Savage Journey - 1983

Well, I certainly would not have chosen to watch this.  Twisted Obsession, yeah, I could get behind it maybe.  Some of these others, sure.  Why not.  But a 80's movie about Mormons?  Nah.

I've probably made this clear by now, but I am not a religious man at all.  I don't give a flying fuck about religion, I don't believe in god, and I honestly don't think there's any real evidence Jesus ever existed in the first place.

All that aside, it's interesting to see a story of Mormons that is not about Joseph Smith and his founding of the religion, but rather a journey when the religion was young.  It is about the Mormons going from place to place, facing persecution, facing hatred, and their struggles with this as they progress through maybe 10-15 years.

We follow Joseph Smith's main man Brigham Young as our main character.  Brigham is a farmer turned religious leader, and he talks the talk and walks the walk as he guides the Mormons from somewhere to Illinois, to Utah, and the different obstacles they face at each place. Along the way we are also shown some of what Mormons believe in.

The movie is about what you'd expect.  It's acted decently, it has a nice little story I guess.  Being historical and probably based on religious writing, some of the details are glossed over and we never get a feeling for WHY a lot of these things happen, they just DO happen.  There is no explanation in the movie for why the Mormons are disliked for example, and I assume this movie was possibly made for the Mormons?  Cause I doubt many people who don't know the Mormon history will understand what is happening a lot of the time.

As a casual moviegoer, like I say I don't think this is for me.  But as a movie, it is slow, it has nothing horrible about it, but it certainly isn't good.  I will give it 1.5 stars I guess.

Twisted Obsession - 1989

Okay, so I just finished this movie and there are a few of these that make me really wanna take to the internet.  I want to know if this was a French director, I want to know about financing, and I want to know why and how Jeff Goldblum is in this movie.

I watched Crawl, La Llorona, and then this in a marathon.  Rainy day in Idaho.  Winter is here.

Twisted Obsession stars Jeff Goldblum as a writer who is working on a movie for a new young director.  They have some great script, and Goldblum believes in this kid as the director, but there are naturally issues to arise and complicate our movie.  Among the issues is the directors younger sister, a nubile little thing that likes Goldblum.

This reminds me right away of Shadows in the Storm, because it's the same idea genesis.  Older weird guy getting the hot young girl and she likes him, and thus complication is born into his life.  In this, the girl is all over Goldblum and not just trying to get something from him, at least it seems so, and he's going right along with it.

Primarily, that's it.  It's not until way later the reality of the plot comes into focus, and the last 20 minutes goes a bit off the rails.  It's one of those that saved everything for the very end while it had a meandering, unfocused first hour.  Thanks guys.  Way to do it.

However, it's also a movie that makes you interested, drags you into it, and ideas start zapping through your head.  I thought of some movie ideas while I viewed this, primarily for horror movies, but hey it still counts.

This is certainly lesser known, it probably has it's die hard fans but really this is a strange blip on Goldblums IMDb, surely done because he wanted to do something different and unique.  It doesn't feel Hollywood, I will give it that.  It also doesn't feel like a "good movie" though it surely had good parts.  It feels uneven, it feels a bit predictable, and it even feels unclear at times despite the straight forward plot.

Also, there are parts of this in French, and these Mill Creek boxsets don't have or offer subtitles.  Nice.  I'll just guess what they said.  I don't really care, tbh.  There is also a shot of a shaved vagina in this, and that gets most of the focus when people talk about this online.  It's a split second shot, but it is strange, so I guess we're supposed to talk about it.

It tries, it succeeds sometimes, and surely that is worth around 3 stars.

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.