Somehow managed to get in 4 movies last night:
AMITYVILLE HORROR - I'm sure my expectations were too high, but what a colossal disappointment. I generally love haunted house type movies, but this was just dreary and dishwater dull. Honestly the most interesting thing about this was seeing how bits and pieces of it got recycled in much better movies like The Shining and Poltergeist.
THE NEST - Just ridiculous fun. I'm not sure what I thought a human-cockroach hybrid would look like, but it definitely wasn't that! If Scream Factory keeps putting out gems like this alongside the more famous stuff like the Halloween and Phantasm sequels -- they could end one of the best labels for horror.
OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES - So this was the inverse experience of AMITYVILLE. Went in expecting absolute dreck and was pleasantly surprised. SOOO much better than some of the 80's genre films I've seen from Franco. Sure it was padded, and the it looked like he had the effects budget of your elementary school's haunted house...but within that framework the movie actually kinda worked for me. Some of the really bad make-up effects nevertheless ended up being disquieting in the same way that some of the cheap-ass Star Trek/Twilight Zone monster effects could, and the climax was effectively shot and staged so that it ended up having a creepy ambience if you looked past the limitations. Certainly not one of my favorite Francos, but better than I had any reason to expect.
SCHOOLGIRL REPORT #6 - Was in the mood for German softcore silliness, and this one delivered. Has what I think is the most genuinely (intentionally) funny segment I've seen in the series so far, in which an Italian window-washer sneaks into a college classroom and has his way with half a dozen of the students right under the eye of the near-blind feminist teacher. The runtime was padded with flashbacks to previous entries...but if you're gonna pad your minutes, doing so with bonus Christina Lindberg nudity is officially doing it right.
AMITYVILLE HORROR - I'm sure my expectations were too high, but what a colossal disappointment. I generally love haunted house type movies, but this was just dreary and dishwater dull. Honestly the most interesting thing about this was seeing how bits and pieces of it got recycled in much better movies like The Shining and Poltergeist.
THE NEST - Just ridiculous fun. I'm not sure what I thought a human-cockroach hybrid would look like, but it definitely wasn't that! If Scream Factory keeps putting out gems like this alongside the more famous stuff like the Halloween and Phantasm sequels -- they could end one of the best labels for horror.
OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES - So this was the inverse experience of AMITYVILLE. Went in expecting absolute dreck and was pleasantly surprised. SOOO much better than some of the 80's genre films I've seen from Franco. Sure it was padded, and the it looked like he had the effects budget of your elementary school's haunted house...but within that framework the movie actually kinda worked for me. Some of the really bad make-up effects nevertheless ended up being disquieting in the same way that some of the cheap-ass Star Trek/Twilight Zone monster effects could, and the climax was effectively shot and staged so that it ended up having a creepy ambience if you looked past the limitations. Certainly not one of my favorite Francos, but better than I had any reason to expect.
SCHOOLGIRL REPORT #6 - Was in the mood for German softcore silliness, and this one delivered. Has what I think is the most genuinely (intentionally) funny segment I've seen in the series so far, in which an Italian window-washer sneaks into a college classroom and has his way with half a dozen of the students right under the eye of the near-blind feminist teacher. The runtime was padded with flashbacks to previous entries...but if you're gonna pad your minutes, doing so with bonus Christina Lindberg nudity is officially doing it right.
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