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  • TITLE-Fear Street Part One 1994



    SOURCE-Netflix Streaming

    Last year I watched this movie and the second one in the series. Planned on reviewing them for 31 Days of Horror 2021 but I had more than 31 films on my list and I figured I could wait till I saw all three films in the series before reviewing them. Well here it is a year later and I still have only seen the first two films.




    Set in 1994 this is about a town where one side of the town is nice and peaceful and the other side has been plagued with bad shit happening for as long as anyone can remember.We start off at the Shadyside Mall.A teenage girl working at the book store gets stabbed and brutally killed by one of her friends. This killer male kills a few more people in the mall before the cops stop and kill him. Seems Shadyside is the murder captital of the USA. Next to Shadyside is Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is the polar opposite of Shadyside.

    The teens of Shadyside believe the town was cursed in 1666 by a witch. And this is why all the bad shit happens in Shadyside.Thanks to an accident where some of the Shadyside teens toss a cooler out the back of a bus blood ends up on the grave of this supposed witch and now someone/something is trying to kill Sam. Sam is the secret girlfriend of the films lead lady.

    Figuring out that if Sam dies the killer will give up the teens band together to at first stop the killer. Who at first they think is one of the jocks from Sunnyvale. Then once they figure out it is the spirit of the witch they realize the only way to stop this is for Sam to die. And after most of the rest of our main cast die,in some fairly graphic ways,Sam and her secret girlfriend are all that is left. Sam is drown and the brought back to life. Thus defeating the witch.

    Fear Street was a series of horror novels wrote by RL Stine. Who was at the time well known cause of how popular his Goosebumps series of young kids horror fiction were super popular. Fear Street was STine's horror novels aimed at teens. I had never read any of them.

    Then back in 2008 I got a part time job were I mostly sat and waited to see if the old man I was doing home health care for needed help. I worked 8pm till 7am 4 nights a week. With not much to do at this job I would bring books with me to read. The county I live in only had one book store. A used book store that was 90% romance novels and 10% other stuff. While there one day killing time before work I saw the owner had just gotten in a huge stack of Fear Street novels. She saw me looking at them,and this lady has known me since I was a fairly young kid. Told me if I would buy all of them,I think there was 20 books,she could cut me a deal.20 books for 25 bucks. So I bought all of them and over the next 20 nights at work would read one of the books each shift. Discovered that while they were not amazing horror fiction the Fear Street books were much better than I expected.

    So going into this movie I was expecting what I got out of the novels. PG or PG 13 levels of horror. Since this was made for Netflix it has no rating. But if it had played theaters this would have gotten an R rating. Cause of language and gore. Soo soooo much gore. There is one kill with deli meat slicer that shocked me at how bloody it is.

    Fear Street Part One 1994 gets a B-.

    Cody covers Ring 0
    http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2000.html?m=1

    Comment


    • #26
      The Ballad of Tam Lin
      (Roddy McDowell, 1971)


      Following the Ballad of my Broken Blu-ray (see the thread on this film for the scarifying details), I'm very glad to have received my copy of the new BFI release, which, happy to say, includes a ton of addtional extras which were not listed in the initial pre-release info - so that's a nice surprise.

      Having not revisited the film for a while, I'm also happy to have confirmed for myself that it remains a beautiful, affecting and uniquely strange viewing experience.

      It's the kind of thing which could so easily have drifted off into random, self-indulgent hippie bather, but McDowell's direction is excellent, nailing the symbolic resonance of each moment and keeping the emotional flow of the narrative clear, whilst William Spier's screenplay is also really sharp, full of wise and memorable lines, all feeding into the film's none-more-1970 theme of needing to move beyond a life of empty sensation toward an acceptance of adult responsibility and the deeper happiness to be found therein.

      It makes perfect sense in fact that Martin Scorcese spearheaded the revival of this film back in the '90s, because it strikes me that, if 'Peeping Tom' had never happened and Powell & Pressburger had been allowed the freedom to keep on developing their own projects into the hippie era, this is exactly the kind of thing they might have come up with.

      It's only marginally a horror movie (I had remembered there being more overt supernatural content), but Ava Gardner's rage when spurned is certainly as frightening as anything else I've seen this month, as is the unsettling portrayal of the empty, unreal life led by her 'coven' - a kind of hollowed out shell of the swinging '60s dream; an existence devoid of meaning, consequence, morality or individual agency.... but one which is still impossible not to covet on some level, whenever we see the beautiful people frolicking in the sun outside the manor house. One particularly chilling line from Ian McShane's character: "Either you learn not to care, or you find you never cared at all... it's like breathing pure oxygen".

      A


      #26
      The Beast Must Die
      (Paul Annett, 1974)


      I found this movie very disappointing when I first watched it many moons ago, but thought I'd give it another shot on blu-ray, because... I mean, c'mon, it's such a brilliant concept for a fun action/horror movie, and it has such a fantastic cast -- now that my expectations are suitably lowered and I'm perhaps a bit more sympathetic to the shortcomings of mid-'70s Amicus type movies, it's got to be at least * somewhat * entertaining, right?

      Well.... nope. It's still an absolute stinker. Yet, I really don't understand why?

      I mean, all the necessary elements for a great time are present and correct - you've got Calvin Lockheart in a black leather jumpsuit roaring around in a helicopter with a machine gun, hunting werewolves, funky, blaxsploitation-type music, and Cushing, Charles Grey, Michael Gambon and Marlene Clark all back at the shack acting shifty.... yet why is it all so flat and boring?

      I don't want to place all the blame on director Paul Annet, but, man.... all those hunting/stalking scenes which take up so much of the run time are so poorly staged and edited; seems strange to complain there's 'too much action', but it all just really drags, and using a mangy looking old dog as a stand-in for the werewolf is just absolutely unacceptable. I mean, it's not even a particularly big or scary looking dog! Ridiculous.

      And meanwhile, we get zero background or insight into the various oddball characters to help float the 'whodunnit' concept. The whole "Werewolf Break" gimmick is absolutely awesome, but when it pops up just before the last reel, we've basically had no clues or puzzles to help us make our decision... our guesses on who the werewolf is are still just totally random!

      Second only to 'The Curse of the Crimson Altar' in the running for "most potential squandered in British horror".

      C-
      BW Haggar
      Senior Member
      Last edited by BW Haggar; 10-23-2022, 08:41 AM.
      https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
      http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

      Comment


      • Last night was Alligator People.

        Comment


        • #27
          The Last Man on Earth
          (Ubaldo Ragona, 1964)


          Thus far in my viewing this October, we've had plenty of Cushing, a few turns from Lee, a good one from Karloff.... but no Vincent. So, time to correct that.

          Having watched most of his classic movies with my wife relatively recently, I thought I'd turn to this one, which I haven't seen in donkey's years.

          Oh boy. I'd kind of forgotten that this is to some extent a pandemic movie. Watched from a post-2020 perspective, the whole flashback section, with Price's wife and daughter succumbing to the virus, and panic and martial law gradually spreading, is grim as fuck.

          In fact, this whole movie is a lot grimmer than I remembered. It must have been quite a shock to the system for viewers back in 1964.

          It makes me reflect on how, back in my teens and twenties, I used to absolutely love end-of-the-world stories. Anything about society breaking down and collpasing into chaos, I was totally hooked. Now though, these stories just make me anxious and unhappy. Partly, it's probably because I'm more settled down, and thus more invested in & reliant upon societal structures... but mainly, it's because they now just seem a bit too close for comfort.

          The oft-remarked influence this film exerted on George Romero is a lot more pronounced than I had previously realised too. Not just in 'Night of the Living Dead', but in 'The Crazies' too, he returned to images and ideas first seen here again and again.... in fact, it's probably fair to say that the bleak, remorseless tone and sense of 'grown up' seriousness which Romero is generally credited with bringing to American horror films pretty much began here.

          And yes, I know that Price is basically mis-cast, and that Matheson wasn't happy with the film, and that the Italian locations give it a kind of weird vibe, but despite all this, I was impressed at how well it stands up; still by far the best adaptation of the novel, and it still packs a real punch.

          A-
          https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
          http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

          Comment


          • Venom (2005) - Not bad, not amazing, just kinda there.

            Blue Sunshine - Finally getting around to this one, very cool movie.

            Extraordinary Tales - Not my first time seeing it, but I love it.
            Darcy Parker
            Senior Member
            Last edited by Darcy Parker; 10-23-2022, 09:01 PM.

            Comment


            • 10/21
              Aftermath (1994)
              The Awakening (1990)
              Genesis (1998)

              10/22
              The Vampire Lovers
              Lust for a Vampire
              Twins of Evil
              The Devil Bat (1940)
              The Face at the Window (1939)
              Cat People (1942)
              The Curse of the Cat People
              Sleepwalkers

              10/23
              Doctor Butcher M.D.
              Beyond Darkness
              Mahakaal
              The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
              Freaks (1932)
              Mystics in Bali

              Comment


              • Between sleeping 12 hours and haviing to help my pretty much in laws put in a new AC unit I didnt manage to post my film from sunday.

                31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 23 Deadly Friend




                TITLE-Deadly Friend



                SOURCE-Warner Brothers DVD

                Oh man the kind of forgotten 80s Wes Craven film. The story about the making of this film is almost more entertaining than the actual film.

                Originally conceived as a Sci Fi film. And filmed with that in mind. Then a horrible response from a test audience,who wanted more gore and violence since the film was from Wes Craven not long after Nightmare on Elm Street was a huge hit. So reshoots happened and we got the muddled mess of a film we got.

                But back in October of 86 when this came out I knew none of the above. Just new it was a new horror film from Craven and I had to see it. After seeing it I was a bit disappointed. And just kind of forgot about the film until the early 2000s. When I was trying to watch every film Craven directed. On more viewings I started to enjoy the film more.

                Paul and his mom just moved to a new town. He is a teen genius and quickly becomes friends with the neighborhhood paperboy and the cute teen girl next door. Samantha is played by Kristy Swanson,back when she was mostly known for Flowers in the Attic,and Samantha's father is a horrible abusive drunk.




                Paul has built a robot named BB. Who sometimes shows signs of having AI. The robot gets destroyed and while drunk Samantha's father accidently kills her. So Paul puts his robot's mainframe into Sam's body. And she comes back but now has super human strength and kills.

                Even people that haven't seen this film know the infamous gif from it. In this gif Samantha uses a basketball to kill Anne Ramsey. The head explosion when the basketball hits is great. Back in 2000 Swanson told Maxim in an interview that the fake head of Anne Ramsey that was destroyed by the basketball was filled with legit cow brains. That might be why that one scene looks so real. It really stands out in this film. A movie that really with some tiny cuts could be a PG 13 horror film marketed to kids and teens.

                Sure Deadly Friend isn't top tier Wes Craven. But it isn't bottom tier,that is saved for tripe like Cursed and My Soul to Take. It is a perfect middle of the pack Wes Craven horror film. And one of the few Craven films you can show to kids and teens that isn't packed with gore and violence.

                Deadly Friend gets a B-.

                And Sunday Cody covered
                http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2002.html?m=0

                Then Today

                31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 24 Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood




                TITLE_Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood





                SOURCE-Paramount Blu Ray

                Coming out back in 1988 this film was actually filmed in fall/winter 1987 near Mobile Alabama. I wish I had known they were filming in that area,cause back then I lived about 15 minutes outside Mobile right across the state line in Forts Lake MS.

                Starting off as a planned Jason vs Freddy movie,which couldn't happen cause the two studios that owned Jason and Freddy couldn't agree on many issues. Instead we got Jason vs Carrie. Yea it ain't actually Carrie but Lar Park Lincoln plays a lady in this movie that is pretty much Carrie.

                As a young child Tina tries to get away from her drunk abusive father. She takes a boat out on Crystal Lake and her being so upset triggers her Telekentic powers. And Tina uses these powers to collapse the pier her father is on.

                Skip ahead a bit and now Tina is a teen. She has all kinds of mental issues caused by her accidentally killing her father. Her mother brings her back to Crystal Lake,cause Tina's shrink thinks this will help her. But we learn that the doctor wants to use Tina's powers for his own gain.

                After a very upsetting session with her doctor Tina is pissed. She runs out to the lake and using her powers she managed to awaken and free Jason. Who in part 6 was trapped chained to a large rock at the bottom of Crystal Lake.

                Right next to the house Tina and her mom and doctor are staying in is a house full of teens. Who are there to celebrate a friend's birthday. And it being an 80s slasher film you got your normal teen tropes. Like the rich blonde bitchy girl. And your mousey brunette in glasses who gets a make over and is suddenly pretty. Am I the only one that thought the mousey brunette looked like the taller Chipette from Alvin and the Chipmonks?

                So we got Jason free from the lake. A bunch of teens partying,having sex and smoking pot. And a mentally damaged TK powered teen girl. Sounds like we are gonna get a damn good film. Sadly we didn't.

                First off gonna mention the things this film gets right. The cast is pretty damn good. Lar Park Lincoln is damn good as Tina, and for the early parts of the film where Tina is a young child they got the same actress who played Leatherface's daugher in TCM III. Elizabeth Kaitan is Robin. I had seen her in so many horror/sci fi/cult movies and she is great in this movie.Diana Barrows plays the Chipette looking nerdy chick and you really believe she is the character she is playing.

                Then there is the biggest addtion to this cast. Jason is played for the first time by Kane Hodder. Kane was at the time a stunt man. And to most Friday fans their favorite actor to play Jason is Kane. And I will agree he brought so much to the character. Parrt of that I think is cause the other people who played Jason were stuntmen and not actors. Kane is an actor who is also a stuntman. Also many fans love how Jason looks in this film and I will agree he does have a great look.

                So as you can see it isn't the cast as why this is one of my lesser loved Jason films. The biggest issue to me is how cut this movie is. By the time of this movie the MPAA had a boner for the Jason films. And this film was sent back to the MPAA many many times to try to get that R rating. For example the famous sleeping bag kill. In the uncut workprint of this movie Jason slams the sleeping bag many many times into the tree. In the R rated cut he slams it into the tree one time. Which to me makes the scene more brutal. And all the kills in this movie got majorly cut down.

                Worst part is it appears that either Paramont has lost the stuff that got cut. Or they just don't give a fuck and haven't bothered to look for it. Cause even with Friday 7 getting many many home video releases,hell I have owned it 3 times on DVD and two times now on Blu Ray,the only copy of the original cut of the film tha exists is a rough rough 2nd generation VHS looking Workprint.

                Thinking about it this has to be my least favorite of the franchise. I know it is the one I have seen the least amount of times. Usually watch it if I am marathoning the entire run.

                I chose to watch it today cause I hadn't seen it in years.PLus the last week or so at night when I lay down to goto sleep I would put on the Blu Ray of Crystal Lake Memories. And hearing the cast and crew talking about how much fun they had making this film got me into the mood to watch it again.

                Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood gets a C-.


                Cody covers 28 Weeks later
                http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2007.html?m=0

                Comment


                • OCTOBER 2022

                  001-Castle Of Blood **** Sinister Cinema dvd-r
                  002-In Search Of Dracula ** Kino bd
                  003-Dawn Of The Dead(78) **** bd
                  004-Carnival Of Sinners * TCM recording
                  005-The Whip and The Body ***1/2 Midnight Choir dvd-r
                  006-Panic In Year Zero! ** bd
                  007-Doctor Blood's Coffin *1/2 MGM dvd-r
                  008-Ladron De Cadaveres ** bd
                  009-Castle Of Evil **1/2 dvd-r of vhs
                  010-From Dusk To Dawn Season One ack! dvd
                  011-Whoever Slew Auntie Roo *1/2 bd
                  012-Curse Of Frankenstein (1:37:1)**** bd
                  013-Tales Of Frankenstein **1/2 bd
                  014-War Of The Planets** TCM recording
                  015-I Drink Your Blood ** BD
                  016-Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things **** bd
                  017-Tales From The Crypt Season One *1/2 dvd
                  018-Deathmaster **1/2 dvd
                  019-Planet Of The Vampires *** Old Kino bd
                  020-Night of the Demon (UK 1957) **** bd
                  021-Black Sabbath **** bd
                  022-I,Vampiri ***1/2 bd
                  023-Mark Of The Vampire *** bd
                  024-Dracula Vs Frankenstein (71) **bd
                  025-Mill Of The Stone Women ****bd
                  026-Beast of The Yellow Night ***1/2 bd
                  027-Creature With The Blue Hand *** dvd
                  028-Brain Of Blood ** BD
                  029-Star Crash * bd
                  030-The Poughkeepsie Tapes *** dvd
                  031-Dracula (58) **** UK bd
                  032-The Land That Time Forgot ** bd
                  033-The Murder Clinic *** German bd
                  034-The Strange Door **1/2 bd
                  035-I Walked With A Zombie **** dvd
                  "The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Film at 11".

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Newt Cox View Post
                    Between sleeping 12 hours and haviing to help my pretty much in laws put in a new AC unit I didnt manage to post my film from sunday.

                    31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 23 Deadly Friend




                    TITLE-Deadly Friend



                    SOURCE-Warner Brothers DVD

                    Oh man the kind of forgotten 80s Wes Craven film. The story about the making of this film is almost more entertaining than the actual film.

                    Originally conceived as a Sci Fi film. And filmed with that in mind. Then a horrible response from a test audience,who wanted more gore and violence since the film was from Wes Craven not long after Nightmare on Elm Street was a huge hit. So reshoots happened and we got the muddled mess of a film we got.

                    But back in October of 86 when this came out I knew none of the above. Just new it was a new horror film from Craven and I had to see it. After seeing it I was a bit disappointed. And just kind of forgot about the film until the early 2000s. When I was trying to watch every film Craven directed. On more viewings I started to enjoy the film more.

                    Paul and his mom just moved to a new town. He is a teen genius and quickly becomes friends with the neighborhhood paperboy and the cute teen girl next door. Samantha is played by Kristy Swanson,back when she was mostly known for Flowers in the Attic,and Samantha's father is a horrible abusive drunk.




                    Paul has built a robot named BB. Who sometimes shows signs of having AI. The robot gets destroyed and while drunk Samantha's father accidently kills her. So Paul puts his robot's mainframe into Sam's body. And she comes back but now has super human strength and kills.

                    Even people that haven't seen this film know the infamous gif from it. In this gif Samantha uses a basketball to kill Anne Ramsey. The head explosion when the basketball hits is great. Back in 2000 Swanson told Maxim in an interview that the fake head of Anne Ramsey that was destroyed by the basketball was filled with legit cow brains. That might be why that one scene looks so real. It really stands out in this film. A movie that really with some tiny cuts could be a PG 13 horror film marketed to kids and teens.

                    Sure Deadly Friend isn't top tier Wes Craven. But it isn't bottom tier,that is saved for tripe like Cursed and My Soul to Take. It is a perfect middle of the pack Wes Craven horror film. And one of the few Craven films you can show to kids and teens that isn't packed with gore and violence.

                    Deadly Friend gets a B-.

                    And Sunday Cody covered
                    http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2002.html?m=0

                    Then Today

                    31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 24 Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood




                    TITLE_Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood





                    SOURCE-Paramount Blu Ray

                    Coming out back in 1988 this film was actually filmed in fall/winter 1987 near Mobile Alabama. I wish I had known they were filming in that area,cause back then I lived about 15 minutes outside Mobile right across the state line in Forts Lake MS.

                    Starting off as a planned Jason vs Freddy movie,which couldn't happen cause the two studios that owned Jason and Freddy couldn't agree on many issues. Instead we got Jason vs Carrie. Yea it ain't actually Carrie but Lar Park Lincoln plays a lady in this movie that is pretty much Carrie.

                    As a young child Tina tries to get away from her drunk abusive father. She takes a boat out on Crystal Lake and her being so upset triggers her Telekentic powers. And Tina uses these powers to collapse the pier her father is on.

                    Skip ahead a bit and now Tina is a teen. She has all kinds of mental issues caused by her accidentally killing her father. Her mother brings her back to Crystal Lake,cause Tina's shrink thinks this will help her. But we learn that the doctor wants to use Tina's powers for his own gain.

                    After a very upsetting session with her doctor Tina is pissed. She runs out to the lake and using her powers she managed to awaken and free Jason. Who in part 6 was trapped chained to a large rock at the bottom of Crystal Lake.

                    Right next to the house Tina and her mom and doctor are staying in is a house full of teens. Who are there to celebrate a friend's birthday. And it being an 80s slasher film you got your normal teen tropes. Like the rich blonde bitchy girl. And your mousey brunette in glasses who gets a make over and is suddenly pretty. Am I the only one that thought the mousey brunette looked like the taller Chipette from Alvin and the Chipmonks?

                    So we got Jason free from the lake. A bunch of teens partying,having sex and smoking pot. And a mentally damaged TK powered teen girl. Sounds like we are gonna get a damn good film. Sadly we didn't.

                    First off gonna mention the things this film gets right. The cast is pretty damn good. Lar Park Lincoln is damn good as Tina, and for the early parts of the film where Tina is a young child they got the same actress who played Leatherface's daugher in TCM III. Elizabeth Kaitan is Robin. I had seen her in so many horror/sci fi/cult movies and she is great in this movie.Diana Barrows plays the Chipette looking nerdy chick and you really believe she is the character she is playing.

                    Then there is the biggest addtion to this cast. Jason is played for the first time by Kane Hodder. Kane was at the time a stunt man. And to most Friday fans their favorite actor to play Jason is Kane. And I will agree he brought so much to the character. Parrt of that I think is cause the other people who played Jason were stuntmen and not actors. Kane is an actor who is also a stuntman. Also many fans love how Jason looks in this film and I will agree he does have a great look.

                    So as you can see it isn't the cast as why this is one of my lesser loved Jason films. The biggest issue to me is how cut this movie is. By the time of this movie the MPAA had a boner for the Jason films. And this film was sent back to the MPAA many many times to try to get that R rating. For example the famous sleeping bag kill. In the uncut workprint of this movie Jason slams the sleeping bag many many times into the tree. In the R rated cut he slams it into the tree one time. Which to me makes the scene more brutal. And all the kills in this movie got majorly cut down.

                    Worst part is it appears that either Paramont has lost the stuff that got cut. Or they just don't give a fuck and haven't bothered to look for it. Cause even with Friday 7 getting many many home video releases,hell I have owned it 3 times on DVD and two times now on Blu Ray,the only copy of the original cut of the film tha exists is a rough rough 2nd generation VHS looking Workprint.

                    Thinking about it this has to be my least favorite of the franchise. I know it is the one I have seen the least amount of times. Usually watch it if I am marathoning the entire run.

                    I chose to watch it today cause I hadn't seen it in years.PLus the last week or so at night when I lay down to goto sleep I would put on the Blu Ray of Crystal Lake Memories. And hearing the cast and crew talking about how much fun they had making this film got me into the mood to watch it again.

                    Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood gets a C-.


                    Cody covers 28 Weeks later
                    http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2007.html?m=0
                    Paramount ordered all trims destroyed for all the F13 films. The only reason there's an uncut version of the first movie is because Warner Brothers, who handled distribution in Europe, kept the negative they borrowed from Paramount to strike prints for Europe from.

                    Comment


                    • #28
                      Alison's Birthday
                      (Ian Coughlan, 1981)


                      From what little I knew about this film going in, I was expecting some sort of dreary "'Home and Away' with Satanists" kind of affair, but it really surpassed my expectations.

                      Basically, what we've got here is a totally straightforward "members of an ancient pagan cult raise their orphaned neice as a blood sacrifice" type yarn, rather reminiscent of Norman J. Warren's 'Satan's Slave'. Nothing too orignal, but confidently and imaginatively executed, with solid performances, a few genuinely weird/atmospheric moments and a whole lot of charm.

                      As surreal and implausible as the idea of a celtic blood cult with their own stone circle existing in a Sydney suburb might seem on paper... somehow they make it work just fine.

                      Tonally, it exists in this kind of weird, liminal zone where it's totally unapologetic about being a horror movie, going all out on the occult stuff at every opportunity, with no arty pretentions or boring, Lewton-esque "subtlety".... yet at the same time there's no violence or sex or other exploitational content at all; an odd combination which perhaps accounts for the fact that it's remained so obscure until recently.

                      Could it have been made for TV? That would explain a lot - not least the fact that the HD scan streaming on Shudder looks super fuzzed out and grainy, like blown up 16mm or something. Although, if that's the case, it would still seem to have originated in some parallel universe where '70s TV movies are fast-paced and fun, and convey subversive messages to teenagers about the wisdom of staying out all night with yr boy/girlfriend, not trusting grown ups and running away from your family because they suck... so who knows.

                      Well, people who know about this film. They probably know. I'm sure five minutes of research would answer my questions, but I'm doing strictly "first impressions" here, so never mind.

                      The period detail and the music is all lovely too, much as you'd expect.

                      B+
                      https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
                      http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

                      Comment


                      • Holy crap. I just tallied up, and I am at 32! First time I have even come close, and I got more than 31 in with a week left.

                        Comment


                        • 10/24
                          Amityville II: The Possession

                          Comment


                          • Day 25 Popcorn




                            TITLE-Popcorn



                            SOURCE-Shudder Streaming Service

                            Oh man the early 90s horror scene was so odd. The slasher subgenre was dying. And if you listen to some fans horror was shit in the 90s until Scream. Which of course is wrong. There was good horror all through out the 90s.

                            When cable finally reached the rural ass hell southern town I grew up in,tail end of 1990,I paid out of my pocket for Showtime and TMC. Which where the only MOVIE channels our cable offered. Sure I wasn't making much at my part time after school job. But 20 bucks a month went to making sure I had Showtime and TMC. And at least another 30 a month went to buying blank VHS. Cause I was recording any horror movie that aired on Showtime or TMC. It was late 1991 when I saw that Showtime was airing Popcorn a bunch of times the next month. I had wanted to see Popcorn. But something else came out the same weekend as it. And we all went to see that. The next weekend Popcorn was gone. I had hoped to rent it. But no video store in the area carried it. But Showtime was showing it 5 times in one month. First time airing it at the oddest hour of 2am on a Wednesday.

                            Sure I had a VCR in my bedroom by this time. And I could have just set my VCR recorded it and watched it Wednesday evening after school and work. But nope I stayed up all night to see it. And I fucking loved it.

                            A group of college kids are hosting an all night movie marathon at a soon to be demolished theater. This is a fund raiser for their drama club IIRC. Thanks to Ray Walston,who runs a film merch shop,they get some great gimmicks to go with the three films they show.

                            Those 3 films are Mosquito,a throw back to the 50s giant insect flicks. And this movie is in 3d. Loved the one scene we see from this film where a giant mosquito lands on a car roof. And shoves it's sucker through the roof and into a yokel's head. Then sucks his brain and everything else out. They have a great FX of the head collasping on itself that I still think looks amazing.

                            Another of the films is Attack of the Amazing Electrafied Man,which like the Tingler has seats in the theater wired up to a board and whoever is at that board can give the people in the seats a nice shock. This reminds me of all the 40s era films where dudes get powers through accidents.

                            Last up is The Stench,filmed on SMELL O VISION. Like Polyester from John Waters.

                            While going through the lot of stuff Walston brought they find a 4th film. Titled Possesser. So the students screen it and it shows stuff similar to what our lead Maggie has been dreaming. Odd stuff with fire and death. Seems the director of this thought lost film killed his family before he could shoot the final scene. And set a theater on fire where he was showing what he had shot of his film.

                            So while these films are airing to a packed house. Someone is not only killing off the students. But is a master of disquise.Which we learn when people we saw die show up in later scenes.

                            We find out who the killer is. Our lead Maggie ,played by the great Jill Scholen who yall might remember from the original Stepfather film,gets captured by the killer and we learn who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. I know this isn't a film lots of have seen so I am not gonna full spoil the film.

                            Overall the film is just fun. But is is one I forgot about. Sure from 91 until 2010 or so I had that VHS I had recorded it on,same tape also had Subspecies 2 on it. And I would watch it maybe once every 5 years.

                            I had really just forgotten about the film until I saw Code Red announce they were releasing it to DVD. FOund out there was a previous DVD release that was out of print,and IIRC it was 4:3 instead of OAR. I figured it was time to replace my well worn VHS tape. And since Code Red hinted it would be out soon I gave that tape away to a friend.

                            Then I keep hearing that some fan has the DVD rights to the film and is putting out a ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. Also claiming that Code Red doesn't have the rights. And it started this online war of words that lasted what felt like 40 years.

                            Finally in the past 5 years,IIRC,Synapse finally released the ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. I think there is a blu ray release. But the cost of it was stupid high. So I passed.Figuring there would be a cheaper DVD release and I would get that. Plus not long after the blu ray got out someone sent my a rip of the film off the blu. I ain't seen a cheaper dvd release of the film so far. But Shudder has Popcorn and holy hell I think I might just drop that 35 or 40 bucks and get the blu ray. Cause this print on Shudder looks great. Way better than I remember it ever looking.

                            Popcorn is a nice meta slasher horror film. I like how it has ties to Deathdreams,in that they wanted Bob Clark to direct this but he turned it down so the guy that worked with him on Deathdreams directed this. Well he stared directing it and was firedd a few weeks into filming. Where he got replaced by one of the lead actors from PORKYS! Yep no joke. Just like Jill Scholen,she wasn't the original actress cast to play the lead. But when the director got replaced she did too.

                            Popcorn gets a B+.


                            Cody covers High Tension
                            http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2003.html?m=1

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                            • I really like POPCORN, but I think it drops the ball during the final half hour. Otherwise, it's excellent and one of the standout horror films of the '90s.
                              Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

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                              • #29
                                Help Me... I'm Possessed!
                                (Charles Nizet, 1974)


                                You're possessed? Jeez, how'd you think I feel!

                                In technical terms, this quintessential example of juvenile, barrel-scraping, sleazoid trash is about on the level of an Al Adamson movie... only vastly more eventful and entertaining.

                                In a plasterboard castle out in "the desert", slobbish bully Dr Blackwood purports to operate a sanatorium for the emotionally disturbed. Behind closed doors however, he's both an ideologically driven mad scientist and a sadistic religious maniac... which seems like a difficult equation to square, but whatcha gonna do?

                                Anyway, there are drooling loonies, pervy hunchbacks and lumbering mutes wandering around all over the place, and the doctor has a secret underground lair where he keeps some particularly unwholesome, howling specimens locked up in cages. Here, women get chained to the ceiling in their underwear - one gets shut in a coffin with a poisonous snake for the 'crime' of provoking the male patients - whilst some poor psycho gets his head lopped off by the guillotine which takes pride of place in the centre of the room.

                                At one point, the doctor gets in a pickle because he needs to take his patients "to the general hospital" (for some reason?), but he's already murdered all his staff, so he resorts to herding about a dozen of them into his station wagon and drving them off himself.

                                More intriguingly, the doctor's simpleton sister is 'best friends' with what appears to be a shapeless, tentacled monster (represented by cut-away shots to a mass of writhing, red spaghetti), which roars like a lion, and rampages around at night bloodily tearing people to pieces. ("It's just some sense of evil which wandered into the desert..," Blackwood helpfully explains.)

                                It's little things like this which cause the local sheriff to start impertinently poking around asking questions, prompting an epic battle of wills between the two slovenly, overweight alpha males which can only end in disaster, with Blackwood's frumpy, mini-dress clad wife caught in the cross-fire.

                                Stunningly awful as this all is, it's difficult not to admire this movie's "throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" approach to the horror genre, and at 73 minutes, well... to invoke those hallowed words which have ended a thousand reviews, it's certainly never boring.

                                No one is possessed by anything, at any point, incidentally.

                                B-
                                https://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com/
                                http://stereosanctity.blogspot.com/

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