What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Watched May 31, 2009

SYNOPSIS
A jealous, insane child star keeps her crippled sister hostage in an old Hollywood mansion.

SHORT REVIEW
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" probably won't be of much interest to younger viewers who need explosions every two minutes to keep their attention, but for everyone else, this is a nice thriller with amazing performances by the two leading ladies.

REVIEW
Any film that can keep my attention for 133 minutes straight deserves some sort of accolade. Especially when the film is primarily dialogue-based, and has only a few fleeting action scenes. But "Baby Jane" kept my attention throughout its entire running time, which must be a testament to the fact that it's a really good film.

The aspect of the film that is the best, in my opinion, is the acting. Both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are amazing in their parts of, respectively, the child star who is living in a dream world where everyone remembers her and loves her, and the tortured sister in a wheelchair that grew up to be much more famous than her sister. Davis steals the movie, though. In my opinion, she's spot-on in her portrayal of Baby Jane Hudson. She alternates perfectly between happy child star living in the past who wants to reclaim her fame, to insane monster brutally beating her sister and locking her in her room to starve to death. Some may call her performance a little over the top, but I didn't. I thought it was riveting and definitely made the movie more memorable. The very last scene is just haunting, yet hilarious at the same time.

Crawford is amazing as well, and you truly get that feeling of entrapment when you are with her character. She has nowhere to go, as her current lack of working legs truly limits her surroundings. You feel for her throughout the movie, and hope she can make it through her predicament alive.

Apparently, Davis and Crawford weren't exactly the best of friends off-camera either, and there are even sources saying that Davis actually beat up Crawford during the on-camera beating. There are many stories about the two playing mean tricks on each other during filming, and you kind of have to wonder how much of the intense hate portrayed on screen was actually real-life hatred.

However, the film is a little dated. A lot of the "shocking" scenes have lost most of their impact nowadays. The rat in the food scene isn't particularly shocking anymore, and a lot of other scenes just seem kind of stupid due to today's viewers being pretty desensitized and all that. However, the performances by both leading women make the dated shocks better, and the rat scene is saved by Davis' insane cackling and Crawford's desperate screams.

Also, it helps that the film's plot feels like it could actually happen in real life, and it adds a layer of realism to the film. Just a quick comment.

Okay, I'm done reviewing this one. It's good. I think you should probably go see it, unless you are only entertained by horror if it has constant exploding heads. More on exploding heads later, as my next review is for "Chopping Mall". Muhaha. Anyways, I'll rant about exploding heads in my next review. Back to "Baby Jane". The film's pretty much a classic, especially because of the amazing Oscar-worthy performances. Sure, the film's a bit slow-moving and dated, but it's still good enough to praise. "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" earns:

4 out of 5 chainsaws (VERY GOOD, SEE IT)

The Tingler (1959)

The Tingler (1959)
Watched May 31, 2009


SYNOPSIS
Vincent Price is a pathologist that discovers that, when we are extremely scared, the tingling of our spine is due to "the tingler", and can only be put to rest by screaming. Soon enough, he takes a tingler out of a woman's dead body who died of fear, and the creature gets loose. Uh-oh!

SHORT REVIEW
"The Tingler" isn't anything especially memorable or anything, but it's good enough to recommend.

REVIEW
Man, I wish I was alive to see this movie in theaters. To experience all of William Castle's stupid little gimmicks to try to attract audiences. As some of you probably know, for "The Tingler", Castle's gimmick was PERCEPTO. He attached surplus vibrators left over from WW2 to certain audience members' seats, and during a special scene in the movie, turned off all the lights in the theater, turned the vibrators on and pretended the Tingler was loose in the very theater. He also put plants in the audience to faint during the movie, only to be carried out by fake nurses. How great. Nowadays, all we get gimmick-wise is 3D, and that's been around for a looooong time and was never that amazing to begin with.

Honestly, I don't really even think there's anything special about the movie itself, I just think Castle's gimmicks are awesome. So, without the gimmick, the movie kind of loses something. It's still not a bad movie, though. We've still got Vincent Price, who's always fun to watch. We've still got that Tingler thing, which is some sort of caterpillar about 100 times too big. And we also have the highly entertaining scene where a deaf mute is literally scared to death. Awesome.

At the very least, the story's pretty damn original. I mean, there really aren't that many (if any) other movies about killer spine caterpillars with death grips attracted to your fear. I'm actually gonna go ahead and say this is the only film with that certain plot element. I'm a sucker for originality.

But, overall, there's not really anything great about "The Tingler". Yeah, it's a good film, and it's certainly entertaining, but there's nothing that makes you think "wow I am so enthralled in what's happening" or "wow this movie is amazing and I will always remember it". Nope, just a pretty average 50s movie with Vincent Price. Did I mention you get to see Price on LSD in the film? I bet that sold some people.

Alright, this one's gonna be a pretty short review, as I really have nothing else to say. I think "The Tingler" had a great plot, but I think it didn't take complete advantage of it, as the Tingler never really does anything. It tries to kill a couple people, but it's a pretty useless monster, as you or anyone around you can stop it simply by making noise. It just kind of latches on to your leg and hopes you don't notice so it can do whatever the hell a giant spine caterpillar would do to you. Sounds pretty unintimidating to me. Overall, I recommend the movie, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. I give "The Tingler":


3 out of 5 chainsaws (AVERAGE)

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)
Watched May 30, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Well, there's tomatoes that are killing people. It's one of those titles that basically explains the movie without me having to explain it. Alright, synopsis over.

SHORT REVIEW
What should have been pretty much the greatest movie ever created is alright, but tries too hard and often fails.

REVIEW
If you're not intrigued by a title like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", then you're either not human or are one of those snooty film losers that look down upon anyone who watches anything but Oscar winners and obscure Russian movies. If you are human and can appreciate bad cinema, then I'm pretty sure you're wondering if "Killer Tomatoes" is good enough to spend ninety minutes of your life on.

Short answer, it had so much potential, but it didn't really use it. It's not a complete loser though, the film is actually pretty funny at times. The tomato attacks are great (a stand out is the first kill in the movie, where a tomato kills a housewife but I have no freaking idea how), and there's some really humorous moments, like the man disguising himself as a tomato to infiltrate their system or the guy who always wears his military uniform and a huge parachute that hurts much more often than it helps.

However, the film seems like it tries way too hard at points. I'm pretty damn sure that the filmmakers tried to make this as bad as they possibly can, but then they try adding twists and turns to the plot that seriously muddle the film up. Plus, I have no idea who any of the characters were or what their purpose to the plot was. I don't know what Mason Dixon and his squad were trying to do. I don't know why that one girl was spying on them. And I don't know who the hell the guy is who believes he can control the tomatoes. I was pretty lost when it came to characters and plot. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention because I was too busy eagerly awaiting the next tomato attack.

And, unfortunately, for every good joke, there's a few really bad jokes, and not "so-bad-they're-funny" jokes like they should be. Just stupid jokes that try too hard to be stupid.

But, man, is the music good. I love the "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" theme song that they play during the opening credits. I also love "Puberty Love", as it's quite possibly the worst song ever created. I need to have that song. I need to. Now.

Overall, I enjoyed "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", except sometimes it just was dull. A lot of the jokes failed miserably, and the filmmakers' attempts to actually add a real plot to the movie actually made the film worse. I think I should probably give the film 2 chainsaws, but I can't deny that the film made me laugh out loud at some parts, which is more than I can say for a lot of films I watch. So, I give "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" a disapponting, but still okay:

3 out of 5 chainsaws (AVERAGE)

P.S. I felt that the film tried way too hard to emulate "Airplane!", but then I looked both films up, and it turns out this came out before "Airplane!". Maybe this was an influence on that spoof classic we all love. Whether or not this is true, "Airplane!" is still the much funnier movie.

Psychos in Love (1987)

Psychos in Love (1987)
Watched May 30, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Two psychos fall in love because of their shared hobby for serial killing and shared intense hate for grapes. There's also a cannibal plumber on the loose.

SHORT REVIEW
"Psychos in Love" is pretty damn funny all the way through, and I'm glad it's finally got a proper DVD release so the underrated film can find a new fanbase.

REVIEW
I'd never heard of "Psychos in Love" before I looked at a list of the new horror DVD releases and saw it on there. It sounded interesting, but I still wasn't completely sold. Then, I read some reviews for it, and they said that the two psychos bond over their loathing for grapes. Any film that uses hating grapes as a plot point is something I need to see, ASAP. So, I promptly put the film near the top of my Netflix queue and waited.

Well, the film came yesterday, and what an interesting little film. First off, the film is not supposed to be taken seriously at all. And that's a good thing. The film has a pretty black sense of humor throughout, so if you're into that kind of thing, it might be a good idea to pick this one up. I found it pretty hilarious.

I hate reviewing films that I liked, but I can't really find much to say about it. "Psychos in Love" is one of those films, so this review probably will not be that long.

But, I do know why I liked the film. It's entertaining from start to finish. There are a few great scenes, like the first couple times that the psychos rattle off a monologue about how they hate every type of grape (they continue to repeat this monologue, and while it gets a little less funny each time they repeat it, it's still pretty humorous) or the scene where they happily tell each other for the first time that they're mentally unstable. It's quite funny how nonchalantly they treat all the murders throughout the film.

However, I do have a couple complaints. First off, there's a lot of jokes that don't work. I realize that they can't all be zingers, but there's some real "wow-that-really-wasn't-funny-at-all" moments in the film. Fortunately, the funny bits outnumber the unfunny bits, so it's easy to overlook the stinkers.

Another mild complaint is the synopses of this film made it sound like the cannibal plumber was a big plot element, but in reality, the guy gets about five minutes of screen time, and only about two of those are with the psychos in love. It's a mild complaint, but I felt they just added in the plumber subplot at the very last second to add a little substance to the film. I don't know why, it just felt that way with how quickly they wrapped up the whole subplot.

But those are just minor complaints that definitely don't ruin this funny and original piece of work that really should be much more well-known than it is at the moment. Hopefully the DVD release helps the film find an audience and it's remembered as a cult classic as it should be. "Psychos in Love" gets:

4 out of 5 chainsaws (VERY GOOD, SEE IT)

Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
Watched April 4, 2009

SYNOPSIS
A man goes to an old mansion to see his love, but his visit is interrupted by his love's parents turning into mutants because of a glowing green meteor they keep in their basement.

SHORT REVIEW
You've seen better. You've seen worse. Overall, it's not a huge waste of your time, but it's not that great, either.

REVIEW
"Die, Monster, Die!" is a misleading title. If you sat down to watch a movie called "Die, Monster, Die" with no idea what the movie was about, you'd think there would be a monster and a courageous monster hunter that really wants said monster to die. But, no. There isn't anything close to a monster until the last 15-20 minutes or so, and even then there's no one yelling "Die!" It's all quite disappointing.

The vast majority of the movie is actually spent following some dude around who demands that someone tell him what is going on. I swear, this guy must tell everyone in the goddamn movie to tell him what's going on. It's actually quite annoying. And when he's not demanding answers, he's snooping around a mansion looking for answers. What is it with 60s horror movies and giant, creepy mansions? It's like every 60s horror had a checklist of things to have to make it good.
- A creepy mansion.
- A creepy dude that owns the creepy mansion.
- The creepy mansion burning down in the end.

And "Die, Monster, Die!" delivers all three of those in spades. But, I still don't understand where all the monsters were. There were only two "monsters" in the film (not counting the deformed rubber animals in a pretty laughable scene) and neither of them are that imposing. One is just a glowing dude who slowly walks towards his victims but never really does anything. The other is a old lady whose face melts as soon as it tries to attack anyone. Again, not exactly the most imposing creatures in cinema history. I have to say, the pretty poorly done face melting is pretty fun to watch though.

The movie is based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story, which I can't say I've ever read. I need to catch up on my Lovecraft. Interestingly, this film is made by the same company who distributed all of the Poe adaptations in the 60s. They must have felt that they were running out of good Poe stories to make films out of, so they decided to move on to Lovecraft. But, back to the subject, I can't vouch for how good of an adaptation of the story the movie is, so I'll move on.

"Die, Monster, Die!" is a little too slow-moving for its own good and takes too long to get to the not-even-that-amazing climax. But, I have to admit, the film kept me somewhat entertained its entire running time, so that's a good thing. It's one of those movies that I guess I went in some sort of "movie trance" while watching it, so I can't even remember that much about it. That's usually a sign that the film isn't that memorable and not that special, which is exactly how I feel about "Die!" I don't really have anything else to even say about it. I give "Die, Monster, Die!" an average score of:

3 out of 5 chainsaws (AVERAGE)

From Within (2009)

From Within (2009)
Watched March 31, 2009 (April Fool's! I watched it on April Fool's Day. Man. That may be a candidate for worst April Fool's Day joke of all time. I'm sorry.)

SYNOPSIS
Suicide after suicide is happening in a small Christian town, and who's to blame? Well, maybe the witches!

SHORT REVIEW
This Horrorfest entry isn't that great, but the delightfully grim ending and the crazy Christians who love burning people alive made me enjoy it somewhat.

REVIEW
And so it begins... After Dark Horrorfest 3! I've seen 8 of the past 16 Horrorfest films, and they're basically a mixed bag. We've had the good ("Borderland", "The Gravedancers"), the average ("Reincarnation", "Mulberry St.") and the god-awful (how I despise thee, "Unearthed"). Well, the first one I've watched from 2009 fits in with the other average entries.

"From Within" is actually pretty entertaining, due to the consistent number of suicide scenes, which range from people drinking drain cleaner to people shooting themselves. It's not like the kills were that memorable or anything, but there's so many of them that there's barely a 15-minute period without you getting to see someone else bite the dust. The kills lose some of their effect due to annoying direction and sound effects, however. I just don't understand why directors feel the need to change camera angles every half a second, because it's annoying as hell. Kills are more gruesome and interesting when you actually get to SEE the kill instead of some random flashing and camera movement.

But the film doesn't just depend on the kills to deliver a good horror, no, they focus on story. But, the story is pretty predictable and stupid, which is unfortunate, as the plot line is pretty interesting. The characters are compete caricatures. We've got the good girl, we've got the misunderstood emo kid, we've even got the good girl's boyfriend who turns out to be a big douche. Not only that, they felt the need to make the "good girl" have the obligatory "bad home life", which includes the constantly drunk mother and the nonexistent father. It's just ridiculous how many cliche characters there are in this one movie. Ridiculous.

The only interesting characters are all the Christians. I think it's pretty funny how badly Christians are portrayed in this. They are all crazy nutcases who talk like they came right out of the Bible ("Thy pain is thy salvation" who the hell says that?) and basically cause all of the conflict in the entire movie.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
They are also responsible for every death in the freaking movie. The suicides are all explained to be a curse started by one of the brothers that are supposedly witches (they are actually witches). The reason the curse was started was because all the Christians killed the guy's mother. And then, when the other brother tries to stop the curse, the Christians just kill him and so the curse lives on to kill everyone in the town. It's just awesome. SIDE NOTE: I find it interesting that the entire movie, the one person blamed for all the suicides is actually the person that is responsible for all of them. Usually, when it's a mystery of who is causing all the deaths, the filmmakers choose someone that ISN'T the main suspect. Strange.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS

The ending to the movie is also deliciously downbeat and grim. I won't give it away (well I guess I kind of did in that spoiler paragraph above), but it definitely made me like the film just a little bit more.

In the end, "From Within" really isn't anything that special, but then again, it's not bad either. At the very least, it's better than "Unearthed". God damn, I hated "Unearthed". Overall, this one is a good start to the 3rd Horrorfest, and I hope the rest of this year's entries are at least as good as this one. They probably won't be, but at least this one's pretty good. I give "From Within":


3 out of 5 chainsaws (ALRIGHT)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The Last House on the Left (1972)
Watched March 31, 2009


SYNOPSIS
While trying to score some drugs, two teens get kidnapped, raped and murdered. After all the raping, the kidnappers need some place to stay, and unknowingly stay in the house of the girl they just killed. Needless to say, her parents aren't happy.

SHORT REVIEW
While "Last House" is somewhat disturbing and ahead of its time, it suffers from a over-abundance of unneeded comic relief and the fact that it really isn't that good of a film.

REVIEW
I had planned to watch the original "Last House on the Left" before seeing the remake. It was even on my Netflix queue. Fortunately, the good people at MGM-HD decided to play the film, so I recorded it and planned to watch it. I also planned to watch the remake when it came out on DVD, so I figured I had plenty of time to watch the original. But, things happen and I found myself going to see the remake in theaters, while the rest of my family went and saw "Knowing". I figured I'd save myself over two hours of Nicolas Cage acting, and choose the "LHOTL" remake instead. So, I saw the remake before the original, which I don't like to do, because it may make me enjoy the original less because I'll know what happens. Well, I never thought I'd actually be saying this, but it didn't really matter that I knew what happens, because the remake is a better film. Gah, I still can't believe I prefer a remake. I'm supposed to despise remakes! But, so far, 2009 is making me rethink my stand on remakes.

Enough remake talk! We're talking about the original "Last House" (not really original as it is a remake of "The Virgin Spring"); the one that started Wes Craven's career, the one that is supposed to be one of the most shocking, disturbing and hard-to-watch horror movies in history. To make a long story short, I think it's lost a lot of its shock value. I mean, it's not hard to see how this was shocking in the 1970s. People in the 70s weren't desensitized to extreme violence. But, in this day and age, we have more films that out-shock this one by far.

And since really the only thing going for this movie was its controversy, it makes it even more evident that this really isn't a very good movie.

The main thing wrong with it is that there is a distinct lack of consistent tone. The entire movie is basically teenagers getting humiliated and raped, but for some reason, there's some pretty happy, upbeat music playing during all of it. And in between all of the raping, there's some cops who drive right past the killers' car, drive back to arrest the killers only to find they didn't fill up their car with gas and then try to hitch a ride with some creepy black lady who loves chickens. At the very least, it's just distracting; but sometimes it's just incredibly annoying. Craven probably felt that the film was too grim (that's the only explanation for this crap I can think of), but c'mon. He couldn't think of another way to lighten up the tone without having fat cops falling off of cars? Really? C'mon.

Also, after the young girls are disposed of, we are "treated" to the parents getting their revenge on the rapists. This "revenge" basically amounts to smearing shaving cream on the floor and an awkwardly long and badly done chainsaw kill. Oh, and who can forget the mother giving one of the rapists a BJ, only to conclude by biting his penis off? This part of the movie isn't really even that gory, and is mostly just stupid. The best part of this half of the movie is actually a dream sequence, that unfortunately doesn't amount to anything. Damn. The remake does this a lot better, as it at least has exploding heads. I am a sucker for exploding heads.

And the acting is bad. Just a quick note.

Hmm... there's really no reason to watch this film unless you want to see how Craven got his start and/or you want to see the film that spawned the (superior) remake. I still can't believe I'm saying the remake is superior, but unfortunately the original "Last House" hasn't aged that well, and it's not as shocking as it was back in the day. If you're uninitiated with disturbing horror movies, this one's a pretty good starting point, though. But for the rest of you, eh. You can skip it, unless the curiosity gets the best of you or you really want to hear about how Mari's breasts developed over the summer. I think I give the film 2 chainsaws, but I'll give it the "Honorary Important Film" chainsaw, as it is actually a pretty important and ahead-of-its-time film. So, "Last House" gets a:

3 out of 5 chainsaws (AVERAGE)

Sometimes They Come Back (1991)

Sometimes They Come Back (1991)
Watched March 29, 2009



SYNOPSIS

Evil teens from Hell return to finish unfinished business with a teacher who has just moved back to his old town many years after his brother’s tragic death.

SHORT REVIEW

I enjoyed “Sometimes They Come Back”, but I’m not completely sure I understand what happened, and it was pretty stupid at times.

REVIEW

I think just about every Stephen King novel or short story has a film adaptation. It's ridiculous how many of them there are. On his IMDb page, King is credited as "Writer" for 108 films, and I'm guessing he was credited on the majority of those because he wrote whatever the film was based on. 108. That's amazing.

"Sometimes They Come Back" definitely isn't one of the most well-known adaptations of King's work, and it's definitely not the best, either. "The Shining", "Carrie", "It", "The Mist" and many more are all far superior to this film. But "Sometimes They Come Back" is still pretty good, just not to the level of those previously mentioned movies.

First off, the movie's actually kind of scary, especially for a movie that was made for TV. It's got its moments of scares. It's also pretty lame at times, but like I said, it has its moments. The movie's pretty dark, also, with the victims all being kids that didn't do anything wrong. All they really did was get along with their teacher. That'll teach them to get along with people. But, sometimes, it's pretty funny when I don't think it was supposed to be.

King seems to do a very good job of developing his characters, and making you care about them throughout the story, and "Sometimes They Come Back" is no exception. All the characters are pretty good and you care about their fate, which is rare in horror movies, to be honest. Mostly you're just cheering for them to die. Or maybe that's just me. Oh well.

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING

But, honestly, I really have no idea why the teens from Hell actually came back. I know "sometimes they come back", but why? I don't really know what kind of unfinished business they had, because it's their own fault that they were hit by a speeding train. It's not like the protagonist pushed them in front of said train and then covered it up as an accident. It was basically their own stupidity. So apparently, the moral of the story is that if you stupidly decide to head back to your car and get hit by a train when you easily could have just ran away and lived, you get to come back from the dead and blame your death on some school teacher that never really said or did anything. Interesting.

END SPOILERS

END SPOILERS

END SPOILERS

Overall, it was kind of just an average movie that I actually recommend seeing, but I wouldn't go out of your way to see it or anything. It's not on Netflix for some reason, so you'd have to either rent it some other way, buy it or wait for it to be on TV (I saw it on MGM-HD), and unless you're in love with the short story or Stephen King in general, there's better movies for you to see. But, hey, it was well-acted, kind of scary and even kind of sad. So, I give "Sometimes They Come Back":

3 out of 5 chainsaws (IT'S ALRIGHT)

Underworld (2003)

Underworld (2003)
Watched March 29, 2009

SYNOPSIS
It's a story about an endless war between werewolves and vampires.

SHORT REVIEW
For a really mainstream horror movie, "Underworld" is better than you'd expect.

REVIEW
Well, the third "Underworld" is coming out on DVD in a month or two, so I figured I'd catch up on the series so I could watch that one. And I gotta say, it's pretty good. At the very least, it's pretty entertaining. I thought it looked pretty stupid, because the main selling point seems to be Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight suits, and that's never really a good sign that the movie will be any good. But, to my surprise, it wasn't half-bad.

First off, not a horror movie. I start a lot of reviews by saying that the horror movie I'm watching isn't really a horror movie. Anyways, it's just an action movie with vampires and werewolves. But, since there's vampires, and there's werewolves, the movie is tagged as a horror. Exactly the reason that "Twilight" is somehow considered horror, and so my favorite horror news sites are inundated with "Twilight" crap I couldn't care less about. Ah well. That's how it goes.

But, yeah, the entire movie's just ridiculous action scene after ridiculous action scene. Not that I'm against that kind of stuff, I'm just tellin' ya. Completely off-topic, doesn't it bother you when people dislike action movies because they weren't believable? I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a believable popcorn movie... ever. On topic now.

The special effects are pretty good, even if they're all CGI. The werewolf transformations are pretty average, but at least they aren't cheap cut-away transformations as in most werewolf movies these days. What ever happened to days of "An American Werewolf"? What ever happened?

I'm like three to four days behind on horror reviews, and I basically have nothing to say about "Underworld", so I'm going to keep this pretty damn short. "Underworld" has a pretty good plot with a number of twists, great action scenes, and Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight suits. Constantly in skin-tight suits. I wonder if you become a vampire, you also just become sexy? It's just like part of the transformation. Because I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been an ugly male or female vampire in the last five years of vampire movies. Not once. It's ridiculous. I'm just nitpicking though. Short review. Over. I give Underworld probably 3.5 chainsaws, but since listening to Static-X puts me in a good mood, I'd say...

4 out of 5 chainsaws (VERY GOOD, SEE IT)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Watched March 28, 2009

SYNOPSIS
The plot includes skeletons, mutants, aliens, forest creatures and science. I'm not going to expand on that.

SHORT REVIEW
"The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" is hilarious from start to finish.

REVIEW
I like sci-fi movies from the 50s. Their wooden acting, nonsense plot and overall awful-ness just make me enjoy them greatly. "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" perfectly replicates those B-movies by giving us ultra-wooden acting and overall ultra-awful-ness.

A scientist and his wife go to the woods to find an asteroid made of Atmospherium. But, it appears as if they're not the only ones after the Atmospherium. A couple of aliens need it to help start up their ship so they can get back home. And, the evil guy needs it to bring the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra back to life. Who will get to the Atmospherium first? Will the Lost Skeleton be found? And what of the mysterious mutant that has escaped from the alien's ship? All of these questions will be answered in "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra", filmed in glorious Skeletorama.

It seems like just about every line uttered in the film is quotable. And almost all of them are funny, if not hilarious. "Seriously, Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. It could mean actual advances in the field of science." "I'm a scientist, I don't believe in anything." "Why shake when we could touch other things... like lips?" The list could go on and on. There are so many classic lines in here, it's scary.

Speaking of scary, there's really no way this could be considered a horror film, so if you want one of those, don't see this. Actually, see this anyway, because it's pretty much amazing.

This is going to be a pretty short review, because there's nothing really to say about "The Lost Skeleton" except for the fact that it's really, really funny, almost to the point of being genius sometimes. And the film has so many jokes shoved in it that I'm sure it has a lot of replay value.

If there's any flaw in the film, it's that some jokes or scenes go on for far too long than they should. There's a scene between the evil guy and the aliens where they talk about sharing that really wasn't that funny to begin with, but then it's dragged on for another minute or two, so I was almost to the point of yelling "Get on with it!" Fortunately, these instances are far and few between, so you can get back to the hilarity pretty soon.

Ah, how I loved this movie. I might even consider buying it, and I don't buy many DVDs unless they're on sale. So, that's just a sign of how good it is. I give "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra":


5 out of 5 chainsaws (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Re-Cycle (2006)

Re-Cycle (2006)
Watched March 29, 2009

SYNOPSIS
A young author finds herself in a world where everything that has been abandoned lives.

SHORT REVIEW
"Re-Cycle" has dazzling visuals and an interesting plot, but I only thought it was alright.

REVIEW
The Pang Brothers really should just stay in Hong Kong. I really liked "The Eye", and "Re-Cycle" is pretty good, too. But when they come over to America, they make these awful movies like "Bangkok Dangerous" and "The Messengers". What is it about the U.S. that spawns these awful movies from otherwise pretty talented filmmakers? It's quite strange.

I wouldn't say "Re-Cycle" is on par with "The Eye", and it's really only horror for less than half of the movie, but I have to say that it is a pretty good fantasy movie. The first part of the movie deals with the main protagonist in her apartment writing her new novel. But, it appears like the supernatural forces from the story she's writing are loose and in her apartment, and she's having some pretty creepy encounters. This part of the film is pretty damn good, is very suspenseful and has some genuine scares.

But then, suddenly the film switches gears. It was weird that the tone switched so quickly, because I was expecting a horror film all the way through, but for the most part, "Re-Cycle" is a fantasy, almost a fairy tale for adults, like "Pan's Labyrinth". The author is transported to some other world, which is soon revealed to be the place that everything that has been abandoned goes. Interesting premise, and it's pretty well executed, because of its great and memorable visuals. Among them is a cave of aborted babies, which is pretty creepy.

Speaking of caves of aborted babies, the film has a very prominent anti-abortion message.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
The main character has a little girl helping her through the entire movie, and at the end, it's revealed that the little girl is actually her baby she aborted eight years ago. The protagonist begs and begs for the little girl to come with her back to Earth, to which the girl responds "you had your chance to live with me." Boom. Schooled.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
I'm definitely not one of those crazy "Choose life or I'll kill you" people, but the movie actually did make an alright anti-abortion case that makes you think about your stand on abortion. And even if you are pro-choice all the way, it doesn't make the cave of aborted babies any less awesome.

Well. I'm done. I have nothing else to say. The visuals are cool, but really, I can't say I loved the movie. You haven't seen anything else like it, but I wouldn't put "Re-Cycle" on the top of your "Must See" list or anything. I give "Re-Cycle":

3 out of 5 chainsaws (IT'S ALRIGHT)