The Mothman Prophecies - 2002

 I was on the phone last night and got the urge to watch this, sort of out of nowhere.  So, I put it on.

I remember this one coming out, in the dismal glut of horror which was the early 2000s.  The Mothman Prophecies looked like a shit show, I think I vaguely remember joking about it with friends, as well as I think I remember and it's quite likely I saw this some time around then, out of curiousity...  I am pretty sure I thought it was dumb and boring, which is also what I thought of it now.

Based on a "true life story" of people who saw some sort of bird-like creature which then got misconstrued to be a Mothman that predicted danger, this is the story of a small town in West Virginia where people begin to be tormented by this Mothman dude.  

Richard Gere stars as a reporter brought there by a mysterious force, two years after the death of his wife, who might have been caused to get in a car crash because of the mothman.  He hits it off with hot police lady Laura Linney as we gets involved in some locals who are seeing the mothman, and it's all trying to be creepy, sometimes succeeding sure, and taking it's sweet time to have anything happen.

There's actually very little to say about this film, because it's overall very middling.  It's too long, and the pace is very slow, but I guess it was going to thriller/mystery/suspense versus straight horror, so that is likely the reason.  With Dicky "Gere's of War" they were probably going for more of the "legit film thing" than some weekend horror flick.  

I supposed some of the jump scares work, and the overall atmosphere succeeds sometimes, but mostly it's just another movie you watch spaced out across two days in your average life.  1 star.

Casualties of War - 1989

 I think I had gotten to the point where I wasn't going to see the rest of the DePalma films, but someone described this as "his passion project" recently, and that edged me into watching it.

Casualties of War is based on a true story, the story of the collective gang rape and murder of a young Vietnamese girl when the US troops were there during the Vietnam war.  The film stars Michael J. Fox as the sole detractor from a group of five army guys who decide to grab this girl, and then later rape and kill her.

Brian DePalma has a unique emblematic style which is perhaps at the forefront of a lot of his work, generally noticeable, and one of his flourishes that people (like me) really like.  They are present in this film, though toned down, and take the format of strange camera stuff usually.  

The strange camera work in combination with the melodrama of the film makes it seem a bit over the top.  It seems to actually handicap the seriousness of the story...  It's a weird thing, and especially with the actors turning in sorta middling performances at times (especially from Fox, who I don't think is a particularly good actor) the movie actually comes off as sort of amateur and hokey, which I'm sure was not the intended affect given the sunject matter.  I'm sorry n all guys, but I laughed out loud one time during this and it was not desired for me to.

That's the big thing to say about this, the other parts of it are all fine, they work to whatever degree they need to, and things go along as expected.  I'm sure that these events taking place were altogether common, and it's a reminder of the horrors of war, loss of innocence, etc etc.  I'm not ignoring these as unimportant, it's just like, hey I get it alright?

I'll give it a 2.5 I guess, and say it's a fine average dramatic war movie.

Maniac - 1980

Maniac is one of these horror movies with such an indistinguishable title that it's easy to mistake it for others.  But it is different, and it is memorable once you get into it.

I've seen this movie given the year of 1980 or of 1981.  Hell, maybe both are correct.  Right?  Maniac was a video nasty, which we've seen some of in this blog, and a slasher, which we've seen, and horror movie, which obviously is the genesis of this blog.

Maniac is directed by cult film director William Lustig, who went on to do the well known Maniac Cop movie series, and it stars Joe Spinell as the titular homicidal maniac, Frank.  We meet shleppy, sloppy Frank as he bums around and acts all weird.  He's got some sort of mommy issue, and he sleeps with a mannequin in his bed.  He goes around murdering people in this pretty much straight line plot.

The plot is nothing, as I said, what is worth talking about is the bizarre hypnotic level to the film, as well as of course the gruesome, boundary pushing violence.  The MPAA had not really started censoring movies yet, wouldn't until a few more years, so these late 70's early 80's movies were getting away with some pretty gnarly stuff.  This movie features scalpings and a shotgun blast to the head for poor ol' Tom Savini.

Maniac pushed the envelope, and it is good, actually.  The acting is good enough for you to care about serial killer Frank, and the kills are good, and the movie even has a decent atmosphere and a few scares along the way.  Overall, I'd say it's overlooked.  It's one of the more realistic 80's slasher types, and heavily inspired by Gacy, again.  I give it 4 stars.  Nasty scale: 3/10

Friday the 13th - 1980

 I put this on for my girlfriend who adamantly always says when I ask what she wants to watch "Not horror".  Hey, she's dating me?  She's gonna get horror.

Friday the 13th is the original slasher movie that was made after the rocketing success of Halloween, taking the slasher concept to the woods and to the lakeside home of Jason.  Except, as we all know, it's not Jason.  What is it?  Well, it is a slasher and a veritable whodunnit which has lotsa kills, blood and nudity, and amps the Halloween idea up a notch.

Friday the 13th is quite different from Halloween, and anyone who writes this off as an imitation slasher is not giving it enough credit.  The film has a bunch of camp counselors staying at Camp Crystal Lake, getting knocked off one by one as they play around, fuck around, and engage in "being scared".

Everyone has seen this, and if it wasn't for my dwindling review status here I wouldn't write a review for it.  This is an original 80's slash-o-matic with body count, knives, creative kills, and mixed possible suspects.  It was funny, my girlfriend who had not seen it at one point randomly said she thought the killer was Steve Christy, the romance character for Adrienne King's character Alice.

It's hilarious in a way because I know this sort of plays like a whodunnit and I did explain it that way - that could be seen as a holdover from the 70's filmmaking character-driven pieces such as Halloween, explicitely.  But even then, I have seen the movie so many times it never even occurred to me to actually start suspecting people anymore.  We know, definitely, the killer, and we never even think about the other characters doing the killings.

It's a classic film, ya dig, and I would say it's a must for all fans of 80's slashers and horror films.

Side note:  my GF absolutely freaked out at the ending.  Man was that fun. The canoe jump scare?  Fuck yeah.

Troll 2 - 1990

 I put on Troll 2 randomly last night.  It had been a few years.

I think I first saw this in about 2005, 2006 when I was living with my first roommate.  It didn't have the cult following then that it does now, it was just a subpar cheesy horrorish movie that was extremely dumb.  But in that way it was like a lot of others, I guess.  I think I was mildly shocked when it became "well known" later, and I know at some point I did watch the fan documentary about, Best Worst Movie.

Troll 2 is the sequel to Troll, some dumb borderline fantasy thriller adventure almost horror psuedo kids movie, or at least mid teens movie that could have only been made in the 80s because of who it was made for.  Troll was whimsical and magical, but downright destructive in some of the themes, and this movie is similar.  This is a weird ass time for kids movies, but I'll take it over films now that are just kiddy.

Troll 2 is famously poorly acted, with ridiculous lines that sound as unnatural as a 7-Eleven plate of nachos.  The trolls, or really goblins because there are no Trolls in the movie, as short actors in rubber masks, sometimes where you can clearly see they're masks, and sometimes having speaking parts where their lips do not move.  There are camp performances from villains and heroes alike, and really, really ridiculous moments which make it fun.

This is a great group movie to put on and have fun with, and I did have fun last night.   It had likely been over 10 years since I had seen this, and I enjoyed rewatching it.  I'll give it 4 cult flicks outta five.

The Howling: New Moon Rising - 1995

 I started this series way back in the beginning, building towards rewatching The Howling, and now that I did, well shit I might as well finish out the series huh?

Jesus fucking christ though, yikes.  I wasn't ready for how bad this was going to be.  I mean, need I say any more than this:  this is supposed to be a comedy.  I've said it before, I will say it again, there is nothing worse than a bad comedy.  And this one is especially bad.

The writer director Clive Turner apparently worked hard to have this movie connect to the other sequels to The Howling.  Turner had been working on this series since The Howling 3, and here, I mean I have no idea how this connects.  There's in fact very little about this I do know...

This movie stars a bunch of non actors in a non plot having film.  The plot is basically someone comes to town and bodies begin to pile up, and some people think it's a werewolf.  Meanwhile, a bunch of interactions happen, nothing important though, just stuff like relationships and dancing scenes, and stupid crap that looks like a soap opera from TV.  There's also multiple scenes of people sitting around playing music, and the "score" is just random wailing guitars.

Somehow this was not the last in the series, but it should have been.  Hell, this one shouldn't have even existed.

It has minor...repeat MINOR so-bad-it's-good qualities, but it is overall just plain bad.

Hellhounds of Alaska - 1973

 Well I am hungover and working, which means a movie is on in the background.  This one is also knows as: The Bloody Vultures of Alaska.

Doug McClure stars in this German-made adventure flick set in Alaska, where he's the good ol' boy who is protecting some kid when the area is beseiged by robbers after some gold.  It's a thin plot for a made-for-TV feeling movie.

There's nothing to say about this except that it looks like a true antique from a bygone era, which it is I guess so that's no surprise.  It's slow, it's kinda dull, nothing much happens, and there's no intrigue or plot twists to speak of.  Doug McClure is clearly an inspiration for Chuck Norris, and that aside, it's unnoticable.

The Descent - 2005

The Descent.  Remember that one?  The horror movie that hit big in the mid 2000's?  I do.

The Descent was a big hit when it came out.  I remember my friends in the theaters and my movie dudes being into this, talking about it a lot, and this movie made some waves.  From my memory I saw this when it was pretty new on DVD, and I remember being a bit disappointed / thinking it was overrated.  So how will it stand up almost 20 years later?

I watched The Descent with my buddy Matt a couple of nights ago while we sat there kinda drunk and waited to be impressed.  The Descent is a cave-based horror flick, one that is built with clautraphobia as well as creatures as the antagonists, and like I said, big big hit which seeped into popular culture.

That is basically the plot: girls go into a cave, there's baddies in the cave, they all try to survive.  Early on into the movie, they are taking a random cave tour after their friend has a near death experience, and they apparently take a random tunnel which collapses.  Now they are in an alien part of the cave and they are coming closer and closer to some part where there are creatures.

First of all, there's barely even any jump scares in this.  There's maybe like 4.  Which is light, that's all I'm saying.  Then, the rest is just a horror movie, and I guess it's fine.  They stay with the creatures a lot, and it reminds me of Aliens in that way, where we follow the creature when there is no one around which would be seeing it.  

I didn't really know why it was so successful then, I don't really know now?  It's not like it's BAD, it's just sorta like a average whatever horror movie.  I give it a 3.

Roadgames - 1981

 I forgot I watched this until just now when I saw the name Stacy Keach and was like "oh cool another Stacy Keach movie!"  

I miss movies like this.  So much.  This is what I love about 70's movies, when it's done right.  This is a character piece first, everything else second.  We follow truck driver Stacy Keach as Patrick Quid as he drives along, jovial as can be but with a clearly shady past.  He is painted so well in the span of this movie, but it never feels forced or faked.  We learn little in reality, but with nuance in script and acting we are made to infer more.  Which I just love.

We follow Patrick as one day he watches a woman going to a hotel with a man.  He shakes his head and wishes that for himself, goes to sleep, and wakes to witness nothing really extraordinary, black bags left by the trashcan, the man who went into the room watching them... and a dog taking a curious interest in the bags.  

As he drives, a radio broadcast tells of a string of missing women in the area, a serial killer, and pretty soon in mostly dialogue to his dog and a few hitchhikers (Hitch, he calls them) Patrick begins to suspect the man he witnessed is the killer in question.  He picks up Jamie Lee Curtis at the 45 minute mark, and the two of them quickly form an attraction, and when he tells her about his suspect, she joins his strange quest to prove their suspicions.

There are very few characters in the movie, most of the movie takes place in the cab of Patrick's truck cab, and almost everything plot related moves through dialogue.  The minimalism of this film is staggering, and it delivers so well that you'll marvel at the abilities.  I had heard of it for a long time, and I'm glad I finally watched it.  I give it 5 stars.

The Devils - 1971

 Oliver Reed tops a lot of lists for me insofar as crazy, incredible to watch actors who I will watch about anything they are in.  And Vanessa Redgrave is in this and it is directed by Ken Russell!

I'm starting out energetic here for a reason, which is that mainly this movie is very slow, but I'm also going to include the extremity, because it's also extreme.  I don't really know how to encapsulate it really, it's a bit all over the place, and fits in well with Tommy, also directed by Russell, and also a film I didn't exactly love.

What is hard about all of this stuff going on, is that at a certain point I very much wonder:  What exactly is happening?  I know that I may cling too desperately to the concept of "plot" but really....honestly...what the fuck is happening in this movie again?

From the onset we have Oliver Reed as a thoroughly corrupt and repugnant priest who is fucking his nuns and bathing in sin basically.  He is living the very definition of the idea that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  He is brought to a new convent where the nuns all want to fuck him, and he begins to want this too when he meets Madeleine, a nun who wants him all to herself, and he falls in love with her.

This is where I begin to lose track of things basically.  Since he is desired by all the nuns and in love with one, he isn't fucking the others, who get encouraged to express their sexuality in other ways, and slowly fall into depravity and sexuality, getting all hot and bothered in every conceivable way.  But the why of this remains, and in the "real life story" this is based on, I'm going to read more, but basically the priest was accused of witchcraft, and in this he is too, but there is no witchcraft or even suggestions of it...  so... why?

Oliver Reed is his ethereal, otherworldly self, full of enigmatic appeal and energy, completely transfixing in this role.  The other actors are all excellent as well, and the film is certainly different and challenging, I just find it hard to enjoy when it moves so colossally slow.  Once the insanity reaches it's breaking point you still have like 50 minutes left!  

I am maybe nitpicking.  The sexuality in this movie is extreme, and it was censored for like 40 years.  The nun sex is crazy shit, and this borders Salo in terms of boundary pushing.  The whole end is really great actually, and extreme is not a strong enough word.

I'm conflicted on it, but one thing is certain:  the 70s is my favorite era in film, and it's because of movies like this.  This is unlike anything made since, and I wish that this sort of this was still around.  I will give it 4 stars.

The Man with the Golden Gun - 1974

 I mean, it's Bond and I'd likely seen this at least 4 times before, but fuck dude, I still guessed the year and I was still right.  A guy knows when he is good.

This is basically a bump and a recognition that, although it has been said many times, I'm going to be going slower, and the blog may end.  We will see, but I am dating and busy, and I got no time for movies, let alone writing about them.  I always have the want to, but sometimes life takes over, eh?

The Man with the Golden Gun was the introduction of Roger Moore to the role of James Bond, and if you are a Bond guy I will recommend the documentary about George Lazenby on Hulu.  Despite it trying to be funny, it's overall pretty good still and worth seeing.  He seems like he had a pretty damn idyllic life.

Christopher Lee is Scaramanga, a man with a third nipple (!) that is evil and Bond has to get to.  He does this with his usual Bond-isms, that is seducing women, somehow defeating highly trained kung-fu artists, and the like.  This one ranks high on the list of absurd Bond tropes, including a part where he is inches away from Herve Villachez as Micmac killing him.  "Not here" yells the boss.  Guys, just fucking kill him will ya?

The Bond series is a strange one, and as I was explaining to my new gf, the thing I love the most about it is the time stamp that they all have on them, showing something about the time they were made.  This one is borrowing heavily from the popularization of kung fu, it has excellent set pieces in Thailand and such, and even uses a partially sunken boat as a set.  Super, super cool.

I didn't pay the strictest attention, but it's Bond, and it's always a fun time.  3.5 stars.