No.372703
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>>331158
>The Amusement Park
This is basically an extended PSA about the struggles of the elderly. I'd seen a few quotes from critics raving about it, but I don't think it's some kind of rediscovered masterpiece the way it's apparently been made out to be. It really boils down to the protagonist going through a series of misfortunes. On the plus side, I think it's pretty effective at creating an atmosphere of despair. I definitely appreciated the low-rent '70s production values, which I think help add to that feeling. I liked some of the library music too. There was one piece that I think I remember from Dawn of the Dead. I also liked the beginning and end with Lincoln Maazel doing double duty in the white room.
My verdict is that it's worth watching if you're a curious George Romero fan who wants to see some more of his older work, but I don't think it's something I would encourage anyone else to watch.
>Sleeper
This movie is a bit unique as far as flicks with dystopian sci-fi settings go in that that it's a full-blown comedy with a Dixieland jazz soundtrack. Most of the comedy sadly didn't appeal to me. It takes inspiration from the old-school slapstick of the '20s, but contrary to the critics for whatever reason I didn't find the gags to be anywhere as good as those of the old guys. There's definitely more of a verbal element to the humor too. It doesn't emphasize clever sight gags the way the acclaimed silent comedians tended to do. This is actually the first Woody Allen movie I've ever seen (I'm not counting watching Antz once as a kid), I think I understand that Orson Welles rant about Woody Allen now. In spite of his self-deprecating persona, he comes across like he can't get enough of himself and his own cleverness. There were some parts I did find amusing. The more Jew-themed parts in particular, like the robot tailors with prominent noses and thick Yiddish accents. Speaking of Jews, Woody Allen's character competes for the romantic interest of Diane Keaton's with a more attractive character named Erno, and of course he had to make a remark about his romantic rival's "Aryan" traits.
That last part rubbed me the wrong way, but as a whole I still found the movie watchable. I liked the retrofuturistic '70s dystopianism (I thought the technologically advanced society filled with seemingly incompetent people was an interesting touch that reminds me of where society today seems to be headed) and the unique choice of musical accompaniment for the setting. I just don't believe it's some great comedy classic like a lot of people seem to think.
>The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
I liked this one despite not being too keen on Danny Kaye's comedic style at all. This is the only Danny Kaye movie I've seen so far and can't speak to his approach in his other work, but I typically don't care for a certain type of comedian that does a lot of exaggerated gestures and facial expressions and wacky voices (although I actually can find impressions entertaining). Think Jim Carrey or Robin Williams. Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor is also one of the least funny comedies I can ever remember seeing. Danny Kaye clearly exhibited a lot of talent, particular in his patter songs, but I just don't find them very amusing. On the positive side, the "I hate women" moment gave me a sensible chuckle, and the rest of the humor I tended to find unobtrusive enough that it didn't negatively affect my enjoyment of the film.
As someone who liked daydream sequences in cartoons as a kid, what really attracted me to the movie was the premise involving a hapless, timid daydreamer with a rich fantasy life. I appreciated the Harold-Lloyd-like character arc. Walter Mitty is reminiscent of the unassertive characters Lloyd played in movies like Girl Shy or Grandma's Boy who end up overcoming their character flaws. The bits on the edge of the office building I even found a bit reminiscent of Safety Last!, although it doesn't emphasize suspense the way that does or anything.
While I think I'd take my favorite Harold Lloyd movies over The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I still found it a good watch for what it is.
>Invasion of the Saucer Men
This is another case where the poster is cooler than the actual movie. Strongly so here. The movie features a similar alien design to what you see in the artwork, but the creatures look much more worse moving in live action. The fact that they spend a lot of time lurking in the shadows was probably just an effort to mitigate how low budget it looks. I'll give credit where credit is due: The disembodied hand that creeps around is actually kind of neat given what they had to work with. In contrast to a lot of these types of movies, Invasion of the Saucer Men features a pretty comedic tone. Once again, that might have been related to how cheap of a production it was. It's easier to try and pass off something this silly as a comedy than it is to make a completely serious science fiction or horror movie out of it. Unfortunately, the humor can come across as pretty forced at times. A pre-Batman Frank Gorshin also appears in it but doesn't do too much. The pacing isn't very good either. The movie is a little over an hour long but still feels slow moving.
I'd recommend skipping this one.
RIP Bob Burns, by the way.
>She
This is a pretty serious case of wasted potential. For all the work that went into the costumes and architecture of Kor with the intention of shooting it in color, the budget was slashed at the last minute and they were forced to shoot in black and white (yeah, Legend Films colorized it like 20 years ago, but it's not the same). It's not like a German Expressionist movie or a Universal horror movie that are designed specifically with black and white in mind and benefit from it. Or, given the nature of the production and who was involved, King Kong. But it's more comparable to Son of Kong in how compromised the end product was. Like Son of Kong, it had some cool-sounding Willis O'Brien animation that was never filmed due to budgetary constraints (a scene with the explorers getting attacked by mammoths). In this case, there are no animated varmints at all. The only critter you get is a frozen saber-toothed tiger shown via a Mario Larrinaga matte painting. Helen Mack and Noble Johnson were also in both movies.
Speaking of casting, I thought Helen Gahagan was pretty decently cast as the literal ice queen of Kor. Cary Grant's boyfriend Randolph Scott, however, comes across as wooden as the leading man caught between his affections for Helen Mack's character and the unforeseen romantic interests of She. The movie also feels very slow moving, and the every end of the film you're subjected to a tacky message about the power of love.
As for Max Steiner's score, I disliked how he seemed to have based the main theme from the one he wrote for King Kong. It's like he was pilfering his own work, which is something I remember reading that he was known to do. The more ethereal tone is nicely distinctive and a nice change of pace though.
My final verdict is that it can be worth watching if it's something you're personally curious about, like I was, but it's nothing worth raving about. I wouldn't really encourage anyone else to check it out. Merian C. Cooper even apparently said it was the worst movie he'd ever made.
No.372724
Imagine watching a non-pornographic movie in 2026, lmao
No.372735
Recently I watched batman forever. It was very gay and bad, strangly colorful and somewhat entertaining.
>be more friendly to the kids
>bat flirts in non-child-friendly endlessly
>annoying sidekick
I miss when batman killed his enemies.
No.372753
>>372735>It was very gayIt was directed by a gay jewish man.
No.373553
I decided to give these Christopher Guest movies a try. I don't really have anything bad to say about them, but I also didn't think any of them measured up to This is Spinal Tap in terms of highlights. I did like how consistent the list of cast members is across the three movies, and Fred Willard's presence definitely elevates each of them. I also enjoyed seeing what type of character Christopher Guest would be playing next. When I first saw This is Spinal Tap as a teenager, I didn't realize I was watching the same guy who played Count Rugen in The Princess Bride. That always impressed me about him. He's kind of a chameleon.
I probably also would have appreciated them more if I'd spaced them out more. I feel like I overdosed on mockumentaries.
It could be due to the subject matter of aging musicians getting back together or the fact that the Guest-McKean-Shearer combo of Spinal Tap has returned in a different form, but I think A Mighty Wind is my favorite of the three.
>>372735Maybe I just have bad taste, but it kept my interest more than the other Batman movies from the '89-'97 period. I thought the odd color scheme was an interesting choice, although it can't match the Art Deco style of the older Batman movies.
No.374969
Shit, I'm kind of wishing I saved the last thread.
No.375481
>Leningrad Cowboys Go America
Fun little Finnish road-trip flick about a band of hopeless Siberian folk musicians with matching wacky hairstyles and pointy shoes trying to make it big in the U.S. The premise was inspired by a lack of Soviet soft power and waning cultural relevance in the latter days of the USSR, but it's definitely not overtly political or anything past that.
There's also a cameo appearance by Jim Jarmusch.
>Magical Mystery Tour
It felt like The Beatles were just throwing crap at the wall with this one. I liked some of the music video sequences, but I don't think I'd recommend the movie for anyone but Beatles diehards. It's mercifully short, so at least it has that going for it.
>Easy Rider
It's easy to make fun of, but I think in some ways it works as a cultural time capsule of its era. In some ways it's actually evenhanded. It portrays the aimlessness of many involved in the '60s counterculture and shows how poorly prepared they tended to be for the trials of communal off-grid living. The protagonists are involved in a drug deal and as such aren't particularly sympathetic. I particularly disliked Dennis Hopper's character, maaan. The most likable character is the drunken, eccentric square lawyer played by Jack Nicholson, who only shows up in the second half of the film or so.
I thought the stuff with the vicious hick townsfolk having such a strong grudge against the characters was corny at first, but I wonder if there wasn't some truth to that sort of thing back then. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper apparently knew a shit-stirring "civil rights" agitator who had been shot at while riding him motorcycle around in the South in the earlier part of the decade. Jim Varney also once threatened to take a long-haired colleague to Hazard, Kentucky, where he claimed that he wouldn't make it down the street without locals giving him a forcible haircut. Still, that's a trope I really hate when it appears in other movies that don't really have any excuse for it. Even in the context of Easy Rider it feels a bit cartoonish. There's one in a restaurant who brings up his lack of respect for negro women, which is just the movie's way of telling you he's not a heckin' good person, and the casting of the one at the end of the movie with the strange growth on his face.
I don't know that I'd recommend it if the '60s hippie theme or its historical significance aren't enough to get you interested. It just felt like one I should see at least once.
It's not really relevant, but I also felt like mentioning that this is the second movie I've watched recently that shows an American man settling down with a beaner woman.
>Roswell
I thought this was pretty entertaining. I'm not the biggest fan of the '90s made-for-TV aesthetic of the movie (like the rompler music or the bit of CGI that was used), and I think the opening credit sequence was kind of cheesy (showing dodgy footage of George-Adamski-style saucers? Come on!), but I think it was interesting to see the story playing out and it was entertaining to see Jesse Marcel (played by Kyle MacLachlan) try to get to the bottom of what really happened back in July 1947. My favorite part was the sequence at the end with Martin Sheen's character going over a lot of the UFO mythology that has transpired since the repopularization of the crash-retrieval narratives was pretty cool. I felt like it did a pretty good job imparting a feeling of mystery and wonder and also maintaining ambiguity with regard to whether or not the stories were true. There's an earlier scene with Marcel talking to some witnesses with competing stories that I think was handled pretty well too. I also found the fact that the guy Martin Sheen plays goes by "Townsend" to be a nice touch. Presumably it's a reference to the antigravity researcher T. Townsend Brown, who's a pretty fascinating figure in UFO lore.
Speaking of UFO lore, I have some quibbles with the movie in how it handles the topic. For one thing, the Roswell bodies were implied to have been like modern grays. I think that's anachronistic. From what I know of the Roswell case, nobody described them as looking quite like grays. They were described as little guys with brownish or grayish-brownish skin, but their eyes were apparently sunken and almost oriental in appearance. One account described their heads as looking like those of Jerusalem crickets, and I'm not sure in what sense that was supposed to be the case (maybe the head shape). I think the modern gray look grew out of the Barney and Betty Hill case in the '60s, although I guess you could argue there were antecedents prior to that. I also don't like the way the movie used the testimony of the embalmer Glenn Dennis, who was most likely a fraud. He talked about meeting a nurse who had seen the bodies in the hospital but was caught giving out fake names. And why would there be requests for child-sized coffins in the first place? Wouldn't full-sized ones suffice? I think the scenes with Jesse Marcel trying to track down fellow witnesses at the end of his life were also fictionalized for the sake of good drama.
Regardless, I still enjoyed it for a fictionalized TV movie.
>Silent Running
A pretty good '70s sci-fi movie revolving around environmental themes. The last remnants of Earth's forests are preserved in spaceship-based greenhouses, and Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) is the last person who is truly dedicated to keeping them going. As the plot gradually unfolds, he's ultimately forced to forego any human companionship with the aim of ensuring the survival of Earth's remaining flora and fauna contained in the last remaining ship. He does his best to keep the ship going with the help of his robot friends (MST3K was partially inspired by Silent Running). It sort of represents a dystopian future, but it's more just melancholic than devoid of hope the way something like 1984 is. It's a movie with very little action and isn't too heavy on actual plot (and there's one crucial plot point that I find pretty silly), so if you want something more thrilling than contemplative then this probably won't be one for you.
No.375488
>>375481On a side note, the version of Roswell that I watched was an HD upscale off JewTube that's since been made private. If anyone wants it, maybe I could try uploading it somewhere.
No.375502
>>375500Storywise I'm not familiar with anything Bret Easton Ellis has done besides American Psycho, and even then I just know the movie. Have you seen the Valley of the Dolls movie? I haven't. I just know Sharon Tate was in it.
I'm glad to see another review post in this thread. It makes it feel less like I'm sitting here talking to myself. I plan on doing a bit more of that next month. I have a few '70s horror flicks lined up.
No.375518
>>375502>Storywise I'm not familiar with anything Bret Easton Ellis has done besides American PsychoI only know less than zero and ameri psycho, he wrote a few other books but those were his 2 hits. Not interested in reading anymore tbh. There's enough narcisstic, psychopathic people in the world today without watching media like that all the time and making myself feel even more miserable.
>Have you seen the Valley of the Dolls movie? I haven't. I just know Sharon Tate was in it.I haven't but have a copy of it digital. Going to watch it one day for sure, I liked the book. The characters felt more relatable and fleshed-out and not like cardboard cutouts of what they were supposed to represent. The woman in it addicted to pills was really sad.
>I'm glad to see another review post in this thread.Sure man, anytime! I love tvchan, the spirit of the old Anons is here more than anywhere else online.
>I have a few '70s horror flicks lined upFor October, I'm gonna watch all the Hellraiser movies. I've seen the first 4 so far.
Another contribution to the thread, I recently finished the TV series 'Black Books'. I found it a 8.5/10. Funny Brit humour, very cynical. My favorite character was Manny. I think 'IT Crowd' was funnier and his masterpiece. I've still gotta watch 'Father Ted' though but these are my thoughts so far. Linehan has a keen wit and is the best sitcom writer of his generation, or he's up there top 3 top 5 at the least.
No.376029
>Blue Sunshine
I saw this one on a list of low-budget '70s horror movies and decided to check it out. It turns out that it's more of a thriller with horror elements than a full-blown horror movie. The plot deals with a batch of LSD called Blue Sunshine that drives people berserk years after taking it. The protagonist decides to get to the bottom of the story and discovers that a political candidate running for office was involved with distributing the drug during his days at Stanford and is trying to hide that fact from the public.
I found it to be a pretty entertaining thriller, although it feels a bit too Jewy for me in some ways. The leading character is a male feminist named Jerry Zipkin who looks like the end result of gay actor Michael Douglas impregnating Bob Dylan. He was played by Zalman King, who was born with the surname "Lefkowitz." One of Zipkin's best friends is a doctor, surname "Blume," played by an actor who was born with the surname "Wolkowitz." He has also has an anti-hunter line about how "Those schmucks will shoot at anything that moves." Zipkin has a friend who goes into a murderous rage at the beginning of the movie and ends up setting the whole investigation in motion. He was played by an actor with the last name "Crystal," which sounds awfully Jewish to me. Could it have been "Kristol" originally? I guess if you're not going to name yourself after a precious metal, something related to gemstones would be a satisfactory alternative. In contrast to those other guys, the two big bad dups also present as all-American goyim.
Aside from those notable problems, I have to say I liked the movie. For whatever reason, the whole part about the drug making its victims' hair fall out in huge clumps felt nicely disturbing to me.
>Psychomania
This one is about Tom, the leader of a antisocial young motorcycle gang who comes from a household that fools around with dark magical practices. They have a butler named Shadwell, played by George Sanders, who acts as a leader of their spiritual activities and is heavily implied to have been involved in an evil pact made with Tom's mother when Tom was a baby. As Tom grows up, he learns the secret to immortality. After he decides to take advantage of that knowledge, the rest of his gang starts to follow suit. They end up going on a streak of violent rampages in the surrounding area that leave the authorities powerless to stop them.
I think this one is worth seeing if that sounds interesting to you. It's got a unique premise, some pretty engaging vehicle work and chase scenes for a silly exploitation movie, and it manages to have a bit of fun with itself while not falling ill with "horror comedy" syndrome.
It's worth noting that Sanders's role as ol' Shadman was the last thing he ever did. He ended up committing suicide prior to the release of the movie. The poor guy's final years were apparently pretty rough.
>Race with the Devil
The story of Race with the Devil revolves around a camping excursion gone wrong. Two couples (Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, and their girlfriends) decide to go on a trip in a pretty swanky motorhome and decide to set up shop out in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, while sitting outside drinking, the two men happen to catch a coven of bloodthirsty Satanists performing a human sacrifice and end up getting spotted. The cultists spend the rest of the movie hunting down the protagonists, and things take a paranoid turn when the heroes realize that the psychos have heavily infiltrated the surrounding towns and that nobody they meet can be trusted.
The concept behind the movie reminded me of a bit of the road action of Duel and the unrelenting antagonism of its villain mixed with bits and pieces of The Devil's Rain and The Hills Have Eyes. The Devil's Rain came out the same year, albeit slightly afterwards, and The Hills Have Eyes was released several years later. I enjoyed this flick better than either of those though.
I found this movie to be very educational and highly researched. I learned that Satanists are into witchy-variety neopaganism and Wicca, runes are Satanic, and Aztec human sacrifice also ties in to Satanism somehow. Also, what's with the women trying to borrow library books in some small town they're just passing through? Do either of them even have an applicable library card?
When I was starting the movie I remembered that Judas Priest had a song called "Race with the Devil" and got curious if it had anything to do with it. It turns out that it was a cover of a very early metal song of the same name from a band called The Gun that's pretty neat. That's conceivably what they had in mind for the title of the movie.
Overall I found Race with the Devil to be pretty fun and worth my time.
>Messiah of Evil
If you want a plot that makes sense, then this isn't the movie for you. But if you're hankering for something surreal and nightmarish with unsettling imagery and buckets of seedy '70s atmosphere, then I definitely recommend it. It has a real Lovecraftian feel to it. "Nyarlathotep" and its origins as a dark dream of Lovecraft's (which he's said to have begun writing when still half asleep) comes to mind.
This is one I definitely intend on watching again eventually.
No.376136
>The Child
This is one of those "supernaturally evil child" movies. Most of it didn't really hold my attention all that much, although the last half hour or so got a lot more interesting. On the positive side, there was an effectively creepy grainy shot of the ghouls' nighttime silhouettes that was used a couple of times. I also liked the 1930s setting.
One thing I figured is worth mentioning is that the movie is dubbed, which makes the acting come across worse than it otherwise might have.
I think the climax section of the movie was interesting enough that I might come back to it eventually. It's definitely not much of a priority though.
>Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
I don't have much to say about this one other than that I didn't like the whole aspect with the cops going after the main character the whole time and that I'm also about out of worthwhile '70s zombie movies to watch.
It's not a bad movie, but I'd have to give it another watch.
>Island of Death
A complete cavalcade of depravity revolving around a British tourist couple's based and Christpilled murder spree on a Greek island. If you've ever wanted to see a movie that involves fucking and then killing a baby goat, pouring a bucket of paint down a man's throat and nailing his hands to the ground, hatecriming homogays to death, lynching a negro with an airplane, a woman getting turned on by a golden shower, bulldozer murder, rape by hippies, man-on-man anal assrape in the butt, more rape, and incest, then this might be the movie for you.
It's not actually that visually explicit compared to later movies, but there's a good amount of nudity involved. I get that it's an exploitation film trying to drum up an audience by playing on the natural human interest in sex and violence, but it always felt odd to me when a movie like this tries to titillate the viewer with tits alongside portraying hardcore violence. Maybe I'm just prudish on some level, but it's not something I care much for. I know it's odd considering that a lot of gory content really doesn't faze me, but I don't really like seeing the two things mixed together.
You aren't going to see a guy get his tallywhacker cut off like in Cannibal Holocaust, but like that movie they tried to push a bit of social messaging that's kind of pretentious in a movie of this type. In the case of Island of Death it's commentary about hyper-religious hypocrites.
It might be a weird think to say considering I tend to dislike that kind of thing, but I think I'd like this movie better if it just played up the black comedy a bit more and moved things more in a Frankenhooker sort of direction.
>TerrorVision
A corny and unfunny horror comedy. I remember someone in a thread in the past making a remark about lame boomer sex humor, and that's what this reminds me of. A lot of the comedy entails fairly tame blue humor come across today like a pretty normal, buttoned-down middle-aged guy trying to show those hip-and-with-it types that he's not such a square after all and really knows how to let loose. One word that comes to mind to describe the humor is "broad." I don't think "lowbrow" humor is necessarily even a bad thing if it's executed well, but most of the jokes here fail to land. The parents are swingers, and the whole joke is that they're swingers. The teenage daughter is a materialistic teenage girl, and that's the entire joke. She's dating an air-headed metal musician (played by a young Jon Gries, long before he was Uncle Rico, which was fun to see), and him being an air-headed metal musician is the joke. It's not like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or Beavis and Butt-head, where the dumb characters have actual humor value and are oddly charming. It's like the people who came up with the movie figured the cast being filled with two-dimensional caricatures was enough to carry the movie comedically. For whatever reason, I also found the way the war-obsessed grandpa was written to be especially unfunny. I can't even put my finger on why. Maybe it's because it feels like an over-the-top spoof of nobody in particular. While a movie like Dr. Strangelove was parodying figures like Curtis LeMay, this guy in TerrorVision feels something like a parody of that kind of parody (maybe even another generation or more down the line). It's not like it's absurd enough to be funny in a surreal type of way either. It's just a pretty cringe-worthy character.
On the plus side, I liked the gore effects. The monster was strangely kind of endearing too for being a dangerous monster and all. I liked the old sci-fi movie clips. The Robot Monster joke actually got a bit of a snicker out of me. I also kind of liked the exaggerated visuals of the movie. It sort of reminded me of an oddball version of the retro portrayal of suburbia that Edward Scissorhands would do a few years later.
As crappy as it was, I figured the lighter tone would be a palette cleanser after watching Island of Death. I actually enjoy some Empire movies, but this isn't one I'd recommend in most cases.
No.376141
>>376029>>376029Can confirm MoE is kino, I wouldn't say it doesn't make sense though. Sure the beginning and the end seem disconnected but the middle part is cohesive.
t. Nic
No.376142
>>376138I can't say I'm big on every movie on there, but I'd say they're all reasonably interesting.
>>376141>Can confirm MoE is kino, I wouldn't say it doesn't make sense though. Sure the beginning and the end seem disconnected but the middle part is cohesive.I think the dreamlike feel would put a lot of people off compared to something plotted in a tighter or more typical way. To be honest, I'm also a bit slow mentally when it comes to movie storylines. Sometimes it takes me repeated viewings to understand what's going on, and with certain movies I think it's hopeless for me to try and understand the big picture of how the plot points connect. Mysteries and film noir movies are especially a problem for me. I remember watching The Big Sleep a long time ago, and I felt that was the case there. I've seen most of the Thin Man movies and enjoyed the lighthearted tone and chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy, but don't ask me to actually explain what happens. I'm retarded that way, and my mind is only getting worse.
Maybe the fact that Messiah of Evil was never quite finished as intended could also be part of my problem. After having the memories of the movie circulating through my gray matter since I've watched it, I think it might be among my favorite '70s horror movies. I'll have to watch it again to confirm that though.
>t. NicWhomst?
No.376167
>>376142>Whomst?Disregard, I mistook you for an old friend I lost communication with a long time ago.
Funnily enough he was also big into 70s horror, noir and watched The Big Sleep.
Films noir are often convoluted when it comes to the plot. The writing was chaotic and in some cases done while filming was already taking place so the script becomes a bowl of tangled spaghetti. Sometimes they even switched writers along the way.
Dorothy Malone playing the librarian in the Big Sleep makes one wonder if Emma Stine is an immortal changing names in different times, uncanny resemblance.
No.376179
>>376167>Disregard, I mistook you for an old friend I lost communication with a long time ago.Did he used to post on here?
>Funnily enough he was also big into 70s horror, noir and watched The Big Sleep.I actually haven't seen as much film noir as I should have. There are some pretty essential ones that I've never watched, like Laura. I've seen Night of the Hunter listed as a film noir movie, and if that counts then it's probably my favorite. I also remember liking White Heat, The Woman in the Window, Double Indemnity, Key Largo, and The Big Heat. I'm more into ones that align more with thrillers and the older style of straightforward bang-bang crime flicks than I am typical detective stories. Maybe it's because my pea brain has an easier time digesting them. Sometimes I'm fine with not being able to understand movie plots, but my inability to wrap my head around the story in The Big Sleep really hindered my enjoyment of it.
>Films noir are often convoluted when it comes to the plot. The writing was chaotic and in some cases done while filming was already taking place so the script becomes a bowl of tangled spaghetti. Sometimes they even switched writers along the way.I know that Raymond Chandler also didn't really care much about plot and saw it as way less important than traits like dialogue and style.
>Dorothy Malone playing the librarian in the Big Sleep makes one wonder if Emma Stine is an immortal changing names in different times, uncanny resemblance.Emma Stein? Oy vey! It's the wandering Jewess!
No.376271
>The Brood
As much as I liked the creative premise of The Brood, I felt like the murder scenes brought it down. Particularly the first one. I don't know how easy it would be to show a little child bonking someone to death with a mallet without it coming across as comical, but I just ended up chuckling at that.
As far as music is concerned, The Brood is the first David Cronenberg flick to have a score by Howard Shore. I didn't care for it that much relative to his later music for Scanners.
There are some solid performances from Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. The latter really pulled off a completely unhinged woman mentally warped from abuse (although her character would just be a garden-variety bunny boiler if it weren't for the bigger issue she has going on).
Overall I definitely don't think it's bad, but it's still my least favorite of the Cronenberg movies I've watched.
>Rabid
This one is about a woman, played by sex menko Marilyn Chambers, who develops a retractable blood-sucking schlong in her armpit after getting experimental skin grafts following a motorcycle accident. She needs blood to survive and preys on one victim after another, spreading her vampirism and leading to an epidemic of sanguivorous zombies that gets labeled as a form of rabies by the media. Martial law ends up getting put in place, and like in The Crazies there are soldiers deployed ready to shoot anyone who gets infected.
I thought it was pretty good. I preferred the more apocalyptic tone compared to The Brood, and some of the library music selections (supervised by Ivan Reitman) managed to catch my ear. It might be my favorite of the three '70s Cronenberg films I've seen.
>Shivers
This one had my attention right from the beginning. I'm a sucker for when movies like Robocop and Starship Troopers use in-universe media for expository purposes, so I appreciated how the intro is set up as a promotion for the ritzy apartment complex that serves as the main setting for the movie.
The story revolves around a rash of violence and hypersexuality spread by hideous leech-like parasites that invade human orifices and severely alter their hosts' behavior, turning them into id-driven zombies. There's an implication of it spreading across society as a whole, similar to what Rabid would later portray, but unlike Rabid you only see it beginning to destabilize society. I thought having most of the story take place within a luxury tower block was a nice gimmick. It kind of reminds me of the turn Dawn of the Dead takes with the mall.
Lynn Lowry from I Drink Your Blood and The Crazies has a prominent role, which took me a little bit to notice when she was in her nurse outfit.
I liked Shivers, but I'm not sure if I preferred it to Rabid.
>Deranged
Coming out in 1974 and beating The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the punch early in that same year, this is the first movie I know of inspired by the Ed Gein case (Robert Bloch reportedly wasn't influenced at all by the Gein story when he wrote the Psycho novel and was almost finished writing the book when the news broke, despite living in the next county up at that time). While it's truer to the source material, Deranged definitely still takes liberties with the story. For example, all the names are changed around, the Gein stand-in successfully digs up his mother's remains and commits a third known murder, Bernice Worden is replaced with a girl who seems to still be in her teens, and the setting is noticeably different. There's at least one Ontario license plate visible, and there's a bit of hilly terrain to be seen that stands out from the very flat scenery of the Plainfield, Wisconsin area Ed Gein lived in.
The Gein character, who goes by the moniker of Ezra Cobb, is played by Roberts Blossom. You may remember him as the old geezer from Home Alone who the youngsters are deathly afraid of, believing him to be a murderous psychopath (which makes me wonder if Deranged had any part in casting Blossom as Old Man Marley). He does a great job with the role and I'd say is the movie's greatest asset.
Another thing the movie has going for it is its use of black humor. Or at least through the death of the Adeline Watkins character. It felt pretty tonally inconsistent to me. As soon as he decides to kidnap the Mary Hogan equivalent, the horror really ramps up and the humor dies down. Earlier in the movie Ezra Cobb is portrayed as an oddly affable bumpkin whose naivete would be endearing if it weren't for his twisted nature. He's something like a heinously psychotic Forrest Gump. Those were my favorite parts of Deranged. After that all the levity is gone and the tone moves closer to a typical slasher flick. I think the horror aspects of Deranged were well executed though, particularly the section of the movie dealing with the fate of Mary.
The movie features framing with an actor playing a journalist who is supposed to have covered the Ezra Cobb case firsthand and intermittently steps into the movie to narrate, which I thought was lame. We all know it's based on Ed Gein. Give it a rest.
I also think it's worth noting that Deranged features some very early effects from Tom Savini. It came out the same year he did Deathdream, both of which were about three years before Martin and four before Dawn of the Dead.
I'd say Deranged is pretty decent for what it is. There have been worse horror movies that ended up becoming much more well known, and yet this one flies under the radar.
No.376345
>Black Sabbath
This was my first time watching anything by Mario Bava. It's an anthology movie from 1963 hosted by Boris Karloff. I watched the original Italian cut, which looks to me to be the ideal version to watch. It unfortunately has Karloff's voice dubbed over, but the American version was censored and made some plot changes, had the order of the stories changed around in a way that seems like it wouldn't work as well, and changed the soundtrack around to Les Baxter music. Even the look of the movie wasn't spared. The American version has different color timing, and from the descriptions I've read it sounds like it was for the worse.
The Italian cut starts off with "The Telephone," which feels like it was the right choice to me just to get it out of the way. It begins with a "who was phone?" scenario off the protagonist being rung up and threatened by a caller who is apparently able to see everything she's doing inside her apartment. I thought the story got more interesting as it went along, but I didn't find the premise all that intriguing. The next story is "The Wurdulak," a gothic vampire story set in Russia. It's notable for featuring Boris Karloff, who otherwise just has host scenes bookending the movie (the American cut also added some in between stories). I definitely liked it better than "The Telephone," and its focus on the spread of vampirism gave it a quasi-zombie-movie feel compared to the usual vampire film. I'd compare it to The Last Man on Earth, which came out the year after Black Sabbath. The final story is "The Drop of Water," which is my favorite of the three. It's an eldritch tale of a nurse stealing a ring from the finger of a dead woman she shouldn't have messed with and reaping the supernatural whirlwind. The corpse the ring gets taken from is made of wax but is effectively creepy. There's some otherworldly lighting in the segment (and the host sections as well) that really give it an eerie feeling. It made me think of Suspiria. I'm not a movie expert, but I guess it's fair to say that that sort of look was around before Dario Argento utilized it.
I think Black Sabbath is a decent movie, but I'm not in love with it or anything. I'm just not sure that I care for the anthology format that much. I still liked it better than Creepshow.
And yes, the band took their name from this movie.
>Planet of the Vampires
Another Mario Bava movie. This time it's a futuristic story about astronauts attempting a rescue mission on an alien planet and becoming possessed by hostile incorporeal aliens capable of reanimating corpses. I liked the nice colorful look. It punches above its weight visually for such a cheap movie. The setting is kind of reminiscent of a more stylish Italian version of something like Forbidden Planet or Star Trek, although it predates the latter.
My favorite scene is the section that involves some crew members coming across the remains of an alien ship and its crew that died there long before the humans showed up. That scene was apparently an influence on Alien.
Although it's not all that similar, for whatever reason The Angry Red Planet came to mind while I was watching the movie. It turns out that the director of that film wrote the story for Planet of the Vampires.
I think it's worth a watch if you like old sci-fi movies.
>A Bay of Blood
This one's a Bava giallo flick from 1971 that had a big impact on slasher movies. It seems pretty gory to me for 1971. Yeah, Herschell Gordon Lewis had been making movies for a while before this, but we're still talking several years before stuff like the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And despite its reputation, that movie isn't even very graphic. It just was so well executed that it has the tendency of creating the impression in its viewers that they've seen something much more bloody than they actually have. A Bay of Blood features way more explicit violence in comparison. There's a woman getting her throat slit and blood gushing from the wound (complete with a closeup shot reminiscent of the worm-eyed zombie biting the woman's neck in Zombi 2), a man dying with a billhook embedded in his bloody face, two spear impalements (including a twofer kill with a fucking couple get turned in to a shish kebab), and a neck stump spurting blood after a decapitation. The bloody effects are courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi, back before his work on King Kong '76, Alien, E.T., and Dune.
I liked the way the plot took turns I wasn't expecting, but admittedly I also had kind of a hard time following it. I think part of my problem was the presence of so many sideburned men in sweaters and/or sport coats. It was only really two of them that gave me an issue for a while, but I think I'd have to give the movie another watch to understand it better.
The soundtrack is by Stelvio Cipriani, who also did Nightmare City. There are some nice pieces. I liked "Evelyn's Theme" and his offbeat ending music especially.
I thought it was good, but I also probably didn't experience the full impact due to my issues following the story.
>Queens of Evil
I think this is a pretty unique movie. It's pretty unorthodox for something in the horror genre. It feels like a Brothers-Grimm-style cautionary fairytale for counterculture types who are at risk of finding themselves adrift when unmoored from social expectations and liable to throwing their ideals to the wind when given the opportunity to live out their fantasies. It's about a hippie free-love enthusiast who has an eventful encounter on the road helping fix a rich driver's car trouble and ends up becomes romantically entangled with a trio of magical, mysterious women who live by themselves in a house in the forest. Things take a much darker turn from there, but the situation only starts to become very clear more than halfway into the film.
I think it's worth a watch if the outline sounds interesting to you.
Some comments: Liv is supposed to be perceived by viewers as reasonably attractive, but I don't think her frumpy short, curly hairstyle does her any favors. It just makes her look like Shari Lewis in between haircuts. Or Harpo Marx. At least the wig they chose for her in the seduction scene is an improvement on the way her hair is in the other scenes. She still can't compete with the alpha Stacy bone structure of the two dago women. It was Samantha who really caught my eye. Speaking of which, RIP to Silvia Monti. She died earlier this year. For a movie dealing so much with erotic themes, the nudity is pretty subdued and tasteful compared to a more standard movie of this type. Also, I liked what I heard of the music and am listening to the soundtrack as I write this.
No.376474
>The Quatermass Xperiment
I'd say this one is above average for its genre. The body-horror concept of an astronaut returning from space and gradually turning into a horribly deformed monster is a pretty novel one for its time. Surprisingly the main character, Professor Quatermass, is actually a pretty compelling one. He has a faustian character, and his single-minded determination to further the cause of science reminds me of the headstrong Professor Challenger from The Lost World. Characters like those two are notable because usually in these kinds of movies the people are perfunctory cardboard cutouts used to sprinkle in the obligatory basic human drama for increase mass-audience appeal. If we don't see the dashing Brad Ironjaw winning Dr. Poindexter's daughter before the final shot is finished fading to black, then saving the world is all for naught. Even worse is when they throw in an unnecessary tag-along child character (like in 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Black Scorpion, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, or The Valley of Gwangi). I'm glad to say that that's not the case here.
Unfortunately, I think The Quatermass Xperiment is held back by the way it still ends up devolving into a pretty standard giant-monster-on-the-loose movie by the end instead of grounding itself firmly in body horror territory. It's not really the cream of the crop of either genre. The Fly is a good example of the type of approach I would have preferred it had been closer to. But since neither the 1958 version or 1986 remake were out at this point, they couldn't exactly have followed its lead. I just think it would have been better if the story had stayed focused on Carroon's tragic disintegration and the emotional cost to those around him. The Quatermass Xperiment already excelled at the human drama (Richard Wordsworth deserves particularly credit for his pantomime performance as Carroon), but I feel like the movie would have been better served being more toned down in focus.
>Profondo Rosso
Being pretty inexperienced with his work, this is the first Dario Argento movie I've seen that didn't entail a supernatural element to the story. It's a giallo movie about a jazz pianist investigating a series of murders, and it features the first movie soundtrack done by Goblin.
Despite the dark subject matter, there are more moments of open levity to Profondo Rosso than Suspiria or Inferno due to the scenes focusing on the romance between the main character and his love interest, a reporter and strong, empowered womyn. Unfortunately, that also ties in to my least favorite part of the movie. There's a scene where the protagonist makes clear his dislike for the feminist mentality and is is btfo by his new girlfriend in an arm-wrestling contest. The scene is lighthearted and clearly played for laughs, but it's still pozzed and emasculating when you look at what the intentions behind it were. On the positive side, at least the girl is feminine and not some man-hating harpy.
I'm not sure how I'd rank it in comparison to other Argento flicks I've watched, but I liked it quite a bit. There was one part that even freaked me out for a minute, which is rare for me. I recommend watching it.
>The Burning
I decided to end October with an old WFC movie I still hadn't seen. It's got some big names attached to it. There are effects from Tom Savini, Humble Harv helped write the story, Rick Wakeman supplied the music, and it also has Jason Alexander with hair.
I ended up enjoying it better than I thought I would. It catches flak for being a knockoff of Friday the 13th, which I've only seen once many years ago, but I think I liked The Burning more. I might be talking out my ass, but I remember Friday the 13th feeling flatter in terms of characters. I don't remember rooting for the protagonists in the way I did for them in The Burning.
My biggest dislike might be the way it invokes the Competent Negro Authority Figure media trope in the hospital scene, particularly the way the greenhorn white doctor in the scene is a homely, timid bald guy. I actually wasn't too keen on the music either. It sounds like Rick Wakeman was using a Prophet-5, and I felt like the patches he was using sounded too harsh. But speaking as someone who is relatively unfamiliar with '80s slashers, I thought it was pretty good for what it is.
As eager as I was to start up my October horror-viewing season, I currently just feel exhausted with it all. Sometimes I continue it into early November, but I don't think that's going to happen this year. I've had my fill for now.
No.376505
>>376503No, it doesn't make you petty. That's a valid reason not to buy it. If I was a buyfag, I wouldn't buy it for that reason either.
No.376508
>>376505I have an okay physical video collection, but these days I just try to only buy things I know I'm going to want to come back to repeatedly. Night of the Living Dead is one of the few that I'm confident that'll apply. I guess I can just drop a few more shekels on pic related, since it's not a movie I ever owned to begin with. It looks like it has a good amount of bonus features while also not packaging in any bugman novelty shit to appeal to collectorfag Redditors with more money than taste.
If I were rich and had more space, I do think it would be fun to build a more extensive personal kino library. As it stands now I'm pretty content just to hoard most things on my hard drive.
No.376509
>>376508There's nothing wrong with building a physical collection of movies. I used to have a collection of over a hundred DVDs; by the time Blu-rays came around, I was mostly just downloading older movies, a lot of it hard to come by, because the newer stuff was appealing to me less and less. Also, I was being completely serious that I would boycott that release for capitalizing black, they started doing that everywhere after George Floyd and purposely not capitalizing White as a humiliation ritual. Always do the opposite of what the jews say.
No.376510
>>376509>There's nothing wrong with building a physical collection of movies. I used to have a collection of over a hundred DVDs; by the time Blu-rays came around, I was mostly just downloading older movies, a lot of it hard to come by, because the newer stuff was appealing to me less and less.I hold on to some of my old DVDs, but I've also been able to upgrade to more hi-fi formats for most of the movies I own. Even though physical media is less common now, I feel like that video quality is getting good enough that it could put an end to the whole format treadmill and feeling the need to upgrade every few years. All that nonsense is another thing that prevented me from buying more movies, but I own most of the things I really want at this point.
There's still some stuff I own that has never appeared on standard Blu-ray, let alone Ultra HD Blu-ray, and it kind of sucks the demand isn't there.
>Also, I was being completely serious that I would boycott that release for capitalizing black, they started doing that everywhere after George Floyd and purposely not capitalizing White as a humiliation ritual. Always do the opposite of what the jews say.I figured so. I was instantly turned off when I saw "Black" in the description. The older Blu-ray edition I mentioned has the same faggy description, but at least it doesn't capitalize the word like that. I wish there was a 4K edition to compete with the Criterion version. It's not like Night of the Living Dead hasn't always been a public domain movie, but with fewer people buying physical media there doesn't seem to be the level of competition there used to be in that domain.
I'm tired of these pathetic worms poisoning everything. They just can't leave people's escapism alone.