Not This Time, Nayland Smith

Bikini beach party movies were big in the 60's, and it's cool that this particular series actually bothered to have fun, entertaining, and varied (from what I've read) plots, rather than just have samey stories, with each one be just of people at a beach in bikinis. If this entry is any indication, these films aren't one-note.

So, this is the sixth in a seven film series that tended to star Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello as couple Frankie (HOW ORIGINAL!) and Dee Dee, as well as other characters, including a goofy biker gang led by Eric von Zipper. How to Stuff a Wild Bikini has Frankie out in South East Asia on navy reserves, where he's banging every native girl with a pulse, yet doesn't want his girlfriend Dee Dee cheating on him, so he goes to a witchdoctor Bwana (Buster Keaton), to get a spell done to make sure that no man goes near Dee Dee. The spell takes the form of Cassandra (Beverly Adams), a beautiful, yet clumsy bombshell, who's meant to distract all men from Dee Dee. The plan would work, if not for ad exec Peachy (Mickey Rooney) discovering her and hiring her for his new girl next door ad image. A worker for the company, Ricky (Dwayne Hickman) is attracted to Dee Dee, and the two hit it off really well.

Meanwhile, biker Eric von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) falls for Cassandra, and as the two team up, they and Ricky and Dee Dee are in for a motorcycle race to decide the girl and boy next door...

This is definitely an entertaining sit! It's funny, is a cool musical, and most importantly, *ahem*, let me compose myself...BABES IN BIKINIS!

The acting is all good. My favourites were Annette Funicello and Alberta Nelson as biker lady Pus. Buster Keaton is amusing as witchdoctor Bwana, and the cameo at the end with Bwana's daughter is funny too. At least, it is until the nose twitch.

The musical numbers are all fine. The songs are catchy and memorable, but most are short. Not cripplingly short, but still not long enough. Either way, I had songs like American Boy, Healthy Girl, and Greatest on Mad Avenue in my head for a while! Still do as of writing this in fact!

The characters are all fine, although Cassandra not only doesn't get much character, but she all but vanishes from the movie at the halfway point, and pretty much only comes back when the race comes. If she was around for the whole movie, I'm sure her character would fare better, but as it stands, she's just a clumsy bikini broad who exists.

As for the character of Frankie, he's an asshole! He has no issues cheating on his girlfriend, but he's so paranoid that she might cheat on him that he has a magical spell performed to keep her away from all men.

Given that I know next to nothing about the previous entries in this series, as far as I know, this movie's treatment of the Frankie character could be a character assassination, or maybe not, since practically every previous entry in this serious was about Frankie trying to win Dee Dee back, so I guess he was always a dick.

As for Frankie Avalon's appearance in the movie, he's only present for about six minutes total. Some sources say that it's because he asked for more money than the producers were willing to pay, and thus was delegated to what basically amounts to an extended cameo, but it's more likely because he was working on another movie at the same time as this, Sergeant Deadhead. Keeping in tune with the latter possibility is in the ending credits, where they say "The producers of this film wish to extend a special thank you to Frankie Avalon". That doesn't really sound like the kind of thing producers would say to an actor they've put on punishment duty.

The plot to How to Stuff a Wild Bikini is fun, although the ending sucks.

extremely mild spoilers
Yeah, I consider spoiling the end of this particular movie to be an extremely mild spoiler!

This movie's ending sucks! Dee Dee ultimately breaks things off with Ricky, Frankie comes back, and the two stay together. That's bull. She should have ended up with Ricky! Frankie's a cheating dickhead! The only reason Dee Dee and Ricky don't get together by the end is because they had to have the status quo back for the next movie...buuut neither of them are in the next (and final) movie. I guess then that they just wanted fans of the series to be happy, even though Frankie'll probably end up going all "You don't like my music?" on Dee Dee at some point in their lives.

What also doesn't make sense is Cassandra and Eric parting ways.

Also, Ricky ends up with Cassandra at the end, but when they get to his place, she disappears. Uh, why? That was specifically what Bwana said he wouldn't make happen! I guess Ricky ain't gettin' a happily ever after then.

There are a couple of funny and stupid things about the movie, respectively. The first is the choice of food Dee Dee and Ricky have on their date-KFC!* Who eats KFC on a date? And with a massive bucket each? I couldn't eat a whole bucket like that of KFC, and I'm the type who strips a whole pizza down like a piranha for myself. Also, there are a couple of terrible green screens while characters are simply walking at a beach. And it's painfully obvious that they're only making motions, and not actually walking.

*KFC showed up in plenty of B-movie type flicks, because Colonel Sanders was apparently a big fan, and was willing to fund many such movies as long as they has product placement of KFC in them. I can't complain, KFC is worth product plamenting!...

So, yeah, despite the sucky ending, I absolutely recommend How to Stuff a Wild Bikini! It's great fun!

No, I'm not going to spell it 'pajama', America, it's 'pyjama'. Also, aluminium, not aluminum, and Herbs, with an AICH. The H is not silent!

Err, getting that out of the way, onto beach party flick Pyjama Party...

This movie is an entry in the Beach Party series, in the respect that it isn't. It isn't, but is made by the same people, has hot women in bikinis, and stars some familiar actors, albeit in different roles, although it does have the Rat Pack from all the other films.

I was really looking forwards to this after how much I enjoyed How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, but it was apparent very soon that this movie sucked. I debated turning it off only ten minutes in until a gang of certain characters showed up...

Despite the awesomeness that is Elsa Lanchester and Buster Keaton, I had zero interest in the film until Eric von Zipper and his Rat Pack showed up! But that made things worse, because that meant I had to sit through a movie I wouldn't like just for a select bunch of funny characters I do like. But I didn't. I switched the movie off. Sorry Alberta. I'm sure you were awesome.

When I saw that aliens were in this movie, I was surprised, although I've no idea why, since other entries in this series involve magic, and ghosts, as well as a tangentially connected movie with Vincent Price's girl bomb and bikini machine creating mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot. But still, the aliens really come out of left field.

The movie has a few guest stars, like an unfunny and annoying song that unfortunately stars Dorothy Lamour-Unfortunate because I like good ol' Dotty Lamour. And said musical number also has a cameo from a young Terri Garr and Toni Basil. Did any of you just have the same thought as I did? "Toni Basil? Singer of Hey, Mickey? Wasn't she in diapers in 1965?!". And the answer is yes, that Toni Basil, and no, she was born in 1943! Hey, Mickey is such a teen girl song, and even in the video clip, Basil is decked out in cheerleader garb, and she was forty?! And she's seventy now?! God, I feel old!

I ducked out about twenty minutes into this flick. I figure at a point I'll buy the Beach Party box-set, and when I get to Pyjama Party, I'll just fast-forward through all scenes that don't include the Rat Pack (maybe I'll watch the Elsa Lanchester scenes, but only maybe, because her character is linked heavily with the annoying dull plot I don't like).

Now, how about I close us out with some tunes from another sort-of-but-not Beach Party flick, Ski Party!...

Yeah, I'll just as quickly listen to a Leslie Gore song as I would heavy metal or hard rock, and I know the lyrics to Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows just as verbatim as the lyrics to Alice Cooper's Bed of Nails. I definitely have a taste for varied types of music, that's for sure!

Today, I'll be looking at the two Bad Lieutenant films, both crime movies involving a (kinda) crooked cop. One coming from the guy who made a film about a kung fu prostitute murderer, and a guy who kills hobos with a power drill, and the other from the man who gave us Nosferatu, and Aguirre: Wrath of God...

Abel Ferrara's Bad Lietuenant is about an unnamed lieutenant, and stuff happens involving a nun. That's it, basically. Nothing happens in this damn movie!...

When I first saw this some years ago, I really liked it! And now I hate its guts. Funny how things work out. I had the same reaction to The Hit.

Onto the good, Harvey Keitel acts the hell out of his role, and he is fantastic! His monologue at the end is awesome!

The film also has something from Keitel which is nothing new if you've seen The Piano.

As good as Keitel is in the role, the unnamed lieutenant is a dull character. Dull because we know nothing about him, and he has no character, or depth, he's just a druggie semi-crooked cop.

For the titular bad lieutenant, he's not that bad. Sure, he's addicted to drugs, and he stoops to stealing the stuff from crime scenes, but aside from that, he's not a killer, not a rapist, or a torturer, or psycho. He's a dick, but he ain't all that bad.

By the way, given he's a cop with at least three kids, you'd think he wouldn't have time for drugs and bookies.

The plot is barely there. The film is mostly just a bunch of stringed together random scenes of this cop's life.

Like I said above, the monologue near the end is great stuff. Unfortunately it's pretty unintentionally hollow, rather than insightful, given something annoying about the whole last act. Also, the "I've done so many bad things!" line comes across as clunky. It's a pretty unreadable line (if it doesn't seem that way seeing it there, it will if you see the film).

By far the biggest problem with Bad Lieutenant is that it's BORING! Many scenes are too drawn out, and the editing is scattershot. The direction is pretty good throughought, and great in the last half-hour. Tip of the hat to Ferrara for that at least.

If you want an example of this movie's boredom, here's one. There's one scene where the lieutenant and some chick (played by co-writer of Bad Lieutenant, and star of Ferrara's Ms. 45 Zoe Tamerlis Lund, the movie never bothers to tell us who she is) both take turns in shooting up heroin IN REAL TIME! It takes nearly five minutes, and there's no dialogue at all for the majority of the scene!

There's one strange scene, where after having a threeway with two prostitutes, a naked Harvey Keitel walks around tweeting like a bird. Yeah. He's bombed out on drugs, but the film doesn't show that, so unless you've read about the reason for his behaviour beforehand, you're gonna be very confused and weirded out!

There's also a really stupid scene where the Lieutenant takes out his big fuck-off magnum and literally shoots his car radio out in anger after losing a gamble! Now, I remembered this scene taking place late in the film, when his final gamble has failed, and he now owes hundreds of thousands to his bookie. While stupid, that would at least make sense, given how desperate he is. But no, the shooting scene is way before then, so it just comes across as hilarious.

The movie has lots to do with sport, so if you dislike sport as much as I do, then you'll be a touch annoyed. Also if you dislike sport, you have full license to fast-forward through the opening credits.
The film has some overwrought symbolism here and there, like the intercuts of Jesus on the cross during the rape scene.

I don't like the plot point of the nun forgiving her rapists, as I find it annoying. This nun is brutally raped and tortured, yet forgives her attackers, because religion, love, and stuff. However, that doesn't nearly piss me off as much as the ending, because the thing with the nun is just a bullshit decision from a character in the story, rather than the writer. The ending is total bullshit, given what happens with the rapists!

The film is dark and grim, and some find it pretty soul-crushing, but it left me unfazed. But I'm me, and I was left unfazed by a film where a woman vomits out her intestines, then makes love to them*. Emily of Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense hilariously said in a comment in a post that "I'd rather buy Abel Ferrara a puppy and ice cream cone and tell him the world isn't nearly as bad as he makes it seem." Yep, that's about right!

*That film may or may not exist.

I don't recommend Bad Lieutenant at all. It's a total snooze. Some people like it, and I once did, but now, I say stay away from it, and watch what I'm about to talk about...

Now, onto Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans...

The film is about Terence Mcdonagh (Nicolas Cage), a detective working in New Orleans (unfortunately Shadowman does not show up). During Hurricane Katrina, McDonagh injured his back when rescuing a prisoner stranded in a flooded jail cell, and is on constant medication, which he gets addicted to, as well as other drugs. McDonagh is promoted for his bravery to Lieutenant, and months later, he's assigned to the investigation of the massacre of a family...

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans isn't a sequel, nor is it technically a remake (although it absolutely could be seen as such), and it just shares the title with the 1992 movie, without Abel Ferrara's approval. About that, Ferrara was...slightly annoyed. That's a kind way of saying he wanted everyone involved in the film to die in a car crash. I'm not using an analogy, he actually said that! Herzog denied that he was ripping off, or drew inspiration from Ferrara's film, which sounds like a blatant freakin' lie! I have no idea why he bothered, as not only do the films share the same title, but both are about a crooked, drug-addicted cop with bookie problems, and there are even some similar scenes.

Further comparing the two films, while Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant is starkly realistic, Herzog's, while still realistic, is in fantasy land, if that makes any sense. The tone is very different, in a good way.

I can only hope that despite his justifiably pissed off attitude, Ferrara either saw the film and loved it, or will see the film at some point and love it.

The plot to Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is very good! It's well written, and it's a very enjoyable sit! You won't believe the movie's two hours long, as it goes by so fast. The atmosphere (the non-scary kind, I mean) is great, thanks to the locale, and the great score.

The film is very quotable ("To the break of dawn, baby, to the break of dawn!"-"What are those fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?!""Could I have my prescription, please?!"-"It's my lucky crack pipe. Do you have a lucky crack pipe?"-"Shoot him again, his soul's still dancing!" and many more), with numerous laugh-out-loud moments. The ending is a laugh riot! If you're used to grim cop movies, you're in for one hell of a surprise!

By the way, who knew the line "Do fish have dreams?" would be thematically relevant!

The acting's all great! Nicolas Cage turns in a fantastically kooky performance, Val Kilmer is depressingly out of shape here, but still a good actor, and everyone else is fine.

There is one problem I have with the film. Near the end, the first couple of minutes of a prior scene where McDonagh finds a young couple, hassles them for having drugs, and the girlfriend comes onto him to avoid getting arrested, etc., is played, for no reason. It's like a mistake happened in the editing process. Since it's not, I assume it meant to be metaphorical/symbolic of something, but of what? That McDonagh is still a bad guy, and hasn't changed? That sounds like it could be the reason, but that's bullcrap, as the whole climax and ending is just the freakin' opposite of that, so if that was the point, then the movie screws it over, or vice versa.

So, if you want to watch a Bad Lieutenant film, please, please make it the 2009 version! And if you want to watch a better Abel Ferrara film, then watch Driller Killer, or Ms. 45...

"Hey Cinderella, step in your shoe. I'll be your non-stop lover. Get it while you can. Your non-stop miracle, I'm your man. Get outta my dreams, get into my car"...Excuse me? What was I saying? Oh, A Nightmare On Elm Street! This is technically my first foray into reviewing this series. Technically in that I've reviewed two Bollywood ripoffs, but none of the official entries. Tonight, I'll be talking about second entry and series' black sheep, Freddy's Revenge...

Teenager Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family have just moved into 1425 Elm Street, former house of Nancy Thompson from the first movie. Jesse immediately begins having nightmares about the sinister Freddy Krueger, who starts to take over Jesse's body...

This is a good horror film and a decent entry in the Elm Street franchise, and it got a pretty bad rap when it first came out.

There are very few dream sequences, which is the main reason why this is considered to be the black sheep of the series. While dreams are the staple of the series, I don't mind that this movie tried to be different, as that's always the better option than doing a xerox sequel. Pretty much the only dream sequence is at the start, with the bus. It's a decent opener, but a bit too over the top.

Freddy's Revenge is noted for is supposedly homoerotic subtext (with Freddy representing withheld homosexual desires). While the cast and crew deny this was the intent (the gay Mark Patton says "I don't think that Jesse was originally written as a gay character. I think it's something that happened along the line by serendipity."), one of the writers says that he deliberately put in the homoerotic subtext. The film is definitely homoerotic, and its themes would be good, but...

...Unfortunately Freddy's Revenge suffers from what I like to call Dracula's Daughter syndrome. You see, Dracula's Daughter too was a film with homosexual undertones, but it was about the vampire trying to rid herself of her 'wrong urges'. Guh, goddamn 30's! The same thing happens with this film, as in the end, Jesse is broken free from Freddy's power by the love of a girl. *sigh*

The plot here is good. There are a few issues (mainly the forced 'love' aspect at the climax), and the movie isn't a total scarefest, but it definitely has a few scenes one would find creepy.

The acting's all good. Mark Patton is good, even if his character is a non-proactive whiner with a terrible haircut. Robert Ruster is good is Grady, and Meryl Streep lookalike Kim Meyers is the best actor in the film. not counting Robert Englund. That's not to say that say that she's amazing though, she's just pretty good. Clu Gulager is unrecognizable-unrecognizable because I'm an idiot who got him confused with James Karen (his co-star in Return of the Living Dead).

The standout is definitely Robert Englund. He isn't the joking clown Freddy here, he's scary demon Freddy who you really don't wanna mess with! No one-liners here. "You are all my children now!".

When it comes to screentime, Freddy's a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, having Freddy only sparsely appear is effective, but on the other hand, 'He only appears for a few minutes in total?!'. Thankfully while he's not used a whole lot for a while, he gets plenty to do in the last half-hour, so he doesn't feel underused or wasted.

The death scenes are pretty tame. There's some blood, but nothing as brutal and elaborate as Tina's death scene from the first movie, and nothing as gory as Glen's. Really, the death scenes are basically all just Freddy stabbing people.

The effects in this movie are great! From Freddy's brain reveal, to when he forces his way out of Jesse, they're definitely impressive! The factory at the end also looks great!

There are a couple of confusing scenes, like when Jesse, unable to sleep, goes down to the kitchen, and lightning strikes through a window and shatters some dishes, then for no discernible reason, Jesse goes into town to an S&M club. Wha?!

And there's when a scared Jesse goes to Grady's house in the middle of the night. Grady's just sleeping away when he's suddenly forced awake by Jesse. "What the fuck are you doing in my room?!"-I myself would have asked the much better question of "What the fuck are you doing in my house?!".

One weird aspect is that the early Elm Street films almost entirely call everyone's favourite dreamscape slasher Fred Krueger, not Freddy. I'm guessing the later sequels got his more iconic name down pat.

Speaking of weird, there's a big "ew! Ew! EW!!" moment at the end. You'll know it when you see it

One part that had me laughing was Jesse's dance scene to Touch Me Baby by Wish. Also, Grady's 'Yeauh!' is a word I strive to use as much as possible!

I hate the ending. It's bullshit! For one, it goes from Jesse and Lisa hugging in the factory, then abruptly cuts to sometime later, and everything is better for some unexplained reason (granted, I'm sure the Elm St. police believe in Freddy, but any other cops who read their reports of 'ghostly slasher maniac'?!) and everyone's happy. Then there's an 'Oh shit, Freddy's not really dead!' moment, which makes no sense, as 1, Freddy just fucking died, and 2, the whole point of the ending was Jesse realizing this his fear was feeding Freddy's power, and him conquering his fear. But, uh, guess not, so says this pointless shock ending.

By the way, there are two great reviews of this film that I want to recommend. There's Freddie Young's (of Full Moon Reviews), and Maynard Morrissey's (of Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary).

So, in closing, I recommend A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. It may not be the best, or the scariest entry in the series, but it's a better watch than Parts 4, 5, and 6!...

Here I am again with another Jean Rollin film. For those not in the know, Rollin was a French filmmaker who made numerous films involving vampires. His films, almost always full of nudity and sex, are noted for their slow-paces and dreamlike atmospheres.

Today I'll be looking at his 1974 movie, Requiem for a Vampire...

Requiem for a Vampire opens with two women dressed as clowns, and their male friend, who are in a car chase, driving away from people. The friend is shot and killed, but the two women manage to escape. After torching their car, the duo come across a graveyard, and a nearby castle, and soon it becomes apparent that the local gravediggers had the right idea to not stick around during the night...

Your first thoughts as you watch this movie are likely to be "Who are these people, why are they running, and who's chasing them?" and "I get it! The friggin' car is burning! Cut away!".

Requiem for a Vampire is never boring, because things are actually happening, but the lack of dialogue, and drawn-out scenes to not help. The only scenes I would call boring would be the long sex torture scene, and the initiation ceremony at the end.

There's next to no dialogue for the first fifty minutes of the movie, which some say gives the movie a surreal quality, but to me, it just makes the movie a bit of a drag.

I've heard from many reviews that this is a disturbing film with a second half full of brutal rape and torture, and...it ain't that bad. The movie's pretty tame, and I was never disturbed (although that might just be me, because I'm me).

A few things in Requiem thematically tie in with others of Rollin's works. As for the writing, for what there is, it's okay-ish, though the reveal from the head vampire near the end comes pretty out of left field. With the story, it's barely there. This movie has the same issue that I've had with many other Jean Rollin films I've seen, and it all comes down to this-It seems that Rollin was a much better director than he ever was a writer.

One positive is the scenery. It's absolutely gorgeous! And the film is very well directed, too.

Given its lush, historic countrysde and landscape, France, as well as other European countries, are perfect for historical, or gothic horror films, like how Australia and America are perfect for locations when you're shooting a post-apocalypse movie. When in France, you just need to drive down a country road, and BAM! Old castle!

The film has an ooky atmosphere and location, but unfortunately the script doesn't complement it.

And another positive is the two main actresses, Marie-Pierre Castel and Mireille D'Argent are both gorgeous, and look just as awesome clothed as they do unclothed, which they are often, as this is a Jean Rollin film. This is akin to Leather and Whips, aka Amuck, the boring semi-giallo starring the uber sexay duo of Barbara Bouchet (Moneypenny!) and Rosalba Neri.

The acting in Requiem is fine. Nothing amazing (although Mireille D'Argent is pretty good during the whipping scene), but it's definitely passable, and never cringeworthy.

The vampire lord is an interesting but underused character, played well by whoever IMDb refuses to credit a character name to.

There's one pretty noticeable goof early on when an actor playing a corpse is obviously moving when the 'gasoline' is being poured on him.

And there are a couple of stupid character moments, like when Mireille falls into an open grave when running from gravediggers, neither of whom see her. Then they start filling in the grave, and they don't notice the woman in it! What, are they blind?! It's obvious that from where they're standing, they'd easily be able to see her.

And there's when the two leads first notice something wrong with the castle. They see a rotting corpse hanging from a noose, and when they run outside, there's a bloodied-up arm poking out of a hole in the wall, and what do they do? They go back into the castle, into a chapel with skeletal monks with bloody skullcap wounds! Dumbasses!

Rock pose!

Also-While on one hand, I could complain the the subtitler got the meaning of 'chateau' wrong, who could blame them. Chateau means castle in French, but in English, chateau means chateau, kinda like a villa, and sometimes, I think the English word of chateau can be used to mean a castle. Confused yet?

The film has one dialogue exchange between the two leads and one of the vampire chicks that I liked. "Castel: We got lost."-Vampire Chick: "Eternally lost!"

There is one stupid line in the movie, however. Vampire Chick: "Meanwhile, we'll have these two"-Vampire Lord: "No, they will be ours", Um, isn't that what she just said, Vampire Lord?

The musical score here is decent. Nothing awesome, like Fiancee of Dracula, but serviceable.

There's practically zero blood in this movie. As for the look of the vampires...

OhmigodHAHAHAHAHAHHAHATHOSETEETH! What are those, paper scraps glued to the actor's lips?!

One little issue was with the DVD of the film (or at least, this particular DVD print). It has a weird slight rainbow interference when characters move some of the some. It looks much more pronounced when paused, but it's still an annoyance.

By the way, the UK was weird with horror films! They used to be so absurdly militant about horror films, censorship, and 'video nasties', yet back then they retitled a film with the normal, 'tasteful' title of Requiem for a Vampire to a more exploitative one-Caged Virgins, and Haute Tension, a Hitchockian title gets switched out with Switchblade Romance. What the hell, censor fuckfaces?!

So, in closing, if you want to watch a vampire film where something actually happens, then Requiem for a Vampire is definitely not the movie for you...

The review has been for Holly Horrorland's Third Annual Vampire Soiree.

A Night to Dismember! Ain't that a fun title! But does this 1983 film made by notable sexploitation director Doris Wishman live up to that title? Not really, as there are no dismemberments, but otherwise...

According to Wishman, a disgruntled employee who just got laid off from his job at a film processing lab went back there and destroyed a whole heap of film, like he'd just seen Ju On: The Grudge 2. Because of this, only about half of A Night to Dismember survived, and Wishman cobbled together the remaining footage, got the actors back for voiceovers, filmed a couple of new scenes. With a backstory like that, you'd think that no matter what, this film would be dead on arrival, but surprisingly, it isn't!

A Night to Dismember is about the Kent family, which over the years, has been struck by several murders as various members of the family went homicidal. One such member, Vicki (Samantha Fox) is sent to an asylum after she supposedly committed two murders, and a few years later, she's released into the custody of her parents. Vicki's unlikeable brother and sister don't like the fact that she's been released, and scheme to have Vicki driven back to insanity. Meanwhile, a new series of vicious murders crops up...

For a film with very little in the way of dialogue, the actor playing Detective O'Malley (IMDb doesn't credit him, so I don't know his name) who narrates over nearly the entire film, has a lot of weight on his shoulders, and thankfully he pulls it off.

The movie's editing is decent. A bit scattershot at times, which is understandable, given the circumstances.

The film tries to make up for the large lack of dialogue by having there be the musical score playing all the time, and it's WAY tonally off most times! For example, one scene has Vicki coming home for the first time in years, and she's nervous and highly strung-and thanks to the music that plays, it's the equivalent of hearing the theme of Welcome Back, Kotter! as Joe Zito goes crazy and gets torn apart by mannequins!

The scoring, while unsuitable for most scenes, is decent. In one part, there's a soundalike to the Caligula and Drusilla theme from Caligula, and in another, there's some good music during chase scene about half-an-hour in. Tonally fucked compared to what's onscreen at that time, but still, good...I wonder if it was original to the movie...

The gore is ok, and the editing in those scenes is so quick-cut that it doesn't focus on the effects long enough for you to have a giggle fit or anything.

It's a bid hard to gauge the acting, given that this was a film shot without sound that later got partially destroyed, but from the dubbed-in voices there are, they're ok, most of the time. Samantha Fox is a hammy as the sympathetic Vicki, but not bad. There is some terrible voice acting when Billy discovers his dead ====.

There are a couple of strange things about the movie, like when Detective O'Malley comes across a murder scene, and comes to the conclusion that Only a scorned lover/spouse could have murdered someone in such a brutal manner. What?!

Also, is the real identity of the killer supposed to be a mystery? Either there was a lighting fuck-up, because we can see the killer's face through the shadows (And even if we couldn't, we could still see the silhouette of her distinctive hair shape a few seconds prior) or said killer's identity was deliberately shown at that point. It's hard to tell

There are a couple of trippy dream sequences, which you'd probably think were made for a David Lynch movie. They're pretty decent.

And finally, call it the sap in me, but I didn't like what happens to Vicki in the end.

Ultimately, for a movie that was as screwed over as it was, A Night to Dismember holds up as a somewhat enjoyable horror flick. It's not great, but you could certainly do worse. Ever see the Crazy Fat Ethel quadrilogy?

My past review of these two TV movies, as well as this will indicate, I am a 'slight' Sherlock Holmes fan. I've read and loved the stories, I've seen all fourteen Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies, I've watched Sherlock, waited for Sherlock, gave up on Sherlock, and have just discovered the fantastic Elementary! As for today, I'll be talking about 1976 Nicholas Myer (based on his own novel) film The Seven-Percent Solution...

The movie is about Dr Watson's concerns about his friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes, who is dangerously addicted to drugs, to the point where he's delusional, and thinking his old maths tutor Professor Moriarty is an evil criminal mastermind. Watson, with the help of Holmes' brother Mycroft, lures Holmes on a false trail to Vienna (as Watson knows that Holmes would only go to 'the continent' at this time if he thought he was following Moriarty), where addiction specialist Dr. Sigmund Freud lives.

As Holmes struggles with his addiction, and tries to find a kidnapped starlet, what repressed memory is responsible for his feverish obsession with Professor Moriarty?...

The Seven Percent Solution is not only a great Sherlock Holmes story, but it's also a well-written deconstructive take on the series, which focuses on Holmes' dependence on cocaine (present in the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories).

If you've read The Final Problem, then you'll find this movie to be extremely intelligent. You see, Professor Moriarty doesn't actually appear in The Final Problem, other than a flashback recounted by Holmes. Even the final fight between the two arch-enemies happens entirely offscreen*. And Holmes' paranoid ravings in Seven-Percent are word-for-word the same as what he says to Watson at the start of Final Problem. And come the end, the film also has a fine explanation of not only why Holmes became a detective, but also what the source of his indifference to women is.

*Wow, The Final Problem was really poorly written, wasn't it! Especially since it was meant to be the permanent conclusion to the Sherlock Holmes series. Funny how it only becomes a well-written story if you take the continuity of a movie made 90 years later into account

Nicol Williamson makes a fine Sherlock Holmes, although his voice is a bit grating at times around the start, when he's erratic, but that goes away after the first ten or so minutes. His is one of the best Holmes' portrayals out there, thanks in no small part to his portrayal of a side to the detective not often seen in iterations of Sherlock Holmes, if anywhere else at all (I'm not counting Elementary, since in that, he's already recovered from drugs).

Robert Duvall is a strange choice for the role of Dr. Watson, but he impresses, and his English accent even sounds convincing (Not that I had to tell you that. He is Robert Duvall after all!).

And Alan Arkin is definitely good as Dr. Freud. Though I imagine you'd have a hard time watching his performance here if you've seen his starring role in 1968 non-Pink Panther Pink Panther movie Inspector Clouseau.

The rest of the acting, from Charles Grey as Mycroft Holmes, to Laurence Olivier as Moriarty, is fine, although Vanessa Redgrave, who plays kidnapped starlet Lola Devereaux, isn't very good in the film's final scene. Also, I wish that particular character had gotten more screentime. It would have helped the story, and the character (especially given the movie's ending), better.

As for the characters, Dr. Watson is fine here, and Dr. Freud is an interesting addition. He's a good character and contributes to the plot.

When it comes to the story, there are some feel that the adventure/mystery storyline halfway through the movie gets in the way of the 'Holmes' drug problems' story but I don't, because not only is said adventure/mystery a lot of fun, not only would it be a bit of a downer having a whole Sherlock Holmes film be about his serious detox struggle, but I think the two halves complement each-other, and go together well. The first half is the detoxification, and the second half is the afootness of the game, and why shouldn't this story have an adventurous mystery? It is a Sherlock Holmes story after all. And anyway, the adventure does have themes of drugs, what with the former-addict Lola Devereaux and everything to do with her, and there's the fact that the mystery and adventure is part of what helps Holmes beat his own addiction.

The film does have one aspect that might be, ah, how you say, fucking stupid. Holmes trails Moriarty to Vienna by making sure he steps in vanilla, and thanks to Toby the bloodhound, he's able to track the professor's train journey all the way from London to Austria! I have no idea if that'd work, but to a layman, it sounds like bullshit. It might be possible though, who knows.

Also, at the end (this isn't really a spoiler), when Holmes is going on an extended 'vacation' to fully conquer his addiction, Watson asks what to say in his stories (the accounts of he and Holmes' cases), and Holmes says to say that he was murdered by his old maths tutor. That's really going to screw over the innocent Professor Moriarty, given how in this universe, Watson's published accounts are fact, rather than Conan Doyle's fiction!

There are a couple of near "Oh, man, I shot Marvin in the face!" moments, given how Holmes questions a suspect while training his gun close up at the crim's head, and there's one point where he's talking with Freud, and the gun's pointed at the psychoanalyst's chest. Nicol, put the prop down!

Ad the final problem is...damn green screens! The actors at one point are in a train, and you can see that there's a green screen out the window projecting the 'outside world'. Twentieth Century, they're in a train! You can actually film them on a train, because while you're too cheap to build camera contraptions to stick on the front or sides of cars (Come on, Twentieth Century, be a Man and build a goddamn camera holder, and a sturdy one too! I could easily if you just gave me twenty minutes. Because I'm a Man!), you have all the room in the world to hold a tripod when in a friggin' carriage! There are also many obvious green screen shots during the final sword fight on top of the train, which is more understandable. Hilarious, but understandable-ish.

*By the way, this post, like some others, is imageless. This can either mean two things. Either I saw said movie on video, or, as is in this case, I taped the movie on TV. Once I procure the DVD, I shall add images accordingly.*

So, to finish, I absolutely recommend The Seven-Percent Solution. I remember the first time I saw this movie. Come the end, I had a big smile on my face! It's a great romp, and a fantastic take on Sherlock Holmes!...

Since appearing in Lois and Clark's All New Adventures, Superman has had a prolific film career in the Direct to Video market, and for good reason-he's fun, charismatic, and he picks entertaining movies to be in! If you want to watch a recent Jim Wynorski (Deathstalker II, Chopping Mall, etc.) film that's not a mindless sexploitation flick, then watch his offerings with Superman!

And so I come to the movie I'll be talking about tonight, 2006's almost House of the Dead sequel Dead and Deader...

A military team comprised of Lt. Bobby Quinn (Superman) and three others have been deployed in Cambodia to investigate an aid facility, which they find mysteriously dilapidated. Soon enough, they're attacked by flesh-eating zombies. The squad holds them off at bay, but a lone survivor of the camp lets off a grenade to kill the undead, and everyone dies. Later, as Bobby, now in American military base Fort Preston, is about to be autopsied, he suddenly wakes up. Despite all his vitals telling him he's dead, he's alive and perfectly fine, and even has enhanced abilities, like super strength. He almost loses it all when a strange scorpion inside him tries to burrow to his heart, but he cuts it out in time and kills it. Sensing that his comrades weren't so lucky, he locates one of his squad, now a zombie, who's in the kitchen attacking cook Judson (Guy Torry). Together they kill the zombie and the people it's bitten and turned, but the head of the base thinks the two are murderers, and they go on the run. Now fugitives, Quinn, Judson, and new accomplice, barmaid Holly (Susan Ward) have to find the last source zombies, and get to the bottom of what's going on...

I had a lot of fun with Dead and Deader. It's an extremely entertaining watch!

The movie's sort-of a horror-comedy. The movie's plot is serious, but characters are jokey and pretty lighthearted, in a good way. I especially like humour like this as it's exactly how I write crime stories-The plots are always serious, but I always have fun with the characters.

Some people feel that the movie is full of weak jokes, but I disagree. True, the lines never put me into hysterics, but I felt they were moreso lighthearted than outright ha ha funny. It kinda reminded me of comic series The Second Life of Dr. Mirage in that way. There are some pop culture references, which I didn't mind, even if they aren't exactly subtle sometimes (heat vision, Dawn of the Dead comparisons).

The plot is relatively simplistic. Point A, to Point B, to Point C, and back again full circle to Point A. Though Dead and Deader's biggest problem lies with the plot. Why don't the high-ups of Fort Preston believe Bobby's report on what happened with the zombie soldier and the mini-outbreak. It doesn't make sense why they don't believe him-There's three zombie corpses, weird dead infecto-scorpions, the coroner's report, the other coroner's report, the coroner (remember him? He ain't dead!), and Superman himself-just check his pulse!

One thing I definitely liked is a subtle (and I do mean subtle) foreshadowing to the film's climax, which I found very effective!

Bobby Quinn is an entertaining lead, and a well-written character. Nothing Shakespearean, but still good. Obviously Superman's good in the role. He's always fun to watch. Especially funny is the goofy voice he gets when he goes meat hungry (a nasty side-effect to Quinn's living dead-ism).

As for other characters, the villain isn't it the movie until the last third or so, but there was good dialogue, story, and implied backstory behind the character.

Also, I think it sucks that a...certain character...dies near the end. I liked her. I felt she was a good fourth person to the team.

The acting's all good. As I said before, Superman makes for a likeable lead, Guy Torry is a fun sidekick, as is Susan Ward as Holly (and we see her in her panties, so, *wolf whistles*!). Armin Shimerman is in the film briefly and his character just vanishes without mention, and Natassia Malthe is ok. Also, apparently Brent Huff is in this movie somewhere-hot damn, I'll have to keep out a sharp eye next time I watch this!

The zombie make-up is good, and the gore is fine. There's plenty of it! Not a lot, but enough.

The score is pretty great, although I didn't much like the song that played over the ending credits.

As this is a made-for-TV movie, a lot of the scene transitions are TV style fade to commercial break. Some are awkward, but they're fine for the most part. Also, this film has an opening credits sequence! And I don't mean just blank text over the movie, but an actual credits sequence! Good for a TV movie, and impressive for this day and age! Granted, this movie was made eight years ago, so maybe opening credits were still a thing back then. They sure aren't now! There's nothing, no credits or title cards, in movies these days (maybe a credit sequence at the end), and with DVD releases, they just add a clumsily edited title card.

I highly recommend Dead and Deader. It may be no Shaun of the Dead, but I'll take zombie action comedy any day of the week! I love action! Another thing I'd like to recommend is that you watch this along with Dead Heat! They're a perfect double feature!

Oh, and I suppose I should probably refer to Dean Cain by his real name at some point....

This post is for The Shortening, a blogathon set up by Emily of The Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense.

Frogs is a 1972 killer-animals film wherein nature is angry at us for what we've done to the planet, and wants us all fucking dead! Granted, I don't know why they're singling out humans-Nature is a dick to itself!

Freelance photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Eliott) is out in the swamplands/everglades of wherever, doing his job when siblings Karen (Joan van Ark) and Clint (Adam Roarke) accidentally knock him out of his canoe with their motorboat. They invite Smith back to their nearby family estate, where family patriarch Jason Crockett is celebrating his birthday.

Despite odd things that start happening, and the discovery of a corpse, Old Man Crockett is still dead set on going through with his birthday celebrations. The build-up of frogs is getting out of hand though. But there's no trouble, they'll be gone for migration by next year...if there is a next year...

There's evil in his eyes...rr-r-ibbit DUN-DUN-DUN!

As hilarious and absurd as the idea of frogs killing people sounds, this movie doesn't pay off in that regard, but I still found Frogs to be an enjoyable sit. Unfortunately by the time the horror starts going into gear, the movie's almost over. It's not like the film's ever boring (to me at least), but I wish that the good stuff would have started sooner. Also...

...I wish the damn frogs actually killed people! They don't kill anyone! They seem to be in control of all the other animals (and apparently went for to the same supernatural electronics apprenticeship that Jason Voorhees took), but the only thing they do is ribbit around a guy until he falls over...wherein nothing happens to him! According to Wikipedia, said character has a heart attack, but there's no indication in the movie that that's what happens, especially since this character wasn't indicated at all to be Sweet Dee capable to heart attacks.

While I did like the movie, I agree that is is Ed Wood-ian at times, like with the constant shots of breathing corpses, people turning blue and rotting even though they've only been dead a minute, a fake plaster hand when someone gets biten by a snake, and the hilarious death scenes! Unlike, say, Plan 9 or Bride of the Monster though, the effects (that is, the animals) are all great! Nowadays, a nature-run-amok film would probably pussy out and go all CGI (There's no reason the makers of Life of Pi couldn't have vetoed spending several million dollars on subpar CGI in favour of just getting a trained tiger!), but here, the animals are all real, and they look great! And as far as I know, this movie didn't pull a kingdom of the Spiders and kill the animals for the movie. Though maybe the froggie cast members were afraid if such an eventuality, because most of them escaped during filming...Could it be they were massing to enact a real life plan of evil?!...

Like I said, the death scenes are pretty funny. In one, when running away, one character trips and accidentally shoots himself in the leg! Then he gets killed by evil moss that smothers him alive. And when another guy is in a greenhouse, a group of lizards knock down several glass jars of poison, creating a deadly cloud. Instead of just going to the door and, I don't know, opening it and leaving, he instead goes over to the fumes, leans down, and practically breaths them in as I can only assume the script said he had to try and fan it away! There's another which is so poorly staged that it looks like the guy is successfully wrestling the crocodile, rather than being rolled and eaten.

The characters here aren't exactly dickheads (well, minus Mr. Crockett) but they are pretty bland, and I can't say I went "GOOOOOSSEEE!! YOU WERE TOO YOUNG!" when they died horribly.

There are a group of characters near the end who go off on their own attempt to escape, and they're vaguely implied to have died, but it could be taken either way.

As for Mr. Crockett. he's a goddamn idiot! A corpse is discovered, and he wants it covered up 'till his birthday's over with. His grandson is discovered dead, and uncaring, he still wants to celebrate his birthday party. The whole island is being atacked by nature and he still wants to! His characterization goes beyond stupid and into just plain bad writing.

While the music can be a bit repetitive at times, Frogs has good scoring, which helps build up an eerie feel. It's just a shame that by the time 'eerie' stuff starts happening, the climax is already here, and BAMmovie over... The opening credits, which are of Sam Elliott snappng up picture of wildlife for four minutes, are boring at first, but they pick up when he starts taking pictures of various pollutants in the river, which is thematically nifty...and then it promptly gets boring again soon after, and stays that way.

Sam Elliot is a decent lead, and shockingly doesn't have the bear known as his moustache on his face at all! Without it, his face, it...it doesn't look natural!

Joan van Ark is a good actress here, and she's super-hot!...And no, I haven't seen photos of her in recent years, with all the horrible plastic surgery she's gotten, nor do I plan on doing soWHOOPSTOOLATE! Dammit, van Ark, why couldn't you have aged gracefully?!

*By the way, when getting screenshots, I went scouring through this movie looking for a good shot of Joan van Ark's ass to snap up (I am a guy, yes), but unfortunately I couldn't really find any that made for good screenshots.*

Ray Milland is also good as the asshole alpha male, although he doesn't look old enough to be a grandfather of anyone over ten/fifteen, let alone thirty and over! The rest of the acting is decent. Nothing bad, nor was I ever annoyed by any of them.

I recommend Frogs. While the script is a missed opportunity, as is the lack of killer frogs, the film is still good for a laugh. So, to conclude, the moral of the day is be kind to all nature, all creatures great and small!...Except for snakes. Fuck them.

This post is for The Shortening, a blogathon set up by Emily of The Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense.

A guy named Justin travels to hell to find his girlfriend April, who was kidnapped by demons. Justin summons demon Lo, and asks it to find April, a request the creature finds laughable. Despite Lo's attempts to dissuade him from his search, Justin is adamant about finding April, and may find out more than he bargained for...

Lo, a 2009 black comedy-horror by Travis Betz of the internet comedy troupe The Babyeaters, is definitely a film I enjoyed from beginning to end!

The film is very minimalistic (unless I'm using that word incorrectly, in which case, uh...), as it's all set in the same place, with total pitch blackness surrounding the character of Justin. There are a couple of flashbacks, and a musical number,but they're very play-like, and still shot in the same place as the rest of the movie. When we do finally see a real location at the very end, it's a bit trippy. The play feel for Lo is effective and different than what one usually sees in movies.

The film has a disturbing tinge to it, what with being set in hell and all, but it's also very funny, and full of dark humour. The demons are hilarious, from the dialogue, to the delivery. Actors Jeremiah Birkett (Lo) and Devin Barry (Jeez) do great jobs!

The rest of the acting is definitely good. Ward Roberts makes for a likeable lead, and Sarah Lassez is good at being both quirky and serious.

Lo's voice is a little hard to understand sometimes, but mostly, he's fine. The same goes for the kickass song sung by demon Jeez. It's hard to make out what's being sung at first, but you'll be able to understand most of it just fine, and you'll want to. It's great fun!

The demon effects (practical-no CGI on display here) look great! Not so much in the New Doctor Who school of convincing, and moreso in the 'we have millions of dollars to spend' convincing of other horror films, like Hellraiser, for example. They look very good, which is especially impressive, given the apparently super low budget!

The plot is great! The ending doubly so! This film manages to be funny, disturbing, and sad, and it never feels confused or cluttered with its tones.

That's all I have to say about Lo. Given the kind of film it is, it's not really one I can talk about at length. I recommend it wholeheartedly. You need to watch it! Right away! And then watch it again!

This post is for The Shortening, a blogathon set up by Emily of The Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense.

There have been many household items that have gotten hungry for human blood over the years, from Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, The Mangler (clothes dryer), a film about a blender massacre that may or may not exist, The Lift (Tagline-"The stairs! The Stairs! For God's sake, take the stairs!"), etc., and in the case of 1991 film The Refrigerator, it's exactly what it says on the tin!

Steven has just quit his job, and he and his wife Eileen are leaving for their new apartment, which is oddly cheap at only $200 dollars a month. They soon come to realize, however, the terrifying reason they got the flat so cheap...THE FRIDGE!...

The Refrigerator is mostly horror, but it doesn't take itself too seriously. It knows what it is. Annoyingly, there's no shortage of people on the internet who don't get the joke, who say things like 'This film is unintentionally funny with its badness', as if the film about the demonic refrigerator took itself dead serious. It's meant to be somewhat goofy.

Fortunately and unfortunately, this movie is the kind of horror where as I explain in my Dangerous Game review, I like the characters enough that I'd want to see a TV show about them, or something (I'm more leaning on the something side when it comes to these characters). Fortunately, because that means the writing is good and the characters aren't like Tina in Halloween V, and unfortunately, because, well, it is a horror movie. But hey, I'm no softie-bring on the carnage!

And carnage there is, from a guy getting his leg chomped off by a garbage can, or torn up by a hostile cuisinart, to the titular refrigerative menace.

If you're wearing a hat like that, quite frankly, you deserve to get eaten by a fridge...

The film is a little slow-moving, but it's never boring, thankfully. I do kinda wish that deaths could have been more evenly spread out, as aside from the kill in the opening, there's not another death until over forty minutes into the film. But at least the movie is using said time to develop its characters and tell its story, so I won't be too harsh. One part I definitely felt was too short was the fun montage with an original song singing about the film's characters!

The characters are fun and likeable. Eileen is relatable with her character storyline (and the scene with her and her mother near the end is very good!), and Juan the plumber/super is likeable and fun, portrayed very well by Angel Caban.

There's not much gore, but what there is is more than serviceable.

By the way, I would write a Dirk Gently joke about now, but I'm really not sure how many of my readers have read The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, so I'll stay my hand at making obscure jokes for now.

Also by the way, The Refrigerator contains the best line in any horror-comedy!-"I am the wafflemaker!" It has to be seen to be believed!...

The film has very good scoring, which surprisingly manages to build an air of creepiness for a movie about a killer fridge! If you took out the goofy idea, tightened up the pace, you'd have a damn fine regular horror movie!...Not that I'm saying that should have happened. It'd be no good to deprive the movie of its charm. One problem though is that I wish there was some backstory for the killer gateway-to-hell fridge.

There is one stupid thing that happened at the end of the though...

SPOILERS!!!!!

When the crazy possessed Steven is carrying Eileen to the refrigerator, she grabs ahold of a knife, and instead of just cutting his arm or something, she stabs him in the back and kills him! Honey, don't act so shocked and distraught that he's dead, you're the one who friggin' killed him!

Also, there's no ending to the climax. Appliances go haywire, the fridge eats psychic lady (Why didn't you run, bitch?!), Eileen and Juan get out, then they smile with relief as they're out...But uh, what about the fridge?! You didn't do anything, you just left as psychic lady died, and called it a day!

END SPOILERS!!!!!

I recommend The Refrigerator. It's a fun little flick, and it's well worth a watch! Just remember to keep an eye out for your fridge. It's watching you. It's always watching you...

This post is for The Shortening, a blogathon set up by Emily of The Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense.

Woohoo! It's my third year anniversary of blogging! Wooooo!

...Yeah, that's all I'm going to say this time. It's been 50 degrees Celsius here for the last few days (which proves that God exists and he hates us all...Either that, or it's Ming the Merciless), and I can't be bothered doing much of anything. I now successfully own a copy of Dr Mabuse: The Gambler, but am I watching it? Nope, I'm waiting for cooler weather.

Actually, I have one more thing to say. I WILL have a banner for my blog done up before the year is out, and I can assure you that among other things, it will contain Fu Manchu, Brandon Lee, and Pierre Kirby!

Well this is a first. For the first time, I've been recommended something for review by someone involved in its production-sketch comedy webseries Starving in Hollywood (brought to my attention by cast member Dolores Quintana, who might be familiar to those who've seen Zombie Nation).

Transmission 1

Starving in Hollywood is a scattershot acid trip of a sketch comedy, and yes, I mean that in a good way! This first episode is a very good introduction to this series.

The comedy definitely hits the mark. While it may not be for everyone, there are plenty of laughs to be had here, especially in the first two sketches, and the 99% one. This series is especially appealing to me as I've seen innumerable sketch comedies over the years, and the bad ones are like insects-for every good sketch comedy, there's five shitty ones, and believe me, I've seen some of the worst sketch comedies this side of the Eastern Seaboard. Huge props to the makers of Starving in Hollywood for making an entertaining one!

The acting is good all round, especially from Rebecca Honet, who's not only a beauty, but is a fine actress

I'm definitely looking forward to Transmission 2 next week, as well as the rest of the series. Watch this space for my thoughts on them...

Ugh, I've been looking forward to seeing 2009 zombedy The Revenant since I read a highly positive review a couple years back, and I finally watched it last night, and I was sorely disappointed!

I was so pissed off that I originally wasn't going to mention this film here, and just I'd just forget it over time, but no. There are too many glowing reviews on IMDb that talk about how this is an 'undiscovered classic', 'Deserves more credit than it gets', 'Is one of the best horror comedies of all time', and 'Forget Shaun of the Dead!'. Yeah, everyone has different opinions, but when I see so many glowing reviews for something I hate, and they say stuff like that, then I really have no other option than to speak up!

I really liked The Revenant for first half-hour, but the plot started to piss me off badly! The plot really is the main thing that tanked this movie for me. The acting's all good, the effects are good, but the terrible writing just kills it. There are stupid character decisions, bullshit moments, missed opportunities, and the whole thing just made me angry! Really frustrated!

Another big problem is the amount of swearing here. I swear, and there's nothing wrong with that of course, but this film goes WAAAY overboard! Almost every single line has the word 'fuck' in it at least once, and it got annoying only twenty minutes in! Imagine having to deal with the rest of the damn film!

The comedy was fine enough for the first quarter, but steadily declined. And as a comedy-horror, the two genres never really mesh. Films like Braindead, Shaun of the Dead, and Evil Dead II are all much better examples of the genre. You could do better with My Boyfriend's Back than The Revenant!

By the way, as an aside, there are so many people online (and on the DVD cover) claiming that The Revenant is 'Destined to become a cult classic!'. Go and research what a cult classic actually is, you goddamn idiots!

And that's all I have to say about this film. Not a whole lot, but enough to get the point across, I hope. It's so bad that you'd do good to rewatch Night of the Living Dead after just having read about this film, so you can see a real zombie film. Hell, a Jerry Warren zombie film is a better candidate than The Revenant! Avoid!

My most excellent friends, let me tell you about the radical journey of Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston Esq., two most triumphant dudes!

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is one of the most fondly remembered films of the 80's. It's a comedy about two slackers with aspirations of greatness in their band Wild Stallions (spelt with a lot more radical Y's in the movie). Unfortunately the two are flunking history, and if they fail their final test, they'll be expelled, and Ted will be shipped off to military school by his asshole father. Rufus, a mysterious guy from the future, comes to the town of San Dimas to help Bill and Ted with their report, temporarily giving them a phone booth time machine which they can use to travel the network of history until they find the answers for their test...

This is perfection! The kind of movie you want to see a million sequels to! Unfortunately they did make a sequel, which was most bogus!...Ok, most people just think of it as pretty 'meh', rather than truly awful, but still. There also may or may not be a third movie* on the way in the possible future.

*A Third Bill and Ted movie? But they're middle-aged now! How could we see a fifty year old Bill and Ted and take it seriously? As for the lack of Rufus due to George Carlin's death back in 2008, most people say you can't make a Bill and Ted movie without him, but Bill and Ted 3 wouldn't suffer too much from the loss, given he's only in the first film for less than five minutes.

*Oh, and sorry for the most egregious lack of images. I saw this on TV, and don't own a physical copy, so I can't take screenshots. Most un-radical.

This movie is hilarious! Enough said!

Ok, I'll say more. The humour is consistently funny, Bill and Ted are great characters (I especially love their laidback attitude when in the various time periods), the whole finale is great, and by the time the movie's over, you'll have a smile plastered on your face!

Practically every scene is golden, from Bill having the hots for his stepmom, to the duo meeting their future selves, a switch-flip wild western saloon fight, and historical figures like Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. 'Frood', So-crates, Billy the Kid, etc. enjoying themselves in various different ways in a mall, but my favourite is the 'In Time' one. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean!

Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves do great jobs as the title duo! They're hilarious, get great lines, have great characters, and Keanu Reeves can actually act here! (Not to knock on Keanu too much) George Carlin is mildly funny as Rufus. I say 'mildly' as he's barely in the movie.

The actors playing the historical figures do their jobs well, their acting is good, and in the case of Go-Go's musician Jane Wiedlin, who play Joan of Arc, she's a cute babe! And speaking of Joan of Arc, I like to think that in this universe, she lived happily ever after in the present or future, or went back to her own time and kicked some ass, avoiding her horrible death. And as for Beethoven seemingly being able to hear in this movie, I don't mind. Why? Because he's Beethoven! The man was deaf, yet still composed some of the geatest symphonies known to man. I can buy that he heard the bodacious tunes of an electric keyboard.

The effects are cheesy, but good. And the movie's soundtrack is most excellent! WYLD! STALLYNS!

I leave you with the most excellent recommendation of this outstanding movie! Don't make the egregious mistake of missing out. Later, dudes and dudettes! Party on!...

Back in 2011, I talked at length about the damn-near lost Pierre Kirby film, Crackdown Mission (who he is and what IFD is is explained in that link). The film is actually mildly easy to locate on German DVD, but, and this is a big but, there is no English language track! (and what we have is the German equivalent to the English dub for Andreas Schnaas' Violent Shit III). Unless this DVD company is being a dick and withholding it, then the English track is either sitting in a moldy basement in China gathering dust, or it literally doesn't exist anymore, which is a damn shame. Especially since this plot is the most unique Kirby ever got! I mean, he was in Thunder of the Gigantic Serpent, but he never actually met the serpent, as it was in Movie A, whereas he was in Movie B, but here, we have Ted Fast himself battling a satanic cult of evil doctors (who seem to have actual supernatural powers to boot)!

While this movie isn't too hard to track down, there's absurdly little information about it on the interwebs. It's crazy obscure! There are only three reviews of it on the entire internet, and two of them are in German, so unless there's a deep dark Pierre Kirby rabbit hole 100 Google pages into a keyword search, or I'm literally the only English person in the world with a review for Crackdown Mission! God, I really hope it's the former!

Unfortunately, the DVD company decided to censor the Crackdown Mission DVD of all nudity and violence. I've no idea why, seeing as how the action here isn't all that violent at all. Was the re-edit done by a 'moral guardian' who just plain hated action? Thankfully they've released a re-issue DVD which is uncut (so says the cover, which is how I was clued in), so I'm here to provide a comparison. What did the first DVD print remove, and what's the complete film like?...

Before I get to that, a refresher on the plot. Crackdown Mission is about what I mentioned above, but that's only the IFD Movie B segment. The rest (i.e. the remaining three-and-a-half quarters) is an Asian take on Ms. 45 (which I never mentioned in my original review, as it slipped my mind).

The uncut version opens up with the traditional IFD opening-a Columbia logo ripoff with a Star Wars theme. Following that is the first major difference between DVD's. In this version, we see the whole opening sex-scene, wherein, 1, there's more nudity (WOOOOOOO!), and 2, it's shown that the double-murder wasn't caused by an intruder as I always thought, but rather the woman poisoning the guy, then killing herself.

Next, there's an extra rape scene, which given its placement in the story makes this more of an obvious Ms. 45 knock-off than it otherwise would be (the woman gets raped in an alleyway, goes home distraught, and gets raped by a burglar who's robbing her apartment). This scene explains why right after, the woman starts crying. In the censored version, her demeanor comes out of nowhere.

Most of the second rape scene is also kaput in the censored version, as is the burglar getting his head smashed in with the lamp/ornament/whatever the woman uses. It goes from her grabbing it, to a rough edit to her hiding an iron under the bed for no reason, then going outside her apartment and loooking at the stairwell while etheral cackling is in the air. Along with other scenes, this is why I originally though this was a possession movie rather than a Ms. 45 rape-revenge flick, as in the cut version, it seems like the thief escapes, then 'turns into ghostly whispers' as I put in in 2011. In the uncut version, we see her take the iron and beating the thief/rapist to death with it, hence her hiding it aftwerwards. We also see her landlady coming up to see what all the commotion is about, and in the process, saying the main character's name-Audrey. FINALLY! I spent the entirety of my review calling her Woman because as far as I could tell, her name is never uttered once.

More uncut footage has Audrey hiding the body (for God's sake, these German distributors must have been pussies! 2001: A Space Oddysey is rated G, and it has more graphic stuff on display than this movie has when uncut!)

The next excised scene has Audrey dismembering the thief's body. Remember how in my original review, I mention certain scenes that are in negative coulour for no reason? Same applies for this, and here, it's reminding me of the Crazy Fat Ethel movies.

I'll just quickly go over the rest of the 'extensions' to Movie A here. There are no quick cuts away when people get shot, and in the cut version, there are several scenes of Audrey throwing shopping in the trash for no reason. But in the uncut DVD, we know that she's disposing of a body. Doesn't make the film feel any less aimless and dull though.

Now finally, we come to the excised Pierre Kirby footage! YES! The years of waiting are finally over!

These scenes are badass! Pierre Kirby not only proves himself to be my second favourite action hero with just a scant seven minutes of fighting at most, but his karate moves are a sight to behold as well. They're pretty cool, and impressive too.

I imagine this came once the ninja boom died, so instead of multi-coloured samurai, it's instead about a bunch of people in regular clothes beating the shit out of each-other. Kinda dull compared to neon pink and fleuro yellow ninjas, but it hardly matters.

There's one particularly goofy moment during the fight with some guy, and Paul John Stanners (who I sorta mistook for playing another character last time), where Kirby throws hay, fucking HAY at some guy, and it throws off his aim! I am so not even kidding. Whether it be deus-ex-machina acorns, or trusty berets, this is one action hero who always has the right stuff on hand to save his skin!

By the way, still no idea if Kirby does do a 'Six bullets or only five' routine with Edowan Bersma's villain at the end, but I swear he does! The way he looks when talking just screams Dirty Harry to me!

Movie B as a whole suffers less from excised footage than Movie A, but that's rather understandable, as Movie B is less than twenty minutes long. Dammit, Universe, you're a cruel dick!

Ultimately, there's twelve minutes of extra footage here, and it's definitely wecome for those who actually want to properly see Pierre Kirby's most elusive (technically) film. Is it worth tracking down this film for the IFD footage, despite the boring rape movie? Sure, why not. Maybe the English track does still exist, and if the movie gets enough attention, maybe the company will release a new DVD with the original English track. Though that's just wishful thinking on my part. But the guy was only in nine movies, so I really do hope that they're all complete someday. R.I.P. Pierre Kirby...

The NeverEnding Story is one of THE landmark fantasy films of not only the 80's, but all time!...and I only saw it last night on TV. Yeah, I suck, don't I! I've seen Krull, and all four Deathstalker films, yet I haven't seen this?!

Bastian Balthazar Bux is an imaginative kid, but also sad from the recent death of his mother, and persecuted by bullies. One day, he escapes them by hiding in an old run-down book store, where he finds out about strange book The Neverending Story...which he promptly steals (you're a dick, Bastian!). He starts reading the adventure of warrior Atreyu in his quest to save the land of Fantasia from destruction by a mysterious being known as The Nothing. At first, Bastian is simply enthralled by the story, but soon enough, he comes to realize that the book is more than just a story...

Author of the book Michael Ende was none too happy with this adaptation, as it only covers the first half/third of the story, dumbs down certain characters a bit, and doesn't even include certain ones. Ende was angry enough to file a lawsuit against the production company responsible for the film. I understand why he was pissed off (especially given that the movie lacks the reason why the story's even called The NeverEnding Story), but I myself prefer the film's take for a couple of reasons. 1, This still tells a complete, well-rounded and thoughtful story, 2, It's more interesting having the only villain of the film be the borderline Eldritch abomination The Nothing rather than also having a human bad guy, and Three, I just like the plot better this way, without the rest of what's in the book.

However, this is not an adaptation withough issues. For one, the ending is really abrupt!...And doubly stupid. Most glaring is the complete absence of Bastian's father, and the book-keeper after their respective scenes! We don't even find out their names (the same goes for the rest of Bastian's), and the names are a bit of an aspect in the book (Bastian Balthazar Bux, Carl Conrad Coreander). When it comes to those characters, the movie is really lacking.

And speaking of names, with the climax, where the hell does Moonchild come from? It's the name of Bastian's dead mother, but the movie neglects to tell us this (not that you can even hear the name all that well thanks to the music, and the storm)! Though I suppose this doesn't pose an issue if you don't know about that from the book, because in that case you're probably just assuming that Bastian made up the name himself from his night-time surroundings.

Bastian isn't in this movie a whole lot, as he's just reading the story, rather than directly involved in the action. While he's technically the lead, Atreyu is by default the main character, as the majority of the movie focuses on him. As for Bastian, whenever he's onscreen, I found myself face-palming a lot. Due to the bully harassment, he's late for school. It's dumb that he doesn't just go into the classroom and say that, but ok, I'll bite, he can wait for the next class to start...But he never does! He goes into a musty attic and reads the Neverending Story until school's over. And then does he leave when he sees everyone else doing the same? Hell no, he goes back up into the damn attic! And he stays there all night! What the hell, you dumb kid?!

That's enough of the negatives. Onto the good aspects of this movie. The plot is very good! The Nothing is a good concept, and it's much better than a goofy villain mugging for the camera ever could be. There are some fantastic dramatic scenes, like the one with Atreyu and the Rockbiter, and the loss of Artax (which is also pretty funny actually, given the way the horse looks throughout the scene).

The acting is fine all-round. Noah Hathaway is very good as the Native American Indian warrior Atreyu. There's just one tiny problem, though...HE'S FUCKING WHITE! And there's also the fact that his exit from the movie is very abrupt. The moment the Empress starts talking to Bastian, Atreyu's just gone. The next and last time we see him is a brief cameo from afar.

Barret Oliver is ok as Bastian. He doesn't do enough in the story to be an interesting or well-rounded character, as far as I'm concerned.

The rest of the cast (including a terribly dubbed Deep Roy) are fine, especially Alan Oppenheimer as many characters, mainly Falkor the Luck Dragon, who's adorable!...And looks nothing like a damn dragon! When I was a kid, I always thought he was a flying dog!

The creature designs are very good, and extremely creative! The effects, minus sub-par green-screen work, are all very good. The effects can look a little animatronic-y at times, but it''s still light years better than CGI.

All in all, I absolutely recommend The NeverEnding Story! Why did this movie have to end?! Couldn't they have at least made sequels?!...oh wait, they did, and they were awful. *sigh*...

Hi all. I'm here today with some quick thoughts on a few crappy films. Why just thoughts, and not full reviews? Well I saw these movies years ago, and while I still very much remember what's bad about them, I'd still want to rewatch it if I was going to write a proper review of it, and I do NOT want to do that!

Bloodsport 3

I'm talking about this before Bloodsport 2 because I want my review of that to be my final word on the series, rather than following a review for a great film with one for the boring piece of shit sequel!

In Bloodsport 3, winner of the Kumite (underground fighting championship) Alex Cardo (Daniel Bernhardt) is just livin' life when his friend and mentor Sun (James Hong) is murdered by a ruthless crime-lord (John Rhys-Davies)...

First I'll get the positives out of the way. The return of Pat Morita as Mr. Leung is cool, and a nice bit of continuity, although he's not in the film nearly enough. I like that the mentor character is the Kumite judge from the previous film, and the film has a framing device akin to the one in Bloodsport 2.

As for the negatives, this film is BORING! It drags on interminably, it pointlessly kills off Sun, the whole movie is pretty much Alex training, even though he was already akin to a god in martial arts in Bloodsport 2 (and the training he receives is crazy, like having deadly arrows shot at his head, or having to manhandle cobras!), there's a baffling part with magic, Sun's death scene is just bizarre, it pointlessly introduces a daughter of Sun's, which comes completely out of nowhere, never having been seen or mentioned until this film, and the ending moral is stupid!

The fight scenes are decent from what I remember, but they have no soul or heart to them. And they come so late in the movie that you'll likely have stopped caring at that point.

The acting is pretty eh. Daniel Bernhardt is a good actor when not in Bloodsport 4, John Rhys-Davies is decent as the villain, and the main female character is a real looker if I remember correctly, and the actress is good, again, if I remember correctly-Maybe she's actually awful and I just can't remember. Can't say I particularly care enough to find out. And finally, the actor playing the brute of the film for the final opponent is ok. He's huge, but has zero presence.

The Bloodsport sequels really run the gamut, don't they! We've got a great movie (2), an entertainingly bad one (4), and a painfully bad one (3). My advice is watch Bloodsport 2, and stay far, FAR away from this awful sequel!

The Naked Jungle

Woo! The original killer ant movie!...And unfortunately it's a dud.

Leningen (Charlton Heston), a plantation owner in South America, has been sent a mail-order bride (Eleanor Parker) by his brother, and Leningen is frosty towards her, wanting nothing to do with her. Gradually, they get closer**, but their new marriage might not last that long, given the stirring of the Marabunta in he forest-Army ants!...

I don't like this film for a number of reasons. One is that the character of Leningen is an annoying, sexist, asshole! For various reasons, but the one I remember most is when all of his plantation's workers are leaving en masse in some boats (the only way to leave the plantation, I think) because of the soon-approaching army ants. Leningen gives a speech and chews them out, then when they all go back inside, he says to Joanna "They'll stay tonight out of shame, and they'll stay tomorrow because I'm going to destroy the boats." Oh my God, what an asshole!

From what I remember, the character of Joanna is decent-ish. Nothing special, nor does she rise to the occasion and make this movie watchable.

The romance is pretty crappy. It's barely there, and there's barely a moment when Leningen likes Joanna (**'Gradually they inch closer'-But only by a freakin' inch!)

The killer ants aren't even mentioned until the hour point! Yeah, it takes a whole hour for killer ants to be even brought up in a killer ant movie!

And when the killer ants show up, things don't get better. They get much worse!

You see, the reason why stuff like MacGyver-Trumbo's World, and Marabunta (Legion of Fire: Killer Ants! to you Americans) are effective is that they're set in isolated locations with only a bare handful of characters, so the threat of millions of killer ants is immense. However, in The Naked Jungle, literally everyone at the entire plantation is on hand to fight the killer ants. Way to crush all suspense from the movie! There isn't a fun climax at all. The hundreds of workers just kill the ants with ease and that's it!

The acting is pretty meh. The hypocritical jerkass dickhead Charlton Heston is very stiff and weird in the way he looks and talks as the insanely unlikeable Leningen.

Ultimately, this movie tried to be two genres in one, and because of that, and other reasons, it failed, big time.

Oh, and if anyone would like to tell me that I'm a popcorn fool for expecting killer ants when I should instead be watching a 'marvelous treatise on the intricacies of male and female interactions, and the dominant power of nature and man's struggle therein', none of that matters when the movie sucks! And newsflash, you know what the source material for this movie is about? Killer fucking ants! And it lacked many of the movie's problems. Thank God MacGyver took inspiration from there, not this dreck!...

Rush Hour 3

Wow, 3 really is the cursed number when it comes to films. Superman III, Spiderman 3, The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, and countless others, including *grr* Rush Hour 3! *grits teeth*

Detectives Carter (Chris Tucker) and Lee (Jackie Chan) are back for a third outing to find the would-be Triad assassins who tried to kill Lee's old friend Council (now ambassador) Han, and are after a mysterious list...

My biggest problem with Rush Hour 3 is that the film is just plain mean-spirited Not only are Carter and Lee at each-other's throats at the start of the movie, thanks to a trite in-between-movie 'break-up', but remember Isabella from Rush Hour 2? According to this movie, at some point between the two films, Carter accidentally shot her in the neck, crippling her physically and mentally. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! COMEDY! HAHAHAHAHThat's not fucking funny!

The comedy's mostly lame and unfunny, and borderline disturbing! I swear I am not joking when I say that there's a scene where Carter and Lee are anally raped by Roman Polanski! The two are detained at an airport by French police, who don't want them on their turf, so Polanski does an extreme cavity search. The scene would have been uncomfortable enough if there was just a normal actor in the role of the spiteful French cop, but the fact that it's played by Roman Polanski, supposed Very Bad Thing, and statutory rapist, just tints the film poorly

There are overused jokes like the 'Who/Hu' one, which I probably would chuckle at if in a better movie, and if Carter didn't literally draw his gun at the unarmed man he's caught in a misunderstanding of words with!...Ok, I don't think that actually happens, but given other scenes in the movie, can you blame me for remembering the scene that way?!

The stupidest scene by far is when Carter and Lee are trying to chase down a car or something, and they get in a taxi with a guy who doesn't like Americans all that much...And Carter pulls out his gun, points it at the cabbie's head, and makes him sing the Star-Spangled Banner as he drives! What the hell kind-of world is this movie set in, because it sure ain't the real world!

There are some funny scenes, and decent aspects here, like when Carter stumbles into a burlesque dressing room and pretends to be a flamboyant instructor so he can see some French bootay, and I like that Carter now fully understands Chinese. And I also dug the return of Soo Yung, now older, although I dug that less once I found out that it was a different actress.

The acting is also still good. Jackie Chan is great, as is Chris Tucker, who some find to be an annoying actor, but I find him hilarious, and here is almost no exception.

I don't recommend Rush Hour 3. It's pointless, annoying, unfunny, unpleasant, and the movie was even too lazy to come up with an original song for the duo to groove to at the end, and instead reuses Edwin Starr's War from the first movie.

So that's my thoughts on a few films. Avoid all three of them if you can!...

Made in 1962 on a shoestring budget ($33.000-an actual shoestring budget, not what Hollywood thinks is one, which is about fifty million dollars), Carnival of Souls is a fondly remembered creepfest, and one which supposedly inspired both George A. Romero, and David Lynch among others.

Unfortunately Carnival of Souls is in the public domain, which means that not many people have given much of a shit about the film's visual and sound quality. Some have though, and I think there are some super-super remastered version out there, with organ music that doesn't have the sound of VCR wobble to back it up, like crummy PD releases, as well as the ones on Youtube have.

Organist Mary (Candace Hilligoss) is with some friends, who are egged on into a race, wherein their car crashes over a bridge and sinks into the river. Hours later, the authorities have been unable to locate the car, but they do find Mary, who walks out of the lake no worse for wear, aside from the shock. Soon after, she moves to Utah, where she gets a job as a church organist. Not liking the company of people very much, Mary isn't having much of a good time, but things get worse when she soon starts to see things. Mysterious ghouls starts stalking her, and she's oddly drawn to an old condemned carnival...

Carnival of Souls is creepy, but only a little. The dilapidated carnival looks nice and eerie, and the look of the ghouls-especially The Man-is suitably creepy, with director and producer Herk Harvey doing a great job. And just like Psycho, and Night of the Living Dead, Black and white would be this film's friend if it wasn't for the crummy quality of most prints out there. Unfortunately what diminishes the scares of the film is that overall, it's too simple. There isn't much to the film at all. A woman keeps seeing apparitions of a freaky man, and that's basically it.

The plot regarding the ghouls is very minimal. Less is more, but not always, as I wanted to know more about them. Given how malevolent they seem, and Mary's impact on the real world, I'm not really fine with the lack of story about them or Mary's predicament.

The ending isn't quite predictable, but it's not particularly hard to gauge either. I'm guessing this would have been more original back in the 60's, but then again, there's probably a gajillion Twilight Zone episodes with this plot. That's right, Carnival of Souls shares the same ending...with Night of the Meek!...

The character of Mary is interesting, and she's pretty well developed. The other characters are just there, with the one having the most screentime being the sorta-perv 'ladies man' Linden, who's a bit of a dick.

It's an absolute crime against reality that this was Candace Hilligoss' only leading role At least she's absolutely full front and centre in Carnival of Souls. And apparently she even wrote a treatment for a sequel. Curiouser and curiouser! That's something that I really want to see!

There is one tiiiny little possible problem with her performance at the end. When she's being chased by the ghouls, it looks like she's laughing. Also, in the ending, when the crashed car is dredged out of the lake, the bodies inside won't stop moving! Although that might be because they're still half-submerged in water, and it's doing the moving, but it looks like the actresses couldn't keep still.

The only thing I outright didn't like about the film is when Mary's playing a tune on the organ that makes the priest furious at her, asking for her immediate resignation. For one, how can one make or find organ music 'profane'? And the music played in the scene isn't all that eerie, to be honest, and it definitely doesn't sound 'sacrilegious'. The scene just makes the priest come across as a crazy moron, rather than reflect any sort of change in Mary.

The scoring is decent, but the organ music never sounded eerie to me, and sometimes the score does a bit too much of the talking, like when Mary first phases out of reality. I feel the scene would have been better if they'd kept the music quieter and more low-key, or not included any at all

I didn't find Carnival of Souls to be a great film, but it's definitely a decent watch, and it can be creepy at times. I recommend it...

The girls of a sorority (none of whom ever seem to wear bras-Thanks 1980's!) are keen on having an upcoming party, but their strict house mother Ms. Slater is having none of it. Angry at her hateful attitude, the girls decide to prank Slater. Unfortunately their plan backfires, and Ms. Slater ends up seeimingly dead.

The sisters dispose of the body, but it later disappears, as do the girls, one by one...

House on Sorority Row is a simple little slasher film, but I won't hold that against it. After all, the only thing stopping any of the first four Friday the 13th movies being that is that they're part of a famous franchise.

The plot is serviceable, and the mystery is pretty good, and really makes you wonder whether or not Ms. Slater is really still alive or not. Granted, the ending is a letdown, but I'll get to that. The Atmosphere is also pretty good, with nice music (excluding the cheesy 80's band), and there are some neat reveals!

The violence is decent, but there are a couple of hilariously obvious mannequin shots. There's one lame silhouette kill, which annoyed me a bit. They can definitely be effective, but in a slasher film, they're a bit of a cheat. Thankfully this film actually has onscreen death scenes, unlike say Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which is a hair's inch away from being rated PG here in Australia (Hellraiser, by the way, is only rated M now, which is the Australian equivalent of a MAN'S PG-13*).

One scene really made me laugh. Jeannie has just been attacked by the killer, but escapes into the house, where she's found by final girl Katey, who dresses her wound, then goes to get help-"I'll be right back!". Famous last words, eh! Naturally, the moment Katey leaves Jeannie alone, she's butchered after a chase to the bathrooms. Poor Jeannie, I liked you. You were cute!

Also on the movie's 'To kill' list is apparently epileptic people, given the egregious strobe flashing in one scene.

The characters are ok. Nothing special, or particularly well-written. Thankfully this movie isn't like the sorority slashers of today, which tend to have all the house girls be absolute vile bitches to each-other all the time. Vicki is definitely the bitch of the group, but she's not that bad.

The majority of the acting is decent, although there is one line a certain actress delivers that shows she clearly wasn't hired for her acting talents.

My main problem with House on Sorority Row is the really abrupt ending! The final girl is wrestling with the killer, finds a doll, sees if its head is removable for no reason, and finds a knife inside. Just so happens! Then she stabs the killer repeatedly, then knocks him/her out of the attic, then...the killer opens his eyes. DUN DUN DUN!-MOVIEOVER.

Also, the twist doesn't really make sense, given what happens in the prologue, and Ms. Slaters scene in the attic when Vicki's having sex downstairs. The way these two scenes are filmed is a cheat!

One last thing-How does Ms. Slater even die?! The gun was emptied, then loaded with blanks. How the hell did a live round get in there? Assuming a bullet was even what killed her. It's not exactly clear.

This isn't a very complex or original slasher film, but House on Sorority Row is still worth at a watch...

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

Pyjama Party (1965)

Bad Lieutenant (1992) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

A Night to Dismember (1983)

The Seven-Percent Solution (1976)

Dead and Deader (2006) [The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense's The Shortening]

Frogs (1972) [The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense's The Shortening]

Lo (2009) [The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense's The Shortening]

The Refrigerator (1991) [The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense's The Shortening]

Not This Time Nayland Smith's Third Year Anniversary

Starving in Hollywood (2014)

The Revenant (2009)

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Crackdown Mission-Uncut and Censored Comparison

The NeverEnding Story (1984)

Thoughts on Bloodsport 3 (1997), The Naked Jungle (1954) and Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The House on Sorority Row (1983)