Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Thursday, October 31st, 2024
1977 gave us some pretty important movies. Some influential ones. Some we still talk about today. STAR WARS was a big one. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. ERASERHEAD. SORCERER. THE HILLS HAVE EYES. And hailing from Italy, Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA. One of the greats, a true original, and I think it’s safe to say one of the most beautiful looking horror movies ever made.
When I first saw it as a young man it set my brain on fire. I was pretty new to the world of Italian horror and had never seen anything quite like it, but it turns out that’s also because there’s not anything quite like it. Since then I’ve seen it many more times, including once in a theater with a Jessica Harper Q&A, and its reputation has grown even stronger as a generation or two discovered it in the age of screen caps and gifs. Its stunning visuals require no context to knock you on your ass. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Daria Nicolodi, Dario Argento, Goblin, Jessica Harper, Luciano Tovoli, Udo Kier, witches
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 30th, 2024
The central theme of ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) is right there in the title. It’s about someone having a baby, so it’s about fears surrounding a healthy pregnancy and beginning a new life as a parent. That’s part of what makes the movie so powerful, but one way I know it’s good is how effective it is even for someone like me, a non-parent, a childless cat lady. I’m sure it kicks your ass harder if you’re an expecting or aspiring parent, but it has other things going for it too.
My main association with ROSEMARY’S BABY is that it was my mom’s favorite horror movie. That might just mean it was one of the few she’d seen. But I remember when I was a teen obsessed with Freddy Krueger and Clive Barker she said “Do you want to see a real scary movie?” and we rented it. As far as I remember I thought it was pretty good, but not enough that I thought of as a favorite. It didn’t make it into the rotation.
That was more than three decades ago. For years now I’ve been wanting to revisit it and review it for the day before Halloween, my mom’s birthday. But I always get behind on all my other plans and get bogged down. I decided to make it happen this year even before I realized there was a new prequel on Paramount+, but I’ll review that soon. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Dorian, Charles Grodin, D'Urville Martin, Ira Levin, John Cassavetes, Maurice Evans, Mia Farrow, Ralph Bellamy, Robert Evans, Roman Polanski, Ruth Gordon, satanic cult, Sidney Blackmer, William Castle
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, October 29th, 2024
THE INVASION (2007) is the fourth (and final, the way civilization is going) official movie adaptation of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers. I actually reviewed it for The Ain’t It Cool News when it came out, which is one way I can prove it exists. It’s documented! Anyway I after I watched the other three I figured I oughta complete the set.
This one stars A-listers Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and is the Hollywood debut of acclaimed German director Oliver Hirschbiegel (DAS EXPERIMENT, DOWNFALL), as well as the first movie written by David Kajganich, who later wrote A BIGGER SPLASH, SUSPIRIA and BONES AND ALL for Luca Guadagnino. But it was kind of a fiasco, losing money and getting poor reviews, universally considered the weakest of the four versions. I’m sure we would’ve noticed it was kinda sloppy even if it hadn’t been widely reported that producer Joel Silver thought it wasn’t working and spent $10 million on reshoots written by the Wachowskis and directed by their guy James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA, NINJA ASSASSIN). It was delayed over a year and moved from a confident June release to a resigned August one.
And, would you believe it? It doesn’t really work. But it has its moments.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam LeFevre, Daniel Craig, David Kajganich, James McTeigue, Jeff Wincott, Jeffrey Wright, Jeremy Northam, Joel Silver, Malin Akerman, Nicole Kidman, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Roger Rees, Veronica Cartwright, Wachowskis
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 23 Comments »
Monday, October 28th, 2024
Abel Ferrara’s BODY SNATCHERS (1993) was my first body snatcher invasion movie. I saw it when it was new on video, and I knew it had been poorly received, so I figured my ignorance of the original and the original remake must’ve helped me to enjoy it more than everybody else. But watching it now with a deep appreciation for the other ones, yeah, it’s still good anyway. So maybe I liked it better because I’m a unique individual with my own feelings and not a plant programmed only for survival. Or because I was ahead of my time – it seems to have a pretty good reputation now.
The title sequence is admittedly chintzy compared to the one in Kaufman’s version. Something about the long sequence of the title flying through a crude starscape and letter-by-letter turning from red to black, set to the score by Joe Delia (MS. 45, FEAR CITY, THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL’S OUT), was putting me in mind of a Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna type movie, but that might’ve been my subconscious remembering that this was actually from a screenplay by Stuart Gordon & Dennis Paoli, rewritten by Ferrara’s guy Nicholas St. John. Gordon was supposed to direct but couldn’t get a commitment from the studio to actually make it until leaving to do FORTRESS. He told Fangoria that his version was originally designed as a sequel to the Kaufman version and went into more detail about how the pod people are plants. “It’s not like they have a brain in their head. The creature’s consciousness is throughout its whole body, so that if you destroy the head, it doesn’t kill or stop it.” That would’ve been fun! But what Ferrara did is good too. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Billy Wirth, Christine Elise, Dennis Paoli, Forest Whitaker, Gabrielle Anwar, Kathleen Doyle, Keith Smith, Meg Tilly, Nicholas St. John, R. Lee Ermey, Stuart Gordon, Terry Kinney, Tom Burman, Tonea Stewart
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Thursday, October 24th, 2024
This DVD I rented is labelled DEMONS III: THE OGRE, but I knew that wasn’t really a thing. That’s just how video labels chose to promote THE OGRE, a 1989 TV movie that Lamberto Bava went off to do after giving up on a third DEMONS.
THE OGRE opens in Portland, Oregon, where a little girl wakes up and wanders into a dungeon/wine cellar and finds a bizarre, pulsating cocoon on the ceiling. It’s like a giant spider egg sac except it glows yellow, drips fluid and beats like a heart. She sees a spindly monster inside, and it reaches a hand out for her, then chases her. Eventually she wakes up. Yes, it was only a dream, but she dropped her teddy bear in the dream, and now it’s gone. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Asia Argento, Barbara Cupisti, Claudio Simonetti, Dardano Sacchetti, Dario Argento, Goblin, Hugh Quarshie, John Richardson, Keith Emerson, Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi, Paolo Malco, Sabrina Ferilli, Sergio Stivaletti, Tomas Arana, Virginia Bryant
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024
Until now I had never seen DEMONS 2, really didn’t know anything about it, and considering its provenance it could’ve been a sequel-in-name-only. So I was excited when the opening narration described the events of the first film: demons unleashed from a movie theater. But it says that was followed by “days of terror that convinced the world demons can exist.” Days. So the war between the survivors and the monsters implied by the ending has already wrapped up, I guess. Things seem to be back to normal.
You could say it’s a DAWN OF THE DEAD type sequel – new set of characters later in the same apocalypse – but really it’s more of a do-over, a different take on the same rough idea. I think that’s a pretty cool approach, and they chose good elements to remix. Instead of a movie theater, the specific structure it focuses on is a high-rise apartment building called The Tower. Instead of the meta element of a movie about demons showing in the theater, they have one broadcast on TV, and various people in the building are watching it. They also have another part where suddenly it cuts to some punks driving around, although in my opinion they don’t really do much of interest with it. On the other hand they do one-up the iconic people-with-glowing eyes scene by doing it with a bigger mob of demons and then again looking up a staircase as they run down it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anita Bartolucci, Asia Argento, Bobby Rhodes, Dario Argento, David Knight, Davide Marotta, Italian horror, Lamberto Bava, Nancy Brilli, Simon Boswell, Virginia Bryant
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 4 Comments »
Monday, October 21st, 2024
Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS is from 1985 and it’s a thoroughly 1985 movie in a very good way. It has a catalog of tough punk type side characters, a very danceable electronic score by Goblin keyboardist Claudio Simonetti, and somewhat random rock soundtrack including “White Wedding” by Billy Idol and “Walking On The Edge” by Rick Springfield. It has lots of atmosphere and stylized imagery with colored lighting that makes the frame look like a blue or yellow screen printing, and a handful of scenes just starkly showing a strip of flashy businesses around the mysterious Metropol movie theater where it takes place. Gothic horror downtown.
When it opens on the subway, Simonetti’s theme song is grooving so hard – the drum and keyboard sounds he’s using seem old school hip hop influenced – you’re pretty sure this is gonna be a classic. And I think your instincts are correct. Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) is, I believe, a music student in Berlin headed to a lecture, clutching her Bartok book nervously as she eyes the cool punk hairstyles around her on the train. Lady, they don’t even know you exist. Get over yourself. Then she starts glimpsing reflections, almost like a hallucination, of some kind of cyborg man (second unit director Michele Soavi) with a half metal face? I don’t know, maybe it’s an updated Phantom of the Opera mask. He turns out to be real and approaches her at the station… she actually runs from him but is relieved when he turns out to be just a guy giving out passes to a movie screening. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Serra, Bobby Rhoses, Claudio Simonetti, Dario Argento, Fabiola Toledo, Fiore Argento, Geretta Giancarlo, Italian horror, Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi, movie theater, Nicoletta Elmi, Paola Cozzo, Urbano Barberini
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 32 Comments »
Friday, October 18th, 2024
(This review is pretty detailed and spoilery. The movie is great, so consider just watching it and coming back.)
THE SHADOW STRAYS is the latest ultra-violent crime/martial arts epic from writer/director Timo Tjahjanto. Like THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (2018) and the more comedic THE BIG 4 (2022), it was produced by Netflix Indonesia, so you can probly watch it right now wherever you are. (Important subtitle tip: at least on my Roku you have to click “Other” to find the full subtitle menu if you want to choose English instead of English CC.) Like HEADSHOT (2016), it takes place in a world of elite assassins trained (at least in some cases) from childhood. These ones are known as Shadows, and they’re more of a global mercenary agency, like militarized ninjas.
We begin in a snowy Yakuza fortress in Japan, where seventeen year old Agent 13 (the incredible Aurora Ribero) rises up out of an armor collection to decapitate a sleazy boss. She kills so many guys, almost eliminates the entire clan, but gets distracted by collateral damage and has to be rescued by her mentor Instructor Umbra (Hana Malasan, THE TRAIN OF DEATH). Afterwards, Umbra gets called off to “some shit show in Cambodia,” so 13 is sent alone to an apartment in Jakarta. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adipati Dolken, Agra Piliang, Ali Fikry, Andri Mashadi, assassins, Aurora Ribero, Daniel Ekaputra, Hana Malasan, Indonesia, Kristo Immanuel, Muhammad Irfan, Taskya Namya, Timo Tjahjanto
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Martial Arts | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
In 2022, a transgressive gorefest called TERRIFIER 2 was given a limited unrated release in AMC theaters. Kinda like GODZILLA MINUS ONE the next year it proved to be so popular they kept adding another set of screenings and another and another. There was enough of a buzz that I set aside my usual disdain for clown horror and fired up the first TERRIFIER on the ol’ Roku. That went pretty well so when TERRIFIER 2 screened in Seattle again I went, and kind of loved it. Later I caught up with ALL HALLOW’S EVE, the anthology made from two short films that introduced the idea of TERRIFIER.
So by the time of TERRIFIER 3 I’m a fully converted fan of the series, and there must be a whole lot of other people who followed that path, because this is truly unprecedented: an extremely gory unrated part 3 slasher movie that opened #1 at the box office. For extra laughs, it happened to beat out week two of a Hollywood evil clown sequel with literally a hundred times its budget. I’m pretty sure no one in the TERRIFIER camp was even trying to do that. But it’s a genuine phenomenon. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexa Blair, Antonella Rose, Bradley Stryker, Bryce Johnson, Clint Howard, clowns, Damien Leone, Daniel Roebuck, David Howard Thornton, Elliott Fullam, holiday horror, Lauren LaVera, Margaret Anne Florence, Mason Mecartea, Samantha Scaffidi, slashers
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, October 15th, 2024
For their 1978 remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, director Philip Kaufman (writer of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES) and screenwriter W.D. Richter (later did BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) updated the Don Siegel film and/or Jack Finney story into a chilling paranoia tale for their era. But it has held up incredibly well, remaining one of the more unsettling alien invasion movies in existence. The original was a low budget indie production, this is a much slicker production, but they were allowed to keep their gut-punchingly pessimistic ending, and that goes a long way.
This came out the year before ALIEN, and its opening has a similar combo of timeless practical effects and matter-of-factness about mysterious threats from the dark reaches of the universe. The credits play over a gorgeous sequence of strange plants on some planet somewhere – transparent tubes, whisps of smoke, I don’t know what – as their seeds float up and drift through space, as mentioned in the Siegel film.
In San Francisco the seeds land on some wild plants and, over time, produce some sort of slime. I have no idea how they did the shot of tiny tendrils reaching out from a leaf. Small pink blossoms sprout on top of other plants, and a woman notices one and plucks it off. She is Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams, SHOCK WAVES, DAYS OF HEAVEN), she works at the health department and has an interest in plants and says she thinks it’s a grex. “That’s when two different species cross-pollinate and produce a third completely unique one.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: alien invasion, Art Hindle, Brooke Adams, Dell Rheaume, Donald Sutherland, good remakes, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin McCarthy, Leonard Nimoy, Philip Kaufman, Russel Hessey, Veronica Cartwright, W.D. Richter
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 14 Comments »
