The Man from Earth - 2007

 I remember discovering this movie about 7 or so years ago by reading about Star Trek authors Harlan Ellison and Jerome Bixby. I clicked on them to see what else they'd made. The Man from Earth? Boring name. 

I rented this on a whim expecting nothing, and was frankly blown away. This movie is extremely minimal, low budget, amateur, and has bad film quality. But what it involves, what is takes you on, now that is where it shines. 

The film evolves through only dialogue. A group of friends are seeing their friend off as he leaves town, going to his house and pestering him with questions about why he is going. He eventually gives and his story starts. 

I explained to my gf who I was watching it with, mild spoiler, the movie is basically: what would it take for someone to convince you they are immortal? This is the plot. The friend has been alive thousands of years, and begins to convince the others of this. 

What's amazing is first and foremost the writing. They address everything you could think of, and many things you couldn't. It's written with knowledge of history, religion, mankind, morality, pain, love, existence and existentialism. It goes into what someone would learn, how memory works, what we hold as valuable. And so much more. 

The Man from Earth is a spectacle not like many others, a film that poses questions and makes bold statements using the medium of minimalism to do so. I wish more like this existed. 5 stars. 

The Devil's Rain - 1975

 I mistyped the year as 2975.  Wouldn't it be cool if in some weird alternate universe, a sequel to this movie was made 1000 years later in 2975?  I know in this world supposedly anything can happen, but I guarantee that will not.

The Devil's Rain is a pretty well known cult movie again.  I'm obviously watching some horror since it's October, one week til Halloween, and no I have not decided yet what to watch on Halloween night.  

William Shatner, Tom Skerritt and Ernest Borgnine star in this accidental Ernest Borgnine double feature I had (with Escape from New York).  The movie is about a group of Satan worshipers that William Shatner infiltrates, I don't remember why.  He has only his religion to help him against the cult, and as he witnesses their Satanic mass and other stuff, he can't help but be pulled into their world.

This movie is well known for starring Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, and he is in a small role in the movie as well.  The existence of real, modern world Satanists and the troubled "cursed" production made this well known as well, but it was also a bomb and got panned by critics.

The Devil's Rain isn't like, blowing up and changing Satanic movies as we know them or anything.  By this point in 75, some crazier shit had been done, and some crazier shit would be done still.  This is just, ya know, another bump on the log, link in the chain, and it is what it is basically.

I might have watched this before, if I did I didn't remember it, and that's possibly cause it's not very memorable.

Escape from New York - 1981

 I put this on for my girl, who fell asleep about 20 minutes in.  I stuck with it, it had been a few years, and I have to say, what a strange one huh?!

This is a true cult movie, one that has stood the test of time and remains a true enigma as well as a true classic in the realm of films.  Escape from New York, like a lot of Carpenter films, was not a movie I grew up with by any means.  If memory serves me right, I had probably only seen the original Halloween, maybe like Vampires and one other or so by the time I was in my late teens.  It just wasn't in my line of sight for some reason.

Whatever the reasoning may be, the movie Escape from New York is something else.  One thing, my girl as I may have mentioned does not like horror movies, and as I started this, I told her don't worry, it's not horror.  It's not.  But as I kept watching, I started to grapple with the question, what genre is this movie?  The easy and quick answer is action - but is it?  There's action sequences yes, but it's not that actiony.  It is the genre that used to exist and doesn't now, adventure, but even then, it's very minimal in that way as well. 

Escape from New York is essentially a thriller, in many ways.  Again, it's genreless...  But it's about Snake Plisken getting sent to the current anarchy prison state that is New York City, where he is to rescue president Donald Pleasense, who's hamming it up big time as a highly disturbed British United States president.  Love it.

Along the way, Snake fights with some locals, meets locals like Cabbie, Brain, The Duke, and he encounters other obstacles.  Snake is played by an incredibly hot and alluring Kurt Russell, who is a bad guy with a good heart in Snake Plisken.  

The movie is nearly flawless, and I've seen it many times.  There's a lot of cool things about it, but I'm not going to go on and on and on here.  If you're a film guy, you know, so there' not a lot left to say.  I'm just going to voice in and say I agree, it's five stars.

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.