Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the second week of that has gone thus far… Oct 22 – Freaky (2020) Luckily I have HBO Max and had heard of another flick that would make things right from how last week ended… about a serial killer & a teenage girl switching bodies… Freaky Friday the 13th but since that’s double copyright infringement it’s called “FREAKY”!!! Vince Vaughn & Kathryn Newton star as the two main people… and it’s the perfect combination of gore & humor. There’s really not much more to the story other than what I just said… serial killer stabs a teenage girl with a Mayan sacrificial dagger & apparently that switches their personalities… and then hijinx ensue as a teenage girl goes around killing people & Vince Vaughn tries to convince her friends that he is actually she… and guys, seriously, go watch this movie! Brave the gore too… it’s not that bad… and you can always do the quick look-away thing. It doesn’t linger like most horror movies. It fills it in with reaction shots and “theatre of the mind” or something like that. Rating – 10/10 – I’m probably going to watch this again with Izzy so she doesn’t miss out on it. Oct 23 – Black Widow (2021) “Okay Steve, you & I both know this isn’t a horror movie!” Look, I don’t judge a book by its cover… I judge it by its title… and “Black Widow” sounds like a horror movie to me!!! Sure, it’s about a sexy female superhero assassin prequel that goes back to a time before she was dead to find a “family” we had never really heard about & take out enemies that she thought were long dead… so maybe it’s a time traveling zombie movie with a premise like that!!! Also, I hadn’t seen it & it was finally on Disney+ for free so BACK OFF!!! This movie has Scarlett Johannsen reprising her role of the titular Black Widow… but now she’s on a mission to free all the other Widows (Russian female assassins under mind control of the big baddie) and along the way she’s reunited with Florence Pugh, David Harbour & Rachel Weisz who were her sleeper cell “family” in the 90s… and also their own superheroes as it turns out. Hijinx ensue and… I really liked this one. There were a few points where I was angry at the characters for being difficult just for the sake of the plot and all that but… yeah, check it out guys! Rating – 9/10 – I may also watch this again with Izzy if she’s in the mood… but “family” and it’s not Fast & Furious so… we’ll see when that happens. Oct 24 – Halloween Kills (2021) I love how this franchise has been rebooted so many times now that they can’t call it “Halloween 2 Again” or just retcon all of them to Halloween 2 1981, Halloween 2 2009 & Halloween 2 2021 so now they have to go the “Machete Kills” version of sequel naming. Coming Soon… Halloween Kills Again… in Space!!! Well, hold that thought. This sequel-prequel retcon of the 3rd retelling of the John Carpenter slasher classic picks up concurrently at a karaoke bar as the ending events of 2018 Halloween… which is present day (2018) after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her daughter & granddaughter have just locked the killer Michael Myers in a basement inferno… roll credits, right? Of course not! Instead, Michael tears through a gaggle of firefighters and literally everybody he runs into for essentially no reason… while Laurie is having her torso stapled back together in a hospital full of the rest of Haddonfield as they go full “The Mist” and become a completely stupid lynch mob within about five minutes and start chasing another mentally handicapped old man through a hospital the size of Texas… and I’m just going to stop there. This movie is f**king stupid. Everybody in it is f**king stupid. It’s the worst kind of excuse for some great slasher kills… but it really is pointless other than that. I sincerely hope that “Halloween Kills Again In Space” brings back Tom Atkins to go after a Irish-based mask making conglomerate with some rando’s potentially teenage daughter… because let’s face it, we haven’t seen that remake yet. Rating – 4/10 – The bones are there, but the entire hospital things is a half-hour of pointless nonsense in an otherwise tightly stupid slasher. Oct 25 – DUNE!!! (2021) AT F**KING LAST!!! I’ve been hype about this movie for YEARS now & it has FINALLY come to theatres (or more appropriately HBO MAX)!!! The cast is ridiculous… the plot is the inspiration for everything from Star Wars to Aliens and back… it’s a sci-fi classic that’s just waiting for an appropriate representation in the visual medium of film. Would this be the Godsend?!? Would the White Savior story set in Space FINALLY get its moment in Hollywood limelight after decades of failed attempts?!? Well… I’ll give this movie one thing… it’s a gorgeous trailer… an intro into the backstory of what should be an amazing series of movies. I enjoyed everything about the movie… except that I was left with the feeling at the end that I was actually ready for the movie to begin… even after 2.5 hours. Now I had thought that Part 2 was ready to go for next year… so to find out that they hadn’t filmed it back to back & It may be another three years or so… F*********K!!! Rating – 9/10 – It left me wanting more… but it was too much like an appetizer to go full 10/10 rating. Oct 26 – The Snorkel (1958) Back to the Hammer collection as we check out this little gem… we start off seeing a man kill his wife by knocking her out with drugs, letting gas seep into a sealed-up room, while he’s breathing through a snorkel rig in the floorboards, and the police come & rule her death a suicide… and he’s allegedly away on a business trip. Well, the teenage daughter knows that it’s bullsh*t & stepdad killed her father the same way & she’s next… but the police won’t believe her. Now… I won’t go into details… but this premise really got to me because of my father’s death & how the police completely disregarded my suspicions. That being said, how this movie plays out… is pretty damn entertaining to watch & the only knock that I really have against it is my modern perspective of “nobody believes her because she’s a teenage girl?” Then again… if I look at it with “police are just being f**king lazy & don’t give a f**k about you or your family” then it all makes sense. Rating – 9/10 – I recommend checking this one out! The teenage girl is killing it, moreso than some of the older actors. Oct 27 – Maniac (1963) Okay, this premise was a little weird to me… so try to follow along. An American painter boards up in a small French village and starts out wanting to have an affair with a barmaid… but instead has the affair with her mom, the bar owner… and about three days into their relationship, she’s like “the only way we can be together is if my husband divorces me… but he’s in prison for killing the man who raped our daughter… and the only way that he’s going to divorce me is if you break him out of prison!” and THEN hijinx ensue!!! That being said… I really liked this Hammer movie too… and I’d say check it out! Rating – 9/10 – Some parts will have you scratching your head a bit… but it’s worth a look. Oct 28 – Children of the Corn (1984) “OUTLANDER!!! OUTLANDER!!! WE HAVE YOUR WOMAN, OUTLANDER!!!” Yes, the classic Stephen King movie about a Nebraska town overrun by kids who killed off the adults and… well, they survive somehow. Then along comes a young couple (Peter Horton & Linda Hamilton) taking the backroads for… some reason, and hijinx ensue when their paths meet. I enjoy this movie… mostly because it’s pretty preposterous… but a lot of fun & the kid actors aren’t completely horrible. Rating – 9/10 – Dang near a classic… but there are definitely parts that drag on rewatch. Until next time, Steve
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Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the second week of that has gone thus far… Oct 15 – My Boyfriend’s Back (1993) I remember commercials for this when I was a kid, but I had never seen it. Luckily, Diana with Happily Ever Aftermath podcast invited us on for a future episode… so we had to check it out! Basically there’s a nerdy high school kid (played by a 23 year old) who’s been in love with this super hot chick (25 year old Traci Lind) since they were little kids… but he’s never done anything about it & she’s going out with the quarterback (babyfaced Matthew Fox in his feature debut). Well, one day he gets the idea to enlist his buddy (who looks like Jonah Hill & Miles Teller had a baby) to pretend to rob the convenience store she’s working at, so that he can jump in & save her… and they go to the dance. Hijinx ensue, he gets shot by a REAL robber, roll credits. Just kidding, he comes back as an unexplained zombie… and holds her to what she said as life was leaving his body, that she’d go to the dance with her… enter random cameos from Philip Seymour Hoffmann & Matthew McConaughey… and the movie goes kinda bananas after this. The tone was… crazy… but I really loved it! The nerdy kid’s parents are super supportive of their zombie son, most people are pretty f**king cool with it… and for more on it, check out the episode on your favorite podcatcher under Happily Ever Aftermath! Rating – 8/10 – I was expecting this to be a 4… but it was just crazy enough to catch me! Oct 16 – Rats: A Night of Terror (1984) Izzy wanted to see a movie that she vaguely remembered from her childhood called “Rats” but… basically all we knew was that rats were in it & it was horror. So we looked it up on Amazon Prime… and I think we may have found it for a future watch… but this one was streaming on Amazon Prime free… and was an Italian post-apocalyptic movie about Mad Max knockoffs being killed by rats… so obviously we watched this one immediately!!! Fun fact: I f**king LOVE Italian post-apocalyptic movies… and will gladly watch them whenever offered. I’d probably prefer them to a Marvel movie honestly. So yeah, this one, bikers show up to an abandoned town… and then rats. There’s weirdly sexual moments, ridiculous dummy kills, “science” and a tremendous ending! Rating – 10/10 – Did I mention that I love these movies?!? Oct 17 – Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) We were invited on an upcoming episode of No Highway Option Podcast, which if you don’t know is a podcast where they compare a movie to the 2004 seminal masterpiece “The Pacifier” starring Vin Diesel, and the movie to compare is picked by the previous guest… and for us, it was this 3rd installment of a CG-animated Adam Sandler movie about monsters running a hotel. No… I feel like I’ve seen the earlier installments, or at least parts of it, or heard it in the background at my brother’s house or something… but I knew Adam Sander was Dracula & Selena Gomez was his daughter… but I didn’t know that Kevin James, David Spade & all the other guys were in it too… so mostly in one ear & out the other however I saw them. This installment, Dracula needs to get laid… er, I guess date because it’s been nearly 20 years since his wife died… and his daughter buys him (and all his friends?) a cruise to the Bermuda Triangle to see the Lost City of Atlantis to relax? That’s the plot… I thought she was doing it to have him meet women… but nope, just he works too hard… and the thought of him dating somebody makes her violently ill or something? Whatever… it’s a kids movie & you need conflict… besides him falling in love with the great-granddaughter of his sworn enemy but… check it out if you want! I actually kinda liked it for a kids flick. Rating – 8/10 – I’m not really into kids flicks, but this one was okay! Oct 18 – Mikey (1992) Izzy has an irrational fear of Elijah Wood… or perhaps she just senses something we don’t know about him? She has had this fear since seeing him in “The Good Son” and he wasn’t even the bad kid in that movie. Macaulay Culkin was. Apparently she just doesn’t like bright eyes & dark features on any human being, so keep your shadowy/smoky eye look away from her if you want to be trusted. Well, around that same time was this killer kid movie… and I’m sure that I had seen it before (or just knew exactly how the story & dialogue was going to play out instinctually) but it’s about a kid… who in the opening scenes videotapes murdering his family… but then goes into the adoption system & gets adopted by a creepy sweet couple… and hijinx ensue. The biggest star in this movis is the girl from the first two Hellraiser movies & the kid who’d later play Alexander in Star Trek: The Next Generation… but I kinda liked this stupid killer kid movie. The kills were cheesy & violent, the acting was okay, and sure in the real world this kid would’ve been beaten to crippling day one by literally anybody in the movie… but still I enjoyed it. Rating – 9/10 – The only drawback is the suspension of disbelief that anybody would’ve gladly killed that kid the first time he even hinted at wanting to do me harm. Oct 18 – Curse of the Chippendales (2021) Okay, this one isn’t a super cheesy David DeCoteau film about a haunted set of cuffs & collar as I first thought… but rather it’s a documentary series (like 3 hours total) about the epic rise & fall of the original Chippendales. Now you may be thinking “Oh whoopedy doo, it’s about a bunch of glorified gigolos making money & then getting caught up in pure 80’s cocaine & hijinx ensue” and you would… well, you wouldn’t be wrong, that’s for sure. That being said, when a documentary basically starts with Playboy & the Dorothy Stratton murder, betrayal, old talk show footage, murder plots and interviews with the people who were actually there (at least those that survived the 90s) then I would recommend checking this out! Also, Izzy & I were casting a movie telling the story of this… and if Mark Ruffallo doesn’t play Nick DeNoia then somebody is dropping the f**king ball… Rating – 9/10 – Great documentary that was better than I was expecting honestly. Oct 19 – Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) We were searching HBO Max for horror movies… and this one came up. Now, we’d seen a few board game horror movies in our day, but not this one from director Mike Flanagan who also directed Oculus, Gerald’s Game & Doctor Sleep which we loved… so gave it a shot. Holy crap! Why didn’t anybody tell me this Ouija movie was actually good? From the 70s throwback effects like opening credits & “cigarette burns” to the actresses and suspenseful story, it all just f**king clicked for me. Essentially it’s a prequel (more on that later) that tells the story of a single mom & her two daughters who are fortune tellers/grifters but their house is about to be foreclosed on… when the youngest daughter has a new imaginary friend… and hijinx ensue. No more spoiling, but go see this movie now!!! Also, the youngest daughter is played by Lulu Wilson… and I thought to myself, “this girl is reminding me of that Matilda / Mrs. Doubtfire daughter” from the 90s… and then I was like “Wait… wasn’t her last name Wilson?” I looked it up… and yes, it’s actress Mara Wilson… but NO, they are not related… and oddly enough nothing came up on the internet asking if they were… so apparently this is my first independent thought in a while. Rating – 10/10 – Seriously, go check it out! Oct 20 – Ouija (2014) Which leads me to our next watch, because we say that the 2016 movies was 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was a prequel to this 2014 movie which was 6% on Rotten Tomatoes… so you KNOW what we had to watch it to find out how it could be so different. Well… I’d say it’s better than 6% but more in the twenties is all. This is what I figured the other was going to be… a bunch of teenagers that I want to die before they even start doing stupid white people sh*t have a friend who commits suicide, and apparently the week before she was rambling about this Ouija board game… so they HAVE to play it because otherwise the movie is about a bunch of teenagers doing nothing of importance WITHOUT people dying off… and yeah, it’s rough. How does it tie into the prequel? There are a few nod here & there (which oddly enough seemed out of place in Origin of Evil) and one of the characters ends up being the oldest daughter but even that was apparently abandoned in the new movie… so yeah, watch at your own risk. Instead watch Origin of Evil again maybe? Rating – 5/10 – I’m being generous with the 5 here… but I’m a generous guy & if you like Blumhouse movies, you might enjoy it more than “7 in Heaven” or something. Oct 21 – Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) So I went to my brother’s over the weekend to see the family… and while I was there he told me that he had a new favorite movie of 2021. He went on & on about how the new Venom movie is amazing, action packed & MUST be seen in a theatre… in fact, he was going to go AGAIN later in the week to experience it. Now, I kind of enjoyed the first Venom movie… and that was only seeing it at my other brother’s house on their TV… and I was questioning the movie after seeing Woody Harrelson with Ronald McDonald’s hair in the end credits of the first one… but he’s a good actor. The sequel is directed by Andy Serkis, the mo cap master of the last 25 years… but he also directed “Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle” which if you haven’t seen on Netflix (since it never went to theatre despite a $250+ million budget) is… frightening in all the wrong ways. Anyway, it had my brother’s seal of approval and he’s rarely wrong when it comes to superhero movies… but holy sh*t was this movie rough. It’s the timeless story of an alien symbiote goo & an inexplicably famous San Francisco beat reporter who combined in the first movie & at the end of it, now they’ve decided to defend the planet… even though the alien symbiote in the comics is a villain. Don’t worry about it. Sony doesn’t have the rights to Spiderman (his hero nemesis). Anyway, a serial killer is being executed but wants to be interviewed by the reporter… but because he got bit or something, now he has an alien symbiote & is even more powerful… but also pure evil… except for his girlfriend from the insane asylum… so it’s like “Natural Born Killers” meets “The Odd Couple” and… okay, the action scenes were pretty good… until they get absolutely ridiculous. The humor is… bad. The plot is… well, you just heard it & that’s without throwing in all the stupid lack and/or abundance of pointless communication to fill out the 80 minutes of movie. The fact that this is 60% WITH THE CRITICS and 84% with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes AND the biggest opening weekend in a while makes me think there’s some shenanigans going on. I LOVE bad movies… but this is just horrible & hard to finish… EVEN AT 80 MINUTES!!! Rating – 3/10 – The action scenes were still pretty cool… until they weren’t. Sorry to end on a low note but... I assure you there are some great ones coming up in the next entry with new releases like "Halloween Kills" and the highly anticipated "DUNE"!!! Until then, Steve Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the second week of that has gone thus far… Oct 8 – We Are The Damned (1962) This was part of that Hammer collection that we’re going through & this one starts out as a middle aged American tourist getting jumped by… basically the kids from Clockwork Orange & the leader’s hot young sister. Then after talking to the cops, the tourist runs into her again… and it’s the whole “My brother won’t let me leave or do what I want” and the tourist is then basically trying to convince her to sail away with him. Well, as you might have guessed hijinx ensue… but probably not the hijinx that you expect as they inexplicably end up at a government institution and… I’ll just let you check it out from here. Great performance by Oliver Reed in an early role as the baddie druid brother or whatever & I can honestly say that I had no idea where this movie was going about halfway through. Rating – 8/10 – Check it out if you’re into thrillers… with odd twists Oct 9 – Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) One of the retold classics from Hammer but I’ve never seen before… and where you might be expecting something where Dr. Jekyll is the proper British gentleman scientist & Mr. Hyde as the brutish behemoth who resorts to violence on a whim… this movie is actually more Nutty Professor, where the scientist Dr. Jekyll is a bit of an a-hole with an inexplicably gorgeous wife… and Mr. Hyde is basically a super-confident man who shaves & fancies experiencing all that life has to offer. Enter Christopher Lee as Dr. Jekyll’s “friend” who’s also plowing his wife and… hijinx ensue!!! Rating – 9/10 – I really liked this one! There are slow parts… but check it out! Oct 10 – The Old Dark House (1963) Now for this one, we had seen the original Rifftrax version from 1932 that had Boris Karloff in it or something… but this was more of a Hammer comedic take on the tale. Essentially a man breaks down on his way to meet a gambling buddy of his at an old stately manor & finds that his buddy is dead and his buddy’s family is living in the mansion with a weird family tradition brought upon by a twisted trust fund… where they meet at the mansion every night at midnight or they lose their chance to get the inheritance… and the last surviving member wins! Hijinx ensue! Now… if you’re a little confused by the plot description that I’ve given… think something like the movie “Clue” but with a House on Haunted Hill kind of angle. I will admit that this one had some parts that drug a bit for me… mostly because I guess I’m not all about the British humor or something (and I suffer from white people faceblindness after a while). Rating – 7/10 – That being said, I still dug it! Oct 11 – The Gorgon (1964) An inspector is sent to a small European village to investigate some questionable death, including his father & brother. There he’s met by the local asylum doctor (Peter Cushing) who appears to be covering up the deaths… and won’t answer questions about the local legend of a Gorgon, a creature from Greek Mythology that turns people into literal stone if they gaze upon them! Well, his old professor (Christopher Lee) jumps in to help him out, the inspector falls in love with the aslyum doctor’s lovely assistant, the deaths pile up, hijinx ensue! Lee & Cushing are magnificent as always! Everybody’s good really… but the ending gets a little… laughable in spite of it really being an intriguing story (though fairly predictable). Rating – 9/10 – This movie probably would’ve been a 10 from me… but the ending is kind of a letdown. Check it out though! Oct 12 – Cash On Demand (1961) Let’s make it FIVE Hammer movies in a row!!! You may also be questioning whether this one is a horror movie… but it’s part of the Hammer collection so it definitely counts. Basically this movie is about a bank president (Peter Cushing) who’s a bit of a maticulous twat… but then one morning his operations starts getting audited by the bank commission… only when it’s too late does he realize that this inspector (Andre Morrell) is actually a bank robber… and he has the president’s wife & child held hostage. Hijinx ensue & this movie is straight out of the Hitchcock playbook as far as building tension & effective use of score (or lack thereof). The ending does get a little “Wait… what?” but it doesn’t really take away from the rest of the movie. Rating – 10/10 – I really liked this one! If you like a bank heist movie, check it out! Oct 13 – My Inner Demon: A Geraldson Tale (2021) Actor / director / writer / comedian Gerald Varga joined us for PodcArt Fest this last October 9th & he’s an incredible nice guy! We’ll definitely be asking him to join us for an episode of Everything I Learned from Movies! While on PodcArt Fest, he mentioned his latest movie “My Inner Demon: A Geraldson Tale” was currently streaming at the Digital Monthly Online Film Festival (@DMOFF) and it’s essentially a comedic take on a found footage movie about Gerald in the aftermath of his movie “Murder Box” (which you should also check out on Amazon Prime). After not gaining international fame & recognition, he decides that he’s going to make a film about how to make a found footage film with his buddy… but then he also finds out that his alter ego Gerald Gerald Geraldson may be creeping into his psyche… and other hijinx ensues! There are parts of this movie that I absolutely LOVE & I think you’ll be able to pick them out WHEN you watch it, which I absolutely recommend! That being said, I wish that I were able to find what it is about this movie that… just wasn’t clicking right when I was watching it. I’m not sure if it was the pacing or something… but the acting was spot on, framing of the shots & cinematography were great, there was just something missing from making this a banger! I really enjoyed it though! Rating – 8/10 – A great feat in independent filmmaking which you should check out! Oct 14 – Nightmare Sisters (1988) Director David DeCoteau is… interesting. From what I understand, he’s the kind of a man that if you give a few grand & a few rolls of film, he’ll squirt you out a movie that you can put in a DVD box and sell legally. Some of his most recent work includes “A Talking Cat?!?”, “Snow White: A Deadly Summer” and a bunch of schlock that I can’t convince myself into putting in a browser history. So why would I watch this movie? Well… number one, I didn’t know it was one of his. Secondly, it was recommended to me by Eddie (hwoPING) the Axe from the Bloodybits Horror Show… basically telling me that he made the movie “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” and with the leftover film ends from that movie… and four days with the sexy sirens Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens & Michelle Bauer… along with some other rando, he made this movie! Eddie respected it so much that he actually cast the three starlets as Dracula’s Brides in his recasting of a Dracula Reboot (entitled RoboDracula vs. the WhenWolf). So with that in mind… I was intrigued. What was it about this movie that captivated this man so much? Well… when the first credit was David DeCoteau, I immediately regretted this decision… but I continued. When the opening ten minutes was punk frontman Dukey Flyswatter doing his best Apu impersonation as a fortune teller… I pushed through. When the next 30 minutes was the three starlets “uglied up” and using horribly grating voices through a plot that bordered on special needs about sorority girls have the house to themselves & wanting to throw a party with three random nerds… I persevered. Then about 40 minutes into the movie when they’re performing a séance and demons transform them into the sexy bare-breasted sirens that they are… and then there’s a twenty minute scene of them in the bathtub washing one another… I understood. Oh & hijinx ensue… Rating – 8/10 – Only because the 8 looks like titties… seriously, this movie is rough… wait for a future episode on this one. As foretold in the Prophecy, Steve Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
Sorry, it has been super busy with getting things ready for PodcArt Fest and just life in general… but I thought I’d stop in & say howdy. It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the first week of that has gone thus far… Oct 1 – The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) Guys, we got a 20 Film Hammer Horror Collection so don’t be surprised when that (or the Universal Monster Collection we got last year) pops up a few times on this list. They’re movies we’ve been meaning to see… and they’re in that sweet horror window for 75-90 minutes. On that note, f**k you “Army of the Dead”! Nobody wants a 2.5 hour zombie heist flick. Keep it tight! Anyway, “The Revenge of Frankenstein” is apparently the 2nd in a series of 6-7 Frankenstein films that Hammer made with the great Peter Cushing as Viktor Frankenstein… and in this one, he has assumed the identity of Dr. Stein (clever) to continue he research at the turn of the century… to create LIFE!!! In this one, the local doctors board or something is curious about this new doctor who’s treating patients well at a reasonable cost… but doesn’t join their board. Obviously this leads to a path of death & destruction since he just doesn’t give into their medicare system & hijinx ensue. Okay, it’s not quite that… but I really enjoy the lush colors, creepy weird characters & at times downright witty banter of the movie. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come with future Hammer films. Full confession… the only other Hammer films I’ve seen are “Frankenstein Created Woman” which we did for the podcast (ageofradio.org/everythingilearnedfrommovies) a few years back… and we caught the last half of one of those ones where Peter Cushing & Christopher Lee are in a small German town… which apparently is like 5 of them… so that doesn’t narrow it down. Rating: 8/10 - Decent flick, highly recommend! Oct 2 – Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) It’s weird to say that the only bad thing you can say about a movie is that Keanu Reeves is in it… but damn it, that’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to me! Some people think of it as a little cheesy & whatever… but I feel that’s only because of Keanu’s English accent that he tries to do. Lord help me it’s bad at times (“I’ve seen where the bastard sleeps…”) and yes, that could have EASILY been remedied by director Francis Ford Coppola reaching out to his nephew Nicolas Cage to take that fairly small role instead… but alas, what’s done is done… and it’s done magnificently in my opinion. The unsettling visuals with creative special effects & layering make this a treat for the eyes, and there are dynamic performances from some of the greatest actors in a generation (Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Cary Elwes in the role he was born to play, heck even Winona Ryder isn’t bad). You even get to see Monica Bellucci’s breasts! This movie has EVERYTHING you want in a vampire movie! Rating – 10+/10 - Greatest Vampire Movie Ever! Oct 3 – Malignant (2021) This is a new one on HBO Max from director James Wan (“Conjuring” series & “Dead Silence”) about a woman (Annabelle Wallis) who has these dreams of gruesome murders… and they end up coming true. But why? How is she able to see these things right before they happen? I’m going to try to not spoil anything other than to say that the first two acts are kind of slowburn of a tense psychological thriller with potential supernatural elements as the quick synposis would imply… and then the third act becomes one of the most incredible spectacles of film that I have seen in a long time!!! The acting is pretty good (though the main character get pretty f**king whiny at times, but that’s the script) and the atmosphere, as with most James Wan horrors, is pretty damn gripping. That third act though makes this a MUST SEE in my opinion!!! Rating – 10/10 - Check it out! Oct 4 – Once Bitten (1985) Before “In Living Color” & the greatest single year that any actor has ever had, Jim Carrey wasn’t always the King of Hollywood. In 1985 he starred in this low budget vampire comedy that I’ve probably seen conservatively a hundred times as a child, but not recently. So when Diana of the Happily Ever Aftermath Podcast asked us to come onto her show to talk about this movie, I was very eager to check it out again (and it’s streaming free on Tubi). The story is about a teenager (23 year old Jim Carrey) who has a lovely girlfriend (28 year old Karin Kopkins, think sexier Courtney Cox) who’s a bit of a prude… and he’s a virgin & just wants to get laid… and has two comedic sidekick friends who want to go to The Big City to meet girls… and as luck would have it, he runs into a cougar vampire (Lauren Hutton) who’s in search for a virgin. Hijinx ensue. I was REALLY expecting this to be a raunchier teen comedy that ages poorly on hindsight like some of my other favorite movies of the era (“Revenge of the Nerds”) but to be honest… I still found it hilarious… and there’s even a shower scene with homophobic slurs that is actually handled pretty well looking at it again. Dance numbers, great jokes, cheesy special effects, Jim Carrey doing his overly dramatic reactions, I still enjoy this movie! Rating – 8/10 – I can see where this isn’t somebody’s bag… but if you’re looking for a horror comedy, you can do worse. Oct 5 – The Village (2004) I saw this movie in theatres… because I really liked “Signs” up until the last ten minutes… and love “The Sixth Sense” & “Unbreakable” even on repeat viewing. M Night had me at this point. However, I remember this being the first movie where I started questioning his expertise as a filmmaker. I was also 23… so would an extra 17 years experience in film viewing & being married to a woman who really likes the film change my opinion? Let’s find out! We start off in a turn-of-the-century village where there’s these religious zealots who live in a small village of what appear to be maybe a hundred people. Their village is surrounded by a forest… but in this forest, there are mysterous & deadly monsters who keep them at bay, so traveling there is strictly forbidden by the village elders. Well, Joaquin Phoenix is adventurous and thinks that he can go to the neighboring towns for medicine, but the elders don’t like that idea, oh and he’s also in love with blindish Bryce Dallas Howard. One day, mentally impaired Adrian Brody stabs Joaquin… and he’s on death’s door. BDH insists on going to get medicine… and hijinx ensue. I almost feel like it’s a given with an M Night movie but… there’s a twist ending, which is completely unnecessary in this movie, so I won’t even spoil it. What I will say is… I enjoyed it much more than the first time that I watched it. The atmosphere is spooky. The performances are great with Joaquin, BDH, Sigourney Weaver & William Hurt. I even believe Adrian Brody going full r-word. M Night is not the best at human dialogue… but the old timey speak covers up a lot of that… to a point. It’s not great… but it’s not bad either. Rating – 7/10 – Check it out if you’re looking for something spooky but not gory… just please don’t think about it too much. Oct 6 – Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) The second movie in our Hammer Collection was this almost straight up retelling of 1932’s “The Mummy” but with the Hammer twist (bright colors, British actors in potential brownface & big boobs). British archeologists find the sarcophagus of a famous Egyptian ruler… and hijinx ensue as the expedition’s benefactor wants to take it around the world like it’s a circus or King Kong or something & the local authorities don’t want their heritage to be disrespected. There’s also a legend that anybody who witnesses the opening of the tomb will be horribly killed! Now, I LOVE 1999’s “The Mummy” with the passionate heat of a thousand suns… and even saw some potential in 2017’s “The Mummy” though it should’ve been the start-off point for Tom Cruise as the Wolfman… but that’s another story for another time. I was overjoyed to see a lot more of the 1999 version’s influence stemming from this movie than the 1932 original. No, not just the inexplicably beautiful lady archeologist (played by Bond girl Jeanne Roland) but the comedic elements & just a different pace and tone to the movie. Then again it was made over 30 years after the original so that may have a lot to do with it too. Perhaps I’ll have to rewatch the 1932 version too and get an official verdict other than 2017’s was mishandled at best. Anyway, I liked it! Rating – 7/10 – I enjoyed it but there are a lot of cheesy parts being an almost 60 year old movie. Oct 7 – Carnosaur (1993) Okay, I remember this movie coming out as I was a young boy being SUPER hyped that we’d finally get to see decent dinosaurs in a movie theatre when “Jurassic Park” was coming out! Kids, before then, about the best versions of dinosaurs we got on film was “Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend” (google it & enjoy) so JP was a f**king gamechanger!!! After watching JP a few times in theaters (Cineplex Odeon a few times & the drive-in theatre) like most dinosaur enthusiasts at the time, I wanted more dinosaur movies!!! Luckily there were a few movie producers who knew that & had their own low-budget efforts in the works with the likes of “Prehysteria!” or “We’re Back! A Dinosaur Story” or “Tammy & the T-Rex” and the like. Don’t worry, we’ll be celebrating next DiNovember on the podcast some of these treats. However, with this movie’s R-rating & my dad hearing that it sucks f**king hard, this movie never made it to my virginal eyes back then… and I had forgotten about it for a while with you know my teenage year & twenties happening… and then nobody else had thought about it, so it seemed to be lost in the ether. Well, I was reminded about it in looking up dinosaur movies, but it didn’t seem to be available unless it was a VHS rip some guy online was selling for $50… but then I remember that I’m a Patreon of The Bloodybits Horror Show podcast and they have their amazing Blood Bank, which a VPN where host Eddie (hwoPING) the Axe has a plethora of amazing horror movies… and what would you know, “Carnosaur” is on there!!! God bless the Axe!!! So anway, one of those low-rent movie producers was Roger Corman who financed this movie… and basically it’s about this corporation trying to manipulate DNA to make a more productive chicken… but it somehow leads to being a virus that spread throughout a town… and leads to dinosaurs being born & ravaging the countryside with an insatiable hunger? We’ll get more into it on a future episode… but despite this movie having some decent actors like Diane Ladd, Ned Bellamy & even a Clint Howard cameo… it’s pretty rough, even for a movie with a sub-million-dollar budget involving DINOSAURS!!! The sets were… I assume just available being the key word. The effects were laughably bad. The gore was equally hilarious. The plot started off like it had something to say… and then went completely off the rails. I’m still not sure what the main protagonists have to do with the movie other than they exist & are in their 20’s (though that’s debatable as well). It’s kind of a trainwreck… and that being said, I still really kinda liked it… because I’m a dinosaur nut & I like schlocky movies! Rating – 5/10 – Look, I know I’m blinded by my love of bad movies & dinosaurs… but I enjoyed it. If it sounds like your bag, then join the Patreon of The Bloodybits Horror Show & tell them Steve with EILFM sent ya!!! Okay, that’ll do it for this entry! PodcArt Fest is this Saturday, October 9th! Join us at https://my.boothcentral.com/v/events/podcart-fest-spooky-fall-festival for all the fun & art!!! Love, Peace & Chicken Grease, Steve |
Steve and Izzy
Steve and Izzy are the hosts behind the EILFM podcast, are BJCP beer judges and have terrible to questionable taste in movies. Along with the PodCats Pickles, Cameron and Poe they will justify why these movies are amazing Archives
May 2024
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