A film set in the '80s, but it was made in the '80s, so that's alright.
Shopping mall.
Security robots, like camp, pint-sized ED-209s.
Wrinkly teens.
After hours party in the mall,
Spiders and a snake.
This was made two years after The Terminator...
Admittedly with a much smaller budget. Dick Miller appears in both. He's cool though, I like him.
Survivor Girl also managed to borrow Linda Hamilton's clothes and hair.
Y'know what, this is kinda alright. Terrible, but at 77 minutes, short enough to be bearable.
Sorrority house slasher film that's every bit as bollocks as the films it's trying to emulate. Is that a real word? Looks odd now I've typed it.
Like so many fucking rubbish films these days, it's set in the 1980s. Why? What is the big fucking deal with the '80s that makes these young writers and directors so fucking eager to culture-fellate the era before spitting the emissions onto faux scratchy-effect digi-footage? Well done! You've made a film in a time where for paper-round money you can make your efforts look superb, instead you put all your energy into making a film look like an old shit one.
Pretentious, psuedo-ironic hipstery cuntism.
As a visual guide, I offer you these two images:
This is what those hungry young creatives think the '80s looked like:
Drabness. Grey. A decade of quick boom and heavy recession. Cold war paranoia. Anti-glamour. Short summers, long winters. Wealth divide. Rain. Massive civil unrest. The birth of AIDS.
As for the film, well, apart from a brief bit of Carpenter-esque incidental music, it's an unengaging 90 minute floppy cock. Set in the pissing '80s.
A mostly piss poor Evil Dead rip-off with suprisingly good gore. The first 40 minutes has sound recorded through a cauliflower then it suddenly picks up to be on a par with Raimi's classic. Odd. Maybe it's just my disc. But then it goes shit again.
At one point a woman gets her boobs mashed by a nerd demon. Her look of repulsion was oddly familiar to me.
No one's ever gonna read this, so I'm off for a wank.
Vic Armstrong appears to have had an ace life, full of adventure, as well as doing most of the stunts someone of my age has seen in films. That's why I'm looking forward to reading the autobiography he released last year.
However, back in 1993 he directed Johsua Tree. That's the title of the film, not one of the film's actors, although the needle on your Wood Gauge will remain buried in the red for the entire run time. Dolph Lundgren plays a man who gets shot then shoots an absolute shit-ton of people in return. At one point with his specially commisioned 11 shot revolver.
It's a throbbing cup of monkey-tits and Armstrong's backround in stunts is heavily evident; any car that moves will explode at some point and this film has one of the most hilariously OTT gunfights ever.
It drags on for far too long and for the first two thirds of the film Dolphina is utterly unsympathetic and makes some scarily rapey-eyes at his female hostage. He briefly redeems himself in one early scene where he appears to shoot a puppet, followed by a box of tomatoes and a window. His acting is funny as balls.
If you wanna watch a genuinely ace bit of vintage Dolph, watch Dark Angel (1990). It's the fuckin' bizbo.
Joshua Tree trivia: Ronnie Rondell plays 'Warehouse Cop #2'. Obviously a mate of Armstrong's as his list of stunt credits is longer than John Holmes on the bonk, but he is the guy who is on fire on the front cover of Pink Floyd's miseryglum classic Wish You Were Here.
4/10 In a 'it's shit, but you'll laugh a lot' kinda way.
Jeff "Bridges" Lebowski has floppy hair that becomes increasingly messy as he decides that Tim Shawshank is a loony bomb-person. Unusually, I find myself agreeing with a comment on IMDB, specifically one that said this was like a B-movie made by an A-list team.
It has acting, hot early-era internet use, people in vans and a convoluted, yet very good ending, highlighting how the thinnest of lies can become the accepted truth.
The guy who plays James Bondmadeoutofwood moves into a nice house with Mrs WoodBond and two cherubic Bondlings. It's sort of haunted. Naomi Watts looks five years older than her daughter, wears brilliantly tight jeans and turns up with a big pot of stew. The considerate, neighbourly cow! How dare she!
Well acted but carved from a giant wax boulder of derivative.
Essentially a haunted house tale, but its description as a 'filmed play' is pretty fair as it is very stage-like, frequently to the point of naffness.
Progressive in some ways (the use and belief in technology over superstition), but embarassingly dated in many others (pretty much everything else: the actual tech used, the fucking terrible acting, the plethora of un-ironic moustaches, the clothes and, worse of all, the one female character is frequently talked to in a 'There, there. You're just a woman' kinda way).
What is brilliant is the appearance of the company boss near the end who's a cross between Swiss Tony and Peter Wyngarde (Google them, you spastic) and the computer seen near the end which is, seriously, a washing machine with a perspex box on top!
This has the flippin' ubiquitous James Cosmo looking about 15, Jane Asher looking about 52 (even though she was in her mid-twenties), a staircase that looks just like one from Resident Evil 4 and lots of people claiming it's fucking amazing, according to Wikipedia. It's not. 'Whistle And I'll Come To You' or the previously reviewed 'The Signalman' are both greatly superior entries to the now dead Ghost Story At Christmas series from vintage Brit TV archives. The end is agreeably prickly though.
Typing this whilst drunk, so I care even less than usual what any cunt from the 'net might think, but if you need further info:
Hadn't seen this since not long after it came out. Expected it to be embarrassing rubbish (I liked some right old shit as a teenager) but it's still enjoyable (in that uniquely 80's comedy way). The opening credits are horribly dated but otherwise the film holds up pretty well. Some quotable lines, and doesn't drag on for two and a half fucking hours for no reason like many contemporary films. Although Judge Reinhold looks 12, the cast are average looking grown ups rather than pissy skinny model-like high school kids. A nostalia tinged 8/10.
As a life-long horror mental, I've always been perplexed by the blind adoration some of the worst offenders have amoungst the splat-fans. Demons 2 was written by Dario Argento -definately not a paedophile, but really looks like one- and directed by Lamberto Bava. You know that when two such incandescent beacons of Italian amazingness get together, brown magic's gonna happen!
Anyway, the film takes place in a block of flats where a grumpy woman gets bitten by her TV, turns into a demon and then runs around spreading the love. Various residents include:
A pregnant woman who does sit ups to "Give air to the baby" !?
A Gym instructor who manages to dip his arms in oil before every scene.
A Mark 1 Ford Fiesta, briefly seen in an alleway.
A gang of four hilariously unconvincing street-tough 'youths', in their early thirties, who spend the film speeding recklessly around town at 28mph, before having a crash and, er, fucking off.
A male midget* demon who gives birth to a sub-midget demon, who is even midget-ier.
The make up and some of the effects are genuinely excellent and a couple of shots are actually, honestly creepy. The effects peeps and the DOP deserve a pair of golden pasta shells (probably the Italian version of The Oscars 'n' shit)
Rodney Trotter wears a shit jacket and gives a man a shoeing in a lift whilst Carey fucking Mulligan watches with her stupid eyes. Critics wank themselves stupid because Trotter doesn't say much, piss-poor music sometimes plays and the credits look like ones from the '80s! THE '80s!!! CREDITS!!! A JACKET!!! TEDIUM!!!
Rum goings on, crispy ex-boyfriends, greedy property developers and more mullets than a Berlin mullet festival all feature heavily. It says it all that the shopping mall (Sherman Oaks Galleria) has been in far more household name films than the cast combined. Notable highlight is a car turning over and inexplicably being on fire, with a neighbouring uninvolved car then spontaneously combusting. 3/10.
Ghost lady haunts her killers and generally makes a nuisance of herself in a pleasant enough but fairly non-gripping film. Notable trivia - it's got Fred Astaire in it and you see a knob (not Fred's). Pretty good decomposing corpses (again, not Fred). Seems older than 1981 but then it's going for the old fashioned ghost story (hence the name!) vibe. 7/10
Spook-trilogy anthology effort made for TV in the days of brown clothing and 4:3 squashy ratio.
Story one: A time car seven years before Back to the Future. Which is also time.
Story two: Some vampire thing with a butler and a woman.
Story three: Dead kid comes back to life, scares its mum, doesn't fancy a sandwich. Seemed to frighten many wussy IMDB people when they were also kids, but not dead.
If it's got a budget in the multiple millions, less than five years old, has a cast you've heard of, had DVD sales that broke records or is in the film collection of any right-wing friends, it's probably not a cult film.
Drive In Massacre can probably be fairly described as a cult film, for these reasons:
You probably haven't heard of it
You probably haven't seen it
It's total porcupine-tits
But it does exist.
And there's the full film to prove it.
It's a sack of wank, but the end is a cracker. Well done people in the past.
Utterly generic thrill-fest. If you went into Lidl to buy a Clive Owen, you'd come out with James Frain (recently seen bursting in the increasingly fucking terrible True Blood) .
This film contains less surprises than a tin of grey paint, but it is well acted, smartly paced and beautifully (for what it is) shot.
Yet another film that delivers the baddies intentions via the fact that they drive an immaculate V8 musclecar. Film makers: Wanna make your antagonist seem genuinely evil? Have them drive an Audi, whilst wearing sandals.
The Mayans predicted that exact sequence of numbers in one of their calenders 2500yrs ago. I think it was that years Cliff Richard calender, the one where he posed as a construction worker, an Indian tribal chief, a biker and a leather-bear. Good old Cliff. The Mayans predicted that nothing would happen and fucking idiots would blather on about it. Still, they also predicted that the internet would be made out of wood, so whadda they know?
Anyway, the film has the same basic set-up as Groundhog Day but with Supergirl getting shot more frequently, much less Bill Murray smugness and men with hair wearing those really baggy triangular suits that were popular for 18 months in the early '90s. It's not actually too bad. So there! You big bumface.
An old BBC spook-short that actually does what it's supposed to. Certainly no shocker by modern standards, but modern horror, for the most part is fucking scrotum, so bum off!
Very good, in that old fashioned, actually good, way. Here's part one. Use the magic of deduction, keyboards and thought to fill the proceeding gaps.
8/10. Well worth putting down the wanking glove for 40 minutes or so.
I've been drinking 'Snow Grouse' this evening, which is whisky you put in the fridge. It's pretty much the same as every whisky that's come before it. But a bit chilly.
The above also can be lazily applied to the film in question: Very 'nice' to look at, but you've seen it all before. This was directed by Ti West, who *ahem* has posted an entirely fair comment on why low budget indie films should be purchased and not downloaded.
Mr West also directed The House of the Devil, a film which got a huge amount of fucking idiots excited because it looked a bit old. Go to IMDB and read the comments made by people born in the 90s for more details.
Having said that, in fairness, THOTD is actually not bad. This film is about a hotel with three members of staff: A boyish girl, a man with pointy hair and a boss on holiday. There's a piano and a laptop also involved. Kelly McGillis is excellent.
All these years people have opinion-jizzed about how great the transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London is, well, they can put that thought in their buttocks! This film has the most awesome man-into-lizardfish sequence evah evah evah! Don't believe us? Watch this:
See?! Makes the Rick Baker effects look like Morph.
90 minute Indonesian mystical babble-lunacy. We was drunk when we watched it, enjoyed it greatly for 85 minutes, then got massively bored and turned off the last five. A big barrel of cartoon silliness. Lots of things in this film seem to have smoke pouring from them; caves, plants, umbrellas and peoples faces to name just four. Lots of wizards, martial arts, fake eyebrows, terrible effects and possibly emphysema.
Hints at boob but never actually shows any. Much like my teenage years.
It's either 1/10 or 10/10 depending on your tastes/mood/emotional fragility.
Timothy Olyphant/Stephen Dorff's lovechild aquires dead nan's flat. To take full legal ownership of the property, he must stay locked inside it for twelve days. He slowly turns a bit wibble. Buidling concierge has a sinister 'tache. Lawyer played by Clive Sinclair. Unexpectedly good. 7/10
T.V. film about a man who disappears after visiting a motel crapper. Cast includes Ned Beatty, who doesn't squeal at any point and Ross Martin, who lived an amazing life, have a read of his bio.
Pretty decent. 7/10
