Monthly Movie Recap - February 2014

Hey there, reader! February was a pretty solid month for movies for me. Definitely one for the books as far as enjoyable movies go. I'm not saying they were all great movies, but I liked some of them a lot!

Justice League: War (2014)
I like seeing the new DC animated features but it's not very often I've already read the books they're based on. This does a good job of covering the JL: Origins arc that happened with the New 52 reboot. For some reason, they put Shazam in here, who wasn't in the comic. With Supes, isn't Shazam kinda redundant?

Cool: It's cool seeing the New 52 JL come together
Lame: It feels like half the movie is the JL fighting paradeamons and Darkseid, not really bad if you like action but it gets a little boring after awhile; Wonder Woman's voice just does not fit her; I think they needed to build more on the public's distrust of superheroes, it's here but not enough.
Rating: 6/10

The Old Dark House (1963)
I stumbled on to this one late night when I couldn't sleep. It's a remake of the 1932 Karloff movie done by one of my favorite directors, William Castle. I'm sure I would have gotten to it sooner or later since I want to see all his films, but I'm glad I found it sooner! It's a wonderfully funny murder mystery.

Cool: Title sequence by Charles Addams! I'm used to 80s TV Tom Poston, I never would have expected to see him carry a movie so charmingly.
Lame: According to Wiki, this remake was not generally liked by fans of the original.
Rating: 8/10

Tourist Trap (1979)
One of the weirder horror flicks to hit my screen in awhile. I know it's from '79 but I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't seen it yet.

Cool: Creepy, weird stuff going on! A raven haired Tanya Roberts spends most of her screen time in a tube top.
Lame: This is the kind of movie that you'd stay up late to watch as a kid and have it scar your brain for life.
Rating: 6.5/10

The Penny Dreadful Picture Show (2013)
This is a horror anthology with three segments, each representing a period of horror movie history. "Slash-in-the Box" seems to be more modern day and is also the shortest of the three. "The Morning After" is a 60s/70s Hammer-esque vampire tale and feels a little long. Probably the best segment is "The Slaughter House" with Jeffrey Combs and Sid Haig, which draws inspiration from Texas Chainsaw and has a very grindhouse feel. But really my favorite part is the glue that holds the stories together: poor Penny Dreadful searching for true love's kiss and showing her dates these segments in her movie theater.

Rating: 6/10

Mad Max (1979)
Previously unseen franchise of the month! I was definitely expecting more of what I'd seen in Thunderdome, so this was refreshing. I really like the feel of the movie overall and that they actually build up Max's character.

Cool: The vehicle segments are beautifully shot; The motorcycle gang are great despicable bad guys
Lame: It could be a dystopian future or it could be what I imagine highways are like in the Outback.
Rating: 7/10

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
Now this is more what I was expecting! It's like a post apocalyptic Western with a kickass road battle for a climax. I always wonder in these situations if civilization would really devolve so quickly.

Cool: Australian cattle dog (one of my favorite breeds); The baddies are even better than in Mad Max; Incredible finale!
Rating: 7/10

*Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Not having seen the previous two movies, I don't recall why I went to see this in the theater when it came out. But at least I didn't wait 30 years to see those first two! I had totally forgotten about everything outside of Bartertown before rewatching this. Probably because that's what's lodged in the pop consciousness.

Cool: You can't go wrong with Master Blaster and Thunderdome!
Lame: It feels like two different movies: In Bartertown and Outside Bartertown; Not a fan of Tina Turner.
Rating: 6/10

Unlucky Charms (2013)
Back in the 90s when we still had video stores I would rent everything and anything made by Full Moon, so you could say I'm a fan. Most of the recent stuff has been leaving me cold though. There was an art to their earlier stuff. Even though they were direct to video B-movies, they were fun to watch. Lately, they seem to have lost their fun if you're not in an altered state of mind.

Cool: The music, I guess?
Lame: Not so great makeup; No good violence; "actresses" obviously there for their bust size; Charlie (not Jerry) O'Connell that should be a fair warning right off...
Rating: 3/10

Angels Revenge, aka Angels Brigade, aka Seven from Heaven (1979)
I couldn't find a trailer, but the above video is the entire movie on MST3k! This version is different from teh one I watched because it starts at the end and flashes back to the start. I watched the non-MST3k version and absolutely loved it! Charlie's Angels + The A-Team - Bras = this movie. Or as Crow calls it "The T&A-Team". It kept reminding me of Jet Dream.

A Vegas singer's younger brother is roughed up by his pot dealer and when his teacher comes to talk to her, they formulate a plan to take down the distributor by assembling five other women. You've got the singer and teacher, a black stunt woman, an Asian karate teacher, a blonde cop, a model and one of the teacher's teenage students

How do they know these other women? It doesn't really matter. They're all on board within 20 minutes and tricking out a van (with rocket launchers and a tailgate to deploy a motorcycle!) that would make BA Baracus happy.

Cool: I don't know what it is but this movie is perfect Saturday night fun; The bad guy is Jack Palance and Alan Hale and Jim Backus have minor roles; Fight sound effects straight from Hanna-Barbera!
Lame: It's an obvious knockoff of Charlie's Angels, but I still think it would be an awesome TV show.
Rating: 7/10, by no means a great movie but it's a load of fun!

JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time (2014)
This one may have snuck under your radar as it was initially a Target exclusive release. How weird is that? This is going in a more family friendly direction than most of the direct to video stuff coming from DC lately. If they were to reboot SuperFriends today, I think this is what it would be like. Plot: A couple of wanna-be heroes in the future release Luthor from imprisonment. He gets hold of a time portal and basically tries to prevent the JLA from becoming heroes.

Cool: A few winks at the long time SuperFriends fans; voice cast
Lame: One of the future kids looks like he raided Samurai's wardrobe and his name is Karate Kid! Ok so apparently he's in the comics, but Karate Kid? He's no Macchio.
Rating: 5/10

The LEGO Movie (2014)
Yes, Everything is awesome! The animation, the voice talent, the cameos, the story. All of it.

There is a big element to the story that they've either somehow kept under wraps or through blind luck I managed to avoid knowing about it before seeing the movie. But wow, the movie just sucker punches you in the final reel.It's solidly entertaining from start to finish and is absolutely something I think kids should share with their parents.

Cool: In addition to what I've already said: Batman and Unikitty!
Borderline Cool/Lame: "Everything is Awesome" will get in your brain quicker than a Ceti eel (yeah, I had to Google the name)
Lame: Why did they not put the blooper reel at the end?
Rating: 9/10, anyone that complains modern LEGO sets force kids to not be creative should be made to see this movie.

Month Total

 New: 10  Rewatch: 1

Year To-Date Final Total 

New: 16  Rewatch: 3

The Films of Christopher R. Mihm

The internet is an amazing thing. One day you can just bebop around visiting your normal sites and out of nowhere you discover something you didn't know you were missing in your life. Today that is the home of Sainte Euphoria Pictures. Why is this exciting you may ask?

The above poster is the latest film from Christopher R. Mihm. Yes, I said latest, as in recently released, as in it's 2013 but oh my look at that gorgeous 1950s era throwback poster! I will forever be in love with horror and sci-fi movies from the 50s/60s drive-in era but I crush extra hard on those featuring living things that are not their normal size.

So you could imagine my excitement, dare I say, giddiness at discovering a brand new giant spider movie. While they could have taken more advantage of modern technology, they went with the ol' green screen and an actual tarantula. It might look a little better than it would have 50+ years ago but it retains part of what endears those older movies to me.

After looking around the site, I find this is the 8th retro-movie that Mr. Mihm has made! I spent some time checking out their trailers for movies like "Cave Women on Mars", "Attack of the Moon Zombies", " House of Ghosts", and "The Monster of Phantom Lake." I knew I was in good company and quickly took advantage of the 4 DVDs for $30 special.

I can't wait to get these and you can bet you'll be hearing more about them after I watch them. Until then, be sure to check out The Films of Christopher R. Mihm at Sainte Euphoria Pictures and enjoy a couple more trailers.

"House of Ghosts" is an homage to one of the kings of B-movies, William Castle.

Tune into more on YouTube!
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Monthly Movie Recap - January 2013

Here we are kicking off another year of watching movies!

Tangled (2010)
I really liked this one. It's a lot of fun and the songs are worked in well. The look of it is a little different from the usual CGI animated movies, in a good way. Even though Rapunzel loses her "power" at the end, I wouldn't mind seeing these characters in another movie.

Cool: The chameleon and horse steal their scenes; Zachary Levi is great
Lame: Sometimes it seems her hair is prehensile and sometimes not?
Rating: 7.5

Christmas Past & Present

I hope everyone had a great couple of days no matter what you were doing or celebrating. Christmas Eve we visited with my brother-in-law's family and my 3 year old nephew and 6 year old niece. They both got early gifts in the form of kid-friendly Nabi tablets.
Let me tell you, for a "kid's" tablet, it looks pretty good under the hood!
My niece and I had fun playing Vs. Fruit Ninja.

Back in my day (pipe down old man!), the equivalent gift of the time would have been an Atari 2600. It's crazy to think how tech savvy today's kids will group up to be. Speaking of Christmases long, long ago, here's a Polaroid from 1980 of me opening a still mint in box 12" IG-88 action figure. If you squint really hard, there's an Atari 2600 under the TV back there.

Here's a little visual rundown of the goodies from this year...

An Adventure Time calendar to replace my 2012 one and lots of magnets! I have the large Finn and Jake ones on my car now but they're sun faded so I think I'm going to replace them with the one of them together.

A very cool Doctor Who calendar and pen. As you can see, this calendar is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Doctor in 2013. Each month features a large head silhouette of a Doctor containing images related to him. The month of December is a TARDIS silhouette with all the Doctors in it.

The Halloween Kid dons a mask to keep Trick or Treaters safe from monsters.
I talked back in February about Liō and I can't wait to go through his latest book.
The subtitle of The Stupidest Angel reads "A heartwarming tale of Christmas terror."
That Halloween book is a monstrous anthology weighing in around 520 pages.

Yay! I'm so excited to finally get to see Cartoon Lagoon! From everything I've heard it's supposed to be a great tribute to all things Saturday morning.
I'm equally thrilled (and chilled) to be able to dive into Spine Tingler! The William Castle story. If you follow my monthly movie recaps, you know I'm a fan of Castle's films. This guy was the P.T. Barnum of movies. There's also some footage from the premier of Vincent Price's The Tingler which should be interesting as well.
I've seen American Graffiti more than a few times and I love it. I have a crazy love of 50s/60s hot rod culture and music.

Ghost Castle is the newest in a long line of remakes of the game Which Witch? from 1970. I've had a thing for board games with traps since I picked up Superstition as a kid at a yard sale. I have a copy of the 1985 European release of this, also called Ghost Castle. You can read a history of the game's incarnations over at Monsterfink's blog. I'm sure I'll do a post in the future about this game and if I'm feeling ambitious, compare the two Ghost Castles.

EDIT: I just realized I forgot to post the stuff I got from my parents! Oops! 

The Tales of the Red Panda books are based on the podcast of the same name from Decoder Ring Theater. If you enjoy old time radio shows of pulp heroes and hard boiled noir detectives, check out their shows. They're all free!
Zombie Pulp is an anthology.
The Logan's Run tv series will be interesting to check out after all this time. I'll have to see if I can snag the movie BluRay for $10 at Target now.

Monthly Movie Recap - October 2012

Wow, October just flew by, didn't it? Amidst blogging every day of the month I fit in as many horror movies as I could. I didn't want to set a goal of 31 because I knew I wouldn't hit it. But I did manage a good amount! As always, clicking a linked product will take you to its Amazon page where you can order it (and anything else you want) and drop a few coins in my pocket.

Hotel Transylvania (2012)
I'm happy to say I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. It was funny and did ok by the classic monsters. Sandler's stable of friends actually worked well in their roles.

Cool: I could see this becoming part of the Halloween viewing rotation
Lame: The old woman ("I didn't do that") feels like a forced attempt to create a catch phrase character
Rating: 7/10, recommended for classic monster fans of all ages

 
The Revenant (2012)
What do you do when your best friend comes back to life after getting killed on a tour of duty? Help him become an undead crime fighter! I don't want to give too much of this one away but it's a great buddy comedy and horror movie twisted together.

Cool: It's gory and funny
Lame: Even when you're undead, it stills hurts to get shot
Rating: 7.5/10

Mongolian Death Worm (2010)
It wouldn't be a month of movie watching without a SyFy Original movie. The worm is a real world cryptid and you might get more enjoyment from following that link than watching the actual movie. It's not the worst SyFy movie but it's not much fun either.

Cool: Giant worms!
Lame: Being "animals" they don't have any personality as a monster and aren't really scary
Rating: 3/10, the monsters should be front and center in these movies but the "real" plot takes precedence

 
* Night of the Demons (1988)
I saw this back in the '90s. We had a movie party one night and my girlfriend at the time rented this one. There's so much WTF in this movie, we all thought it was horrible. I teased her about it for years. Now having a couple decades more horror under my belt, I can appreciate the weirdness.

Cool: Why wouldn't you go party at an abandoned mortuary on Halloween night and hold a seance?
Lame: Have you seen my lipstick?; I really dislike Angela's demon voice.
Rating: 6/10, it's a good time!

Night of the Demons 2 (1994)
Despite being abandoned and the site of multiple murders, Hull House is still standing, waiting for more dumb college kids to visit on Halloween night. I don't know if it's because I revisited the original but I feel like this one takes the best from it and does it better.

Cool: A kick ass nun
Lame: C'mon, haunted lipstick? Really?
Rating: 7/10, two kills and nudity in the first five minutes? You know it's going to be fun!

Night of the Demons 3 (1997)
I don't know why, but for the last two movies I can only find German trailers.
As much fun as 2 was and did everything better, 3 goes way in the opposite direction. It's feeling tired and like a quick cash grab with little effort.

Cool: The effects and makeup have improved
Lame: I guess Angela's been getting spooky fix-er-up powers from the people she killed because Hull House is looking more like new than abandoned
Rating: 4/10

Re-Animator (1985)
I hate to say it, but I don't think I'd seen this before! I remember seeing a Re-Animator movie but it must have been one of the sequels. I saw this in a theater as part of this year's Feast of Flesh.

Cool: You can't go wrong with Jeffrey Combs; crazy over the top splatterfest
Lame: Sleazy, creepy bad guy
Rating: 6.5/10

Fright Night (2011)
This is how you do a remake/reboot of a franchise and do it well. Although it follows the original closely, it was still very watchable unlike the recent Nightmare on Elm Street which became boring quickly.

Cool: David Tennant is an absolute riot in his scenes
Lame: Compared to the original, it seemed to jump into vampire territory quickly
Rating: 7/10

Killer Party (1986) 
Couldn't find a trailer for this one. It's all over the place in the first five minutes. You think you're watching one thing and then it breaks into a music video, then it goes into fairly normal slasher-land.

Cool:  Wasn't familiar with hair band White Sister before this
Lame: It's very odd seeing a music video in the movie
Rating: 5.5/10, you could do worse for an 80's slasher film.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Even though I only saw the first one a few weeks ago, because Micah was behind the camera so much I forgot his name and what he looked like, which made this weird until I figured out it was a prequel.

Cool: They continue to do everything right they did with the first one and keep it scary
Lame: Casting a known actress (Sprague Grayden) kind of ruins the "reality" of it
Rating: 7/10

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
As much as I liked the first two, I was skeptical going in that they could bring it again with a third movie. They do!

Cool: They take the creepy in a new direction; delving more into the origin of the original
Lame: Try explaining the timeline of all three movies to someone
Rating: 7/10

Halloween Night (2006)
If you like standard 80s slasher flicks, this is one.

Cool: Decent effects; plenty of blood and toplessness
Lame: Acting
Rating: 4/10

Girl vs Monster (2012)
A Disney Channel original. I make no secret that I enjoy Young Adult fiction/movies so this was pretty entertaining.

Cool: Combines the high school of Buffy with the gadgets of Ghostbusters
Lame: Having 15 years of fear catch up with you at once! The songs sometimes feel forced into the movie
Rating: 6.5/10, good family Halloween fun

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)
I've never read the comic series the movie is based on but I still liked it. It's sort of a noir supernatural detective movie.

Cool: Dylan's newly undead assistant is great
Lame: Some of the facial makeups look like they came from the Buffy TV series
Rating: 6/10

*Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Rewatched this one after listening to Now Playing podcast doing retrospective reviews of Romero's Dead movies and the remakes. Funny to see Ty Burrell (Modern Family) and Jake Weber (Medium) in this one now that they're associated in those TV roles for me.

Cool: It's a good zombie movie but
Lame: I still don't like fast zombies
Rating: 6.5/10

"Thanks" to Jaime at Shescrafti for pointing the next two out to me.

Midnight Hour (1985)
No trailer for this one, so you get the legendary dance number! This is an odd one to be sure. A bunch of kids steal stuff from a museum and unleash evil beasties (and one cheerleader from the 50s) on Halloween night.

Cool: Plenty of familiar faces
Lame: It seems like the beasties are killing the kids to turn them into monsters but when evil is vanquished, the kids are all ok?
Rating: 5.5/10, the balance of horror and "comedy" is uneven

Check out Shezcrafti's review/write-up

The Worst Witch (1986)

Or Hogwart's School for Pre-Teen Girls 23 years before there was a Hogwarts. This is based on a series of children's books of the same name. 

Cool: Tim Curry doesn't have a lot of screen time, but you will not forget him in this!

Lame: A little boring in places

Rating: 5.5/10, younger girls may enjoy it more

Read Shezcrafti's review/write-up

The Brain Eaters (1958)
Coming just two years after Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this low budget take is boring. Robert A. Heinlein sued the production for plagiarizing his story, The Puppet Masters, which was settled out of court for $5,000.

Cool: There is an original twist to the invaders
Lame: The whole thing is pretty humdrum
Rating: 2.5/10

Dark Shadows (2012)
Not having seen more than a few minutes of the TV show, I had no bias going into this one. And I have to say, it was pretty enjoyable! Depp was great, as always.

Cool: It wasn't nearly the goofy comedy that the trailers make it out to be; supernatural beings fighting
Lame: It didn't feel like there was enough focus on the love story; supernatural beings gettin freaky
Rating: 6.5/10

Detention (2011)
I can't say too much about this one without giving away how crazy it is. It sounded like another teen slasher but it is so much more. It's like the Dude, Where's My Car? of slasher movies.

Cool: The weird twists; very original teen slasher
Lame: Possibly the most terrifying image of Ron Jeremy with clothes on you'll ever see
Rating: 8/10, do NOT find out anything about this one before seeing it

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
I had to revisit these next two after getting a copy of the latest issue of the horror mag Little Shoppe of Horrors which is all about the Phibes movies. These are two of my favorite Price films. I love the character of Phibes. He is the original Jigsaw.

Cool: Using the biblical plagues to kill people; the finale which is obviously an inspiration for Saw
Lame: There are a lot of unanswered questions if you start thinking about it
Rating:  7/10

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) 
Phibes is back, this time in Egypt and killing those that get in his way. This one is even more like a classic pulp than the first. Even though Phibes is killing people left and right, you can't help but cheer for him because all he really wants is to bring his wife back to life.

Cool: Phibes' methods of murder are always entertaining; returning characters create a great continuity
Lame: New actress playing his assistant
Rating: 7/10

The Night Walker (1964)
Not the usual gimmick cinema William Castle is most remembered for, this one is a psychological suspense thriller. This is the kind of bizarre you can only get from this time period.

Cool: Music by Vic Mizzy (The Addams Family); Keeps you guessing what's really going on
Lame: Why does a blind man have a lab where he does experiments?
Rating: 6/10

Month Total

New: 19, Rewatch: 4

Year To-Date Total

New: 114, Rewatch: 15

League Post - Top 10 Movies

I picked quite the week to jump back into the League of Extraordinary Bloggers!
The open ended assignment: put together a Top 10 Movies list. Doing a personal Top 10 would be a fairly rote exercise with few surprises so I decided to do...

My Top 10 Vincent Price Movies

10. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

When you think Vincent Price, chances are your first though isn't comedy. This movie is zany! Where else can you see a boat on wheels being pursued by a cable car? It's also got quite a few in-jokes for fans of Price and/or bikini beach movies. Also, the opening titles are done by Art Clokey, Gumby's creator.

Monthly Movie Recap - May 2012

This month has combined some of the best and worst I've seen this year (so far anyway!)
As always, clicking on a title link takes you to Amazon where you can order the movie and support the site.

Boy Eats Girl (2005)
Pretty fun horror/comedy. Although it's hard to call if it wants to be a zombie movie or infection movie. When you get "it" you have no vital signs and crave human snacks but there is a cure for "it."

Cool: High school is always a good setting for zombies; great slaughter scene with farm machinery
Lame: Kinda sucks for all the people/zombies that they had to kill that could have been cured
Rating: 6.5/10, good choice if you're looking for something different