Okay, make-up month moves on with more films I promised over the years but am just now getting around to delivering. Next week I’ll review two films that tried to cash in on the success of some film called Star Wars. Those being War in space and Message from space. Skeletor will likely drop by and I may share my thoughts on the Force Awakens.
Take care!
1971 although I have also seen 1969, 1970 and even 1972. More than one source says it was filmed in 1969 and released later.
This stiff serious business type Walter Eastwood (Michael Gough-The horror of Dracula, Hammer’s The phantom of the opera, Alfred from the Tim Burton films and tons of other movies) treats his daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney-) and wife Edith (Yvonne Mitchell a veteran of British TV for several decades) like dirt. His son Rupert (real life son Simon who would go to marry co-star Sharon Gurney) He is abusive to his daughter and a down right cold hearted, wooden non-human type to his wife. He gets along with his son because he is the same kind of unfeeling lizard. For entertainment dad likes to look sour and touch the bike seat when his daughter gets off. Yeah, a nasty weirdo. We follow his actions and see he loves to control his family and show as little feelings as possible. Eventually he goes away for the weekend to do some hunting or watch himself look sour in the front of the mirror, I’m not sure which. Mom and daughter have had enough so they follow him and kill him or so they think. They end up being like the worst murderers ever as they second themselves and switch things around. Plus they have doubts, regrets and get haunted by it. Eventually after hazy flashbacks, relief, regret and all these emotions dad returns acting like a real rear end once again or does he? Roll the credits.
The negatives-Everything after the murder is up in the air. You decide what really happened. Until that point the pace was slow, but understandable if you hung there. After that point it depends on how much you enjoyed what they did with their time.
The positives-The acting from the four leads is solid all the way around with Gough Sr. and Gurney really giving nice jobs at tough roles. For me this film took me three viewings for me to take to it, but I like it a lot. Not everyone will enjoy it.
It can be picked up cheap and some times on some of those bargain collections. The quality of the picture isn’t so great unfortunately. More a psychological thriller than horror, but give it a shot.
1977
1-A New York apartment that seems like a steal probably has a real problem.
2-If your boyfriend acts odd then he’s probably up to something evil.
3-Old men like to sit around and eat cake with naked woman.
4-Dead people like to come back for parties just to creep out the living.
5-Dead people can still gush blood if you cut them deep enough.
6-The pets of dead people can be just as creepy as the dead people.
7-Going back to the apartment where you saw your dead dad is not a good idea.
8-Most dead people turn into real freaks when they try to back to the land of the living.
9-You have to be blind to protect the land of the living from hellish undead types.
10-Number nine is a full time job, I don’t even think you get potty breaks.
Look at the supporting cast on this one.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076683/
Don’t get too excited though. I saw this on TV when I was like 9 or 1o and thought it was great. For years a few scenes stuck in my mind and I thought this was a good movie. I finally saw it again when I was around 30 and it was like a different movie. There are some great people in the cast, it has one great scare, the locations are fantastic and the music is good. Beyond that it’s a mostly dull affair that hopes to pull in fans of the Exorcist and the Omen. Really not too much happens and the whole reveal is rather lukewarm. I bought it cheap on DVD years ago and watch it every so often hoping I’ll get it, but I don’t think there is anything there to get. Diehard fans of 70’s horror may want to see it once, but don’t expect much.
1976
I know that I promised a Bewitched Christmas episode, but I changed my mind and went with this one instead. For you Bewitched fanatics this one does have the second Darrin playing a major role.
Steve Austin gives Oscar a present and then screws up because he gets an assignment right before Christmas. What a Bionic hothead. Steve goes to inspect the operations at a contractor named Budge (Ray Walston-My favorite Martian, Fast times at Ridgemont high). He’s a real grumpy pants and all around not so nice guy. He looks like he lives off skunk cabbage and old pickles. After an accident at the plant Steve starts looking at records to see what is going on here. Although Budge is not dishonest he is very cheap to the extreme and gets his standards for his company just above passing. Steve uses his powers to crush Budge to dust…just kidding. Budge also treats his employees like dirt including Bob Crandall ( Dick Sargent-Bewitched). After seeing how stubborn and nasty Budge is Steve decides to use his powers to try and manipulate influence the nasty old guy. Budge gets sick from taking too much of his medicine-serves you right, Mr. Awful. Steve uses a ten buck Santa suit and his Bionic powers to show the tightwad the error of his ways and what could be if he keeps on being a butthole. Budge ends the nastiness and starts being nice. Steve fixes Oscars present when he gets back to the office. Hooray! Roll the holly jolly credits.
The negatives- There’s no menacing robots, super spies or bigfoot in this one so some fans may not be thrilled by it. Given the plot you know there is less action here than in a normal episode.
The positives-In addition to Walston and Sargent other familiar faces include Antoinette Bower as Mrs. Crandall. You know her from Prom Night and lots of episodes of shows including Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Two of the three Crandall kids weren’t far off from being on shows they would be known for. Little Adam Rich would be Eight is enough in less than a year and Quinn Cummings would end up on Family for two seasons. Other 70’s shows like Sanford and son and The Odd Couple would do Christmas Carol episodes, but they comedies so it was a little more unusual for an action show to try it. It’s kind of corny, but decent. Ray Walston helps the role greatly. I also liked the scene where Steve is buying toys in a makeshift store. We see Lincoln Logs, a Jaws game and right behind Steve is a Six Million Dollar Man action figure. Also at least the try to make it look like Winter with appropriate trees and all. I watching a Christmas episode of Dennis the menace recently and they acting like it was cold as they went past trees filled with leaves. Come on, at least try and make it look cold. Overall a decent episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.
Avengers-The age of Ultron Some of the heroes create a new baddie. He is so powerful, but talks way too much. The heroes argue a lot and pitter patter around. More new heroes show up to hang out, battle and have actin figures create of themselves. There is a huge battle with explosions, lots of stuff getting destroyed and despite themselves the heroes win out. Most of the old Avengers leave and a new team seems to form at the end to get ready for the inevitable next sequel.
The negatives- Even more drama than the first one. The Avengers of the comics got down to business a lot faster. Ultron him/itself wasn’t all that I hoped for. Iron Man needs to shut up more.
The positives- Lots of actions is expected, but good enough. Captain America has been my favorite hero since I was a kid and this film doesn’t disappoint in that category. I liked how they brought in the new heroes. This film had a lot to live up as a sequel to a solid film. For the most part I think it does well, but it’s not quite as good as the first one.
Ant-man- A former convict is given a chance to become the new Ant-man by the old Ant-man. The old Ant-man is afraid that the guy who took over his company is going to abuse his ideas with a new suit. This evil business guy plots to crush the old and new Ant-men because he wants to sell his suit and makes lots of moola. The new Ant-man gets his act together, gets ants to follow him and defeats the evil baldie.
The negatives-It’s a lesser known super hero which isn’t going to appeal to everyone.
The positives- The visuals are overall strong and there’s a lot of them. The acting is overall strong with Michael Douglas being the a major standout as previous Ant-man Hank Pym. A lot of super hero films have their hero come into their own rather quickly and the is movie had our hero struggle more and that worked for this movie.
Fantastic Four- This nerd builds a device that sends people to another place but they don’t know where. Like a Star Trek transporter made by clueless people. One night three smart guys get drunk and bring in a forth not as smart guy just to fill the last seat. They go off to this other zone place. One of the guys Victor gets attacked by green goo. The others get back, but they and the woman at the controls back at the base all get bombarded by different things that cause them to get powers. The individuals get used by the government and they are all sad and grumpy. Victor is brought back and he becomes Doctor Doom and is even more sour than he was as a human. There is a battle the four goodie come together and all is settled. They become a team and please roll the credits.
The negatives-If you are in anyway a fan of the comic this movie will drive you crazy. To call it a reimagining of the Fantastic Four is being light. It’s like they took very few parts of the original story and just added in whatever they wanted. The results are a very watered down movie that’s far too slow in the first half. The effects very from alright down to looking they were down ten years ago. The acting from the leads is mostly not that great. The Thing needs to put some pants on.
The positives-Not as totally bad as I’d heard because I was able to make it through the whole thing in one sitting unlike the last Spider-man movie. The guy playing Reed Richards did a passable job amongst some other rather cringe worthy performances.
Once again we have yet to get a good Fantastic Four film.
I hope to knock out a review of a Christmas episode of Bewitched tomorrow. Then I won’t write again until Saturday. From next week and into January I will do Make-up month where I’ll review films I promised over the years, but never got around to doing. I hope to review The 3 worlds of Gulliver, War in space, Message from space, King Kong lives, The Sentinel, Four sided triangle, Spaceways, Crucible of horror, Godzilla against Mechagodzilla, Wolfen, The undertaker and his pals and Hercules and the tyrants of Babylon.
Take care!
1965 in the UK, wasn’t shown until August 1966 in the US.
We all wish we had dreams on dark landscapes with odd Christmas trees, bizarre presents and a very creepy Santa. Wait, actually we don’t. However John Steed keeps having these dreams. He informs his work partner Emma Peel and she doesn’t think much of it at first. Then they get invited to a Charles Dickens themed party thrown by one of Miss Peel’s friends Jeremy. While there Steed recognizes decorations from his dreams and knows there has to be a connection. These wacko nightmares are actually linked to a wacko plot by you guessed it-wackos. Actually telepathic spies to be precise. However they make the mistake of appearing in Steed’s dreams. When he awakes Steed is strong enough to know who is up to no good and be ready for their not so merry attempts to use him. Steed and Peel get to the bottom of things and end the attempts by these mindreading hooligans. They’ll be getting coal this year for sure. Roll the credits.
This is a classic episode for this show. The leads keep their cool even during a very strange plot. A strange plot it is. I always lover the Emma Peel era of this show because the two characters worked so well together. They also always managed to make sense of the most out there situations and work through them. Definitely a very different Christmas episode, but a good one.
In 1989 three films were released with undersea creatures- The Abyss, Leviathan and Deepstar six. I just watched Deepstar Six for the first time. I thought about the fact that those three films with similar ideas all came out in the same year. Then I remembered another undersea film with a monster that came out in 1989-The Little Mermaid from Disney. In honor of those 1989 underwater sea monster films I decided to combine them by doing a review of Deepstar Six to the tune of Under the sea. Here you go.
Deepstar Six: Under the Sea (to the tune of the Under the sea from the Little Mermaid)
The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else’s deep lake
You dream about being here not there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the cracked ocean floor
Such frightful things surround you
What are you lookin’ for?
Under the sea
Under the sea
Getting scared isn’t better
Down where it’s wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they are monster free all day
Out in the sun they dance away
While we devotin’
Full time to belly up floatin’
Under the sea
Down here all the creatures is scary
As off through the waves they rise
The fish on the land ain’t scary
The beasties down here will give you a nasty low budget surprise
But people on the land is lucky
The ones below are in for a worser fate
This movie is kind of sucky
There isn’t a charcter that you won’t hate
Under the sea
Under the sea
The monster might beat us
Kill us and eat us
This movie it starts out dull
Then a fangy thing tries to kill them all
Miguel Ferrier causes troubles
Eventually his blood bubbles
Under the sea (Under the sea)
Under the sea (Under the sea)
Since there is human meat here
The monster will try to eat here
Naturally (Naturally)
Even the tough woman and the foreign guy
They are expendable so they have to die
You saw Leviathan and the Abyss
So you decided to watch this
Under the sea
An underwater nuclear base
Can be a terrible place
You may discover an undersea cave
It’s your own rear end you should save
Digging too deep
Can bring up an underwater creep (Yeah)
The underwater vehicle sprang a leak
Things began to look bleak
The dude from BJ and the Bear
Tries to hide under his facial hair
I am throwing in the word staff
Because it allows me to say that Matt McCoy got ripped in half
Yeah, under the sea (Under the sea)
Under the sea (Under the sea)
When the mission begins to fail
All the people they look real pale
What do they got?
Not much time
A film this flat could be a crime
The director of Friday the 13th was here
You’d think a cheap flick he’d know how to make here
Under the sea
Each little B movie actor or actress here
Is looking all wide eyed here
Under the sea
You’ve seen this all before so let out a sigh
Almost everyone will die
Except the dull leads who go to the surface up higher
Then they set the monster on fire
Under the water
That’s where most of the film took place
If you watched it then I can see the disappointment on your face
Under the sea
The review of Tremors 3 wraps up my reviews of the five films. In case you were wondering I’d put them in this order from best to worst- 1, 4, 5, 3, 2. I updated my blog profile picture. The previous one was from like summer of 2013 and the new one is from last month. For next week I hope to review Christmas episodes of the Avengers, Bewitched and maybe one more. Looking at January I’m thinking of doing a Voyagers! week and then spending the rest of the month being clean up duty where I’ll try to review the 10-12 films I’ve promised to review over the last three years, but never have. Also Skeletor will drop by, there will be another segment of one season shows and 80’s-90’s video games will likely come back as a monthly segment.
Take care!
2003
Just keep in mind that the Perfection they refer to in the title is the town rather than a judgement about this film. Anyways gun enthusiast, hunter and grumpy cuss Burt Gummer returns to his hometown in Nevada to discover that the townsfolks have turned it into a tourist traps. There are lots souvenirs and even a fake Graboid safari type tour done by a guy named Jack. It’s been eleven years since the events of the first film. A real Graboid does show up and kill Jack’s assistant as the fake tour becomes real. Burt determines there are three Graboids in the area. Just when they begin to take action a government group shows up saying the Graboids are endangered and cannot be killed. Jack makes a deal with them that if they can capture one they can kill the other two. Burt’s itchy trigger finder hates this idea, but he agrees. They soon discover that there is a new stage of the creatures that they dub “assblasters” of their flying methods. They also run an albino Graboid they call El Blanco. Using explosives, mattresses and other stuff the residents of the town defeat the monsters. They capture an assblaster and let El Blanco go because of the endangered species stuff. Roll the credits.
The negatives-The early 2000’s CGI (and not high budget even by standards of that time) doesn’t hold up well today. While the film starts strong it quickly falls into to being somewhat of the same old thing. I kind of like that there are more characters here than in the second film, but you don’t get know them all that well in this film.
The positives- Burt Gummer takes over as the main character in this series and that’s fine with me. I love the parts about the townspeople trying to cash in on the Graboids and the fake safaris. The action if mostly good.
Much like the second film this one repeated parts of the first more than adding a whole lot to the series. It’s above average and maybe just a hair better than the second movie.
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