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StoneGriffin
Reviews
Tales from the Darkside: The Geezenstacks (1986)
A very nice and creepy episode
Tales from the Darkside for a lot of it's run was either "hit or miss" . Though it bragged an impressive array of well known (or future) stars, a sizable portion of the scripts were either lame or were good until ruined by a lame or lackluster ending. This episode (amongst some others) is one of the finest in the series. For one, the musical score is rich with stringed instruments, a far cry from the synthesizer 80s schtick that appeared in so many other episodes. The themes are very haunting. Secondly, the 'twist' ending is something most viewers won't expect (and if they did anticipate it then they won't expect the double twist at the end). This episode, about a creepy doll house that happens to appear in suddenly vacant family homes, is a subtle and well crafted chiller. Tales from the Darkside always suffered from a low budget, but this one was extremely effective. A solid recommendation for this episode and the fine acting by the cast.
Hellspawn (1993)
Probably the worst 'movie' to be commercially released
It's too bad that more people haven't seen this, then Hellspawn would be the KING of the bottom 100 list for all eternity.
The previous commentary was right on the money (kudos to the previous critic :) ) This movie is wretchedly shot on video with no sense of editing, lighting or cinematography. It really looks like low budget video about a confusing, nonsensical story about some sort of "demon" (some guy in a rubber mask and a BRIGHT red plaid flannel shirt, going around supposedly killing people. The kills are worse than something a junior high schooler film student would throw together in an evening. Since the movie makes absolutely NO SENSE, I will point out the parts which are so bad ... well ... they are just BAD....
The sound recording of the two LEAD ACTORS was completely off, so whenever they speak, the gain is pushed WAY UP, so you hear them talking muffled in the background, completely distorted with a huge 'hum' as the editor tries to allow us to hear what they are saying. But it's inconsistent, so you hear a huge HUM and distorted audio ONLY when the two lead actors are talking and nowhere else. Distracting eh? The monster walks around in 'monstervision', i.e. the video image is post processed to look 'negative' and 'solarized', but the gimmick goes on for way too long. The filmmakers were so proud of this cheesy video effect, they stretched it on and on, ad nauseum. The monster's P.O.V. shots goes on and on with a 'clawed hand' pawing at the sofa ("oooooh! Scary!") and at the clock on the wall ("oooooh! Scary!") and at the telephone ("oooooh! Scary!") and at the stairs ("oooooh! Scary!"), you get the picture. What kind of monster pokes his hand at EVERY mundane item in a room before they walk into the NEXT ROOM! It makes no sense and gets irritating really fast.
This next bit is so bad IT'S HILARIOUS .... Apparently the director was too cheap or lame to hire a REAL woman to do the bath scene (where the so called FEMALE victim is stalked by the monster), so he does it HIMSELF! You hear a woman humming, getting ready for the bath, but as far as this 'nude scene', you only see disembodied shots of hands soaping up and legs being washed .... and they all obviously ... belong to a guy!! I kid you not! They're massive and hairy! UGH!! You never see the woman who is killed, only a dime store skull covered with blood and a Offscreen (sound effect) woman's scream. Only a KID in junior high would try to pull THIS stunt, seriously.
The car interior shots are done with a Home Depot lamp with tons of green light bulbs. So the heroes are blasted with an eerie green light under their chins like an old monster movie. Why doesn't everyone have green light blasting from their car interiors? This was shot in Tioga County, PA. There's some nice travelogue shots of the Tioga County courthouse ... hey there IS something worthwhile seeing in this piece of crap! ;) A parting note: SPOILER (but I doubt it) A character at the end has a massive cemetery tombstone, but his friend still has fresh cuts and bruises from the incident that caused this character's demise, so I assume that they can make large granite custom tombstones within 48 hours? For a character who's a trailer trash nobody? I can't believe I bought this movie from a large electronics/Video store chain. It's like buying a DVD from your eleven year old neighbor.
Lich (2004)
Slow plot, bad dialogue and tedious pacing
This movie has extremely poor video quality. It was obviously shot on video, but has a very muddy and soft focus look throughout the movie. The angles were uninventive and the general feel of the movie is mediocre. There are insipid colored filters on some of the interior lighting that just makes the details of the image that much harder to see. Bad lighting and bad audio are just a few of the problems with this 'movie'.
LICH or RESIDENT DEMON as it is called on video, deals with an 'entity' that moves from person to person via touch. Supposedly a witch (a hot looking one, go figure) died in a house and somehow cursed it. We get a group of people having a get together in the house when people start dying one by one.
One good thing, the young actresses in this film are quite beautiful, BUT .... When we are teased with the possibility of seeing some beautiful (but inexperienced) 'actresses' showing some skin, we get nothing. Okay, a bunch of nudity would have helped the bad story, AND good gore effects and violent kills would have helped as well. Oh well, we're out of luck. There are some okay gore effects but the directing (or lack there of) eliminates any horror, dread, shock or emotion at all in any of these scenes.
A tremendous disappointment ... and the recent DVD cover has new cover art that implies some sort of 'RINGU' like creature prowling the hallways, but this is a sham. There is no such creature. Only inexperienced actors running around and ending up bloody. Avoid at all costs.
The Maize: The Movie (2004)
Below the lowest expectations for a direct to Video Title
Only adding to the chorus of people who deemed this to be 'unredeemable' I will state the following without repeating the obvious FLAWS plainly stated by some of the other commentators: The "film" is shot on video (what type of camera I don't know) but the cameraman had it on AUTOFOCUS(!) all the time, so that any slight movement makes it go In and Out of focus. In many of the scenes the actors themselves go OUT of focus for their scenes. This alone screams "Amateur".
I also noticed that out in the 'middle of the cornfield', you can hear the sound of the gasoline generator that is powering the lights ... loudly.
Also what is with that single lighting source that follows (and many times 'leads' the actors) when they walk around. It looks like a newscaster with that 'on camera light' that follows the people around like a spotlight. There was no 'credit' for lighting design/DP and I know why. The 'filmmakers' saw no need to have someone who actually knew what they were doing lighting this picture (note I didn't say "film"). So be prepared for a SINGLE glaring spotlight as the sole source of 'cinematic lighting' for most of the movie. UGhhh!!!
This is probably the most technically inept production I've ever seen commercially released. I "bought" this title because I like bad cinema. Usually it's so bad that you can laugh at it. This is just so bad that it's unwatchable. Plan Nine from Outer Space is "Citizen Kane" in comparison to this title.
Darklight (2004)
Wretched, despite Shiri Appleby
Shiri Appleby was adorable, sexy and cute in "Roswell". However her luminescent presence in this stinker couldn't save it. What the hell was THAT plot all about? A biblical backstory with so many plot loopholes you could drive a truck through them. When you create a mythology (especially using biblical references) delve a little more into what makes it tick and why.
Good actors are wasted. David Hewlett and John DeLancie were all wasted (Hewlett mostly, looking much thinner than he does in Stargate Atlantis). I knew this was going to suck when Hewlett's character takes off his shirt and puts on a black face mask to get an injection! LOL! Either the director sucked or the editor did, there are just too many scenes where the action looked very disjointed and out of place. Either a lack of coverage for the editor to work with or a crappy shooting style, you know a movie is bad when the action scenes from a student film are better choreographed. Also the CGI was about the same caliber as a good video game .... but this is a feature film! IN a movie, the CGI has to be better than something you'd pick up at a gamestore! The battle between Lilith and the Demonicos was laughably bad! Usually films that just seem stilted and weird are foreign films made with American actors where the director was suffering from cultural schizophrenia (i.e. being pulled into two different directions at the same time.) This movie had an American Director (albeit with little experience). He might get better in the future (either that or the suits came in, took it out of his hands and ruined it ... always a possibility!) The movie "could" have been good, with a decent script, better direction, better effects, better editing .... the ending was a setup for a sequel or series, but right now I wouldn't bet on it.
Stealth Fighter (1999)
Another bad one from Wynorski
Director Jim Wynorski sure works a lot in tinseltown, but is on autopilot most of the time. This film is typical of his 'espionage / "military action" thriller genre. Generally mediocre acting, writing and direction that harks back to the glory days of Golan/Globus back in the 1980s. Wynorsky sure like military action thrillers, but he'd better get a military advisor one of these days.... the uniforms are either atrocious or worn wrong, the tactics are laughable, the weapons are many times inappropriate for the usage/anachronistic/obsolete, and EVERYONE who ever has worn a beret in a Wynorski film has always worn one three sizes too small!!! Too Funny! A waste of good talent. Costas Mandylor, Hudson, Sadler, Divoff and all the others have done much better in other films. Things to watch for: a) Costas Mandylor's character slips a package of high explosive into his shirt (rather than carry it in some sort of package or bag) when he's on the helicopter riding into battle. b) The usage of stock footage from Christopher Walken's 1980 film "The Dogs of War". In fact this director uses TONS of stock footage from other, larger budgeted films in a lot of his projects. Spotting them is always fun. :) This is a good time killer if you are an afficionado of "bad cinema". If you like well done military action, forget it. The battle sequences are truly bad and the 'commando's carry too little equipment, the nitpicker who is a fan of military action movies will find tons more to criticize! ;)
Riverworld (2003)
Intriguing movie that must have been a pilot for a series
Riverworld is a place where aliens (?), have taken ALL sentient lifeforms from the planet earth after they die and dump them. Once you're there and you get your one set of clothes and amount of food dispensed from giant metal mushroom towers, you're pretty much on your own. Which explains why the humans resort to tribal fiefdoms and tribal warfare.
Where did the horses come from? I assume they were already on the planet.
Riverworld is so open ended that it must have been a pilot movie for either a series or mini-series. Too much remains unexplained by the two hour movie.
Note: Riverworld shows the MOST amount of 'full frontal nudity' I've ever seen on network television in the first ten minutes of the movie.
The movie also noteworthy in that it was the last finished project of the late actor, Kevin Smith (Valdemar) who played Ares in the Xena television show.
Lots of swordfights and a curious lack of blood for the amount of fatalities, but then everyone has already died once and now they're here on Riverworld. It is like reading the first third of a book and then setting it down. Our appetites have been whetted, now what?
Pursuit (1989)
Excellent but underrated TV Movie!!!
This is a intriguing tale of a rebellious young SS officer (who hates Hitler), played by a young-ish Bruce Greenwood, who must hide after aiding in an assassination attempt on the Fuerher. He does this by having plastic surgery, changing his face and hiding amongst the Jews in a Concentration Camp. Unlike some of the real life Nazis who tried to hide among the prisoners but were easily identified, von Schraeder was transfered to a Camp without the knowledge of any of the Germans, and he suffers greatly at the hands of the Camp guards, who think he is just like any other Jew. It is during this time, that he befriends the other prisoners, who believe him to be a persecuted "Jew" just like them.
BTW: I love John Glover's performance as Max Brodsky, the lead character's best friend. And Ben Cross was outstanding as usual.
Possible Spoilers (but I doubt it):
Lt. Von Schraeder takes on the new identity of "Ben Grossman" after being liberated by the Allies and tries to access his money, stashed away in a swiss bank account, however, the Swiss Government have frozen all accounts opened between 1939-1945 with REICHSMARKS, until the identity of the account holder have been positively identified, just in case the person was a wanted war criminal. "Ben Grossman" can't do this since he no longer looks anything like he did when he was Lt. Von Schraeder. He is a man who no longer has a home.
His friends who befriended him in the Death Camps invite him with them to go to the then new nation-state of Israel. It is here that the show really shines. The movie, unlike any other film or television show, spectacularly and ACCURATELY (at least from a costume, equipment and weapons point of view), shows the early Israeli wars of independence, primarily in 1948 and 1956 when the Arab nations were intent on driving the Israelis into the sea. The uniforms, weapons and vehicles are absolutely correct for the time period, something Hollywood rarely does.
Von Schraeder aka "Grossman", realizing that the Jews are the only friends who will have him, aids the Israelis fight off the Arab armies and becomes himself a hero. At no time do any of the Israelis suspect that "Grossman" is a former Nazi, since many of his fellow officers spent time with him in the Death camp and saw him beaten by the guards.
He eventually becomes a GENERAL of the Israeli Defense Forces and dedicates his life to his new adopted country, but his past will eventually catch up with him when surviving Nazis overseas recognize him and attempt to blackmail him.
This film was a treat and it showed a facet of history that rarely gets any airtime in the U.S. (the early Mideast wars of the 20th century).
I noticed that many Jewish friends at the time were unhappy at the premise, 'that a Nazi could become one of the founders of Israel', however this was an oversimplification of the plot.
It was more about friendship, kinship and finding something to dedicate oneself to. Von Schraeder fought for the Nazis in World War II, realizes his mistake and ends up spending the rest of his life fighting for Israel - an interesting twist of fate, hence the title.
Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft (1998)
Truly horrible but good for laughs
This ultra low budget continuation of the "Witchcraft" series deals pretty much with 'babe-ish' lesbian vampires and a silly super woman from another dimension/time who battles them in modern day London. One thing: don't blame the actors too much. The script was the most wretched amateurish thing ever put to paper.
Caution: Possible SPOILERS! ahead ....
Despite it's incredibly low budget and really bad production values there are items which are so bad, they are good!
(1) The police detective who is so fat, his tie only goes halfway down his chest. (2) The 1 second delay in Synchronization for the sound effects during the fight scenes. (3) the British "Police station" that looks suspiciously like someone's apartment building. (4) the supposed police (curiously lacking uniforms) who scream in terror when hot looking chicks approach them (the vampire attack comes seconds later, but still, what guy gets terrified by hot babes wanting to feel them up?). (5) the classic line "They won't do anything ... we got guns" when two stupid cops try to cuff the female vampires, who are then immediately killed by the female vampires. The list goes on and on.
If MST3K showed soft-core Vampire flicks, this would be a perfect showcase!