and soon enough we are introduced to Blunt.  Blunt is a stuffy British man, and he's in a position of power in the British society.  I think he was a teacher or something.  Anthony Hopkins is Guy, a rascal type dude who sorta holds power over Blunt.

I would continue, but honestly I didn't track this movie super well and I don't really know what happened too much.  I get it, it's about these guys that signed up for the Communist Party before it was evil and now some of them are being tracked down and that's all bad and shit.  But what really happened, for the 80 something minutes I watched it?  I'd be hard pressed to remember.

The Swingin Seventies.  The Excellent Eighties.  When they eventually release a 90's boxset, what will they call it?  The Naughty Nineties?

Shadows in the Storm - 1988

I'm doing something mildly different with these next reviews.  You see, I "moved out to the cabin" finally, and while that might mean nothing to you, to me it means no internet, no distractions, and an 80's boxset we heard once about before and now we get tossed into.

What the fuck is with this title?  Is there a comma here?  See, this is the other part about these next reviews.  No, absolutely zero, internet information.  I can't browse the wikipedia or the imdb about the directors and the actors and such.  I can tell you from my memory that this was Ned Beatty and Mia Sara and Michael Madson.  I can tell you the plot, later.  But I can't tell you why the stupid name makes sense (or doesn't).

Blunt the Fourth Man has a plot we've seen before.  This is the one where the girl strings the clueless guy along with promises of sex and romance while she gets what she needs or wants from him.  In this, Ned Beatty is a blissfully unattractive and unlikable guy named Theo (Thelonius or something) and Mia Sara is the irresistible beauty that he's gonna wrassle with.  Michael Madson is the seemingly unconnected hotel keeper where they meet.

The best part of this movie is the fact we legitimately dislike Thelonius because he's a gross guy, and so when we would normally see Mia Sara as the baddy, instead we see him as a partial baddy this time.  It's quite noticeable really, and I liked the turns therein and I liked the acting.  Ned Beatty may be an ugly motherfucker, but he's a good actor.

The whole thing revolved around her making him believe they killed her husband, and then making him fall in love with her, and eventually extracting money from him.  One question...what if they pulled this on a guy with no money?  From my memory they never really established our fat loner main character had cash...?

Anyways, it strikes all the needed marks and it does what it's supposed to.  I may have even liked it.  In fact, I would say it was legit okay.  I'll give it a good 3.

Note: I watched this under the impression that this was called Blunt the Fourth Man.  It wasn't.  That's the next movie.  I could change the review, and it would make sense to change it.  But, I'm not going to.  Fuck it.

To All Goodnight - 1980

One of these days, I am going to legitimately see all of the well known Christmas horror movies.  I know I'm a bit early here for Christmas but I didn't see anything at all for Halloween, so fuck it.  Well, technically I watched part of Hocus Pocus.  Btw it holds up, classic Halloween film.

So, shit.  What is this...  This is another Christmas horror movie, Santa is killing stupid teenagers, and it's incredibly bad picture quality on youtube.  From wikipedia "Due to the film's poor lighting, many scenes have been hard to see in VHS quality."  Imagine VHS then sourced to fucking youtube, transferred to my TV and me sitting there watching it on a Wednesday night in Sandpoint Idaho.

A couple things I didn't mind in this.  They make some of their character likable, and the nerdy kid especially was great with some growth and they actually made the nerd get laid, yes!  Nice!  Also, the kills were not great but at least there's a lot of them, so shit I guess it can have points.

But altogether I have not much to say about it.  It's pretty lame, tbh.

Operation Ganymed - 1977

If I have pretty much limitless time to myself and opportunity I can at least get in some fuckin movie reviews.  I can at least do one thing I know I enjoy.  I can at least watch Operation Ganymed.

Operation Ganymed is from my legendary list of movies I want to see, and it was filed under a section titled "Okay, Seriously".  These are the movies I am actually interested in, not just cause they sound insane or stupid or insanely stupid.  These are the movies which, knowing me, I should like.

German, 70's, starring blog favorite Horst Frank, Jurgen Prochnow and Dieter Laser.  I didn't recognize Horst Frank at all.  This movie is the story of a space expedition that lands on Earth after many years up in space.  The five astronauts on the trip haven't been able to get back in touch with Earth for a little while, and they land in the ocean.  They make their way to shore, all the while unable to reach anyone and seeing no one.  Confused, they begin to make their way towards where a city should be, but still hearing from no one, the isolation is becoming hard to ignore....

I liked this movie.  Lets get this out of the way here.  I liked the strangeness of the way it was shot and edited, I liked the wacky music, I liked the jarring unexplained parts even.  Early on, one of the five astronauts somehow gets separated and then reappears outta nowhere.  I still have no idea what happened there, with that guy, or with his reappearance.  I assume I wasn't paying close enough attention.

This movie has that trademark surreal feel to it, and over the course of the film we are also shown some of what happened on their expedition to Jupiter.  It did not go well, spoiler alert I guess.  The interactions between the astronauts are one of the major focuses of the film, and of course the way they all individually come to terms with their situation, with their own immanent deaths, and with the disappointment and conflict that arises among them.

People tend to give this disfavorable reviews.  You guys, what do you need, honestly?  It's fucking fine.  This movie, honestly, was pretty awesome.  It is well acted, the events pan out in ways I didn't see coming, and the eerie strangeness is enough to keep one interested regardless.  Need I point out the cast again, which was totally in for this 100%?  It was not amazing, not even essential, but it's a great sci fi entry for those who want something a bit darker and obscure.  I give it 4.

The Killing Hour - 1985

If I haven't mentioned it already, expect a massive massive amount of time between posts here.  I would say "blog over" but let's face it, I am never going to be there.  Instead, One Day I will just disappear, and you'll be left in wonder if I died or wtf is happening.

Also known as "The Clairvoyant"

Rather than go plot first, I want to explain why I liked this movie first.  First of all, good actors and likably written characters are always good.  A genuine interesting mystery is second.  Deaths, not too gruesome, but somewhat shocking and really well thought out are here too.  There is a bit of sexual hijinks going on, coupled with the fact there is nudity of men and women but not normally presented in a sexual way  Yo, guys, having nudity in your film but managing to make it unappealing: that's usually the sign of a good director.

The soundtrack is good, the shots are fine, the plotting of the thing and the pace are all decent.  Honestly, I would have a hard time finding something about this I did not like.  I didn't like how they set the main girl up with both the cop and the TV host, but that was arguably necessary and it is a very small henpeck of a note.

So plotwise, some random people are all being killed with one link, they are all murdered with handcuffs being involved.  The best kill in the movie is when a guy is swimming and his ankle gets cuffed to the bottom rung of a ladder.  It's a super chilling sequence where I legitimately wondered what would go through your mind as you decide you're going to die, struggling in bare instinct on a metal chain as you float between life and death.  It was brutal.

A cop named Weeks who sidelines as a stand up comedian is hot on the case, and TV host Mac releases to the public the knowledge this guy uses the cuffs.  Virna Nightborne is the insanely named clairvoyant who is seeing images from the kills...and no...they don't ever come close to explaining that, which I guess is a plot hole but come on.  It's a movie people.

Anyways, it gets complicated but like I said, it was super well done.  I knew it would be good when they had the cop be a comedian on the side.  And that is how we're introduced to him.  When you give your character depth?  When you write comedy that's actually decent?  When you take the time to show some of Mac's rowing regiment, but its not bland filler?  These are the small choices that make your B grade slasher/horror a 4, maybe even 4.5 star flick.  I really liked it.  I dunno.

Savage Streets - 1984

Linda Blair makes a triumphant return to this site, in a classic 80's rape-and-revenge thriller which is also the only movie to have both Linda Blair and Linnea Quigley.  So set your eyes to maximum wideness because you know that means nudity galore.

Seriously, it's not that much.  There isn't a lot in the beginning, but eventually when there's the girls shower scene, well, this movie makes up for it.  We are talking about 30 fully nude women, many many breasts, many asses.  Full on pubic hair is in this movie multiple times, and Linda Blair even goes topless later for a more intimate, mature nude scene.

So it's a basic rape and revenge movie.  Linnea Quigley plays a young deaf mute woman, and this gang of thugs decides to rape and beat her.  It's initiation time see, and the newest gangmember has to prove his stuff by participating in this whole thing.  Linnea Quigley plays the part well, and the scene is pretty harsh, and Linda Blair as the sister is outraged.  Later, the chief gang leader Jake crosses the line by killing Linda Blair's friend, and Linda learns of this, and is now out for revenge.  So actually I guess this is a rape, murder and revenge thriller.

Savage Streets marks a true 80's movie.  Excessive sexuality, ridiculous stars and over acting, and all for what, a basic plot?  It's obvious when this movie came out.  Not in a negative way really, I'm just saying it's pretty insane the difference between this and something earlier or something later.

It's probably in the "unessential" side of things, but it's fun for the nudity, for the actors, and for a quick background type movie.  I will give it....2 stars.

The Shout - 1978

What the fuck am I watching these days?  What is the deal?  And how do all these movies even exist?  Man, I can't wait for this synopsis.

Rachel and Anthony Fielding are married, just average folks living their lives.  Anthony is a musician, and I guess and pretty avant garde one at that, because he only seems to be recording weird noises.  Bugs, wind, tin cans, etc.  Rachel is your average underdeveloped unemployed wife character, but it's also Susannah York who we just saw in Images, so that was pretty cool.

Soon enough they encounter a man, Charles Crossley, and he befriends and begins to stay with the two of them.  He spent some time with Aborigines and I think some time in a mental institution where Tim Curry works, but anyways, eventually tells Anthony that he has the ability to yell in such a way - to shout - and kill people from this. He also has other abilities, and uses them to start to seduce Rachel and to screw with Anthony's life.

This movie was, obviously, pretty fucking weird.  It ranks up there with the weirder 70's art house movies I've watched and my primary thought was, "why haven't I heard of this or seen it already?"  Also, "how in the world of fuck did this movie get made?!"  Honestly, it's got John Hurt,  Susannah York, Alan Bates, and Tim Curry.  It's not a huge budget, but excellently shot, and super weird.

It's mostly a slow burn drama with a lot of talking, but not in a bad way, and not so slow you want to shoot yourself.  It has a weird otherness to it, it has that unclear ambiguity and dreamlike quality.  The sequence of events leading up to the titular shout is really cool, and filmed way out in the beach.  There's a lot of odd memorable parts of this, even though I don't know what to think of it now.  It was definitely an oddball, and I will give it 3 stars.