Recent acquisitions-Black Friday edition

I went to Wal-mart on Black Friday looking for movies. I got some for the kids for Christmas, but also snagged these for myself.

The grand total was $26 for all of the above so a pretty good deal I thought. I’ve seen Five of BBT, but only once and I already have seasons 1-4 so for $10 it was worth it. I saw a few episodes of Gotham and liked it, but it was on the night I usually work so I wanted to see it and again for $10 it’s worth it. Loved DOTPOTA and saw it when it first hit DVD, but I was waiting for the price to go down and got it for $4. I have never seen Hansel and Gretel-Witch Hunters. I considered numerous times from the $5 bin, but never bought it. Now I got it for $2 so it has to be worth that. I had to wade through some people, some were paying attention and others were oblivious to others. I stayed patient and got some good deals.

Ten things I learned from Tremors

1990

1-There are monsters even out in the desert.

2-Being a handyman in the desert can suck.

3-It’s better to die of dehydration than be swallowed by a ground digging monster.

4-Having only road out of town can be pain if monsters block said road.

5-Discovering a severed head is never a good thing

6-Having a gun obsessed couple in town could come in handy one day.

7-Monsters can set traps too particularly if they are great diggers.

8-Some monsters know how to use explosives.

9-Rocks can be good protection until a monster flings an explosive at you.

10-Big nasty underground beasties can go splat if they fall from enough height.

With the fifth film out on DVD and a new show possibly in the works I thought it was time to cover the original. This one came out at the very beginning of the 90’s, but it plays out more like a 50’s B monster film in many ways which is fine by me. For my money it’s one of the finest monster flicks of the last 25-30 years. It has a then original monster, great cast, awesome setting, action, humor and more. It has held up very and actually it may have even gotten better with age. Each time I see it I discover more about that I enjoy.

 

Upcoming junk and stuff

I don’t plan on writing on Thursday or Friday, but should be back to review Tremors on Saturday to wrap up the week. For next week I hope to review Black Scorpion, Slaughter High and possibly a grade card for Comet TV regarding their first month of programming. For the rest of December I am not totally sure but I think a week dedicated to Voyagers! will happen. Looking ahead to January I am hoping to review all the stuff I have promised over the years, but never come through on. I know that means a Gamera week, a Friday the 13th the TV series week and I’ll think about what others will finally get reviewed. Have a  great holiday and take care!

The Eeerie Midnight horror show AKA-The Sexorcist and Enter the devil

1974/1978 is also listed, but that must be a later release likely in the US or UK as the clothing certainly dates the film as being closer to the early 70’s.

This is a very tasteful and sensitive film about demonic possession. Just kidding it’s an Exorcist rip off. This college student takes an interest in this weird wooden sculpture of a guy being crucified. Okay, she has an interest in art so I guess that fits. She had the wooden guy taken down and brought to her place. Okay, I can sort of see that. All is going normal and then the wooden dude turns real but unlike Pinnochio he becomes the devil, rips off the girl’s clothes and boinks her right there. Her parents wear wigs and cheat on each other, but when their little girl starts getting dark circles under eyes and begins masturbating like crazy they get all concerned. They seek help from the church because I guess in Italy that’s what you do when someone gets dark circles and starts playing with herself. The priests get all scared, the parents get all scared and the girl has freakish nightmares as the devil continues torment her by laughing and putting stakes through her hands yeaouch oh that was a dream. The girl gets locked up but she eventually escapes and runs around like a loon. Eventually a scared priest says some words and she barfs up what looks like Alka-Seltzer fizz with some burnt fish skins throw in here and there. Now she is no longer possessed of the naughty devil. Roll those credits.

The negatives-The film doesn’t have enough horror throughout to appeal to horror fans and not enough trash to appeal to those kind of fans. The second half of the film is downright tedious.

The positives-The beginning of the film has some promise.

Overall this is a fairly lame film that will have you thinking they could and should have been able to do more.

Tower of evil AKA: Horror on Snape Island, Horror of Snape Island and Beyond the fog

1972

These fisherman go to check on these young people that went to this island looking for Professor Snape. Oh, wait I think they just wanted to have sex and smoke dope. Anyways they find three dead nasty young bodies and then one of them wippersnapers is all nudey like with blood on her body and she has a knife that she is waving around like a nutbar. The one fisherman manages to knock her out. Then they cart her off to looney bin or something where she is quizzed. She talks about bad vibes and naked goings ons at the island then her friends died. The people running these tests think she went bonkers and killed her friends. However there may be treasure at the island so let’s pull in some archaeologists, cool dude, nymphos and old fisherman types so we can head back to the place where three people where just brutally murdered! Did I mention there could be treasure? Surely that makes up for the violent death stuff? They all load up in a tiny boat and head off. Once they get there it’s all and bright plus they find the treasure and live happily ever after. Let loose the rainbows and unicorns! Yeah, right this is a horror film. A bunch of them get killed in horrible ways one at a time starting with the partakers of sex. Turns out the murders form before were not done by the naked girl, but were instead done by a neanderthal hairy kind of dude. He’s all mad in a killing out of his head kind of way. Eventually a few of the group manage to kill him and survive. Yay for them. Roll the credits.

 

The negatives-From a storytelling perspective it’s a bit messy for at least the first half an hour or so. The acting is far from stellar.

The positives-The film builds the suspense fairly well. The sets are pretty darn good. The ideas may have been messy, but eventually the film gets a fir amount of the story.

I had put off watching this one for years because I prefer my British horror films to be gothics rather than slashers, but I enjoyed this one fairly well. I hope to watch it again soon.

Upcoming junk and stuff

I have bad news and good news. The bad news is I didn’t have time to write much this week. The good news is I did have time to watch movies which means more reviews for this week. Unless you hate my reviews then you could just switch which one is the good news and which one is the bad news. The movies I will aim to review are Tremors, Tower of evil and the Eeerie midnight horror show (AKA- Sexorcist, Enter the devil). I forget the exact day I began this blog but I am pretty sure it was around this time of November so I’ll just say that I have my third blogiversary. Thanks for reading, liking and commenting on my blog over the last three years.

The skull-Ten things I learned from it

1965

1-Don’t steal skulls from bodies in graveyards.

2-Don’t take this skull home with you-you will die.

3-If you are the mistress of a skull stealer you will die.

4-If you examine the body of a skull stealer you will be possessed by the skull and become a murderer.

5-Buying a skull from a shady dude is not a good idea.

6-Being a shady dude and selling a skull will lead to your death.

7-Owning a creepy skull will make you have horrible nightmares.

8-A creepy skull will cause you to kill your friend.

9-A nasty old skull will cause you to try and murder your wife.

10-Keeping a skull around will likely lead to no good for you like in getting stabbed to death kind of way.

 

 

Skeletor’s animated villain of the month

Kneel before me, you worthless worms oh wait this is the segment where I am supposed to be semi-nice and share my opinions. Uh hey howdy kiddies, it’s your Uncle Skelly here come to share my animated villain of the month. It is….

The Creeper from the classic Scooby Doo episode “Jeepers, it’s the creeper”. He had a mean face, a horrible disposition and even a frightening walk. He had it all, he could scare people and chase them. Unfortunately he wasn’t a real monster. He was just some greedy old fella named Mr. Carswell. He would have gotten away with it if wasn’t for those pesky kids and their dog! Oh, well. Until next month this is Skeletor saying stay nasty!

The return of the Swamp Thing

1989

Why this could be an unnecessary sequel?

It’s been seven years since the first film, that’s a long time in the movie world.

With stuntman Dick Durock playing ST  the whole time that could mean all action less emotion for the main character.

Why this could be a necessary sequel?

Stuntman Dick Durock is back as the Swamp Thing and the late Louis Jordan is again the evil Dr. Arcane.

The first was good and fairly cheap so maybe a sequel would work.

Swamp Thing is still around and hey somehow so is Dr. Arcane. Now he has mercenaries who shoot like Imperial Stormtroopers. Arcane’s stepdaughter (I think that’s the relationship) shows up and she’s pretty but dim. Of course Arcane is up to no darn good again. Swamp Thing and the stepdaughter get tight and Swamp Thin battle Arcane, his creations and his flunkies. There are lots of jokes, predictable pieces and oh yeah swamp stuff. SW tears up the baddies, rescues the girl, takes time for pics with some kids and saves the day. Hooray!

Was it necessary?

Yes, it changes the feel of the series to being more campy. However he’s a plant dude, lighten up people. I liked this one, I thought the cast had fun with it and I had fun watching it. It wasn’t as good as the first, but for me it was a Swamp Thing film and I’ll say it was necessary. Feel free to disagree, throw swamp water, change into an evil monster and go after me or whatever you like.

 

Escape from LA

1996

Why this could be an unnecessary sequel? Long time between films -15 years.

The time the second film was made-The first film was made in 1981 and had practical special effects. While the second film was made in the made 90’s so it would have CGI which may change the feel of the film compared to the first one.

Why it could be necessary?

The first film was a great cult classic and some people had to wonder what other kind of trouble could Snake get into?

Kurt Russell is back as Snake Plissken. Although much older he got shape for the role and looked the part.

Snake has been apprehended and gets thrown into a nasty no way you’ll be back mission to the island of LA (earthquake caused it). Of course all the criminals , castoffs and character actors needing a buck live there. Snake is supposed to have been inject with this fatal stuff or some nonsense so he’s trying to save his own skin by doing this. Everything goes wrong from the start as he loses his mini-sub, goes straight into acid rain and realizes that post disaster LA isn’t nearly as darn cool as NYC was. There’s lots of shooting, a deadly b-ball game (not hoops oh no!!!!!), surfing with an old dude and a bunch riding around in circles or so it seems. Snake wins out in the end and ruins the day for all those higher ups- like you didn’t see that one coming.

The result-

I have to say unnecessary sequel. The film doesn’t add much to the first film. Actually the brief mentions of what happened in Cleveland sounded far more exciting than what all happened in LA in this film. The dark, grimy feel of the first film is replaced by not so big threats and too much humor (although not all that funny). They took a real cool character and setting and made it very lukewarm.