Recently watched movies!

[MouthForWar]

[MouthForWar]

[Dr Kain]

Zombie Halloween II - I wish I could go on here and rant at oh my god how down right terrible this movie was. In fact, I was expecting to go in watching a down right terrible horror movie, but even that would have been better than what I got. What I got was something that was almost Battlefield Earth level bad. It was like Rob decided to make a sequel to The Devil's Rejects but throw Michael Myers into it. This movie does not make any sense at all. I could rant, but it isn't worth it. Instead of getting a down right terrible horror movie, I got one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Nothing happens for 90 minutes and then when something does happen, it makes absolutely no sense and ends without a lick of sense to it. I give this movie a 0/10 stars. It did not even have anything from the music of the series until during the end credits.

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

The Invisible Man (1933)

I love this movie. It's so smart and sharp and Claude Rains is so great as The Invisible Man ("Even the moon's frightened of me!"). I don't think I've seen this film in its entirety since I was 13 or so (that's 12 years ago, for you keeping score), and yet I still had a great deal of the scenes and dialog in my memory!

"We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction."

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Piranha 3D- Finally got around to watching the 3D version of the film and the 3D was nice. Still a great movie to bad the sequel wasn't as good.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[jellydonut25]

Bride of Re-Animator - Why doesn't this movie get more love and why aren't there any quality releases of it? It's a good splatter-fest and there are some really cool moments with the "creation of new life" idea.

Severance - I'm not sure how to feel about this one. It's almost like it does its two separate feelings (comedy and horror) a little too separately and a little too well. There are times of genuine laughter and times of genuine fright...it's hard to know how to react when watching this. Should we be laughing, like when the one dude gets decapitated and then grins because he was right about how the brain can go on thinking after the head's been chopped off? OR should we feel squeamish and scared, like when the one dude gets the logo etched into his chest? OR should we feel emotional, like when the one dude sacrifices himself? Probably my least favorite Christopher Smith film (which is pretty high praise for Smith, since I didn't dislike this movie at all)

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

Blade II

This is such a fun movie. Not quite up to GDT's Hellboy films or Pacific Rim (his other 'popcorn' films), but it's a wonderful actioneer with super-duper cool monsters. Nomak and Damaskinos are certainly the highlights.

[jellydonut25]

The Howling 4 - Remember the Family Guy description of the Blair Witch Project? "Nothing's happening, nothing's happening, nothing's happening, nothing's happening...it's over. Everybody seems pretty pissed."
Yeah. That.

Just a REALLY boring remake of the first film, more or less. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, but for The Howling series, and not as polished or remotely as entertaining. Awful. Perhaps more awful than the 4th and 5th Return of the Living Dead films.

[Dr Kain]

The Creature from the Black Lagoon - You know, I have seen this movie many times, but for some reason I felt like I was watching this movie for the very first time. I'm not sure if it was because of the amazing remastering job Universal did or what, but this movie is so freaking incredible. The Gill Man is just down right awesome in design and the movie is extremely well paced. As a kid I always felt there was not enough of the Gill Man and now I feel there was just enough of him to make him terrifying and badass any time he appeared on screen. I give this movie a 9/10 and it remains to be one of my favorites of the classic horror movies.

[Dr Kain]

Revenge of the Creature - You know, when I was younger, this was my favorite of the Gill Man movies. Now after watching it again for the first time in a few years I have to say this movie is just not that good. After getting to see the Gill Man in HD last night (btw, I am surprised no one has mentioned in any review that the BD set is the first time CftBL has ever been released in its original widescreen presentation) I just realized the costume of the creature is different in this movie and it just does not look as good at all. The head is smaller and the eyes look really fake here. The narrative itself is a little ridiculous and the plot is kind of dumb. The movie is not bad by any means, but honestly, I really don't care if I ever watch this one again. Overall, I'm giving it a 5/10 because it is just that, average.

[Silver Kamen]

[jellydonut25]

Halloween H20 is a decent if unspectacular slasher. What amazes me about it is that there are times where it gets really smart, namely early on when Myers is in the nurse's house and the typical viewer reaction is "Come on you dumb b****, get out of the house! I'd get out of there FAST." and then she does leave the house, but Myers is too smart for that, having already killed her neighbors and waiting for her in the house next door.
That's a relatively smart bit of writing.

Continuing on this thought of "amazes me" stuff, is that despite this intelligence here and there (the other thing I find to be fairly smart is that Myers kind of becomes a punching bag...there's always a circle of people saying stuff like "He's moving so slow, just punch/kick/stab/shoot/chop/beat the sh*t out of him!" and here, they do that, and it does nothing to phase Myers), there are still some VASTLY stupid and contrived goings-on.
It's like whoever wrote the relatively smart bits of the script was absent on the days these really stupid contrivances were being written.

[Silver Kamen]

[Dr Kain]

The Creature Walks Among Us - I have never liked this movie and I am not sure why. It could be because the characters are absolutely unlikable. I mean, we have a pompous rich man who owns his wife and treats everyone else like crap. You have the wife that only married the man for money and does whatever she wants. Then you have the guy trying to get with the wife. And the scientist who says it isn't right what Barton wants to do with the Gill Man buy goes ahead and does it anyway. Or maybe it is the entire concept of turning the Gill Man into a man that annoys me. Maybe it is because the movie is just so damn boring to watch. Either way, I didn't like it back in the 90s, I didn't like it when the Legacy sets first came out, and I still do not care for it. I give it a 3/10 stars.

[Dr Kain]

Alien - Getting to see this movie at the Alamo Drafthouse in 4K was not only amazing, but it put the movie on a whole new perspective for me. There are things I noticed that I had never realized were there before such as Kane and gang's breath flying out of the top of their helmets when they are heading to the engineer's space ship and the amount of strobe lighting used when Ripley runs into the Xenomorph during the self destruct countdown. And they said they will be showing Aliens next month. Anyway, I give this movie a 9/10 because this movie rocks and is one of the greatest movies ever made!!

[jellydonut25]

A couple Masters of Horror episodes:

Jenifer - Boy...there's a good idea or two in this thing, but it is a MESS and I'd say from what I saw, that every fault of this can be laid squarely at Argento's feet. He brings up ideas only to dismiss them completely and never do anything with them, and ultimately, rather than a weird story about some sort of she-beast who's equal parts erotic, cunning, repulsive, dim-witted, pitiable, and seductive, it winds up being about some dude who repeatedly bangs a disfigured chick until he FINALLY snaps after the body count adds up around her. Beh.

Sick Girl - Ok, this starts slow, but it is carried magnificently by Angela Bettis (a wonderful actress) and former softcore porn actress Misty Mundae who either gives a command performance or had this part specifically written and tailored for her and her skill set; since I'm not familiar with anything else she's done, I don't know which it is. For an hour-long episode of a low-budget TV series, there's also some decently freaky monster effects, but they play second-fiddle to the character study here. True to what (little) I know of Lucky McKee, this is a story that works its main characters into you, such that you actually FEEL sad when things start going against them.

So, thus far in this series I've seen:
Cigarette Burns, Dreams in the Witch House, Fair-Haired Child, Jenifer, and Sick Girl and overall I'm impressed. Jenifer is probably my least favorite thus far, even though Fair Haired Child features some pretty poor acting. The latter, however, is saved by a cool creature design. Dreams in the Witch House was solid, and Cigarette Burns and Sick Girl were both pretty impressive.
For two bucks a pop on blu-rays containing three episodes each, this has been totally worth my time.