Not This Time, Nayland Smith

Edit: I was in the midst of writing this review when my house's intenet (and phone) connection died for about a week. When I finally got back around to writing it, the movie in question, which was entirely on Youtube, had been removed. This sucked because there are a few unfinished paragraphs in the later parts of this review, and I can't quite remember the placement of things (like annoying shrieking music), or how certain scenes go down. Some fragment sentences are still just that, as I've largely forgotten what bad dubbing this movie had, but I do remember the basics of how good and bad it was. Luckily though, the paragraphs are at least understandable. Also, the first paragraph will be hilarious to everyone, considering how my Halloween reviews plan turned out!So, here's the partially forever incomplete (unless I'm feeling masochistic enough to actually buy the damn movie and rewatch it! *shudders*) review for Ulli Lommel's Night Stalker!

I've had a really good October so far! Four days and four good movies! ...Yeah, it's time for that streak to stop dead in its tracks! I'm reviewing an Ulli Lommel film!...

For those who don't know who Ulli Lommel is, he's a German filmmaker, who was good (I wholeheartedly recommend Revenge of the Stolen Stars!), but now is an awful, awful one! His movies from the last decade or so are all indescribably awful! You'll see why soon, since this movie is basically what most of his other movies are-plotless movies abut real-life serial killers.

Night Stalker starts with a bad voice-actor monologuing about how people are 'hypocrital maggots', intercut with black-and-white shots of people getting gunned down, and the narrator dying. His narration ends with him saying that he'll be avenged, then for the next four minutes, as the opening credits go on, we get even more black-and-white shots of people getting shot.

When that's over, the narrator, Richard Ramirez (Adolph Cortez), starts a mysoginistic tirade against women. His uncle Mike was a women-hater as well, and as Rich is dragged from the street by two hookers (I think)-who I guess show people a good time, whether the clients want it or not!-he decides to follow his uncle's advice-kill women. Then Richard, who's too busy with his lollipop to want to do anything with the women, narrates what is possibly the worst line in a movie ever!-"I'm the candyman! I hate the power of pussy!". Oh, and by the way, the whole movie thus far has only had voiceover narration, over characters actually talking. It doesn't get any better!

Next, the movie finally lets its characters speak. After having a bizarro superimposed flashback, Richard storms off, and the two women talk about how strange he is-Um, ladies, YOU PICKED UP A RANDOM GUY FROM THE STREET AGAINST HIS WILL! YOU'RE STRANGE!

Richard has a proper flashback to his uncle. Uncle Mike tells young Richard about his Vietnam days, and how he collected ears (insert Universal Soldier joke here). This angers his wife, and Mike loses it and shoots her and Richard's mother to death (and the actor playing kid Richard tries to act scared, but he looks like he's trying not to laugh!).

Some time later, late at night, Richard sneaks into a woman's house and shoots her. And you can tell by this actress' expression just how 'terrified' she is!

That's her expression to seeing a nutjob in her shower pointing a gun at her! And her expression only gets duller just as she's dispatched by a few gunshots.

Richard goes back to his home and dreams about murders he's committed, while narrating some more. A while later, he leaves and walks down a street, and sees a 'woman from his nightmares'-'blond and green-eyed, he calls her, even though she's a brunette! After several minutes of him following her (for the viewer, that is! This scene goes on forever!) they walk away together she a satanist she and a friend talk to Richard about satanism and how awesome the they think it is, in a scene that is painfully repetitious! The film then loses its mind for a little while, with the three...um, doing domething, with Richard murdering some woman superimposed over the shot, while the trio's distorted voices yell 'hail satan'.

After that, Richard goes hunting again. After nearly four minutes of a couple bitching inanely, Rich finally breaks into their house and shoots them, while talking in a booming demon voice.

Sometime later, Richard sees another 'princess of darkness', and he follows her for days on end, eventually approaching her. She turns out to be a christian, and they go somewhere else and get talking. She talks about Jesus, and church, and before you can say "Caroline Munro in Maniac", Richard shoots her. Well so much for the film actually having a plot...

Rich starts drinking the woman's blood (apparently that gunshot to the cheek killed her), and there's suddenly a mindfuck of superimposed shots, blaring noise, a woman orgasming, and Richard murdering someone.

That above image might look like I took it while the scene was changing, but no, that's what the whole scene is like!

Next, Richard starts narrating again, and his narration turns from English to demon or something. Then we see another annoying bickering couple

Then Richard does something horrible...He smears a rasberry jam pentagram on the woman's chest!...Yeah, as you can imagine this film's effects aren't eactly great, but I'll give the movie a pass-more on that later.

After another scene with the two satanists, the film cuts to another annoying bickering couple!

After another time jump, we cut to another random victim. Unlike all the others in the movie, this actress actually acts distressed at seeing a guy with a gun about to shoot her ear-piercing soundtrack

The movie again continues showing Rich walking around aimlessly, while the soundtrack whispers demonically. After several minutes of that, we cut to another bickering couple!

really bad fighting bit! Ulli Lommel's idea of pointing at the fighting couple isn't filming them at another angle, but flipping parts of the footage around, so every few seconds, the couple switch sides, yet it's very obvious that the camera hasn't moved, because of the painting on the wall!...

some what looks like bad dubbing line flubs

The main actor in this film, Adolph (wow, life must suck with that name!) Cortez is pretty bad. always swishing his head around. I tried doing that, and I got a little dizzy-if I did it as often as this actor, I'd probably get a headache!

The rest of the acting is pretty bad.

Lommel, gunshots to the cheek don't kill people!

Everyone who gets shot in this movie only show signs of annoyance or dullness when shot!

The film's main tune is pretty ok (think the 'I am lightning' scene from Metal Gear Solid 4), but the film just keeps playing it, over, and over, and over, and then I started having flashbacks to Night of freakin' Horror and its perpetual Freebird soundalike of a theme!

Night Stalker's gore effects range from ok to pretty bad, but this is a very low budgeted movie (presumably a grand and a half, like most of, if not all of Lommel's films like these), so I'll mostly give them a pass.

Plot problems where did evil chick go? Why doesn't Richard change clothes, cut his hair, or stop eating lollipops?! The cops know what he look like! And so do the public!

Speaking of the plot, there isn't one! The film is just Richie monologuing, walking around, and killing people. There's no plot, character development, plot, any character to anyone in ths film, no plot, the film has about a dozen scenes of annoying couples bickering for several minutes, prior to getting killed by Richie, and did I mention that this film has no plot?

So, in closing, Ulli Lommel's Night Stalker is awful, but it's not the worst of Ulli's films...no, this movie here, it's one of the better awful ones of his filmography! Yeah! That's right! Be scared, folks!

The film does at least get some credit from me though, since in one scene, there's a poster of Emanuelle Around the World on the wall!...You have to have some awesomely screwed up taste in movies to know what the hell I'm talking about!...

If you ever read lists of the strangest, or most disturbing films ever made, Andrzej Zulawski's Possession will usually be on them.

Possession is a...uh...film...one. bizzare. film, that stars Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a divorcing couple. That plot sounds pretty inoccuous, doesn't it! Well this movie turns that plot on its head, gouges its eyes out, then feeds it to an octopus!

The film opens with Mark (Sam Neill) meeting with wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) at a train station after a long business trip. He goes home with her, to their son Bob.

Later, the couple talk in bed-Anna wants a divorce from Mark (not that their dialogue ever clearly states that). The next day, Mark is at a business meeting, and is offered the chance to be re-hired, but he refuses, wanting to devote more time to his family. The board accepts, then one guy says, "Does our subject still wear pink socks?" Huh?!

Mark returns home, but Anna is gone. After waiting for several hours, he gets a call from Anna, who tells him that she's in town for a while, and just wants time to think. After Mark calls Margi (Margit Carstensen) friend and asks about Anna, Anna calls him and talks about her lover. Mark arranges a meeting at a restaurant, and when the couple are there, they start fighting and Mark goes mental, trashing the restaurant as he runs after her.

The film cuts to Mark in a hotel room, completely going to pieces. Soon, three weeks have passed. Mark cleans up, then goes back home, where he finds Bob home alone, since Anna is with her friend Margie, who broke her leg. He talks with Bob, and then the camera tries to give the audience whiplash by abruptly cutting to Sam Neill looking weird on a rocking chair, rocking back and forth like he's drunk to much coffee! And he keeps doing it while talking to Anna!

Due to her leaving Bob on his own, Mark wants main custody of him unless Anna ends her relationship with her lover. She chooses neither (er...I guess, anyway), then later at night, Mark wakes up to find Anna gone. The phone rings, and a guy tells Mark that "Anna is with me, and she'll stay with me".

Mark goes to see Heinrich, Anna's lover (how Mark found out about him I've either forgotten, or it was never explained), and the very fey Heinrich tries to justify himself to Mark. Mark goes off and tries to attack him, but Heinrich just demolishes Mark!

Mark returns home and finds Anna. The two fight, and after Mark beats her, Anna storms out into the street and nearly attempts suicide, causing a truck to lose control.

A little later, Mark hires a private investigator to track down Anna, and see what she's up to.

Sometime later, Anna comes back, and while Mark tries questioning her about why she's so afraid to talk with him about her affair, she tries slicing her neck open with an electric knife. Mark stops her, and bandages up her wound.

A little while later, Anna says has to leave again, and we later see her at a train station, being followed by someone. The man, one of the PI's from the company Mark went to, trails Anna to her apartment and questions her about whether some papers are in order. Anna is worried at first, but soon starts acting tipsy, and she offers the man a drink. He declines, then goes into a dark, slimy back room containing aWHAT THE HELL IS THAT AND WHY IS ANNA KEEPING IT ON HER BED?! Anna shatters a bottle of wine, runs into the backroom, then...

...And then the film gets weird!...

Possession starts off seemingly as a family drama, and it stays that way for well over thirty minutes. Then the film starts to really stew in its oddness. The film doesn't really have over the top strangeness, bar the 'thing', and most of the film's strangeness comes from its off feel.

Possession is definitely well-made, and I did like it a lot. While watching it, I felt that it was overlong and moving too slow, but come the end of the film, and a while to think about it, I wouldn't want a single second cut from this tentacle mindfuck of a movie!

Like I said above, the film is well made. It's filmed very fluidly, and there are lots of abrupt quick cuts to different scenes. I'm not sure if it's clunky editing, or if it's deliberately edited that way to enhance the mood of the film. I'd take a guess that it's the latter.

The film is intense with its subject matter, which is easy to see, since Zulawski was going through an apparently bad divorce while writing the script.

As for the title, it took me WAAAY too long before I realized that the title didn't (necessarily) refer to spiritual/demonic possession. Or I don't think it does, at least. I see the title as referring to 'possession', the emotion. Mark is possessive of Anna to the point where he falls apart when she leaves him, he beats her up at one point when he's angry with her, and he goes out of his way to find out about Anna's lover(s). Heinrich is also incredibly possessive with Anna, and I suppose Heinrich and his mother share a dual-possessive relationship too (the two live together, talk about everything together, and can't live without each-other) Some reviews however mention Anna as sometimes acting as if she's possessed, and with scenes like the train station 'fluids' scene, that makes sense too.

The acting is great all round. There are many moments of overacting, exaggerated acting, and just plain loopiness! Sam Neill is deliriously crazy as Mark, the husband who takes his break-up VERY badly, it's not hard to see how Isabelle Adjani won awards because of her intense and creepy performance, and Heinz Bennet as Heinrich overacts and gesticulates like crazy and twirls around like he's Kodos running for office!

Oh hey, I only just realized what implications making a Kang/Kodos reference in this review has! haha! Yeah, if you want to blame Japan for tentacle porn, know that Japan didn't start it, no, it started here!

There's one weird scene midway through the movie-not weird because of the film's general craziness, but because: Helen (Isabelle Adjani), a teacher at the school (and Anna's doppelganger), comes to Mark's house to see Bob, and at that moment, Bob is in the bath. When Mark directs Helen in, he just casually shows her into the bathroom, and he even asks if she can finish bathing Bob, which she accepts in stride! Huh?! HUH?!

One odd thing I didn't understand was-Who was that girl given a gun by [SPOILERS] at the end? Wikipedia says she resembles Margie, but I didn't think so.

At one moment near the end, after a 'certain body' has been found in a lift, Mark and Anna have sex, and afterwards, Mark says a hilariously pretentious-sounding sorta-speech!

Where Possession's plot REALLY gets goofy is near the end, when Mark's former job catches up with him. Wikipedia says that Mark is a secret agent, and with only ten minutes of the film left, I thought that sounded like bullshit, but no, in the last ten minutes, there's some spy stuff going down, from tense meetings, car attacks, a violent shootout, a brutal spy with fleuro-pink socks, and four cars that explode, all in a row, for no reason!

The film's last ten minutes really are a hot potato of various sudden and out-of-nowhere things, from a spy storyline to other stuff I won't spoil.

Possession is a polarizing film. Many completely detest it. I can see where people who dislike this movie are coming from, but I did sort-of like the movie a lot, kind of.

Michael Hogben as Bob doesn't get much screentime, but that works for the film, as it helps convey how little attention Mark and Anna pay attention to him most of the time during their fights. The only character in the film who shows consistent attention to Bob is Helen (whoever the hell she is), who is with Bob, doting on him, even helping bathe him at one point instead of Mark...Holy crap! This film is the first time that I've really got a lot of stuff to think about after watching an art film! Most of the time I just don't understand anything!

Some more symbolism I may have noticed-Anna almost always wears this one blue dress, and to me, the button-up back looks like a spine. I'm not sure if that was deliberate symbolism, or if I'm just looking into things a bit too much.

Possession's locale is also worth talking about. Filmed in Berlin in the midst of the cold war, and next to the Berlin Wall, the setting is dreary, grey, graffitied and decayed.

Finally, the effects by Carlo Rimbaldi are very good! As for what these effects are? Well, some have to be seen to be believed! "Almost!...Almost!...Almost!...".

Possession is a tough film to sit through, especially since it clocks in at just over two hours, but I definitely recommend it!

So, the moral of this story seems to be thus: If your marriage is failing, and your wife is having an affair, but won't tell you with who, then chances are, she's fucking a tentacle monster...

This blog is nearly two years old, and I haven't reviewed a single Joe D'Amato film until now. While that MAY sound like a positive, thans to 'gems' such as Emanuelle in America, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Images in a Convent, and Porno Holocaust (!), he did of course make plenty of fun films too, from Ator the Invincible 1 and 2 (aka, The Blade Master, aka Cave Dwellers), to Anthropophagus, Beyond the Darkness, and Endgame!...And today I'll be looking at...none of those good movies, but rather Erotic Nights of the Living Dead! 'Yay' me!

The 111 minute long (!!!) ENotLD centres on a bunch of people who go to the mysterious, and deserted Cat Island, a seemingly supernatural place feared by the nearby locals...

So, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead opens with credits and music that almost entirely drowns out what some people are saying. The film starts at the medical camp, and a weird guy is trying to convince the doctors that there's something wrong with his arm. After they tell him that there's nothing wrong (I guess, it's hard to tell when I could barely hear what they're saying!), he follows a nurse, who's running off to her lover, Larry (George Eastman) for some...

Oh yeah!...

The weird guy watches the two, while whackin' the meat and shaking his body like he's trying to out-overact Bronson Pinchot.

Then the film cuts to a boat, and it's here where I finally found out that I was in fact watching an English version of this movie. Larry and another guy are fishing, and they talk for a minute, before the scene cuts away as abruptly as it began. John Wilson (Mark Shannon), architect, talks with a local official about Cat Island. A few minutes later, he hooks up with two prostitutes, and...

Oh yeah!...

Meanwhile, the other guy from the fishing boat is talking vaguely with another guy about something sinster that's happening on the island. Guy 1 tells the other guy to look for 'it', and Guy 1 starts lighting a candle shrine with a tiki doll. As he's lighting it, a zombie silently sneaks up on him and tears his throat out. Yeah, it serves you right for using a candle shrine to ward off zombies, dude! This isn't the first movie I've seen with these things, and here's what I've learnt-They're inconvenient as hell, easily knocked over/snuffed out, and the zombies in said films can still be dispatched with a single shot to the head, so I don't know why anyone in these films even bothers using them (unless they're really that bad shots).

After several minutes of 'Oh yeah!...' and 'Oh...god, are those warts?!' with Mark Shannon and co., the film cuts to George Eastman playing cards. Now I wasn't going to bother mentioning this scene until I saw it play out! Eastman beats a scrawny guy in cards, and the guy whips out a switchblade...and is dominated by the hulking Eastman! That's right, you don't fuck with the Anthropophagus!

Meanwhile, Wilson is asking the two hookers if they want to come with him to Cat Island. They're interested until he mentions the island's name, and they run off, even leaving their pay behind. Wilson runs out of his room to give them their money, but they're already gone. Then another woman comes out of her room and starts talking with Wilson, and he asks her over for a drink. You know where this is going! Yeah, this sorta-porn film may have an actual plot, but that doesn't mean all the characters aren't raging nymphomaniacs!

Blah blah blah, Mark Shannon fucks some more, as does George Eastman (albeit with no nudity from him, thankfully). Yeah, twenty-eight minutes into this film and we have no plot, and we've only seen a single zombie, and only for a few seconds. This film is kind of a tough sit!

After that, Larry and his girlfriend walk out of their boat and see a zombie in the water...And given how they react to it, do they know about the zombies? No, but it seems that way, thanks to the writing and direction.

After Larry hits the zombie with a fishing hook, the police are called over, and the comatose zombie is taken away by an ambulance. At the hospital, where the zombie is about to be autopsied, a doctor who doesn't believe in zombies is told about what just happened by two other docs, who tell him how dangerous zombies are...amd then just leave the doctor to autopsy the zombie on his own, with no protection at all! What assholes! Naturally the doctor becomes chow for the undead once it wakes up.

The next day, Wilson approaches Larry, asking to hire his boat. After getting paid, Larry agrees to take Wilson and his assistant Fiona to Cat Island. A few random cutaways to Laura Gemser (and her character's magical sap-bleeding powers) on Cat Island, several minutes of porn, and one cat jump scare later, Larry, Wilson and Co., at nearly fifty minutes into the film, are finally ready to sail to the mysterious island.

So, the trio go to Cat Island, which they find uninhabited, save for a mysterious old man and his grandaughter (Laura Gemser), who, after Wilson snaps up photos of them...for some reason...warn the trio to leave the island while they still can. After the man and woman leave, a strange rumbling noise makes the trio go back to the boat, which leads to more fucking! Well, almost...

Later, the two act strangely when Fiona tells them that there's a cat on the island. The trio go back to shore, and while Fiona sunbathes, Larry and Wilson look for paw prints, and complain about 'that damned old man' when they see them. Huh?! What's so weird about there being a cat on the island?

Another thing that weirds Wilson out is that Laura Gemser isn't showing up in any of the photos he took of her...

So, at this point, having finally started up the plot, and barely featuring any zombies, the film passes the hour mark...

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is an extremely boring film for the most part, but I wouldn't call it terrible. I'm not sure why, since it is-I guess it's because I've seen worse and I've seen MUUUCH more boring films than this! Like Harper, or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, both of which are longer than ENotLD, and both of which I found unwatchably boring! I could at least make it through Erotic Nights.

Erotic Nights is structured like so-The first half (about fifty minutes) is porn, and scenes of plotless dialogue. That's it. No plot whatsoever. Then after the fifty minute mark, when the characters set sail for the island, and there's (a little) plot, and a lot less porn. This is a VERY bad thing! Bad because the porn (namely the 'uncorking'scene!) in the first half at least keeps your attention (well, minus Mark Shannon's genital warts-eww), and when it's gone, what we're left with is lots of boring scenes of people talking, barely any zombies, and just plain nothingness!

Like I said before, Erotic Nights is an hour and fifty minutes long minutes long! It took fifty minutes in for me to finally go "Is anything gonna fucking happen in this movie?! GOD!!". And not counting the two minor appearances in the first half-hour, the first time zombies appear in this ZOMBIE movie is seventy-five minutes in! Yes, you read that correctly!...

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead was filmed alongside the hilariously named, and from what I've heard, twice-as-boring, Porno Holocaust. Both films have mostly the same cast, and were both filmed around the same settings-Santo Domingo!

The acting seemed ok-I couldn't really tell that well since the movie is dubbed. Speaking of, the dub acting was passable, but the dubbing looked awful! But then again, most dubbing does.

The soundtrack is decent, and has some rockin' 80's synth muzak! It's very forgettable though, as I couldn't remember a single bar of music only a short while after watching the movie. If only it could have had a theme as fun and memorable as the one from Porno Holocaust!

The zombie effects are decent, which makes me wish they were in the movie more. As for gore effects, they're mostly really weak-victims in this flick just look like they've had fake blood smeared on their necks. And the zombies seem to have chocolate milk for blood. There are a couple of good gore effects though, namely a zombie headsplosion!

The zombies, however, make this film even more boring than it already is! They shamble so slowly that they'd make even the most ardent fast-zombie hater wish for some athletic undead! And the big 'zombies rising from their graves' sequence is slow and interminable!

As for the ending, it's weird! So...were there ever any zombies or ghosts or was it all in George Eastman's head?

So, in closing, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is an incredibly boring movie that fails at being a porn, and fails at being a horror film.

Ok, I'm an Angela Lansbury fan. Who doesn't enjoy the adventures of Jessica Fletcher, the most dangerous serial killer in America, perhaps the world, with a body count that outranks Dexter Morgan, Fantomas, and One and the Templars combined, by the hundreds! So, when I saw an interview with her on the news recently, where she and the interviewer talked a bit about a TV movie called Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris, which Lansbury said she loved, that was good enough recommendation for me, especially since the whole film is on Youtube!

MAGtP is about Ada Harris (Lansbury), a middle-aged maid, who's saved up for three years, so she can go to Paris and buy a Dior gown, her dream possession...

The movie opens with Ada going to the house of Lady Dant, who she works for as a maid. While cleaning, she sees the Lady's Dior dresses, and they enchant her. (Naturally, being a rich person and all, Dant's problem isn't that she can't afford a Dior dress, but that she can't decide which Dior gown (i.e. which ssssuuuuper expensive gown) to wear!).

Later, Ada talks with her friend Vi (Lila Kaye) about her new ambition of saving up to go to Paris and get a Dior dress. Vi doesn't think much of Ada's want for a Dior, especially when Ada decides to cut out going to the movies with Vi, as well as other expenses, so she can fill her wallet more quickly.

When she finally saves up enough money, Ada flies to Paris, and finds her way to the house of Dior. She goes in, but finds out that one needs an invitation to view the Dior line. However, Madame Colbert (Diana Rigg), the sales manager, takes pity on Ada and gives her an invitation for the collection showing later in the afternoon.

Later, at the showing, Ada starts talking with Marquis Hippolite (Omar Sharif, who's credited as a 'special guest star'-*sigh*-There's no such thing as a 'special guest star' in a freakin' movie!), then the showing starts.

Once it's over, Ada picks a type of dress and buys one. However, it won't be ready for another week, and Ada has to be back in London by the next day, so she can't get the dress (Umm, why can't they just mail the dress to Ada's house in London? Surely they could do that, couldn't they?). On Colbert and co.'s advice, Ada decides to call Vi and ask her to fill in for her at Lady Dant's while she stays in Paris for the week.

Everything is going well, but the store manager Armand (John Savident) however, does not want Ada to have the dress, as he views her as a low-class woman...Even though she just unloaded the Pound equivelant to 800 bucks to his business! Shouldn't that make her a-o-freakin'-k in his book?

Ada soon makes new friends in the form of Natasha, a Dior model, Andre, the Dior accountant, as well as her prior acquaintance, the Marquis Hippolite. However, she faces opposition from Armand, and rich bitch Madame Croquette...

Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris is a heartwarming Pollyanna-style story of Ada Harris and the people whose hearts she touches... I happen to hate Polyanna-style stories like that! That isn't to say Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris is a bad film at all, just not my kind of film. I did enjoy it though, despite that, and despite its flaws.

Angela Lansbury is very good in this (that goes without saying), and Diana Rigg, Tamara Gorski, and Omar Sharif are good too. Lothaire Bluteau, who plays Andre, however, can't act, at all! And the actress playing Madame Croquette loses her accent at one point!

The plot does suffer a bit thanks to how forced and nonsensical Armand's, Madame Croquette's, and Natasha's boyfriend's jerkness is. Also, why does Ada try to matchmake Natasha and Andre? Nat mentioned to you that she has a boyfriend, lady! In fact, I actually wondered if the movie actually forgot about said boyfriend! It didn't though, he appeared after a while, and like I said, is portayed as a total prick! That's so cliched that I'm surprised he was even included!

The movie's biggest problem is the time period! The movie is set in the 1950's, as is the book its based on. It never outright says so though, and since it looks like it takes place in the modern day (that is, 1992), I assumed that the time period was updated from the book. But no, despite the 'modern' look of everything, mentions of 'The War', and a very much alive Christian Dior prove otherwise.

So, I do recommend Miss Harris Goes to Paris if this is a genre you like, or if you just love Angela Lansbury...

Yes, this is a blog that followed a review for Joe D'Amato's Erotic Night's of the Living Dead with one for feel-good Angela Lansbury film Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris, and am now following that up with a review for a Czech surrealist horror film! I pride myself on being varied, that's for sure!

Valerie and Her Weekend of Wonders is a 1970 Czech surrealist, kinda-horror film about the newly thirteen years-old Valerie, an inhabitant of a small Czech town, who is suddenly in peril, thanks to a mysterious vampire and her devious grandmother...

First things first, unlike all my other reviews, I won't do my usual partial-summary style review, because I don't want to spoil a thing!

...

...Ok, it's mainly because it's FAR easier to not bother doing my usual style review for this movie since the plot is so hard to describe at times! Either way, all I can describe is this:
I wonder how mere mortals would go in using "You are an alabaster handshake" as a pickup line!

Well...stuff happened in this film. That counts for...something...I guess.

Seriously, I couldn't make heads or tails of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. I'm still not ever sure if I disliked it or loved it! And yes, I have rewatched it since my first viewing, and no, it isn't any clearer!

One off thing about VaHWoW is that it's a horror film, yet people rarely act horrified in scary situations, which I'm not sure hurts the film, or helps it, given its surreal tone.

Speaking of surreal, that's something that this film delivers in spades! It's super weird, especially the finale! Like I said, I don't know if I liked the film or not, but one thing's for sure-I had a huge grin on my face as I saw the incomprehensible lunacy of the ending

The film's vampire, Weasel looks AWESOME! He looks like Count Orlock, but a lot creepier! I bet you didn't think that was possible, but it is, as this movie showed me! The actor who plays him (I don't know his name, due to the film's unhelpful IMDb page) is great, with constant leers and evil grins to boot!

From what I've read from other reviews, this film's subtext is meant to be about Valerie as her body progresses into puberty. I didn't get that impression at all, but I don't doubt that subtext was in the film-I just didn't understand anything at all!

The film's locales (the film was shot in the small Czech town of Slavonice) all look gorgeous. If there's one positive about Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, it's that it looks great!

Conidering I still don't know what to think of the film, nearly a month after watching it, I think I've said all I can (and want to, due to spoilers) about Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, so I'll leave you with my definite recommenation if you enjoy incomprehensible kookfests!

This review has been for Holly Horrorland's Second Annual Vampire Soiree...

Here we are again, at another anniversary for Not This Time, Nayland Smith, and (*sigh*) I forgot AGAIN! haha! But hey, it was only a week ago, so I'm still on time with this post.

So, this blogging year's highlights were:

...Reviewing the entirety of obscure 50's TV series The Adventures of Fu Manchu! (and unfortunately, those are some of my least viewed posts. *sigh*)...

...Watching and reviewing three super-crazy surrealist films, Possession, and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and Goodbye, 20th Century...

...Watched and reviewed several Bollywood horror ripoffs, such as Bollywood Nightmare on Elm Street Mk. 1 (Khooni Murdaa) and 2 (Mahakaal), and Bollywood Pumpkinhead!...

...Reviewed a Joe D'Amato film for the first time, with Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, a film that would be super boring if not for two things-1, I've seen films FAR more boring than this! (*coughcough*tinkertailorsoldierspy*coughcough*), and 2, its inclusion of porn! Hey, it made the first hour bearable, warts and all! haha!...

...Watched and reviewed the surprisingly great sequels to Dracula 2000, Ascension and Legacy!...

...I wached and reviewed The Gods Must Be Crazy 3, 4, and 5, which do exist, and can get pretty insane!...

...I participated in the Camp and Cult blogathon, organised by Stacia of She Blogged By Night, and reviewed a bunch of films, from Arch Hall Jr., to Bruno Mattei, to Australian horror, etc...

...I participated in Annie Walls' May Monster Madness, and watched plenty of kooky films!...

...And speaking of kooky, I watched/reviewed crazy filmark films involving hopping vampires, Freddy Krueger ripoffs, and Robocop! (Counter Destroyer and Devil Dynamite), and Raw Force, a super sleazy Love Boat type movie about kung fu zombies, among other things!...

...I participated in Jenny Krueger(of Memoirs of a Scream Queen)'s Legacy: His Name was Jason blogathon, and I did a triple review of Friday the 13 parts II to IV...

...I reviewed more Pierre Kirby films!...

..I watched/reviewed some goofy and cool 80's films like Neon Maniacs (and had another post about that film's cool tunes!) and Raiders of the Magic Ivory!...

...I became a fan of 1930's/40's era comedian El Brendel, and reviewed some of his films...

...I started to do 31 reviews for Halloween-One post for each day of October, but lack of internet for a week, as well as steadily worsening procrastination ruined that plan five days in...

...And much, much more! Again, thanks to all my readers, and here's to another year!...

Journey with me, back to a time when Ulli Lommel could actually make movies, with Revenge of the Stolen Stars!...

Revenge of the Stolen Stars is an adventure/comedy/horror about Gene McBride, a guy trying to find and retrieve three mystical gems in order to remove his family curse.

This sure is an obscure film! There are barely any reviews for it online, and what ones there are (i.e. a lone comment on the movie's trailer on youtube, and a review on the movie's IMDb page...the only review) call this movie one of the worst movies ever made! Uh-huh...Dudes, this is SOOOO not one of the worst films ever made! I don't even think it's bad! If you guys want to watch some REAL worst movies ever made, then I'd be happy to direct you to some other films! Ever hear of Night of Horror?!...

The movie opens with an Orson Welles lookalike (James Marshall) who overacts like he has a gun trained on him. He is talking with a man and woman (Barry Hickey and Suzanna Love), about their recent adventure, and he decides to relate their story to the audience.

"It all began a very short while ago in the tropical paradise of Sindenau, the least-spoiled-that is, the most neglected-island of the South China seas. It is said even God only visits when the rent is due. And the rent was indeed due on the little patch of Sindenau attended by one Donald McBride"

While Kelly Scanlon (Love) and Max Stern (Ulli Lommel), Donald McBride's secretary and attorney, respectively, talk downstairs with Lupe Rivera (Kitty O'Shea) and Alex von Bentz (Andy Lyon), two insurance agents (I guesss, the movie never goes into detail), McBride (Klaus Kinski) is arguing with Malu (Eugene Choy), an associate who McBride thinks has stolen one of his six-star rubies. McBride pulls a gun, and the two men shoot/stab each-other to death.

A little while later, Gene McBride (Hickey), a regular joe in LA, recieves a letter from Sindenau informing him of his father's death. He goes to the Sindenau consulate, and talks with the Orson Welles lookalike (yep, he's never named), who gives him a visa and tells him that Max Stern has already paid for a flight over for Gene. Gene heads off to the airport as the Consul guy narrates some more-"Picture an excited young man on his first real adventure. Horribly unprepared as it turned out, but then, it's not a proper adventure if you're thoroughly ready for it, is it!"

After arriving in Sindenau, Gene arrives at the McBride villa (which is adorned with what look like christmas lights...for some reason) and meets up with the house's staff, which includes housekeeper/butler Alfred, and Suki the maid.

Later, after a mysterious insect scare in the shower, Gene is told about the McBride family curse by Kelly.

Not knowing that Gene's room has been bugged by Lupe and Alex, Max reads McBride's will to Gene. Among other things, Gene has inherited the McBide family ruby mine-a mine where six-star rubies (a rare type) are occasionally found, and given to the local villagers by law. Gene is also shown a mysterious sacred burial chamber in his room.

Later that night, some plants come into Gene's room and try to strangle him...

The next day, Gene goes up to McBride's study, where he died, and is shocked to see McBride in the room, as a ghost. McBride apologizes for the curse, and tells Gene that the only way to lift it is to retrieve the three six-star rubies that McBride stole from the Barahgi-a native tribe-and return them. He says that he gave two of the rubies to a Shale Maron (which, like me, you'll most likely mishear to be Shelly Marone), and a Prince Kali, respectively. As for the third, McBride doesn't know where it is, as he thinks Malu stole it.

As Gene and Kelly go to see the Barahgi (with Kelly not believing Gene's ghost story), Suki cleans Gene's room, including the sacred room. And then the film turns into a horror for the next few minutes.

Really, if I was a dead magician-spirit thingy, and people were forbidden to enter my burial chamber, and someone came in to dust the place, I'd be pretty grateful, not murderous...

After some convincing, the villagers send Gene and Kelly (yes, I DO see the joke there! That's as bad as naming characters Crash and Byrne!) to locate three six-star rubies that were stolen from the tribe by McBride and Malu.
A weird thing about this scene is when at one point, Gene speaks, but it's obviously dubbed. I guess the script was originally different in that part, and was revised by dubbing.

Gene and Kelly set off on their journey to get the rubies back from Shale Maron, a madam whose murderous ways "cut deeply into her repeat business", and the "evil, and frankly kinky" Prince Kali...

Revenge of the Stolen Stars is largely a fun movie, albeit with some problems. One weird thing is the genre switches. This is an adventure/kinda-comedy, but the film veers into horror a few times, especially with the climax. I guess Ulli Lommel, who predominately makes horror films, must have really wanted some creepy stuff to happen.

The acting is mostly decent. Barry Hickey and Suzanna Love are good, as are Ulli Lommel, and others. The actors playing Prince Kali and Alex however, are pretty awful! There are a couple of other bad actors here and there, but there are mostly good actors all round.

As for the Consul, who doubles as the narrator, He's a bit of both. While I'm still not entirely sure that James Marshall can act, his narration is frequently hilarious, thanks to his delivery of his lines (as well as the funny dialogue), and he laughs like a maniac, all the time! It kinda sucks that his narration pretty much disappears halfway through the movie.

While the actor playing Alex is unimaginably awful, Alex and Lupe still make for a fun duo.

It's hard to see in that screenshot-Yes, Alex is still holding the monocle to his eye, despite the massive mask!

Among other things, the film's use of lighting and shadows is done really well in parts

The film had a pretty tumultuous shooting. For one, the crew were allowed to film at a house free of charge until the owner apparently suddenly demanded ten large. Another was the insanity-ball that was Klaus Kinski! Rather than have me explain it, here's a link to an interview with Ulli where he talks about it*.

*Speaking of, why did Kinski's scenes take two/three days to shoot?! He has less than five minutes of screentime!

Also, one scene is filmed in several different places, and it shows! In said scene, when Klaus Kinski and Suzanna Love talk, it's very obvious that they're not in the same room together.

Onto the film's negatives, the plot does get a bit forced during the Prince Kali segment-His guards just happen to pick the time of the arrival of Gene and Kelly to take action against Kali's abuse of his magic?! Really?! It's also pretty stupid that after getting Kali's ruby, Gene and Kelly, who don't know where the third ruby is, think that the Barahgi will be happy with just two rubies. It'd make more sense for the two to investigate Malu, who supposedly had it last. This slightly works in the long run, since it's revealed soon after-back at the villa-who really stole the ruby, but it stills feels forced and stupid. Also, the finale feels partly anticlimactic-Gene and Kelly would have been killed by the main villain if the curse didn't just happen to kill the villain at that moment.

Another problem is Suki's death scene. She's attacked by insects until she dies, but we never see any insects (minus one she grabs), so it's a tough sell to believe that insects are stinging her-especially since most of the 'insects' don't cause any wounds. Really, the only thing that shows Suki is being attacked by insects other than a little bit of fake blood on the actress' arm is the sound effects.

Also, the kinda annoying main theme is repeated several times throughout the movie.

One very small, but still annoying thing about the movie is the VHS/DVD cover-Instead of actually having stuff from the movie, and looking cool and interesting, the cover is only a profile picture of Klaus Kinski! That's it!

The biggest problem I have with Revenge of the Stolen Stars is it's running time. At just shy of 80 minutes, the movie feels too short-I wish it was longer. It's still a pretty fun adventure movie though, even if it does forget what genre it's supposed to be every now and then...

God, this is a movie I took WAY too long to see! I missed it in theatres, and when it came out on DVD, I wasn't willing to fork out thirty to fifty bucks for a single freakin' movie, so I waited. Waited, and promptly forgot Harry Brown ever existed!..Yeah, I suck, big time!

Harry Brown is a 2009 British vigilante film starring Michael Caine as Harry Brown (damn lazy title!), a pensioner living in a squalid neighbourhood infested by brutal gang violence. After the violent murder of his best friend, Harry decides to take the law into his own hands...

After a couple of handheld-camera scenes of gang violence, the movie opens with Harry Brown (Caine) going to the hospital to see his wife Cath, who's severely ill. Sometime later that night, Harry gets a call from the hospital, telling him that his wife has died.

Harry talks with Leonard Atwell (David Bradley), his best (and likely only) friend, in a bar, and Atwell tells Harry how frightened he is, showing Harry a bayonet he's carrying for protection against the gangs in the area. A shocked Harry tells Atwell to not use it, and to go to the police, but Atwell has already tried that to no avail.

The next day, two police...err...police-people, DI Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and DS Terry Hickock (Charlie Creed Miles) come to Harry's flat to inform him that OH YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Atwell was assaulted and died OFFSCREEN?! *seethe*.

The police arrest a local teen gang who they suspect to be (and are) behind Atwell's murder, namely Noel (Ben 'Plan B' Drew), the gang's violent leader.

The police interrogate Noel and associates, to no avail (the only thing they get told other than 'no comment' is crude insults). Later, Harry is drinking the night away at the bar, and when he leaves, a junkie tries to assault him, and in self-defense, Harry stabs the man with his own knife.

A shaken Harry goes home and cleans up, disposing of his bloodied jacket. The next day, DI Frampton visits Harry, and tells him that the police have found out that Atwell owned the weapon that killed him. She leaves after Harry goes off at her for the police's inaction at the crime in the area.

Later, Harry goes into the seedier side of town and visits a gremlin-looking dealer (who's also one hell of a user). Harry is there to buy a gun. Eventually, Harry attacks the two psychos, killing them, and he burns their house/pot farm down.

The next night, Harry follows one of Noel's gang, with intent to squeeze information out of him. And with a riot brewing, thanks to the police operation Bluejay, everything starts coming to a head...

And what a head it comes to! Seriously! Harry would have done good to call Paul Kersey over to help clean the streets up!...

Harry Brown, while compared to Gran Torino a lot, really has a lot more in common with Death Wish. Specifically Death Wish 3, which this movie is practically a straight remake of. I mean straight in that this movie is Death Wish 3 if it was realistic!

One thing that was definitely good about Harry Brown was how it didn't paint the police as incompetent morons, but rather people with sometimes-tough jobs. And police action is what instigates the huge finale of the film.

Speaking of, Harry Brown has an awesome climax! It's all great stuff!

The plot is great stuff too! The movie is very well-written, and I have almost no problem with it whatsoever.

The acting is all flawless! From Michael Caine's fantastic performance, to everyone playing the gang members, to the seedy drug/weapon dealers, to the police, namely Charlie Creed Miles and Emily Mortimer (I spent the whole movie trying to remember what I knew this actress from, and then it hit me! She was the supposedly brittle-boned girlfriend of Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock Season 1!).

There are only three problems I had with Harry Brown. The first, and biggest is Leonard Atwell's lack of a death scene! There's not even any lead-up to his death! The police just arrive at Harry's flat to tell him what happened.

As for my other two problems, there's the title-Why the hell is the movie called Harry Brown, anyway?! That's a nothing title! How about Death Wish VI, or The Underpass Vigilante, or...anything that isn't just the name of the main character!

The other is the song that plays over the ending credits. Pop (or whatever genre that song was) has NO PLACE over the end credits of a dark and seedy vigilante film! It's really distracting to hear it blasting away after the movie's denoument!

So, in closing, Harry Brown is a FANTASTIC film, and I abolutely recommend it!

Tell me if this has happened to you before! You go to your boss' house in the Hampton's to party, and then he dies, and you try to cover up the fact by hauling his corpse around like he's alive! And then you're quickly found out, arrested, then charged for desecration of a corpse, jailed, and fined several thousand dollars...Yeah, real life does tend to go in a different direction than Movie Land! Case in point, the 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie's...

Weekend at Bernie's opens with Richard (Johnathan Silverman) and Larry (Andrew McCarthy), two office workers at an insurance firm, heading to work-which sucks for them because of the massive heatwave the city's going through.

While trying (and failing) to cool off on the roof, Richard finds an insurance error-Four insurance policies were made out to the same deceased person, all after he died (or something like that, insurance isn't really my strong point). The two, thinking they'll be heroes once they report a two-million dollar error to the higher-ups, decide to talk to their boss, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser) about it.

Meanwhile, Richard plucks up enough courage (which still isn't enough) to ask coworker Gwen (Catherine Mary Stewart)-who he has a crush on-out.

Richard and Larry report the error to Bernie, who, unbeknowenst to the duo, is behind the 'error', which is really an insurance scam. Bernie tries to dissuade the two, saying there's a mistake, and there is no error. When confirmed otherwise, Bernie pretends to be proud of the two, and tells them to not tell of their findings to anyone, and he offers them the opportunity to stay at his house in the Hampton Islands for the weekend.

Later that night, Bernie talks with his mob associates, and tells mob boss Vito (Louis Giambalvo) to get someone to kill Lary and Richard, and frame them for the insurance policy scam ("That way, we don't even have to change the books!"). He tells Vito orchestrate it to look like a murder-suicide job, which he accepts, but the moment Bernie leaves (along with Tina (Catherine Parks), Vito's girlfriend, who Bernie is secretly having an affair with), Vito tells hitman Paulie (Don Calfa) to forget that job and instead kill Lomax.

That night, Richard goes on his date with Gwen, which goes well until the end of the night, when it gets botched.

The next day, Richard and Larry head off to the Hamptons via ferry and arrive at Bernie's house-Trouble is, he's dead...

The two realize that Bernie is dead, but they decide not to call the police in-case they might suspect the two had something to do with Bernie's death. Then, before they can do anything else, the house fills up with guests over for a party, and they all assume Bernie is alive.

Among the partygoers is Gwen, whose arrival makes sure that Richard doesn't want to call the police for a while. They both join the party, and Bernie's body eventually ends up falling down onto the beach, where the tides drag it away.

Later that night, as Larry has some fun at the party, Richard talks with Gwen on the beach, and as the two are about to get physical, Bernie's body washes up along the shore next to them (Bernie Lomax-Still cockblocking people even when he's dead, right up there with Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th Part IV!), causing Richard to quickly get Gwen away before she sees the body.

Richard and Larry keep the charade up through to the next day, then eventually the find out that Bernie was murdered, and thanks to a recorded phone call of Bernie, they think that his murderer is also after them. And elsewhere on the island is Paulie, who's growing unhinged at constantly seeing Bernie alive...

Weekend at Bernie's is a fun comedy. It isn't groundbreakingly hilarious, but it's a funny watch all the same.

The acting is all fine. Andrew McCarthy and Johnathan Silverman are very good, and Terry Kiser is good in the few minutes of screentime he has alive. Don Calfa (Ernie from Return of the Living Dead) is also fun as hitman Paulie.

Among loads of other funny scenes, there's scenes like the burglar at that start, and the part where Richard and Larry catch the ferry to the island! That latter one was one of my favourite moments from the film!

As morbid and stupid as the scene when Vito's girlfriend Tina sleeps with corpse-Bernie is (this movie is kinda fucked-up!), it's still a funny scene, and it leads to a hilarious line from Andrew McCarthy-"I get yelled at when I just lay there!".

Aside from Silverman and McCarthy's performances, one of my favourite things about Weekend at Bernie's is the fun reggae theme! "Ohooh yeah, some like it hot! Some like it cold! Some never know..."

Probably Weekend's biggest problem is that it isn't a black comedy. Despite the morbid plot of hauling your boss' corpse around and pretending he's alive, given the way people behave, as well as the tone of the film, it doesn't come across much as a black comedy at all, but pretty regular. This doesn't affect the movie too much, but it's still distracting.

Another problem is that until Richard and Larry find out that the hitman isn't going to kill them if Bernie's around (so they think), their reason for hauling Bernie's corpse around like he's alive is pretty flimsy.

So, to finish, Weekend at Bernie's isn't a fantastic film by any means, but it's still a lot of fun, and I definitely recommend it!

The real burning question though is...Why the hell was there a Weekend at Bernie's 2? Richard and Larry steal Bernie's body from the morgue using voodoo magic so they can find buried treasure?! Mobsters get turned into goats?! Magical voodoo gypsies?! Mystical conga line music that reanimates Bernie every time he hears it, and sends him in the direction of the treasure?! Whaaaa?!...

Hi readers, and what a fine April the 1st this is! I've chosen this day to review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the live-action movie!

Unfortunately, while I have seen most of the 2003 TMNT series, I haven't seen any of the original series, and neither have I seen the three movies (or two movies, rather, for those who like to believe TMNT III doesn't exist), until now! So without further ado, here's my review for 1990's live-action TMNT movie!...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opens with an embarrassingly catchy theme, then cuts to the city of Argentina, where a group of dominatrixes are pleasuring a member of the Foot Clan.

...What, don't you remember this part?...

I'm surprised no-one remembers this part, since it goes on for nearly ten minutes! Damn movie!

Then the film cuts to the four Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and Rapheal who roam around the city.

After peeping on people having sex for a few minutes (why does a kid's film has this much hardcore porn footage? I don't recall reading about this before), the Turtles get involved in a fight with the Foot Clan.

Then the group meet up with April O'Neil, who...is running a prostitution ring? Whoah! I knew the original TMNT comics were mature, but I didn't know the movie followed suit!

The rest of the movie is more sex scenes, until April is kidnapped...

And evenually, the film ends with the Turtles, having beaten their foes, eatin' pizza and saying their famous catchphrase-"Conchadunga!"...

...Umm, have...have I got the right Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?...

Happy April Fool's!...

A British horror film about a haunted, demon-infested hotel, complete with a groovy opening theme? Count me in!

Bloody New Year is a 1987 horror film from British director Norman J Warren, and...has almost nothing to do with New Years!

Bloody New Year opens with a cool theme that I'm not sure I should call 80's-tastic, or 50's-tastic-Either way, the film starts off fine! The theme plays over black-and-white footage of a prom (or regular party, I'm not sure) in 1959 at the Grand Island Hotel. The film colour-fies (as in The Wizard of Oz), and when a woman goes over to a mirror, she's pulled in by her reflection.

The film cuts to the 80's (I guess, there's never a title card or anything that outright says the time period), and we follow a group of young adults-Spud (Colin Heywood), Tom (Julian Ronnie), Leslie (Suzy Aitchison), Rick (Mark Powley), and Janet (Nikki Brooks)-who are at a fun-fair.

The guys spot two greasers victimising a woman at a Tilt-A-Whirl, and they help out, while Spud pulls out part of the mechanics making the carriages work. They run off, and the two greasers and their boss (also the manager of the Tilt-A-Whirl) give chase. After a while, the group lose the geasers, and the woman, an American tourist, introduces herself as Carol (Catherine Roman).

The group go out in a boat, and while sailing, the boat hits something and starts to sink. Luckily an island is nearby. Everyone swims over to it, and they walk into the island. On the way, they pass barb-wire, and a 'Danger-Keep Away' sign (the latter of which they don't see, because apparently they have worse peripheral vision than Daredevil!). They soon come across the Grand Island Hotel, which seems abandoned.

The group make themselves at home and try to get power back to the building. Since everything looks so new, they assume that people are still around. Strange things start to happen, sometimes noticed, sometimes not-pool balls rearrange themselves, TV's turn on by themselves, magazines flip shut, etc. And some of the group encounter ghosts (one which pretends to be a living maid, and another two that sing in an auditorium).

Soon later, the group finds a small theater, and they watch goofy 50's monster movie Fiend Without a Face. When it finishes, an amateur film reel of partygoers during the 1959 party (I guess) starts playing. Spud jumps up to the screen and starts making jokes about the film when suddenly one of the people in the film leaps out and kills him...Aaand his friends just watch! You assholes! You just let the film guy strangle your friend to death!

The hotel, as well as the rest of the island, quickly starts becoming scarier and violenter (that's not a word, but should be!), and soon enough, the survivors have to contend with the demonized inhabitants of the island...

Bloody New Year, is a pretty mediocre movie. It's not terrible, or even bad, but it's not very good either.

The acting is all decent-everyone is mostly fine in their roles. Their characters however, are dumb, dumb, dumb! Like near the end, when the survivors go back into the hotel to stay safe from the greasers-the hotel! The haunted hotel, an enclosed space, that they damn well know is very happy with the idea of fucking them up, what with the demons, and murderous decor! Morons!

And they all have terrible reaction times-They never stop the film guy from killing Spud, and when Leslie is attacked by a tablecloth swamp monster, her boyfriend stands and does nothing about it for nearly ten whole seconds!

There are some weird characters in this film-the three greasers! Yeah, I get that they want to get revenge on the group, but these guys are as single-minded and determined as the freakin' terminator! The fact that they never so much as grunt, let alone speak, just adds to the weird feel about them. Also, one particular actor out of the three got my attention-This guy...

Is...Is that the bartender from Shaun of the Dead?!

One admirable thing about Bloody New Year is how the whole film takes place during daylight-the whole film! I do like me some daylight horror, although you'll notice I said 'admirable', not 'good'. It would have been good, but the film's pacing weighs the daylight horror aspect down. The pacing isn't awful, but it isn't very good.

The whole final third of this movie is the characters making lots of stupid decisions And the end reveal is pretty stupid (how the sweet hell does an operation to make planes stealthier thanks to light tricks destroy time?). The reveal, while stupid, does however make lots of the weird stuff that happens make a lot of sense. The story comes together very well, once you think about all the little things!

Bloody New Year seems to get called an Evil Dead ripoff, and it really isn't-sort-of. I'd classify it like I did with Demon Wind-Bloody New Year is almost, but not entirely an Evil Dead ripoff. The plots are VERY different, as are the characters, and the situation in which the evil stuff is happening. The 'zombies' in this film though are a bit like Deadites, and there are a couple of Sam Raimi-style POV shots here and there, but that's it.

The theme, while good, doesn't fit the movie's tone at all! Some horror movies can definitely pull off a disparate soundtrack, but Bloody New Year doesn't. Still, the flm at least has a rockin' 50's style soundtrack (courtesy of duo/band [I don't know which] Cry No More)

The effects are a mixed bag. Some are good, like the not-Deadite make-up, and some rewind shots are used to good effect (as in, pool balls rearranging themselves, shattered china reforming, etc.), but others are not so good, namely, a partial dismemberment, and a scene where a lift eats someone.

So, in closing, I guess I recommend this movie, but that's assuming you can even find the damn thing! For the longest time, I thought Bloody New Year was only available on old VHS's that run upwards of 40 bucks on eBay, but it actually is on DVD-with label Redemption (which specializes in Jean Rollin and Jess Franco films). But even then, there are only two, count 'em, TWO DVD copies of this film on eBay, one of them costing about 50 bucks, the other costing...wait for it...TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS! And I couldn't find the film at all on Redemption DVD's website. So, yeah, I wouldn't bother with this film. Try watching a double feature of The Evil Dead, and some random British horror flick instead...

Yep, May Monster Madness, a blogathon held by Annie Walls, Emma from Little Gothic Horrors, and Ked from Something Wicked this Way Comes, is back again! It's back again tomorrow! I would have made a post about this sooner, but I had internet trouble for a short while (I'll elaborate in my upcoming Parks and Recreation review). I have a lot lined up for it this year, like Australian horror, to robocop vs coke smuggling vampire gangsters, to Italian horror, and lots more!

Here are all the other people participating in MMM this year...

1.	Annie Walls	15.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	29.	Professor Z
2.	Magaly Guerrero	16.	Entertaining Interests	30.	Dark Rosaleen
3.	Stephen Tremp	17.	Emily Unraveled	31.	The Beveled Edge
4.	Pagan Culture	18.	Cinematic Catharsis	32.	Candilynn Fite
5.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	19.	Unnatural Selections	33.	Jason Lloyd
6.	QueenCicada	20.	GingerRead Review	34.	Diane Riggins
7.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	21.	Carmen Jenner Author	35.	Lori Parker
8.	Something WicKED this way comes...	22.	Book Me!	36.	Coffintree Hill
9.	Little Gothic Horrors	23.	Design du Jour	37.	Tasha's Thinkings
10.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	24.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	38.	Stuff! Also, Things.
11.	Kweeny Todd	25.	FIRE IT UP! Beer-fueled Horror Musings	39.	Lexa Cain
12.	This and that...	26.	Shah Wharton	40.	Roland Yeomans
13.	Lynda @ The Auld Grey Mare	27.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	41.	Real Queen of Horror
14.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	28.	Holly's Horrorland

Sorry for the wait, everyone! I couldn't post anything for the first couple of days of the blogathon because my sister was over.

As an Australian, I always find Aussie horror fun! It's not often that I see it at all, because it's a VERY small genre, and it's always fun to see a horror film from my own country, and seeing the characters talk with my accent!

Today I'll be looking at Inn of the Damned. This movie comes on a double feature DVD with another Aussie horror film, that I'll be looking at later today

Inn of the Damned starts off with a businessman, Cummings (John Morris), who's being led to an inn to stay for the night by Biscayne (Robert Quilter), who is, unbeknownst to Cummings, is a murderous outlaw. Despite Biscayne's objections, Cummings also brings along a prostitute to spend the night with him. Later, at the inn, which is run by a German couple-Caroline (Judith Anderson) and Lazar Straulle (Joseph Furst) when Cummings and the hooker fall asleep, they are both brutally murdered...

The next day, after having a discussion with Caroline about a deal they have going, Biscayne and his cowardly cohort Parr (John Meilon) plan a robbery. They pull it off (in a strangely comic scene) and get away. On their trail, however, is Cincaid (Alex Cord), an American bounty hunter.

The duo split up and agree to meet elsewhere. A little later, Parr is discovered by Cincaid and Moore (Tony Bonner), a trooper. Parr spills the beans and tells Cincaid that Biscayne is at a nearby waterfall. The two lawmen head there (and are told to steer clear of the nearby inn by both Parr, and a random guy).

They find Biscayne, and after a fight, Biscayne is captured, and later killed by Cincaid when he tries to escape.

A short while later, Moore goes to the inn to ask about the missing Cummings, and while he plans on leaving, the couple convince him to stay. NNNNOOOOO! You moron, Moore! You're gonna die! And when he falls asleep, the murderous couple kill Moore...Not that you'd know, since his death is offscreen! *grrr*.

Elsewhere, the trooper colonel goes to confront Cincaid, who he thinks has gone too far. Cincaid is with a hooker in a hotel room, eating peaches off her chest (Um...yeah...), when the colonely busts in. And then, after the colonel sees Biscayne's corpse propped up in a chair, we get a hilarious line courtesy of the hotel manager-"This is a respectable hotel! We never allow corpses in here!".

The next day, three people go to the inn, and once they're all dispatched, Cincaid gets suspicious and goes to the inn, ready to find out what sinister things are going on there...

So, was Inn of the Damned any good? Partly.

While the movie isn't mute, there isn't a huge amount of dialogue. In many scenes, there's no talking at all, and it's the music that does the talking. A lot. Too much! There is too much goddamn scoring in this film! It's especially annoying because the same tune is played almost half a dozen times during the film's run! While it is overused, the film's soundtrack is good. As for the movie's pace, it's very slow, but never boring, thankfully.

The film has no gore (minus one Sam Peckinpah-syle gunshot killing), and is only slighly violent. This isn't a big problem by any means, but the lack of many death scenes is! Three characters who go to the inn die offscreen! It somewhat works for the two female characters due to a reveal in a scene with the insane Caroline, but it's still disappointing.

Inn of the Damned is really only partly horror. It's more of a western mixed with some horror elements. So, for those who were wondering, no, this western/horror hybrid is NOT creepier than Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter. Also, there's one really out of place comedy scene!

The acting is all decent. Alex Cord makes for a fun leading man, and Robert Quilter is good as Biscayne. Joseph Furst, however, is wasted, and as someone who has seen the only surviving episode of Doctor Who-The Underwater Menace, I know first-hand just how much Joseph Furst can overact!

The biggest problem of Inn of the Damned is the plot. For the first half-hour of the film, it follows the murderous outlaw Bindayne, then when he's taken down by Cincaid, the plot stops to a dead halt. We follow Cincaid doing random stuff for a while, then some more people finally arrive at the inn, then, a long while later, we FINALLY get to the climax with Cincaid vs the couple. At two hours, Inn of the Damned is too long, especially considering the bare bones plot-There's a couple who run an inn, and kill anyone who stays. That's it! And it's never explained why the couple kill people. Not in the well-done, mysterious kind of way, but in the 'this movie feels like a skeleton script' way.

So, in closing, while it feels like a skeleton script, I do recommend Inn of the Damned to anyone interested in Aussie horror! Later today I'll be looking at Night of Fear, a very strange little Aussie film!...

1.	Annie Walls	16.	GingerRead Review	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
2.	Magaly Guerrero	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	32.	Lexa Cain
3.	Stephen Tremp	18.	Book Me!	33.	Roland Yeomans
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	19.	Design du Jour	34.	Real Queen of Horror
5.	QueenCicada	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	35.	Procrastonaut
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	21.	Shah Wharton	36.	Ms Misantropia
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	23.	Holly's Horrorland	38.	Dr. Theda
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	24.	Professor Z	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
10.	Kweeny Todd	25.	The Beveled Edge	40.	TF Walsh
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	26.	Candilynn Fite	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	27.	Diane Riggins	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
13.	Entertaining Interests	28.	Lori Parker	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
14.	Emily Unraveled	29.	Coffintree Hill	44.	KristenHead
15.	Unnatural Selections	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen

Now THIS is a weird little film! Night of Fear is probably the very first Aussie horror film, and it has no dialogue, and is only fifty minutes long!

Night of Fear is about a woman who crashes her car in a forest where a mentally deranged serial killer is on the loose...

As some people say, this film is partly like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The plots aren't similar at all, other than both involving a manchild serial killer, but just like TCM, Night of Fear has a grittily realism to it. This film, however, is lacking a certain something, and it's nowhere near as creepy as TCM. Probably because The Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn't just forty minutes of Sally Hardesty running from Leatherface. Night of Fear does have one really creepy part though, involving a skull, and what it used to look like before rats got involved.

As there's no dialogue (minus a few words on a radio) beside grunts and screams, the soundtrack does all the talking, which is a good thing sometimes, and an awful thing at other times, as the soundtrack can get pretty goofy in how over the top it is. Also, just when I thought that the movie was lacking opening credits (which would have made the film creepier), some really over the top opening credits started up, seven minutes in.

There's little to no gore/violence, but what there is is very good!

Norman Yemm is good as the deranged killer, and Carla Hoogeveen is good at acting scared, albeit a bit over the top.

There's one REALLY stupid moment at the start of the film, when Briony Behets' character, who's lost in the woods, arrives at the killer's house. She knocks on the door, and doesn't hear the killer clomping up behind her in thick boots with huge metal straps on them!

Also, the ending is pretty stupid. Carla Hoogeveen's character faints when she just sees a load of rats. Considering what that leads to, she was a very dumb character. There's also a stupid moment at the end, when the police look over the killer's huse, see mops soaked in blood, and leave, thinking that nothing's wrong! MORONS!

There's also one nonsensical bit when Carla Hoogeveen's character crashes her car. When she gets out, she sees the killer approaching, and she's scared as hell and bolts back into her car...even though she has zero reason to believe the guy is a killer! Lucky for her that he was!

There is one scene that made me laugh. Carla Hoogeveen's character is in her car being attacked by the killer, who's got his arm through the open window. She's having trouble with him because windows needed to be wound up back then! Thinking of the very convenient buttons we use for car windows nowadays, the scene amused me.

Another goofy scene is when the car crash breaks through a dead end sign, and the camera 'subtly' cuts to the the broken part of the sign now reading 'dead'!

So, to finish, this is a fun little oddity short film. It's not perfect at all, and probably would have worked better if it was a proper movie, but I still recommend it.

1.	Annie Walls	16.	GingerRead Review	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
2.	Magaly Guerrero	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	32.	Lexa Cain
3.	Stephen Tremp	18.	Book Me!	33.	Roland Yeomans
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	19.	Design du Jour	34.	Real Queen of Horror
5.	QueenCicada	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	35.	Procrastonaut
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	21.	Shah Wharton	36.	Ms Misantropia
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	23.	Holly's Horrorland	38.	Dr. Theda
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	24.	Professor Z	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
10.	Kweeny Todd	25.	The Beveled Edge	40.	TF Walsh
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	26.	Candilynn Fite	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	27.	Diane Riggins	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
13.	Entertaining Interests	28.	Lori Parker	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
14.	Emily Unraveled	29.	Coffintree Hill	44.	KristenHead
15.	Unnatural Selections	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen

http://www.anniewalls.com/p/may-monster-madness-hunt.html

Sorry for the wait everyobody, my internet conked out for some reason for several hours, so I couldn't post this until now.

Ah, it only took three movies before I got to an Australian nature-strikes-back movie! Unfortunately, 1978's Long Weekend contains no scenes of wombats punching people in the shin, or koalas dropkicking tourists and violently removing their necks. It's a very different kind of beast than stuff like, say, Food of the Gods, Frogs, Day of the Animals, Slugs, etc. The killer wildlife is largely in the background in Long Weekend, which is almost a good thing, but more of a bad thing...

Also, who wouldn't rather watch a film about killer koalas?! They're already vicious bastards-think how they'll act if exposed to sinister chemicals, or something of that ilk! It'd be awesome! And the movie could also contain the sinister, rarely-seen species-Drop Bears! A terrifying breed of animals that already have a taste for human flesh in real life! What? Why are you staring at me like that?! Drop Bears do exist! We Aussies didn't just make them up to scare tourists! That's ridiculous!

So, Long Weekend starts off with near-estranged and very unhappy couple Peter (Peter Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) heading off to a beach to go on a camping.

Soon after carelessly tossing a still-lit cigarette out his car window and into some bush, Peter gets freaked out when he accidentally runs down a kangaroo

The locals strangely tell Peter that they've never heard of any beach nearby, and he leaves with what he bought-a huge box of beer! THAT'S how you can tell that this movie is Australian! Look at how much beer Peter bought for a weekend camping trip! haha!

The couple continue driving through the night, but when Marcia sees a familiar landmark (a directional arrow engraved into a tree), she angrily assumes that they've been driving in circles. Peter disagrees though, claiming to have been driving straight ahead the whole drive since the previous arrow. They stop the car and decide to find the beach during the day.

Come morning, the couple arrive at the beach, and set up camp.

Despite their hostility to each-other during the previous night, the couple seem very loving. That doesn't last long, however. Soon strange things start happening. After Marcia sprays a mass of ants in her way with pesticide, she nearly gets skewered when Peter's spear-gun goes off on its own, despite being on safety, then the frozen chicken they have thawing for lunch goes off way faster than it should've, and later, after Marcia has grown more and more impatient about what she sees as a boring camping trip, a strange wailing is heard on and off, and Peter is attacked by an eagle, which causes Marcia to cruelly break an eagle egg they found..

Peter also spots another van a short distance away, but he leaves, and when he comes back to investigate, the van's gone. After a night of being bitten by a possum, Peter now wants to leave as badly as Marcia, but he wants to go to the van on the beach first (severely angering Marcia). When he investigates nearby, all he finds is an abandoned camp. Then, after seeing a wave breaking, Peter sees the top of the van in the ocean. He swims in, and find bodies in the van.

Soon, things gradually get worse and worse for the hostile couple as nature strikes back!...

...Or not, since this movie's climax isn't very good at all!

The crux of Long Weekend is the couple, especially since other than a few minor characters in a bar for a few minutes, the only people in the film at all are Marcia and Peter. So, luckily the acting by John Hargreaves and Briony Behets is very good! The two characters are very toxic to each-other, and also don't give much of a shit about nature. Peter shows enough compassion towards animals to be shaken when he runs one down, and to love his dog, but he doesn't give a damn about tossing lit cigarettes out the car window and into some bush, or about shooting glass bottles up in the ocean. Plus, as well as having a bad habit of using a loaded rifle as a telescope, he likes shooting randomly all around him (sometimes quoting westerns!) like freakin' crazy! Did he bring enough fucking ammo?! He must have brought close to a hundred rounds with him! Dude, you're having a long weekend camping trip with your wife, not liberating a predator camp in Val Verde!

The film's musical scoring is mostly good, but some of it sounds like the composers were torturing guitar strings!

Long Weekend isn't very atmospheric to begin with (in my opinion) as nothing's wrong, minus some locals trying to divert the couple away, and the strange repetition of a directional arrow carved into a tree. As the film goes on, not much happens at all really. I did think the movie dragged at first, but after a while, I got over that, and once it got to the last half-hour, the film really started being eerie! But then the ending came and retroactively ruined everything! There's not much animal action over the course of the film, but since there's not much in the final ten minutes, the movie as a whole started to piss me off! Especially thanks to the finale's other problems!

The biggest problem with Long Weekend is that it focuses too much on Marcia and Peter's relationship, and not enough on nature and animals. Animals are barely focused on for a long while, and do almost nothing to the couple for well over an hour! And even then, they don't do much at all!

The movie's ending is also really poorly handled...

*mild SPOILERS*

We never see Marcie die! We see her running away from the car and into the night after a chase with birds, then BAM, we see her body in the scrub come morning! And as if having a character die offscreen wasn't bad enough, Peter's death is way too abrupt! He's mildy pestered by nature, and before anything can happen to him at all, he's hit by a truck. CUE END CREDITS.

*mild SPOILERS*

I guess I recommend Long Weekend, because, while it has issues, it does have good qualities too.

So, as this movie teaches, I think I will pay more respect to nature and all the lovely animals in this country!......Nah, if I see a Huntsman spider in my house, it's deader than Dillinger!...

1.	Annie Walls	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	33.	Roland Yeomans
2.	Magaly Guerrero	18.	Book Me!	34.	Real Queen of Horror
3.	Stephen Tremp	19.	Design du Jour	35.	Procrastonaut
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	36.	Ms Misantropia
5.	QueenCicada	21.	Shah Wharton	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	38.	Dr. Theda
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	23.	Holly's Horrorland	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	24.	Professor Z	40.	TF Walsh
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	25.	The Beveled Edge	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
10.	Kweeny Todd	26.	Candilynn Fite	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	27.	Diane Riggins	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	28.	Lori Parker	44.	KristenHead
13.	Entertaining Interests	29.	Coffintree Hill	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen
14.	Emily Unraveled	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	46.	Evalina Maria
15.	Unnatural Selections	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
16.	GingerRead Review	32.	Lexa Cain

Jaws on Trotters! That's what the making-of special feature on my DVD of 1984 Australian horror/thriller flick Razorback is called, and it sure is a great description of this movie!

Razorback, one of the first films directed by former music video director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Blue Ice), and is about a giant razorback pig roaming in the outback, destroying whatever, or whoever's in its way...

The movie opens at a homestead nearby the town of Gamulla, where Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr), a local, is looking after his baby grandson. They're having a good night, but things take a turn for the worse when the house is totally demolished by a freakishly large feral boar, which carries the baby away to its death.

Cullen is put on trial, and, refusing to believe his story of a giant pig, most people assume that Cullen murdered his grandson. The trial starts, and naturally, this is small town Australia, so the town's courtroom is single-storey, smaller than my house, and besieged by flies!

Cullen's story is laughed at, but he's released anyway, due to lack of evidence that he killed his grandson.

Two years later, American journalist Beth Winters (Judy Morris), who specializes in cases about animal cruelty, goes from New York to Australia. She goes to Gamulla to ask around about the illegal slaughtering of kangaroos, which doesn't please the locals one bit, namely Benny (Chris Haywood) and Dicko (David Argue), two brothers who run a meat-packing factory-abattoir together, who toss darts near Beth's head.

In most countries, that'd be considered a threat, but here, that's just a traditionial Aussie greeting*!

*I may or may not be slightly embellishing that.

Soon after, Beth follows the brothers to the meat-packing factory and snatches several photos of them doing their gory job. They see what she's doing and chase her, but she escapes. She's not so lucky later that night, however, as when she's in a secluded location, the brothers drive up and ram her car up, and are about to rape her when the razorback shows up. They make a fast getaway, and Beth is...Well fuck you too, movie, for wasting my goddamn time with this Beth character!

Yep, the film establishes Beth's character, follows her for close to half-an-hour, and then suddenly kills her! Movie, that worked for Psycho, it doesn't for you! *seethe*

A short time later, Beth's husband Carl (Gregory Harrison) arives in Gamulla, intent on finding out what happened to Beth. Carl locates Jake Cullen, and the two have a talk. Cullen recommends that Carl start his search at the meat packaging, so Carl heads there, pretending to be an opal miner, and talks with Benny and Dicko.

The three go out for a kangaroo hunt come nightfall, and once the injure a kangaroo, the disgusted Carl puts the animal out of its misery. The brothers, who wanted to take the kangaroo back to the factory alive, so it wouldn't be as stiff as a board while they processed it, are annoyed with Carl, and leave him behind with the animal and some carving implements, so he can skin and gut the animal.

Carl instead goes to sleep, and once he comes too, a boar stampede starts up, forcing Carl up a windmill, then into the outback.

Carl stumbles around the outback, and then suddenly WHAT THE HELL!

Huh?! Has Carl phased into the universe of Robot Unicorn Attack?! Or the Jawa-minions' planet from Phantasm?! WHY ARE HORSE SKELETONS BREAKING OUT OF THE EARTH AND ATTACKING CARL?!

Carl comes to, and continues walking until he comes across a house. He approaches it and stumbles in on a woman (Arkie Whiteley) who's having a shower...outside! Lady, what the hell?! Who showers outside, and in broad daylight?! He collapses, and when he comes to, the woman, Sarah, an associate of Jake Cullen's, who talks with him. Once Carl mentions vaguely seeing a giant boar, Sarah quickly calls Jake over. Now having a rough idea of where the beast that kiled his grandson and ruined his life is, Jake goes on the hunt...

So, what did I think of Razorback? Well, for a start, the killing of Beth was just pointless! For one, we could have spent those 25 minutes following the real main character, and also, the film already had an Ahab-type, it didn't need two! As opposed to Psycho, where the killing of Marion Crane really jumpstarted the plot, Beth's fake main character seemed very unneeded. I did become accustomed to the protagonist switch eventually, thanks to Gregory Harrison's acting. I still find it really annoying though.

The acting is all good, the highlights being Gregory Harrison, Arkie Whiteley, and Bill Kerr. Chris Haywood and David Argue are good as the psycho brothers, but when it comes to laughing, they're weirdly terrible.

One of the best things about Razorback is the soundtrack, composed by Icehouse's Iva Davies (all my readers outside of Australia, you're scratching your head right now aren't you. It's to be expected. Just like I didn't expect anyone outside of Australia would get the Eskimo Joe joke in Django Unchained!). The scoring is plain fantastic at times!

One of the bigger problems I had with Razorback is that it's WAY too over-stylised! No more-so is this apparent than in Benny and Dicko's factory (which appears pretty frequently)-it's always really dark, there's smoke and blue lighting everywhere, and there's even an industrial fan with red light pouring up from under it! This is what happens when a music video director forgets he's directing a damn movie! The effects and visuals during the halucination seuence are great though!

The biggest problem is that the killer pig is barely in the damn film! That wouldn't be too bad, considering the killer shark was barely in Jaws, but Jaws was at least about a shark! Razorback is mostly about Carl either doing random stuff, walking through the outback, and asking about his wife. And when the film's nearing its climax, he's going after Benny and Dicko for revenge, not the pig!

A couple of little things about Razorback are the really weird segues it uses from time to time, and at one point, there's a jaws-style zoom-in!

Onto the monstrous razorback himself, the effects for it look very good!...From what can be seen of them! The razorback is almost never onscreen for longer than a split second. The effects whenever houses are attacked and torn apart are also very good!

So, while it did annoy the living hell out of me at times, this is the first movie of my May Monster Madness Aussie horror run that I can wholeheartedly recommend! It's got great effects, greater scoring, fine acting, and some kickass action! What more could you want?!

1.	Annie Walls	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	33.	Roland Yeomans
2.	Magaly Guerrero	18.	Book Me!	34.	Real Queen of Horror
3.	Stephen Tremp	19.	Design du Jour	35.	Procrastonaut
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	36.	Ms Misantropia
5.	QueenCicada	21.	Shah Wharton	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	38.	Dr. Theda
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	23.	Holly's Horrorland	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	24.	Professor Z	40.	TF Walsh
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	25.	The Beveled Edge	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
10.	Kweeny Todd	26.	Candilynn Fite	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	27.	Diane Riggins	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	28.	Lori Parker	44.	KristenHead
13.	Entertaining Interests	29.	Coffintree Hill	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen
14.	Emily Unraveled	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	46.	Evalina Maria
15.	Unnatural Selections	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
16.	GingerRead Review	32.	Lexa Cain

So, here I am to continue my Aussie horror-athon with 1987's Dangerous Game, which I found on Youtube (By the way, good luck if you ever try and search for this film online on eBay, or something of the like! You'll be totally swamped by hundreds, if not thousands of results for The Most Dangerous Game (any damn version!), and the Harvey Keitel-Madonna film of the same same). The film is about a psycho cop hellbent on revenge against a group of university students.

Dangerous Game opens at univresity, where students and friends Jack (Marcus Graham), David (Miles Buchanan) and Tony (John Polson) are talking.

By the way, as if the guy's hilariously old computer wasn't funny enough, look at how this guy is dressed and done-up!

Yehp, it's the 80's alright!

As the day goes on, the three guys make friends with two women-Ziggy (Sandie Lillingston) and Kathryn (Kathryn* Walker), both of whom have a crush on David and Jack, respectively

*Really, movie? Well that must've been a stretch!

Jack, however, is continuously victimised by Murphy (Stephen Grives), a cop who hates Jack's guts, due to issues he had with Jack's (now deceased) Police Superintendant father.

After Murphy moves Jack's car into a No Parking zone, then tickets him for it, Jack has had enough, and he goes to the police station to report him. Just as he arrives, a crazed Murphy, speeding faster than the Millenium Falcon, crashes his squad bike into several others, trashing them.

Holy shit, Murphy is fucking postal! He's one insane cunt-stable!

Murphy is dragged out of the wreckage and brought to his boss. Murphy is suspended (yaheah!), and is told that he'll have to have appointments with a psychiatrist. After an outburst in the locker room, a disturbed Murphy leaves the station.

While Murphy has a breakdown at home, the group go to David's house, where he's trying to prove that he can hack into any security system. David hacks into the nearby Markwell's Department Store, and the disbelieving group want to see for themselves what David's hacking has done to the store. In order to win the bet, David opens the back security door, and the gang head off to look.

They drive to the department store, and unbeknownst to them, they are followed by Murphy. The security door does open, and they go inside. They traipse around the dark, empty store for a few minutes, and are about to leave when Murphy covertly shuts the security door with the nearby manual override switch, then steals the key.

Now that the gang are trapped in the store, they decide to entertain themselves until morning, then pretend to be customers when the store opens. Soon enough, a few weird things happen ('courtesy' of Murphy), like the lift moving up and down, or the lift phone ringing, and no-one being on the line when the group answer it.

Unluckily, Murphy doesn't wait long before getting the full attention of the group, and the psycho cop begins his insane rampage!...

Dangerous Game is like a slasher film without a body count. While not all of the group make it out alive, most of them survive. The film isn't about Murphy sneaking around, picking the gang off one by one, but rather about the gang trying their best to survive against Murphy's onslaught. And it definitely works!

The acting is all very good, with the standout being Stephen Grives as psycho cop Murphy.

The film does a great job in setting up the character of Murphy. Just twenty minutes in, and we already know more about Murphy that we ever find out about, say, Jason Voorhees, or Michael Myers in a dozen films! That's why I will always prefer these kinds of movie slasher killers!

However, it does get a little silly at times how much damage Murphy can handle, and how tough he is! Not to the extent of Roy the Paramedic in Friday the 13th Part V (who could crush people's skulls with only a belt, and break down doors like they were made of plywood, even though he wasn't really Jason and didn't share his somewhat supernatural prowess), but still pretty ridiculous!

The film's main characters were likeable enought that I was kinda bummed out to see one of them die. Here's how I see it-If I like a slasher film's characters enough that I wish there was a comedy TV show about them, then I'll preferably want them to live* (and if I don't, well then bring on the carnage!).

*The only other slasher film that I feel this way about thus-far is April Fool's Day.

Onto Kathryn, specifically. She did barely anything during the film, but I was pleased with her character by the end, considering her hulking out at Murphy!

As well as Murphy's durability, the other ridiculous thing about the movie is how impossible it is for the characters to get out of a department store! It's just a department store, not a fucking fortress! This place is just as stupidly tough as the apartment building from Demons 2!...Ok, not THAT tough! That was, after all, by far one of the stupidest things from that movie...

Also, I may be wrong, but what the hell kind of department store stocks crossbows and guns?! Either they do, they did (this was the 80's, after all), or this film is just stupid.

The film had one big holy shit moment, and that was during Murphy's breakdown. His tv was on, and playing was...Strike of the Panther! You know, the Aussie Commando-type movie? About Perth-bound karate spy Jason Blade? No?...

So, to finish, I had a lot of fun with Dangerous Game! I have no idea why it was called Dangerous Game, but it's the first Aussie horror I've reviewed for May Monster Madness that I can wholeheartedly recommend, and didn't piss me off in any way! That's gotta count for something good now, doesn't it!...

1.	Annie Walls	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	33.	Roland Yeomans
2.	Magaly Guerrero	18.	Book Me!	34.	Real Queen of Horror
3.	Stephen Tremp	19.	Design du Jour	35.	Procrastonaut
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	36.	Ms Misantropia
5.	QueenCicada	21.	Shah Wharton	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	38.	Dr. Theda
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	23.	Holly's Horrorland	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	24.	Professor Z	40.	TF Walsh
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	25.	The Beveled Edge	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
10.	Kweeny Todd	26.	Candilynn Fite	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	27.	Diane Riggins	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	28.	Lori Parker	44.	KristenHead
13.	Entertaining Interests	29.	Coffintree Hill	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen
14.	Emily Unraveled	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	46.	Evalina Maria
15.	Unnatural Selections	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
16.	GingerRead Review	32.	Lexa Cain

Well I've had a great time with May Monster Madness this year! I WAS planning on reviewing a random bunch of horror flicks, but after I reviewed the DVD Aussie-horror double feature of Inn of the Damned and Night of Fear, I realized that I owned quite a few more Australian horror movies, so that theme totally overtook everything else!

So, after ploughing through giant killer pigs, a murderous outback couple, a postal cop slasher film, one hell of a weird oddity of a film, and a nature strike back film that featured nowhere near as much wombats and koalas murdering people, I'm now done with May Monster Madness for this year! I would have also reviewed Bad Boy Bubby, but didn't because-1: I'm really not sure if it'd count; and 2: I was too busy watching Eurovision 2013 tonight to write the review.

Last year I did twelve posts, but I only did five this year. That's because I was a lot busier with other stuff this May! Hence, I've only read a few posts from other May Monster Madness entrees. Well it's time to change that! I have a lot of reading ahead of me!...

Same time next year!...

1.	Annie Walls	17.	Carmen Jenner Author	33.	Roland Yeomans
2.	Magaly Guerrero	18.	Book Me!	34.	Real Queen of Horror
3.	Stephen Tremp	19.	Design du Jour	35.	Procrastonaut
4.	Toni @ My Book Addiction	20.	Not This Time, Nayland Smith	36.	Ms Misantropia
5.	QueenCicada	21.	Shah Wharton	37.	Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles
6.	Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh	22.	Tim Brannan, The Other Side	38.	Dr. Theda
7.	Something WicKED this way comes...	23.	Holly's Horrorland	39.	Jenny's House of Horrors
8.	Little Gothic Horrors	24.	Professor Z	40.	TF Walsh
9.	Maynard Morrissey's HORROR MOVIE DIARY	25.	The Beveled Edge	41.	It Came From The Man Cave!
10.	Kweeny Todd	26.	Candilynn Fite	42.	Voodoo Ghoul
11.	L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off the Edge	27.	Diane Riggins	43.	The Moon is a Dead World
12.	The Dark World of MJ Preston	28.	Lori Parker	44.	KristenHead
13.	Entertaining Interests	29.	Coffintree Hill	45.	Memoirs Of A Scream Queen
14.	Emily Unraveled	30.	Tasha's Thinkings	46.	Evalina Maria
15.	Unnatural Selections	31.	Stuff! Also, Things.
16.	GingerRead Review	32.	Lexa Cain

Warning! This review contains spoilers for Iron Man 3 and 4...

Iron Man 3 centres on multi-millionare and scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and his dangerously unstable Extremis project, while Iron Man 4 focuses on a terror threat by The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) that's shaking America to its core!...

...Wait, they're the same movie?! Oh yeah, my bad.

Despite Iron Man 3 being a good movie, I was REALLY pissed off with it, thanks to the ridiculous twist it has halfway through!

So, The Mandarin is a comic book character who is one of Iron Man's most popular and recurring enemies, and he was due to be in Iron Man 3. After the AWESOME trailers, people were hyped to see The Mandarin on the big screen for the first time!...And were then eye-mutilatingly disappointed/horrified when they got to Iron Man 3's halfway point, where it's revealed that The Mandarin in this movie was just an actor hired by the true villain to serve as a diversion! The film might as well have said: "Dear Iron Man fans. Get fucked!"

A lot of what makes the twist so infuriating is that minus a couple of short scenes, the movie is never about The Mandarin. It's always about Killian and Extremis, and it never tries to hide the fact that he's the movie's big bad. Even people who don't know the twist going in would be able to see it coming because of this!

Also, the scenes with The Mandarin are GREAT, tense stuff, with awesome acting, and great story! They were so good that a movie about them would have been awesome! But instead, we got an insulting twist, and probably the biggest missed opportunity in all of the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe'.

What's worse is some of the people who try and justify the change. I've read some claim that The Mandarin is a one-note, outdated, nothing, heavily racist character who could not be salvaged for a movie in any way! Anyone who's thought that needs to have their shins broken! Not only is The Mandarin NOT just a one-note nothing villain, but he sure as hell isn't a racist caricature! Given that he was created in the 60's, he was probably invented by writers with a yellow peril mindset, and I don't know if the character was racist back then (it's likely, given what comics were like back then), but since then, The Mandarin has been more than just some cookie cutter Fu Manchu villain! Even the sometimes-mess that was Iron Man: Armoured Adventures handled The Mandarin pretty well-and fucking characters up was that show's forte!*

*That is to say, it was great at screwing up its characters in its own continuity, not in the comic's continuity.

Another supremely annoying thing that some people are saying is that the movie DOES have a proper Mandarin in the form of Aldrich Killian, thanks to a moment near the end when he yells "I am The Mandarin!". THAT WAS A FIGURE OF SPEECH! What he meant was that he was the power behind the puppet that was Ben Kingley's Mandarin!

They also say that Killian is simply a different interpretation of The Mandarin, and that we should be happy about it...Uh-huh, yeah right! I don't even have to point out why that's a load of shit! Aldrich Killian bears literally nothing in common to The Mandarin, so anyone who condescendingly calls me out for "daring to not love this movie simply because its interpretation of The Mandarin is not %100 percent accurate to the comics" can go stuff themselves!*

*Yeah, you'll notice that I'm pissed at a certain person! I'd provide a link, so you could see their awful article about Iron Man 3's Mandarin for yourself, but I'd rather not. I'd probably feel like an asshole if I did that.

Ben Kingsley's Mandarin may have lacked a few things that the Mandarin of the comics had, but he was still recognizable as The Mandarin, and I'm sure that interpretation would have done the character great justice if they'd let him have his own time to shine, and saved him for Iron Man 4, instead of destroying the character of The Mandarin in this continuity for the sake of a few jokes.

Soooo, time to get away from all that and talk about the rest of the movie.

For one, many people are complaining that the movie had barely any Iron Man action, and too much of suitless Tony Stark. To which I say, it totally did have enough! As far as I'm concerned, this movie definitely had enough Iron Man action. And anyway, the whole point of this film is how Tony does without a suit for a large portion of the film.

The movie DEFINITELY wasted AIM though! In the Iron Man comics-cartoons, etc., AIM is a huge evil corporation that's constantly making trouble for everyone! In this movie, AIM is just the name for Killian's company, and never resembles its comic counterpart in the slightest.

One other big problem is that the villain, Killian is barely developed. All you ever know about him is that he's a scientist, and he's evil. Also, his death is REALLY lackluster! Pepper just blasts him through a wall, and that's the last we ever see of him. The movie seems to assume he's dead, but considering what he survived involving Tony's explosive suit, I really doubt simply being blasted through a wall'd do any lasting damage!

Another issue is that characters Pepper, Rhodey, and Maya Hansen are very underused. Also, Tony's PTSD never affects the plot, it's just a couple of random scenes when he has anxiety attacks when New York is mentioned, so I have to wonder why it was even included! It would have been great if it played out more in the movie, but it didn't.

As for Extremis, it was handled well. Sure, Tony didn't get injected, and if he did, he wouldn't have been able to process information at super speed, nor could he have had near-telekinetic control over all technology, but Tony has his AI buddy JARVIS, as well as other handy gadgets, doing all those things for him anyway, so there was really no need for Extremis to have that ability.

So, that's enough outta me about Iron Man 3. I'll be back tomorrow with my reviews for The Addams Family, and Parks and Recreation!

When it comes to movies, it's always fun to rediscover childhood favourites that you haven't seen in forever! Such was the case with me and 1997 Chris Farley flick Beverly Hills Ninja!

I watched this movie all the time when I was a kid, but somehow forgot all about it as life went on. I recently remembered about it somehow, and after nostalgically remembering all about it, I tracked the movie down, and gave it a watch!

So is the movie actually any good, or did I just think it was back then because I was a dumb kid?...The former! Definitely the former!

The movie opens with a voiceover from the ninja clan's sensei (Soon Tek Oh), who relates the tale of the Great White Ninja, who, according to prophecy, will be a great ninja hero. He then goes on to tell about how a white baby in a chest washed along his dojo's shore from a shipwreck .

The child, Haru, grows up to be the black sheep of the ninja clan in more ways than one. Not only is he white, but he's overweight, a bit simpleminded, and very clumsy. After a (hilarious!) ninja training montage, the film cuts to the graduation of the clan's trainees to ninjas, save for Haru.

Later that night, the sensei and all the ninjas go out on a training excercise, leaving Haru alone to keep guard at the dojo.

While Haru's keeping watch, a woman, Sally Jones (Nicolette Sheridan) comes to the dojo, wanting help from the ninja clan. She suspects her boyfriend Martin Tanley of something, and, thinking he's a ninja, she hires Haru to investigate.

Haru goes off to the city on his own and locates Martin Tanley (Nathaniel Parker). He follows Tanley to a criminal deal. Tanley is buying 10,000 Yen plates from some guy, but the plates turn out to be of just one side of the Yen bill, as the other plates were stolen by other crooks. The angry Tanley shoots the seller, and kills him. Tanley dumps the body, which falls onto Haru's boat, and when Haru flees, he's seen by police, who think he's a murderer.

Haru manages to evade the police, and back at the dojo, the sensei reveals that 'Sally' is really named Alison Page, and he thinks that she decieved Haru in order to frame him. In order to prove himself to his clan, Haru goes off to Beverly Hills (thanks to a hotel lobbycard left by 'Sally') to find Martin Tanley and bring him to justice.

Haru arrives in Beverly Hills, and first goes to a hotel. After setting up shop in his hotel room, he befriends a bellboy, Joey Washington (Chris Rock), who is ecstatic to be meeting a real-life ninja. Haru teaches him a few tips on how to be a ninja, and soon after, Chris Rock vanishes from the movie, thankfully, because his voice is torture!

Haru soon locates 'Sally', and finds out that not only did she not set him up to be framed, but that she's dating Tanley so she can find incriminating evidence to have him arrested on, as he murdered her sister.

Meanwhile, as a gang war is brewing between Tanley's gang and the one that stole the other half of the plates, Haru's investigations get him, as well as Alison, in more and more danger...

Beverly Hills Ninja is pure slapstick, and it's incredibly entertaining slapstick! The plot is is simple, but well-written, and the ninja clan is so cool that this movie makes me depressed that ninjas stopped existing several centuries ago.

The film has plenty of action too, which is definitely a plus!

Chris Farley is great fun as Haru. He carries the film on his shoulder, and succeeds.

Nathaniel Parker is very good, albeit a bit underused as the film's villain. One thing's for sure, he's definitely not as bland as he was in that crappy Inspector Lynley Mysteries TV series!

Chris Rock is intensely annoying, and he'll make you want to tear your eyes and eardrums out, but he's only in the film for basically an extended cameo. Haru teaches Rock's character a few things, then tells him to not participate in the mission due to its danger, and Rock is absent for almost the rest of the movie! All good things must come to an end though, as he returns near the climax. He's put out of commission soon after though, so HOORAY!

The rest of the acting is all good. The only real problem in the acting department is Chris Rock.

The soundtrack is all great stuff! Namely that Kung Fu Fighting song (You KNOW the one I mean), which makes a cool fight scene even cooler! Though there's a cover of it over the end credits which is pretty meh.

So, to finish, if you're ever feeling down about the fact that secret clans of ninjas don't actually exist, just watch Beverley Hills Ninja on a loop! It'll give you the temporary ninja fix you need!

Night Stalker (2009)

Possession (1981)

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980)

Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris (1992)

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

Not This Time, Nayland Smith's Two Year Anniversary!

Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1986)

Harry Brown (2009)

Weekend at Bernie's (1989)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Bloody New Year (1987)

May Monster Madness is Here Again!...

[May Monster Madness]-Inn of the Damned (1975)

[May Monster Madness]-Night of Fear (1972)

[May Monster Madness]-Long Weekend (1978)

[May Monster Madness]-Razorback (1984)

[May Monster Madness]-Dangerous Game (1987)

May Monster Madness Has Come to an End Once More

Iron Man 3 (2013) and Iron Man 4 (2013)

Beverley Hills Ninja (1997)