Death_to_Pan_and_Scan Reviews

Greed (1924)

FREED at last! I lusted for movie to end like they lusted for gold

[4/10 · 15 March 2009]

I watched the 4 hr reconstruction version and I couldn't wait for this film to finally be over. I awaited the words 'The End' the way many cineastes await the discovery of the long lost original cut of this silent film. Despite all its acclaim, the version I saw reveals Greed as an overly-long, ham-fisted melodrama 'epic' with cartoonish characters and situations, clumsy heavy-handed symbolism and the overacting typical of its era. McTeague's wife, Trina, is a pale imitation when compared alongside Ebenezer Scrooge and seems to have a level of depth closer approximating Disney's later character Scrooge McDuck. The film reminds me in some respects to the current trend of 'serious' 'prestige' Oscar-bait movies released every year just in time to receive nominations and wins during award season. It makes Capra's often-derided films seem subtle by comparison.

I can't help but wonder if the voters in various film polls who have acclaimed this film are voting on the extant 2.5 hour version or the 4 hr reconstruction (which often relies on a La Jetee-esquire slide show of old on-set photographs in an attempt to replace 1.5 hours of the missing footage) OR if they're voting for the alleged greatness of the mythic 9.5 hour version seen by a handful of people before it was cut to ribbons by the studio. It seems like people feel so sorry for von Stroheim's loss, that placing his film in the pantheon of 'great films' is an attempt at a consolation prize. Greed can't compare to achievements like Murnau's Sunrise, which also took a simplistic story, but through vision and artistry turned it into something much more. Unfortunately, Greed doesn't succeed similarly IMO. I wish a copy of the original version would be magically discovered in storage somewhere, either so we could see the greatness of this legendary film, or so we could at least debunk the myth of its legendary 'greatness'.

The story: Hot-headed ex-gold miner turned unlicensed dentist McTeague proposes to his friend's girlfriend Trina, after which she wins a $5,000 lottery. His friend with a misplaced sense of entitlement is jealous over the loss of the girl and the fortune, not knowing what a greed-obsessed, penny-pinching gold-hoarder Trina will become and how much she'll make McTeague's life miserable, making them live like paupers while she stashes away her interest on the business investment she makes with her uncle, not to mention the money she scrapes out of her husbands earnings. She'd be content for them to live in filth if she could hold onto her dream of someday swimming in a pile of gold. There are also parallel stories of a thieving maid woman who marries a junk dealer after her elaborate lie to him about a fantasized million $ gold set of dishes that she claims to have once owned/has buried away somewhere and a story of a couple of elderly boarders who live next door to one another and fall in love.

It's astounding that the telling of this story required even 4 hours, let alone 9.5 hours.

If you want to watch a film about what greed can do to people and see an over-the-top performance (in about half the runtime), I highly recommend 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' instead. Sitting through 'Greed' is only recommended to silent film enthusiasts and film historians, yet 'tis still better than Vidor's 'The Crowd'.

Yellow (II) (2006)

too bad Bava inspired some hacks too

[2/10 · 29 August 2008]

What a waste of 6 or 7 minutes. It's nice that he credited where he got his lighting style for this short film from, but it seems to be an unworthy 'tribute' otherwise. Mario Bava is easily one of the more influential people on genre filmmakers, particularly those working in horror and fantasy, but sadly it seems not all of his fans paid attention to his movies aside from his trademark 'lollipop lighting'. The music does feel like leftovers from Goblin (music for several of Dario Argento's films -- another filmmaker inspired by Bava, but one who actually learned enough to make some great films of his own), but I'm not going to complain about amateur music in a low budget student film.

I just don't see that Tareen seems to have learned much from the giallo genre -- which allegedly inspired this short film -- other than 'the killer wears leather gloves and sometimes takes a knife out of a non-cluttered area' (a drawer in this case, though nowhere approaching the type of weapon fetishization seen in films such as Argento's brilliant Deep Red). Granted, it's a short film and has little running time to develop much of a story, but it never really felt much like even so much as a giallo scene to me, even compared to the C grade efforts of some of Italy's lesser hack filmmakers. He should re-watch Bava's Telephone segment from 'I Tre Volti della Paura' for ideas how to make a giallo film with a short runtime. This seems more like an American slasher movie scene with interesting lighting than something truly giallo-influenced and titled.

I hope Tareen will re-watch giallo films to better understand them and/or read an online article on the genre (technically more of a 'filone') if he intend more homage to them. I'd suggest the Kinoeye article for starters. I also suggest he read the essential Tim Lucas book to better understand Bava, his work and his themes.

In the Good Old Summertime (1949)

'I Don't Care' if I never see this mediocre remake again

[4/10 · 15 January 2008]

One can only assume that Robert Osborne is contractually obligated to express delight at even the least appealing films in the TCM library as this would explain him extolling the 'virtues' of this "charming" film during his introduction when I saw this on cable TV. Seeing as any old film on IMDb receives 'classic' status from a number of fawning amateur reviewers, I thought there was a dire need for a more honest review of this film.

This is not your father's 'Shop Around the Corner'. For all my quibbles with 'You've Got Mail', it still outshines this as a remake in just about every way imaginable. For those who have seen the original, the flaws will only be all the more obvious.

From one of the lamest Meet Cute sequences I can recall seeing (a sad slapstick attempt at 'humor'), this film gets off on the wrong foot and it never really gets back in step. This 'musical' only qualifies as one in the sparsest sense of the term. There are a sprinkling of instantly forgettable musical numbers and then there's Judy singing "I Don't Care" while flailing her arms around as if in a seizure. The Christmas song she sings in the store is probably one of her better numbers here. Miss Garland was wonderful in a number of musical films, but here she seems horribly miscast. The role was originally to have been filled by June Allyson and Judy is definitely unable to fill the shoes of Margaret Sullavan's old part. Van Johnson also turns in a rather bland performance as a second rate Jimmy Stewart type. The leads never achieve the chemistry of Stewart/Sullavan or even that of Hanks/Ryan.

This is a film that knows (some of) the notes, but not the music. It doesn't really seem to understand why the original worked and even feels the need to add another possible love interest for Van Johnson's character to complicate things unnecessarily. The remake's substitution for the original's infidelity subplot is a hackneyed plot device involving a priceless violin. It is almost embarrassing to watch and feels as if it had perhaps been lifted from an episode of Three's Company by someone with a DeLorean and a flux capacitor. It's really just an excuse for a Keaton pratfall. Even the big resolution scene between the romantic leads is mishandled. After seeing both films, you'll understand why they called it 'the Lubitsch Touch' and NOT the 'Robert Z. Leonard Touch'.

Avoid this and rewatch either the original film or one of Judy Garland's earlier films unless you're an iconoclast who enjoys seeing a once great star falling down to earth.

Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)

'Horror Movie Illogic' has sunken to a new low

[3/10 · 14 August 2007]

Some amateur reviewers will excuse anything in a movie and give 5 stars minimum simply for the crew having been able to load film-stock into a camera without exposing it to sunlight. After sitting through all 69 minutes of Mora Tau (that I will never have back) I began to really wish that this bad movie had somehow become a 'lost film' instead of films I'd actually like to see -- such as "London After Midnight" starring Lon Chaney or the original 9 hour version of von Stroheim's silent film classic "Greed".

As a devoted fan of zombie films who has seen more than 70 films in the genre from the brilliant to the downright awful, even I must admit that most voodoo zombie movies aren't very good -- aside from Halperin's White Zombie and Gilling's Plague of the Zombies (for Hammer Studios) and to a lesser extent, the entertaining if somewhat offensive 1941 Mantan Moreland minstrel show that is King of the Zombies. Even by that guideline for diminished expectations, Mora Tau is probably one of the worst of the voodoo zombie genre and might make me think better of Halperin's 1936 followup disaster Revolt of the Zombies. Zombies of Mora Tau is so insultingly stupid and lame that it almost made me long for the 'good ole days' of the 1940s when Abbott and Costello were busy ruining the Universal Monsters franchise (though A&C enthusiasts still refuse to admit how unfunny those films were). If you want a good underwater horror film from that era watch any of the three 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' films instead or maybe even (horror of bad TV horrors) the Godzilla Power Hour cartoon with Godzookie. If you want underwater zombies, try Wiederhorn's 'Shockwaves' instead. This film is a reminder that not all old black and white films are 'classics' and I can think of any of a number of cheesy 50s horror films that are 10 times more entertaining. The atomic age sci-fi silliness of Invisible Invaders is another better recommendation than Zombies of Mora Tau. Maybe the 3 stars out of 10 that I gave Mora Tau was too generous. I'm now glad there wasn't a DVD of this for me to buy and that TCM showed it to me for free.

PLOT: The basic plot sounds like something the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" might have pilfered some basic ideas from: There is a sunken treasure of $1 million of uncut diamonds that has attracted treasure hunters for decades and lead to the demise of many a diver. It seems that the original thieves of the treasure all met an untimely demise and 10 zombies now guard said treasure (though why they live in 10 lined up coffins in a cave like Snow Whites dwarfs is anyone's guess) and will not rest until said treasure is 'destroyed' as the old lady says. The sailors dream of riches and ignore her warnings and try to get the treasure anyway...

These are also among the least scary voodoo zombies I've seen in a movie. If all the reels of this film were at the bottom of the sea, I think I'd voodoo up some zombies to guard them and ensure that they were never retrieved so that movie audiences would be spared the horror of seeing this film.

**SPOILERS**

I have several issues with this film and its lazy writing:

*The dive crew/sailors are too dumb to realize that the woman is not 'ill' but now has become one of the zombies and is exhibiting all the same traits. These characters are obviously much dumber than your average horror movie morons.

*Sure the old lady claims the zombies are indestructible, but that doesn't stop the sailors from using knives and other weapons on them ineffectively. None of the sailors/divers ever thinks to try lighting a zombie aflame after they display an obvious fear of fire? You've gotta be kidding me. Maybe it wouldn't destroy them, but you'd think someone would at least try it.

*Don't establish rules for the zombies and then proceed to break those rules later in the film when it seems convenient to do so.

*So the diamonds must be 'destroyed' for the zombies to rest, right? So why does dumping the diamonds into a couple feet of water not 10 feet from the shore of old lady's property count as 'destroying them' and end the curse? It's as if the writers forgot that someone could just bend down and pick retrieve the diamonds 5 minutes after the 'zombies' dematerialize out of their clothes.

The Mad Magician (1954)

Good idea with flawed execution

[5/10 · 10 August 2007]

This movie started with a solid 'wronged artist' revenge tale similar to another Price 3D film, House of Wax, as other reviewers have said, but is sunk by too many lame plot contrivances. I'm a fan of Vincent Price's old horror films and I really think this could have been a much better film if they had worked out the kinks in the story as ridiculously unlikely things happen at almost every turn that made me groan and want to yell at my TV. If there's one thing that annoys me, it's when a good horror movie idea is ruined by inept writing.

I had several problems with this movie, including: *SPOILERS ALERT* -Price is crazy enough to drag a dummied up corpse to a bonfire but smart enough to don a disguise (of the murdered man). When bones are found in the ashes, wouldn't someone remember the one guy who dragged a humanoid bundle to the top of the fire and as such wouldn't Price's magician then be smart enough to ditch that disguise afterward so as not to provoke potential police questioning about the bonfire? Why would Price not adopt a completely NEW disguise before renting out that room? -The crematorium device pulls the body into the chamber BEFORE it is heated when first demonstrated. This is important so as not to scorch the person entering the chamber before they get dropped through the trap door in the bottom of the device. Yet when the plot needs a clichéd fight and time for his potential victim to escape he heats the chamber first thereby giving the policeman ample time to get out and turns his back completely on the man to go to the door without continually looking back. As another poster said, the device is created for a repeat performance back into the fiery chamber a short time after the first only so that it can backfire against it's magician creator later when Price dies in a stereotypical fashion.

Tomie: Forbidden Fruit (2002)

Most interesting and disturbing installment gets ruined by extended comic relief

[6/10 · 6 April 2007]

This is the 5th film (4th theatrical, the 2nd film was made for TV) of 7 about Tomie; the beautiful she-demon who drives men to kill her, but will not stay dead. I've never read Junji Ito's manga, so I will review this just as a film within the series.

Good horror films are disturbing to us, that's part of their job. Tomie Forbidden Fruit does a good job of that initially, but loses focus and somewhat falls apart a little after the halfway mark. The first half is a good creepy horror film, albeit not a 'scary' one, though none of the series were. It suffers from 'Jeepers Creepers-itis': starts off with a great premise that seems to be going somewhere and then derails itself into silly territory that undermines that which preceded it. Luckily, it pretty much gets back on track at the end which is more than I can say for Jeepers Creepers. The idea is a good one and takes Tomie into the 'destruction of friends and families' territory more than previous entries did (Re-birth would be the 2nd best in that capacity due to its mother-son-girlfriend relations subplot).

Kazu Hashimoto was in love with Tomie some 25 years ago, but she died as did the friend who stole her from him. We see him now as a middle-aged widower who named his daughter after his lost 1st love. Tomie Hashimoto is harassed at school by girls who bully her and her life is generally miserable until the day she meets Tomie. They become fast friends and…cue the PG-rated pseudo-lesbian overtones. Actually, Tomie isn't really interested in being friends with her namesake. Tomie actually despises her as a reminder that Kazu married another woman and gave birth to a daughter, Tomie Hashimoto. Tomie plans to regain Kazu and offers her love to him after he removes all remnants of the time that has passed, namely the shrine to his deceased wife (no big deal for a man who has forgotten her in the past 10 years since her death) and one other slight obstacle: the daughter of that union. In order to regain the beautiful lost love of his youth, Kazu must follow Tomie's orders to murder his offspring. Usually even men who'd be tempted by the offer would have enough love of their child and basic morals to refuse such a barbaric demand, but then again Tomie's inhuman spell on men defies rational thought and all bets are off.

After Tomie is murdered (no big shock/spoiler if you've been watching the series up to this point), things takes a turn from the creepy disturbing horror mode into strange dark humor territory along the lines of "Basketcase" meets "Eraserhead". This derailment lasts maybe 20 minutes, which is more than enough for it to negatively affect the tone of the film. Tomie Hashimoto inexplicably decides to locate Tomie's remains and now has to take care of the decapitated head of her 'friend' as it slowly regenerates a body. There are comically-intended scenes of her feeding an ungrateful Tomie and taking her around town in a baby stroller (which makes one want to utter that infamous movie phrase "What's in the basket?"). Tomie quickly proves very demanding, beyond her caregiver's financial means or even any remaining desires to provide for her. Acting the role of a doting parent isn't something she's ready to accept from this selfish creature. In this way it somewhat mirrors Jack Nance's situation in "Eraserhead", right down to the monstrous deformities underneath those swaddling blankets. In the meantime, we also see Tomie H's nemesis schoolgirl bullies visit her home and meet up with daddy, whose tendency towards violence is not to be restrained after the psychological effects of his last meeting with Tomie. While amusing, it's fairly standard fare as Takashi Miike already did a better job of addressing the issue of high school bullies in "Visitor Q".

Tomie returns and the father-daughter team come up with a clever -- albeit noticeably telegraphed -- way to keep Tomie from coming back into their lives, but the writers aren't ready to let the end credits roll just yet.

Even though this was titled as the 'final chapter', 2 more apparently worse films would later follow. The organ music score almost sounds like intentionally lost throwaway tracks from Argento's "Inferno".

6/10 (I give a 7/10 to the first half and a 5/10 for the comic relief sidetrack)

The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006 TV Movie)

Everything that is wrong with modern holiday TV movies

[2/10 · 11 December 2006]

I just got done watching this and boy was it awful.

Another person commented that because they were an extra, they know what a great movie it is. You can be an extra in a film and be somewhat unaware of what a hideous misfire it is. Furthermore, having a bit part in a film often colors your thoughts on the film because few people want to announce to the world that they were in a film that was a complete piece of garbage.

This film exemplifies the things that make these made-for-TV holiday instant classic wannabes the Mr.Hankey-fests that they are. The plot and dialogue were rubbish. The 'updating' of the concept fails where so many others fail equally, by trying to make something sooo modern and sooo faux-clever or jaded that they miss the mark by miles and fail to realize what made those Christmas classics into holiday staples in the first place. It's not just because they're old and people remember them nostalgically, it's because they connect with the audience and actually resonate where the modern TV movie wannabes don't. Ah yes, Santa Inc is corporate and has silly contractual obligations that would put Kattan's elf with delusions of grandeur into position as a potential substitute Extreme Santa when said CEO considers taking the year off. You want to satirize litigious happy America and its corporate culture? Fine, but do so in an entertaining and well-scripted way, don't fall back on the same tired modern cliché jokes that have failed so many other recent productions. There are some talented cast members and a director with some proved past hits, but everything misses the mark this time out. The pranksters over at South Park can make a more endearing family-friendly holiday special than this.

If you are a fan of the classic Rankin Bass 'Animagic' stop-motion animated special of the same name, you will most likely want to avoid this like a bad fruitcake given you by a distant relative. It will only weigh heavy in your stomach afterwards without providing you any real delight or enjoyment. There isn't laughter or a heart-warming smile to be found from watching this, just stomach-churning groans and indigestion. The list of Christmas films in the past decade that might go on to become beloved classics is short indeed. This TV movie has earned itself a place on the other list...to receive a lump of coal on Christmas morning.

The Road to Fort Alamo (1964)

La Strada per mal melodrama

[5/10 · 4 November 2006]

I've only seen each of the 3 Bava spaghetti westerns once (neither among his best work or his preferred genre), but I disagree with many people who considered Nebraska Jim to be a better film. Strictly from an entertainment sense, Arizone Bill (La Strada per Fort Alamo) held my interest noticeably better (though admittedly the copy of Nebraska Jim that I saw had severely distraction issues with audio). While Nebraska Jim seemed like a mostly cookie cutter extended western TV show episode you'd expect to see on American TV, Arizona Bill was more like a 2nd rate Good Bad and Ugly wannabe with its stolen civil war funds plot line and a group of criminals that ranges from a couple of more 'decent' people who are criminals to outright despicable violent ones. It was just slightly different enough to make it more interesting to me and it felt more like a Bava film. Maybe if I rewatch these films a few more times I'll notice things I've overlooked which will explain others' preferences, but I'm a bit skeptical that that will happen.

It's not the greatest or most original film, but it kept me entertained and my biggest complaint is with regards to the 'romantic' subplot and its cheesy accompanying music (at least on the copy I saw, I'm not sure if it was or wasn't the original music used). Bava isn't always at his best when trying to provide romance/love interests to his films. Black Sunday (La Maschera del demonio) is IMHO the quintessential Italian Gothic horror film and a favorite of mine, but even his admirers have to admit that in that great film, the 'undying love' of the young Dr. Gorobec for Katia -- whom he has just met one day previous -- is a bit silly and one-dimensional and at times almost laughably overly melodramatic. I took off one point for the botched romance portions of Arizona Bill, though I did like it overall more than Nebraska which ended up with the same 5/10 score from me.

The copy of the film I saw was an English language widescreen version from an old somewhat glitchy videotape source with a runtime closer to the USA or German cuts. I'm not sure what was excised from the original 90 minute cut listed on IMDb and maybe when TL's big Bava book comes out it will tell us what is or isn't missing from the cut I saw, but I hope one of the cult DVD companies (like Image, Anchor Bay or Blue Underground) pick up both this title and "Nebraska Jim" sometime in the near future to provide Bava's fans with a good legitimate uncut DVD release with the best transfer possible considering whatever film elements exist. I'm sure the underrated director's fans would welcome quality releases of all his films, even the lesser known and hard to find ones where Mario took over directorial duties from a previous director leaving a project.

Eko Eko Azarak: Misa the Dark Angel (1998)

A new Misa and director for the film series brings a less interesting film than the previous two.

[5/10 · 27 August 2006]

I have never read the 70's manga by Shinichi Koga, so I cannot say how well the film follows its source.

I enjoyed the first 2 films in the series much more than this and feel it is missing director Shimako Sato's touch. This film is possibly less scary than its predecessors. Atmosphere? Not so much, I also don't think cheesy lumbering people in cloaks is all that scary as done in this film, they look more like a group of Jawas who are tall enough to form a basketball team. The film might be less action-packed than EEA2, it sure felt like it at times.

Combine the schoolgirls-in-peril in an institution of learning with a witchcraft-obsessed founder of "Suspiria" with the dimensional doors to dangerous forest real estate of "Troll" and add a handful of names referenced from H.P. Lovecraft Cliff Notes and you have this film. It might be as good as Troll but is far beneath the others I've referenced. At times it has more action than the first EEA film, but they have replaced Kimika Yoshino as Misa Kuroi (of EEA 1 & 2) with Hinako Saeki (Sadako from the mediocre Ring Spiral film "Rasen"), who had played the role the previous year in the EEA TV series.

The surgeon uncle apparently from the manga series has his first appearance in the film series. Misa goes off to join a drama club after catching sight of their script and surprise surprise, someone around there has been dabbling in black magic and must be stopped.

Mentioning the names of some Elder Gods from Lovecraft isn't going to get me all in a tizzy; anyone can make meaningless references to the Elder Gods in a film without doing anything interesting with the Cthulhu Mythos. The most mediocre of Stuart Gordon's HPL-inspired films is better than this. Likewise having a bevy of cute schoolgirls does not a good movie make. The sentimental moments of the drama club girls walking around 'bonding' towards the start of the film with lame cheesy background music did not help create a mood for the film and almost put me to sleep. The producers also tried to add implied lesbianism back to the film series (sans the nudity of said sequences in the first film) in a failed attempt to titillate the audience. The absence of those scenes from EEA2 actually helped that movie by making it seem less like cheap exploitation gimmickry. Overall, this film is less satisfying than even the first one. I rate them in the following order from best to worst: EEA2, EEA1, EEA3.

Tokyo Shock's DVD is also seriously lacking in special features whereas the other 2 films both had a 'making of' feature, recent updated interviews and theatrical trailer and film premiere clip, possibly because no one cared much about EEA3 to bother producing said materials. They didn't even retain the original Japanese ending credits for the EEA3 DVD.

***SPOILER WARNING*** I love when movie trailers try to make the film's plot seem bigger and more important than it is, like 'the future of the whole world is at stake'. A homunculus wanting to be human and planning to brutally kill off 7 girls to pursue those ends may be a tragedy, but it isn't going to end the world as we know it. Whether or not you are a fan of it, Lovecraft's work was often about cosmic horror that could have wide-ranging effect over the entire human populace in the event that the Elder Gods decided to turn their attention to our rather insignificant (to them) existence. Killing seven people and turning a female Pinocchio into a real boy isn't the kind of thing I imagine the Elder Gods bothering with and it's a bit insulting to throw them into this plot in such a lame way, even Lucifer would probably have more important things to do on his daily itinerary, like toying mercilessly with Dudley Moore's love life.

Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth of the Wizard (1996)

Prequel has more action and is an improvement on the first film.

[6/10 · 27 August 2006]

I have never read the 70's manga by Shinichi Koga, so I cannot say how well the film follows its source.

STORY: This film is a prequel to the first one. This time around, Misa Kuroi is just a normal schoolgirl hanging out at her parent-less house (they're abroad). She's drinking with her friends, totally unaware of her powers, when tragedy comes into her life and she is mercilessly hunted by an evil witch desiring her power. Her friends are killed by a body jumping unstoppable force (think "The Hidden", but with a resurrected witch substituted for the alien life-force) and she must go on the run while she is endlessly pursued. A wizard tells her of a village of witches that was slaughtered back in the 1880's and informs her of her occult powers and the reason she is being hunted by this evil resurrected witch as he tries to protect her (against both her pursuer and her own flawed judgment).

Like EEA: Wizard of Darkness, EEA II: Birth of the Wizard it is still a relationship film with horror/occult elements, but this is quite a bit more action-packed and involves many more location shoots than its predecessor despite a limited budget. There is also a lot more spell casting involved this time and some decent FX considering the budget. Kimika Yoshino returned in the role and director Shimako Sato returns as well for a film that I found more entertaining than the first installment. I also thought the lack of any lesbian schoolgirl subplot this time around helped remove the cheesy sleaze element and let us concentrate on the story better.

***SPOILER WARNING*** It was interesting to see Misa before she becomes the powerful yet somewhat inept witch. After watching all 3 films, I have to say that Misa Kuroi seems to be the type of character who triumphs over evil…once everyone else around her is already dead. I wonder if the manga was the same way. Sure, it keeps the story going longer, but doesn't give you too much confidence in her abilities to help others, now does it?

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (1995)

Enjoyable low budget Japanese splatter/occult movie

[5/10 · 27 August 2006]

I have never read the 70's manga by Shinichi Koga, so I cannot say how well the film follows its source.

I first saw this a decade ago on a Japanese grocery store rental tape without subtitles, but this first film had such a straightforward minimal plot that a full translation wasn't really necessary to follow the story. After seeing it subtitled, I feel the same way I felt back then: It's a decent low budget splatter film with witchcraft elements which seems to have spent the bulk of its budget in about 3 minutes of CG SFX scenes at the end of the film. Almost the entire film takes place in the school, but the limited setting doesn't hurt the film.

It's a pretty decent low budget film, but as the director stated is basically more of a relationship film with a horror backdrop than a typical horror film. I liked Kimika Yoshino in the lead role and thought she wasn't bad for a gravure model turned first time actress. Miho Kanno plays her new friend who shows her around school. You may recognize her from her role a few years later as the first Tomie. Prolific actress/voice actress Ryouka Yuzuki (aka Kanori Kadomatsu / Ayumi Nagashii) plays a schoolgirl who is having a lesbian affair with the teacher played by Mio Takaki (an actress from a few Ultraman films). The lesbian affair and its resulting nudity seems to be an idea of the producers to appeal to the exploitation audience and really doesn't add anything to the film.

STORY: Misa Kuroi is a witch who battle the forces of darkness and tries to protect the innocent, not that she has too good a track record for saving her friends, as she readily admits. Unfortunately for her, the trail of deaths left in her path makes some see her as an evil occult murderer, when in fact she just goes where the danger happens to be. She's somewhat of a victim of circumstance in this regard. She transfers in to a new school where five local murders have made a pentagram of blood and now an evil cult plans to kill off 13 more hapless victims to bring Lucifer into the world to obtain his powers. A group of students has to stay after school to retake a test and is trapped inside, trying to escape what seems to be a certain and rather messy death at the hands of an unknown enemy. The resident 'goth' kid has read some books about magic and decides Misa's knowledge makes her the number one suspect.

Sadly, the subtitlers at Tokyo Shock have an issue with consistency as they use at least 2 or 3 noticeably different spellings for the 3rd line of the Eko Eko Azarak chant. Luckily, the DVD is packed with extras.

The Queen of Spades (1949)

Best Film nominee my arse! Cinematography and acting can't save this overrated film from a dumb plot points and stupid characters.

[6/10 · 18 August 2006]

Yes, the cinematography is quite good and the cast includes some respected actors and its from a Pushkin short story, hopefully the source did a better job of telling the story. It's a good concept, but I wasn't overly impressed with the execution. The film had some annoying plot points that weighed this film down and which may or may not be attributed to the source material.

I didn't like any of the characters the least bit, so I hope I wasn't supposed to. I couldn't begin to feel sorry for young Lizaveta Ivanova being willingly under the thumb of a truly obnoxious rich old crone who had apparently sold not only her soul to the devil, but her personality as well. I can't imagine too many people really missing Old Countess Ranevskaya when she died, she was like the poster child for why some young people neither like nor respect their elders. She was a grumpy unlikable old control freak only slightly less annoying than Tallulah Bankhead's religious freak in Hammer's "Die! Die! My Darling!". Anton Walbrook did a good job of portraying Suvorin, the gambler who doesn't want to actually gamble anything. He's a man who is looking to sell his soul to gain wealth and power, yet by his actions he seems to be lacking one to bargain with.

***SPOILER ALERT*** Here are some stupid plot points that helped kill this film for me: #1- Oh no, she has found the secret staircase behind the bookshelf! Where is the key, I must find it! Big.F-ing.Deal. So there's a secret staircase, with which she could do what…escape your royal annoyingness forever by slipping out through the room that you rarely seem to leave? If she could leave by that door she could just as easily walk out the front door and get herself a life of her own. I can't see why the secret room should be such a big deal if it has no treasure hidden within it, which seems to be the case since no one found anything other than a staircase concealed there. It only seems to exist to give Savorin an escape route later in the film. Yes, the look she gives Savorin as he exits the bookcase is a nice shot.

#2- The ending scene of the Faro game created good tension, but ended rather stupidly. The mysteriously changing Faro card: This could be pretty eerie if it made any sense. So we are to assume the old woman did it from beyond her grave? Would the devil she sold her soul to really care to help her shortchange another wishing to sell his soul for the same secret? If I want to watch a movie centering around a deck of playing cards, I think I'll go watch the superior original "Manchurian Candidate" again.

#3- The happy sappy crappy ending with the birds. If Ivanova wanted a real happy ending much earlier, she could have freed herself from the cage she allowed herself to be in.

Somehow this overrated film was nominated for the BAFTA for Best British film the same year that Carol Reed's great "The Third Man" deservedly won it. The only other film also nominated that year that I had heard of was "Kind Hearts and Coronets". "Queen of Spades" was produced by Anatole de Grunwald whom the movie trailer on the DVD tells me also produced other 'great' films which I have not seen and as such I am expected to assume that this film must then be some must-see masterpiece. This wouldn't be the first or the last time that a producer made an acclaimed film and followed it with a mediocre overrated picture.

This pretty costume drama of a film meandered around boring me for a while, then gave me a bad romance between a stupidly smitten girl and conniving man and adds a third to the triangle with a boring character and after the death of an obnoxious old woman concludes with a tense, but ultimately ridiculous card game.

Do you really want good 'slow burn Brit horror'? Watch the 1973 "The Wicker Man" instead.

Dick (1999)

Ri-Dick-ulous premise and stupid fun. The most (previously unknown) facts-filled bonanza this side of Wikipedia.

[6/10 · 10 August 2006]

THE HIGH CONCEPT: Two high school girls use cookies and charisma to advise Nixon to end the Vietnam War & get caught up in Watergate. Someone must have been eating a batch of those Hello Dollies when they wrote this script! If they'd had more foresight, they should've known that there was pot in the cookies, what would you expect if they were baked by the girl who went on to play the role of 'Mary Jane' Watson.

Not only does this film suggest Nixon would pull out of Vietnam at the urging of schoolgirls and had knowledge of Watergate scandal, but even more frightening for the American public to think about was his taste in television programs: We see him watching "Love American Style" at one point.

Wondering what type of film this is? There is a moment in the film where one of the female leads shouts out, "Alright, I love Dick!" in a public crowd. That alone should tell you a lot about what type of historical film this is. It was directed by Andrew Fleming, the man who brought us the teenage witches film "The Craft", which tried to retread a 'Lost Boys' type 'new kid in town meets supernatural' plot.

The film stars Michelle Williams and the lovely Kirsten Dunst as the presidential dog walkers who become youth advisors to Tricky Dick. Will Ferrell and Bruce from 'Kids in the Hall' paint Woodward and Bernstein in a different light for us and we are provided a new take on exactly why there was 18 minutes missing off Nixon's infamous tape recordings. Dave Foley from 'KitH' also appears in the film. It's pretty funny at times and not a bad way to kill an hour and a half, but there are better movies.

Häxan (1922)

This should be required viewing in all high schools in America along with reading Miller's "The Crucible"

[9/10 · 8 August 2006]

I think we should also show people Michael Reeves' "Witchfinder General", a film about the brutality of a sadistic and cruel officially-sanctioned witch hunter in Britain. Though I admit that film may be considered a bit too graphic by some, hey so was the harsher 'Passion of the Christ' and people thought that was okay to show younger people because it's message was important. "Haxan" and "Witchfinder General" are important films for pointing out the dangers of intolerance, jealousy of your neighbors and the insanity caused by mass hysteria and people bowing down to the status quo when an 'authority' is obviously in the wrong and seems 'hell bent' on increasing human suffering.

It's vital to learn from the mistakes of history so as not to repeat them. In a current world often at wars connected to conflicting fundamentalist religious beliefs, and an environment where people are quick to want to persecute others for having different religious views from their own, it's important to remember a time (which I call the Age of Unreason) when religion went very wrong and church elders were complicit in the deaths of (what has been estimated in the) millions of men, women and children. Much of this was due to fear and/or hatred of anyone who looked or thought different than you. The extremists in any religion can potentially allow things to go too far in the wrong direction. The enemy isn't religion, but atrocities committed under the banner of religion.

Christensen's classic silent film (pronounced 'Heck-sen') was indeed controversial back in its initial release and many might still find it controversial today because of its indictment of elders of the goodly church. A church that in this case was definitely in the wrong. Many accusers were common people who wanted to be rid of enemies or were fearful of others or just plain loony, but the church helped foster an environment of superstition and an overwhelming paranoia that evil incarnate and its sworn agents were waiting around every corner. (Ouch! I stubbed my big toe. I couldn't possibly take responsibility for my own actions and consider that I might have been temporarily clumsy so I must have been bewitched!).

Some modern audiences may have a bit of difficulty getting through the film (as they might with many silent films). We've become quite accustomed to 'talkies' by now and its odd to look back at that bygone silent era if you've never done so before. The director himself and others (including critics like Ebert) have said that silent films work great for horror's nightmare landscape where excessive dialogue or explanations could get in the way of the unsettling mood. The director (who played the role of the devil in this film) also said that Haxan wouldn't have been effective if the devil would have spoken in the film, it's better for viewers to imagine that for themselves. This Scandinavian film is beautifully shot despite containing some none-too-pretty images. Well-crafted sets and lighting and a cast ranging from established actors of the day (in their country) to amateur unknowns does a good job overall in bringing the recreations to life. The scene of the witches' broomstick flight is a well-done special effect for the time.

Haxan is in a documentary format with dramatic recreations of the witch accusing and torturing to obtain confessions and includes stuff right out of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' (that infamously repulsive 1480's witch hunters' handbook of choice written by two Dominican monks who had previous papal sanction to hunt witches and whose writings in the 'MM' embraced highly sadistic methods). It starts with discussing primitive belief systems about the nature of the world and proceeds to discuss the types of women accused of witchcraft and the progression to their sham of a trial/interrogation/torture session and their execution, often by burning. There is some great iconic horror film imagery contained in Haxan where it seems to interpret those olde tyme artistic depictions of witches and their alleged Sabbaths. The type of imagery that bored priests sat around envisioning and dreaming up back in those days. It's ironic that ultra-religious types complain the most about horror films when some of their former religious leaders long ago helped to dream up some of the visions later contained in horror films.

Haxan reminds us that alleged 'witches' were people like: folk medicine practitioners, old impoverished women with physical deformations, or simply women that someone else had a disagreement with and figured would be easy to dispatch of by accusing her of what was considered that worst of crimes. People were quick to condemn anyone they saw as different from themselves and accusation of being a witch was the same as a conviction and death sentence, the interrogation/trial was really just a formality where they would torture you to coerce a false confession and get you to name other witches, who would then also be condemned to death. To paraphrase and old hair product commercial a few decades ago: 'You name 20 witch friends and they name 20 witch friends and so on and so on…'. This led to the senseless death of millions of people.

The last part of the film takes place in more contemporary enlightened times (early 1920s) and basically states that we've come a long way and that in more modern times hysterical or different people are simply put in sanitariums. Yay us! We've come so far… *cough*

The Criterion disc I watched also contained the 1968 version where the film was re-edited and given a (horribly out of place) jazz score and voice-over narration by William S. Burroughs replacing most of the inter-titles.

It's not a typical new-fangled blockbuster Hollywood film full of explosions and car chases, but it is worth seeing if just to remind us of the dangers of what mankind is capable of doing. Man's inhumanity to man (and woman) indeed!

Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy (2005 Video)

WATCH HIS FILMS FIRST! This documentary on a great filmmaker contains major spoilers on his films best moments.

[8/10 · 8 August 2006]

The contribution made by Val Lewton and his group to horror films is quite important in the history of the genre and this documentary has some big names of that genre telling you why.

For the uninitiated it might be a double edged sword. Watching this WILL tell you why you really need to see his 9 horror films made for RKO if you are truly interested in the genre (and probably even if you aren't considering how his films strayed from the traditional formula for horror films at that time at studios like Universal). The problem is that if you watch this documentary before seeing any of the films in it (most specifically 'Leopard Man', 'Seventh Victim') you will undermine the effect a few of those films' best scenes could have had on you in their first viewing. It even gives away the ending of 'Seventh Victim'.

This film does a good job of pointing out why Lewton's films are still effective when others of the period seem dated and tells you how much these films have helped to influence others working in the horror genre. It could be argued that the things discussed in the documentary could just as easily be stated in a good book about Lewton, but its nice to see some big names in horror saying them (writers like Richard Matheson and Neil Gaiman, directors like George A. Romero and William 'Exorcist' Friedkin, etc.).

I recommend watching this but only after seeing the films it discusses. Since it was made as part of a DVD set of Lewton's 9 horror films, you probably have those movies with you anyways, so please watch them first. Watching this first is almost like popping in a DVD of a movie you've never seen and watching the commentary track before you've even seen the film.

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Leni and Veidt bring us one of the great triumphs of silent cinema, a silent film which actually holds your interest instead of putting you to sleep.

[9/10 · 3 August 2006]

Conrad Veidt (the somnambulist Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) is brilliant as Gwynplaine, delivering a great performance without being able to use the expressions of his mouth, its movement being greatly restricted by the effects makeup. For him the emotion truly is 'all in the eyes' here and he does a fantastic job of making us feel for this character. Paul Leni shows us his talent as a director and storyteller and we are shown a veritable 'cast of thousands' in this big budget extravaganza. You may also recognize the actress playing Dea as Mary Philbin from Universal's 1925 Phantom of the Opera.

The MovieTone soundtrack synchronization made this a step up from old silent film scores as it adds things like sound effects and crowd noises. Jack Pierce may be one of the unsung heroes/saviors of this production. The studio first envisioned this as a talkie, but I think it is lucky for us that they scrapped that idea (as I will explain in the next paragraph).

Pierce's makeup work for surgically disfigured main character Gwynplaine involved a set of dentures with wires holding the smile wide and thereby making delivery of dialogue by actor Conrad Veidt nearly impossible. This helped in two ways: Firstly, even if he could've spoken despite the makeup Veidt would've spoken with a strong Germanic accent and may have still needed to suffer the injustice of his dialogue being dubbed by another actor. Secondly, after reading a seemingly endless excerpt of the original ending from the Hugo novel on the DVD, I would fear trudging through the novel if it is as filled with endless repetitive blathering speeches by the characters. The inclusion of long, repetitive speeches would've dragged the pace of this movie down like an anchor (like some of Terry Goodkind's later Sword of Truth books, which similarly contained speeches where characters basically said the same exact thing over and over for pages upon pages). Without the lengthy tedious speeches, the film moves along better and draws us to the charismatic character of Gwynplaine instead of making us annoyed with him the way the novel excerpt did in my opinion. A really good film or story needs to be able to trust the audience to figure things out and understand without needing to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer or have everything spelled out for them in giant neon signs.

STORY: Gwynplaine was the son of a British Lord who was taken by his father's enemies and sent off to the gypsy Comanchicos who performed cruel surgical work, which involved cutting his face to give him a permanent exaggerated smile. Young Gwynplaine rescues a blind baby from the harsh winter and they are taken in by Ursus. When they grow up, he and the lovely Dea are on the road doing traveling shows with Ursus. Dead has grown to love the gentle and caring Gwynplaine without ever seeing his face. It is soon discovered that Gwynplaine is a rightful heir to his father's position in society, but how will this affect his and Dea's lives and what effect will the royal court and Lords have on his life assuming they would ever accept him as one of their own? INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: Whether or not Gwynplaine's look in this film influenced the character design of (Batman's nemesis) The Joker has been disputed by some, as has the claim that Bob Kane himself created that comic book villain (it may have been the work of one of his assistants), but the similarities are rather striking and the possibility has helped to bring more people to see this great film.

A brilliant film that I highly recommend!

Zombie Beach Party (2003 Video)

No more luchador infested zombie movies, PLEASE! Por el amor de dios.

[2/10 · 1 August 2006]

'Enter…Plaga Zombie 1.5' could be an alternate title since it could almost be a missing higher no-budgeted spin-off from that series. Actually, the 2nd Plaga Zombie movie was better than this. Ugh…will someone please stop this sub-genre! Did people learn nothing from the Santo film series? I'm sure there will be some people who love luchadores and may find camp humor here to enjoy, but it's a bad film that acts like its based off a non-existent comic book. I'm tired of watching luchador fanboys fawn over wrestlers in low budget zombie films; it gives me flashbacks to that John West theme song… (Zombie completionists will know what I'm talking about).

Ulysses, the 'hero' of the film drives around in his car continuously spouting 'I'm in my freshman year of college' philosophy quotes to the audience in an attempt to lull us into sleep, which he hopes we will awaken from having dreamt that this was a good film. Another reviewer tried to compare it to Bruce Campbell's narration in Don Coscarelli's "Bubba Ho-Tep", but there's a bit of a difference in that Ho-Tep was a brilliant film and this is cheesy garbage. Then there's Tiki and his wrestling zombies, which may or may not have killed some local civilians. There are several other wrestlers including bad guys, but you probably won't care.

Being a luchador film, we get to see these idiots running around with their masks constantly on (as is the luchador fashion rage) in an attempt to save on film-making down time due to hair and makeup crew and to save the 'actors' from having to actually emote. I wasn't sure if the acting was bad and the dialogue delivery was stilted intentionally to reinforce the cheese factor or if that was a lack of ability on the part of those cast in the roles. Looking through the credits, several of the cast members names seemed to be aliases, making me wonder if they didn't want anyone to know that they were in this film.

There were some nods to other horror films and filmmakers including: Ulysses at one point holds onto a book entitled 'Zombies: An Authoritative Study – Collected Edition compiled by Dr. G. Andrew Romero and Dr. Clifford Ruttle'. There's also a dialogue reference to Tod Browning's "Freaks" (take a wild guess what 3 word phrase a crowd shouts repeatedly).

THE PLOT: To bore me to death and cure insomnia once and for all… (wait, that was the filmmakers plot). The film's plot is: Our fearless wrestling heroes have to stop a plot involving genetically engineered zombies and a zombie breeding scheme involving human incubators in Zombie King and friends' bid to take over the world -- all while running around looking like bargain basement trick-or-treaters.

MAKEUP: basic low-budget zombie makeup with decent low-budget gore fx.

FEASTING: Yeah kinda DE-ANIMATION METHODS: cabesa removal CONTAGION LEVEL: I couldn't exactly tell if the victims turned into zombies themselves, but at least one did. There was mention of a way to turn people into zombies by forcing them to drink zombie blood.

The reported budget for this film according to IMDb, makes it about 9 times the budget of "Clerks", thereby proving that having a good script can do things for the quality of a low budget film that throwing a little more money onto the screen and watching it burn could not do for this film. I have seen several dozen zombie films and EZK rates pretty low.

This film is recommended only for zombie completionists and for devotees of the fake and annoying sport known as pro wrestling.

Invisible Invaders (1959)

Atomic Age aliens create army of the walking dead to conquer Earth! Cue the retro sci-fi Cheese-o-tron!

[5/10 · 1 August 2006]

I have to admit this was fun to watch despite how ridiculously silly it was or maybe because of that. This isn't a zombie movie in the modern sense, but a sci-fi alien offshoot of the mind-controlled zombies out of the voodoo genre. It's a big slice of black & white American cheese all the way which seems to use a lot of disaster stock footage for invasion scenes that involve conventional sabotage, but it manages to be pretty entertaining anyways.

The director also made 50's sci-fi movie "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (which helped inspire lots of trapped on a spaceship with a creature film, including "Alien") and the swimming zombified sailors guarding buried treasure film "Zombies of Mora Tau" (which I still haven't seen yet as of writing this review).

THE PLOT: A scientist ditches out on his gov't job because he opposes nukes. A fellow scientist killed in an experiment walks up to his house and has a chat with him, but its not his friend. It's an alien who is none too happy with where out technological advancements are headed (reaching nuclear technology and space travel) and the threat they could pose to their outer space alien race and they want us to surrender or die (this was a common sci-fi plot thread back in the day). They are apparently invisible as are their spaceships awaiting us at their hidden base on the moon and the aliens can take over corpses and walk around in them sabotaging our planet. It's a race against time for the scientists to find a method to combat the alien menace before the walking dead breach the military bunker.

It doesn't have a lot of the elements of modern zombie films like gut munching or turning from being bitten (though the aliens will inhabit your body if you are killed), but it's kinda fun and has some good silly quotes. So bad you might think it's good 50's sci-fi fun.

Zombie Lake (1981)

Father/daughter subplot is only reason to watch unless you're doing a doctoral thesis on the worst zombie films ever, in which case this is a necessary pit stop.

[2/10 · 1 August 2006]

This film can get pretty amusing at times in its ridiculousness. I gave it an extra point just for the subplot which while silly was an unusual touch that added something to this otherwise awful film.

Zombie fans often list this film as THE WORST zombie film ever (Jess Franco's Nazi zombie film "Oasis of the Zombies" is similarly categorized for its awfulness). There are equally bad and even worse zombie films, as hard as it may be to believe if you haven't seen them before this (shot on video backyard films like "Stink of Flesh" or Super8mm epics like "Dead Life" come to mind). Jean Rollin made a better not-quite-zombie story with the tainted vineyard plague film "Grapes of Death" which I recommend over this and which had vague similarity to Romero's "The Crazies". If you want a decent Nazi zombies film, check out Ken 'RotLD2' Wiederhorn's "Shock Waves" instead.

Now back to the bad movie at hand: This is a low point for Jean Rollin, a well-known Eurotrash filmmaker who made some visually interesting and atmospheric films, of which this is not one. The overwhelming amount of nudity here seems fairly typical for him (he did make some lesbian vampire films, after all) but the atmosphere does not remind me of other work of his I have seen. It took me a couple sittings to make it through this garbage, but it did have its moments. How many times have you seen zombies attempt hand to hand combat, even using a knife? Sadly there are not enough of these painfully silly moments to rescue this film to the 'so bad its good' list.

ZOMBIE MAKEUP: green hands & face paint with movie blood, which often washes off in underwater scenes which seem to be shot in a swimming pool with a greenish curtain backdrop.

DE-ANIMATION METHOD: Napalm them to dust with a flamethrower! ZOMBIE FEASTING?: these are what I call 'necking zombies'. They don't feast in traditional Romero or O'Bannon sense; they simply chew at necks and drink blood like they are pretend vampires. Their victims, however, do NOT turn into zombies.

STORY: During the OP credits we see an attractive woman strip down for a skinny dip in a lake like a bad attempt to recreate a scene out of 'Jaws' or 'Piranha'. She ignores a warning sign by knocking it over. It's not a simple 'no swimming' sign mind you, but a skull and crossbones that would seem to indicate some reasonable level of danger. Needless to say, she gets killed by a zombie. Another village woman gets killed and her father pays the mayor a visit wanting it investigated.

The mayor tells a visiting reporter about the haunted lake with some mumbo jumbo about black magic sacrifices being done there and Nazis killed by the local resistance whose bodies were dumped there for hiding. Now the Nazis are back as zombies killing locals.

A van packed with a girls' basketball team strips down for full frontal underwater footage (while indescribably bad cheesy music plays) and the girls are attacked by zombies whose makeup is coming off almost as quick as the girls' clothes did. Inept horror movie cops are dispatched to investigate.

***WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD*** There's a young girl whose daddy was a German soldier killed in a local battle right after her mommy died in her childbirth. Now daddy comes back from his watery grave to meet her and protects her from other zombies including being attacked by a knife-wielding zombie. Yes, you read that right! The zombies also attack villagers with sideways karate chops. Go figure.

Enlisted to help solve the locals' walking dead problem, the zombie's daughter asks for a whole lotta blood to set a trap for them, but she wants her daddy spared. Her guardian convinces her that daddy zombie WANTS to die (probably to escape from being trapped in this awful movie). During the final zombie rampage through town, the reporter follows a movie tradition of stupidly needing to get that all-important photo shot.

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

Recommended only for the zombie film historical completist. If you want to see voodoo zombies, watch "White Zombie" or "I Walked with a Zombie" instead.

[2/10 · 1 August 2006]

"Revolt of the Zombies" proves that having the same director revamp and recycle an idea doesn't necessarily make lightning strike twice.

The Halperin brothers, responsible for the horror classic "White Zombie", made this trite piece of garbage a mere few years later to cash in on its popularity and even recycled close-ups of Lugosi's eyes from that previous film. There was a court battle with the "White Zombie" film's rights owners, who didn't want the Halperins to be able to use the word 'zombie' in this title. That word was the only thing that could help this film, because, as everyone knows, bad films can make much more money simply by having the word 'Zombie' appear in the title. Knowing what Victor Halperin was capable of a few years before only makes this uninteresting film more insulting. It seems he never directed another horror film after this debacle. The zombies here seem not to be true walking dead, but simply hypnotism victims.

Wanna create a mind-controlled army of zombies? Be ready to crack a few eggs, including your own.

THE LAME PLOT: Man falls in love with scheming woman who plays with his heart and becomes engaged to him only to make his friend, whom she loves, jealous. This sends man into a spiral of madness in which he tries using zombie mind-control techniques to change things to his advantage in an attempt to win over a woman who isn't worth spit.

This includes one of the most blatantly obvious plot developments I've ever seen. You'd have to be blind or stupid not to see the ending coming. The acting isn't even good. This movie makes the racially insensitive "King of the Zombies" (which appeared on the same double bill DVD I bought) seems like an atmospheric horror masterpiece by comparison and reminds us that not every black and white film is a classic. It makes the atomic age sci-fi alien zombie cheese fest "Invisible Invaders" seem like a serious drama. This is one big ball of cheese so ridiculously melodramatic it could probably make many a Korean film fan twitch (South Korean films are often known for their use of melodrama). The credits list the ironically named company Favorite Films. I'm not sure whose favorite film this would be, but they're obviously an idiot.

Not recommended for fans of: zombies, romance, or classic films.

King of the Zombies (1941)

Voodoo zombies and racial stereotypes abound in this horror comedy; "It's feeding time and dey likes dark meat"

[6/10 · 1 August 2006]

This old school voodoo zombie film was made during Hollywood's horror spoof cycle, so the comedic elements take over instead of giving us a great horror movie. This actually had potential, but goofy Hollywood at that time dropped the ball on the horror genre for a good decade or two. This is even a decade before the Abbott and Costello ruin Universal Monsters series.

Mantan Moreland, with his reactions and comedic timing, steals the movie as a central character here, the colored servant in this film made in racist comedy times. Dey's lotsa racial stereotype humor here dat's sad looking back at Hollywood's historical treatment of da black man, but entertaining due to a great performance by a black man in a white man's film where the company Monogram gave him fairly high billing in the credits. I'm sure at the time it was thought to be hilarious, but it's hard to look at films of that time the same way in more recent enlightened times. Despite the political incorrectness, Moreland's comedic talent is evident and zombie fans will find there are some fun quotes here about the walking dead.

STORY: Government man's plane crash-lands on island while searching for a missing Admiral during WWII. They stay at the mansion of a 'doctor'; a house that the man's black servant thinks is crawling with voodoo zombies. They initially dismiss his superstitions while searching for a 2-way radio, but things with their host start getting mighty suspicious and they realize he might be right.

DE-ANIMATION METHODS: Apparently if a zombie eats salt they 'dries up and gets dead again', so zombies eat bland food.

There is some good atmosphere here and it could've made a credible horror film, but it still works as a good (if somewhat dated) comedy starring a great performer whom was later criticized for making a career out of playing up racial stereotypes. I recommend the movie mostly for his performance; just take it with a grain of salt… I also recommended this for voodoo zombie fans; just go in knowing it's a comedy.

The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

Not surprisingly, I had some major issues with the 'Dupes of Jacka$$' film. The film was much more stupid and less fun than it should have been.

[3/10 · 30 July 2006]

I should probably see the first couple of Dukes TV episodes again to see if the movie strayed as far as it felt it did from the TV source. The General Plot didn't see too far off from the typical silly plots of the old show, but I didn't care for most of the casting and re-envisioning of the characters. It just didn't feel like the Dukes to me. It made me long for the *cough* higher quality of the franchise during the days of Coy and Vance Duke. Hollywood needs to spend less time trying to make comedies that make fun of old TV shows, especially TV series of the action packed variety. It's like Hollywood is saying everything we watched as kids was pointlessly stupid and that they intend to urinate on those shows by making a mocking comedic remake to prove their point. The 'Charlie's Angels' films were bad to the extent that they became entertaining. 'Dukes' did not fare so well...

SNL's Dave Koechner (sp?) actually seemed one of the better cast actors. I seem to remember John Schneider being cool as Bo back in the day (I'm curious to hear his opinion on this mess), but SWmScott came off as an idiotic guy who wanted to own the car from the SNL fake CM where people have sex with a port in the rear end. It's alright to love your car, just don't LOVE your car. He seemed more like a ridiculous caricature than a character. Knoxville was just a Jackass much of the time and the safe riding scene seemed like a winking reference to something someone would actually do on his show. Jessica Simpson, as pretty much previously reported seems to be there just as eye candy. Not that I expected her to contribute much besides her looks, Paris Hilton gave a better performance in "House of Wax". Forget the whether or not Daisy should be a blonde question. More importantly, the movie version made Daisy look like a moron, Catherine Bach played her a bit smarter and more resourceful if I recall. Did the original Jesse spend an inordinate amount of his time telling his nephews limerick type jokes? Roscoe seemed way different and obviously so did the newer less bumbling Boss Hogg (cousin of that Space Fights bounty hunter).

The car and the stunts are the only real reason to watch this "Dupes of Haphazard" film more than once unless you forget what Jessica Simpson's hiney looks like. The making of about the car stunts was interesting to see how they fake out potentially dangerous stuff.

I am guessing that the campus cops are a wink wink nudge nudge reference to Super Troopers due to the director's former resume. I really hope Michael Mann put a scene in the Miami Vice film where Crockett and Tubbs track down a drug dealer only to find it is Daniel Day Lewis or some Mohican or maybe Muhammed Ali or Hannibal Lechter, that'd be sooo cool. Don't even get me started on the lame scene with the joke of how Bo & Luke 'converted' to being Japanese.

COMPLAINT ABOUT NEWER DVD RELEASES that applies to this film: One thing I hate about recent DVD releases in general is apparent with the Dukes dvds. There seem to be 3 versions out there a widescreen unrated, full frame unrated and a full frame theatrical cut. So, if you want widescreen and the original cut you saw in theaters you are basically screwed. The unrated cuts these days seem to be just a marketing ploy and not something more meaningful like a Director's Cut which would restore things to films to possibly make a DVD version of a film more coherent or restore violence cut due to the ratings board. So basically 'unrated' releases are often not what you saw in the theater or what the creative team behind the film wanted you to see, but something put forth thanks to the marketing division to try to sell more dvds. Thanks, DVD companies!

The Creature Wasn't Nice (1981)

The filmmakers here have created a 'comedy' engine that misfires on all cylinders.

[1/10 · 28 July 2006]

This is a prime candidate for worst 'comedy' film ever made.

They came close to screwing up; there were a couple moments where I almost cracked a smile…almost. I have a friend who loves this film. His wife and I are considering having him committed to a sanitarium for just that reason. Neither of us can see what makes this film so amusing to him. At the same time, he can't see the entertainment value of "The Beyond" or "Dellamorte Dellamore" (aka Cemetery Man), two popular cult films.

What's wrong with "Naked Space"? It's not funny; it's uproariously unfunny. The attempts at jokes all fall flat. They even attempt an ill-advised musical number. They say that 'drama is easy, comedy is hard'. This is a textbook example of how badly a comedy film can fail.

The DVD I saw this on was where it was re-titled and called "Naked Space" in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Leslie Nielsen in the entertaining movie parody series "The Naked Gun" (based on the old "Police Squad!" TV series). The idea of this film was to parody old B grade sci-fi creature movies on obviously cheaply made sets. Even "The Seventh Planet", in all its awfulness, did a better job of that while probably attempting to be somewhat serious sci-fi.

Bruce Kimmel has never directed a good movie and probably never will. He helped write the story for Robert Rodriguez's "The Faculty", but it was simply a B grade sci-fi horror film idea that was made into a good film by Rodriguez's direction and a decent cast.

Leslie Nielsen can be very funny in parodies of a variety of film genres. This is not one of those movies. I rate this film only slightly higher than complete failures like such bad Z grade zombie films as "Day of the Dead 2: Contagium" and "Dead Life". The only reason to watch this film is because you lost a bet (and that should put anyone off of gambling). One could be excused for thinking that the cast members appear in this film because they lost a bet with Kimmel.

Run, do not walk, away from your nearest video store to avoid this movie!

Revenge of the Dead (1983)

Not a zombie film, but interesting nonetheless. As The Ramones once sang: "I don't wanna be buried in a..."

[5/10 · 28 July 2006]

Okay so it's not a PET SEMATARY per se, but it is similar in the basic concept. There's certain places of special ground where you can bury people and they will come back...after which they have a tendency to attack the living attack the living. As others have stated, this seems to have pre-dated Stephen King's book.

The DVD I watched was titled "Revenge of the Dead" which seems to be the US version, so an Italian or international cut may exist which could vary somewhat in length and contents. The film is a fairly interesting mystery about a man who gets a typewriter from his woman and happens to look at the used ribbon and stumble upon something which bears amateur investigation. He learns from a professor about certain sites where the dead don't stay down if you bury them.

This is NOT a zombie movie really and the number of people who walk around after they've been buried is rather minimal. We don't really see any zombie type feasting scenes either, so zombie fans might want to pass this one up or go into it knowing what they are getting themselves into. It's not half bad though. I liked the dilapidated sites they found for location shooting, they added to the ambiance.

Plaga zombie (1997 Video)

A review from someone NOT from Argentina: If at first you don't succeed (Skip this one and watch the sequel instead)

[2/10 · 28 July 2006]

I love zombie films, but am reminded far too often of how easy it is for people with no money and even less original ideas to churn out really bad ones. I was recently a one-day background zombie extra in a local low-budget zombie short film where my friend was helping with makeup, but I'm not expecting miracles when I see the final product. Here I will give you a review that isn't influenced by the reviewer being from the same country or even town as the filmmakers. It feels like some of the positive feedback seen on IMDb might be from people who know the filmmakers.

Wow. This is truly of the 'shot-on-video no-budget backyard zombie genre' (plus aliens). This feels like a home movie shot with friends who can't act and that's pretty much what it is. It's still better than "Dead Life", but then again what isn't? It wants to be something like Peter Jackson's "Braindead" (aka Dead Alive) with its gross out fluids and even a lawnmower joke, but the difference is that Peter Jackson had a well-made film with: a funny script, some evidence of a minor budget, people who could act, a crew who had an idea of how to make a film and something resembling a coherent narrative and story that kept your interest. This really has none of those ingredients. The guys behind Plaga Zombie may be fans of Jackson, Rodriguez and Raimi (three cultishly popular directors who've made horror films on small budgets), but in this film they didn't really exhibit a fraction of the talent or ingenuity of those directors. Their sequel was much better and hopefully in time they will improve and provide us fans with something worth watching more than once. I know this was made with no budget, but a good script doesn't take money, just creativity and an ability to write dialogue. This film is lacking a good script. Go watch Rodriguez's short film "Bedhead" to see what can be done with very little resources and a bit of ingenuity.

I tried watching Plaga Zombie once before and gave up halfway through and put my DVD back on the shelf with my other zombie movies. Months later I finally gave the sequel a chance and found it had some merits and decided to try watching this first film again to see where it started. Immature humor can be done well by filmmakers who can write a script well and get the right cast and crew behind them. The excessive amount of childish humor here might seem like really clever stuff if you're in the 7th grade and haven't bothered to discover better low budget films yet, otherwise you'll probably be disappointed. Plaga Zombie only looks a little better than those cheesy home movie short films M. Night Shyamalan made as a kid and sometimes puts on his dvds to show his humble origins.

STORY: Dr. Bill is a med school dropout; I suspect this is not because of the accident they mention, but because of his complete ineptitude to diagnose a patient. His roommate wakes up with his back covered in what appears to be a whole case of used bubblegum affixed to his back (remember never to fall asleep chewing gum!). Bill's buddy, an out of work wrestler, runs into the room asking him to help his former manager. It appears both have the same set of symptoms, which our genius would be doctor surmises is some disease that infects the body and then the mind. Brilliant work, doc! They eventually realize aliens have infected their friends and neighbors and there is some sort of zombie epidemic which they must try to survive.

DE-ANIMATION METHODS: Dr. Bill concocts an acid solution to be administered via syringe to the infected to kill the 'host organism' thereby producing a large volume of foam and fluids from the body of the zombie. Cue cheesy gross out effects.

MAKE-UP EFFECTS: various colors of face paint, some latex and lots of colorful fluids and what looks like cornflake/oatmeal and food coloring type effects. Ultra low-budget.

The story, what little there was of it, couldn't keep my attention. I can't really recommend you spend 68 minutes of your life watching this unless you want to learn from its mistakes for your own backyard movie. Go straight to sequel, do not pass go and do not spend any $$$ (luckily there's a US DVD that included this film as an extra to the sequel, because this isn't worth spending your money on). Better yet, go watch "Braindead" (aka Dead Alive).