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King Ellis' Christmas Movie Thing


King Ellis

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Day 13

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Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)


Sorry Maxx, only room for one clown related movie around here and, in all fairness, Killer Klowns was here first.

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Those kids are at it again, trying to get their rocks off at the make out point known as 'The Top of the World'. The atmosphere is ruined though when the Terenzi brothers round the bend repeating marketing spiel set to 'Pop Goes the Weasel'. "A tasty treat for while you screw". Understandably, the couples are reluctant to postpone their coitus for frozen sweets and tell the brothers where to shove their ice cream. They had planned to stay but, whilst they did offer two more rotund ladies all the ice cream they could eat, they failed to negotiate what else they could lick so they wont be getting lucky tonight.

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The unlikely named Mike Tobacco and his girlfriend Debbie Stone spot some sort of shooting star crashing to Earth and set off to investigate. A local farmer beat them to the crash site though and it's there that he and his dog find a giant circus tent. When his dog goes missing, he lashes out at the tent but finds it rock hard, injuring his hand. In his continued rage, he tries to pull the 'tent' down and gets electrocuted.

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And just when you think things can't get any worse, an ugly clown shows up and disintegrates him with a ray gun.

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Mike and Debbie arrive and fine his body cocooned in candy floss and flee the scene to warn the police. Much like in The Blob, we have one cop who reluctantly hears them out and one who thinks all the kids in town are up to no good.

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The real criminals are the horde of clowns that followed the couple into town and are now playing all manner of pranks and zapping their unsuspecting victims. Well, I suppose this isn't the worst thing for a guy to hide in a pizza box.

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WHATCHA GONNA DO, KNOCK MY BLOCK OFF?!

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As if the institution of the Saturday Morning Cartoon finally dying after over half a century of entertaining children across America wasn't enough, now those dastardly clowns have stolen the invisible motorcycle of The Hair Bear Bunch.

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This is a black day for animation.

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It's the antics of the Klowns and the general surliness of Officer Mooney where the movie shines. After that it settles into a rather bland 'Let's go fight the baddies and save my girlfriend' groove as Mike and co invade the big top to rescue Debbie. And though it looks as though we might have lost a few of the party along the way...

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They turn up safe and sound. Turns out that the Terenzi brothers survived the explosion of their ice cream truck by hiding in the freezer compartment.

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Spielberg, you plagiarizing bastard!

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Day 14

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Paranormal Activity (2007)


To call it a 2007 release seems slightly odd since it didn't get a widespread release until 2009 but who am I to argue with Wikipedia and IMDB? On a shoestring budget of only $15,000, it has gone on to become the most profitable movie ever, raking in over $193m. The Asylum even made their own version of it which I imagine has to be the only time in history when the mockbuster had a larger budget than the film it was aping.

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Must have the wrong movie, this is just someones home videos.

I don't recall seeing many, if any, found footage films before so it certainly makes a change from all of the conventional movies I've been watching. Micah has just bought a fancy new video camera in order to try and document some of the 'disturbances' at the home of he and his girlfriend, Katie. Spookiness has surrounded Katie pretty much her entire life, her family home burning down under mysterious circumstances. Micah hopes to catch some of the strange noises or objects being moved on film but part of me suspects he's just using this as an excuse to buy a fancy new toy.

And that kind of gives context to all the opening scenes that introduces us to the cast and the premise. I mean, any guy is going to be obsessed with a new gadget and Micah is just that, filming seemingly everything within the first few days before maybe he gets a little bored and sticks mostly to the overnight recording. Well, that and he's starting to piss Katie off by filming her all the damn time and trying to get her to make a sex tape.

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With the majority of the movie just covering these two, with the occasional onlooker and a psychic brought in to investigate matters, it's a really intimate setting and I like the interaction between Katie and Micah. There's some light hearted back and forths at first, before the pair become increasingly on edge as the situation escalates and their relationship becomes strained. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad if Micah would listen for a change instead of trying to play the macho boyfriend all the time. I can understand if you had some intruder in your house, you're going to protect your girlfriend and your property but what exactly are you going to achieve by shouting challenges to some unseen spirit into the darkness?

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He must be a bit dim as he doesn't bat an eyelid at a Ouija board spontaneously combusting but freaks the fuck out when he reads what amounts to creepypasta. I'm kinda torn on the night scenes as, at first, things are very subtle so it does grab your attention as you try to focus and spot any slight movements in the darkness or listen out for any noises so that's pretty cool. But, whilst I can very much appreciate how scary it would be to suddenly be awoken by banging on the walls or doors slamming in the middle of the night...I dunno, I just find it hard to be worked up by a few noises. Maybe I've spent to long watching all manner of gargantuan beasts and mythical creatures. But I guess we all know that those are fake, whereas you might second guess that strange creaking coming from the other side of the wall as you lay in bed at night.

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You went into the attic? I'm very disappointed and terrified.

Things do kick up a notch when Micah has a plan to leave talcum powder on the floor to track the entity's footsteps and they end up leading back to a closet that has an access panel to their attic.

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Desperate for help, Katie reaches out to the psychic once more but mere seconds after re-entering the house, he senses the spirit is very angry at his presence and is like 'NOPE NOPE NOPE' and heads for the door. Lousy charlatan.

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Really love the last ten minutes or so, first when the spirit gets, let's say, a little more hands on than usual and then the grand finale. Even though it's just a jump scare that you know is coming, and people make the argument that a jump scare is a pretty cheap and lazy scare, it's still pretty cool. That lady can do some pretty blood curdling screams too.

Seems like this is quickly becoming a yearly franchise and who can blame them, with budgets mostly being $5m and getting back anywhere from $90m to $207m a time? Apparently the creators have said they do have an end in mind but I'm sure that Paramount Pictures wont be thrilled to lose this cash cow.

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Day 15

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The Fog (1980)


Last year we had 'The Mist', a weather phenomenon that rolled over a small town, making it nearly impossible to see and trapping people inside, ultimately being attacked by strange creatures that lurked within. There's some similarities to be found here but the town in 'The Fog' has a dark past that holds the answers to the sudden appearance of these clouds.

There's a strong pedigree here, with John Carpenter both directing and providing that familiar synth music. There's a lot of familiar faces on show with Jamie Lee Curtis, Charles Cyphers and Nancy Loomis also appearing in Halloween. Then there's Tom Atkins who would go on to play the lead role in Halloween III: Season of the Witch and even Janet Leigh pops up, she of getting stabbed in the shower fame.

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We start down by the shore of Antonio Bay, a group of kids huddle round a campfire as an old man tries to spook them with some ghost stories, the final of which tells the tale of how 100 years ago a small ship became enveloped by fog, unable to see anything. Then, a light pierced through the darkness, a fire on the beach much like the one they're all sat around, enough to give them something to aim for. But, alas, the ship crashes into some rocks, tearing it apart and leaving it's crew drowned beneath the waves.

Legend says that if that fog would ever return to Antonio Bay, so would the crew...

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As the clocks strikes midnight, events take a very strange turn all over town. Public payphones start to ring in unison, machines start to turn themselves on and cars shine their headlights and sound their horns. Oh God, it's Maximum Overdrive all over again. Grab your grenade launchers! Grab your Estevez's!

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Situated in the old lighthouse, sultry sounding radio host Stevie Wayne sends a warning of an incoming fog to the crew of the Sea Grass.

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But no warning can prepare them for the shadowy figures that emerge from the fog, striking them down with hooks and swords.

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And this is yet another movie that makes it a point to stab peoples eyes out. What is your obsession with eyes, Hollywood?!

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As the town makes it's final preparations for it's centennial celebrations, Father Malone makes a rather nasty discovery. What appears to be a simple diary of sorts belonging to his Grandfather holds a dark and twisted secret. A wealthy man had sought to build a colony for himself and other sufferers of leprosy nearby and entered into discussions with Malone's Grandfather. Repulsed by the idea of such a colony being in close proximity to their town, they conspired to embiggen their coffers by sinking the ship, plundering the cargo and using the money to build the town and its church. However, organizer of the event, Kathy Williams, shrugs the whole story off and plans to forge ahead with the celebrations. I suppose when you're only hours away from the event itself, it's a perfectly cromulent plan to not let all the money spent on it go to waste.

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Thus, as the old legend goes, those that perished in this scheme have returned to seek revenge. Six people conspired against them and so they will take six lives. The piece of wood pictured was a piece of driftwood picked up by DJ Wayne's son, suddenly transformed to carry the message that '6 MUST DIE' before setting itself alight. She naturally puts the thing out and tells her son not to pick up things from the beach anymore. See, Micah? That's how you react to spontaneous combustion!

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One of the victims aboard the Sea Grass momentarily comes back to life whilst in the morgue, taking a scalpel and carving a '3' into the floor. The morgue incidentally manned by one Dr Phibes, no doubt a nod to the Vincent Price films that I so enjoyed.

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Father Malone tries to make amends by offering the gold back, which his ancestor had fashioned into a giant crucifix. I thought they spent it! Either way, just seeing them have this standoff is pretty funny.
The idea behind the movie is pretty cool and during Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, Carpenter talks bout how it's inspired by a real life event. Things just seem a little odd at times, like how the fog at first aids the townsfolk involved in the shipwreck, quickly settling around the ship and vanishing when it crashes, only for it to come back 100 years later and it can suddenly make machines come to life?

The Fog got a remake in 2005 with Selma Blair as Stevie Wayne and that guy from Smallville as Nick Castle. I didn't really mention him but he's not really that important, just a means to have him react to his friends on the Sea Grass getting killed and to pick up a hitchhiking Jamie Lee Curtis who immediately jumps into bed with him and spends the rest of the movie following him around. No! Being the only one who wasn't screwing around was what kept you alive during Halloween! Do you want to throw your life away?!

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Day 16

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The Stuff (1985)


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I must say, I do like that poster. But, I may like this alternate blu-ray cover slightly more for it's surreal nature.

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Every year we're warned not to eat yellow snow but I think someone needs to tell the old guy here that the same goes for oozing puddles of white goo that look like a pulsating sphincter. Eating something off the ground would be bad enough but when it's in a quarry?

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He finds it to be utterly delicious and moreish, figuring he can probably sell this to someone and by Jove, it's an overnight success. So much so that an ice cream company, finding themselves frozen out of the market, hire David 'Mo' Rutherford to engage into a little industrial espionage. They call him Mo because if someone gives him some money, he always wants mo'. He's played by actor Michael Moriarty who would go on to star in Troll (The first Harry Potter movie), A Return to Salem's Lot and, semi-recently, Hitler Meets Christ. Huh...

He's a former FBI agent who got canned and is now making rather a lot of money on the side but he still looks back on what might have been, like missing out on the DeLorean sting. Poor guy, all he wanted to do was bring jobs to Northern Ireland. He plays himself off as been a little dumb but there's a lot going on upstairs.

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Why, he's even able to infiltrate the most private locations and slip microphones in your pocket. How on earth is one tiny wire and a button cell battery meant to broadcast over God knows what distance?

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There's definitely something suspect about this 'Stuff' though. Like when little Jason goes to get a midnight snack and sees it rolling around in the fridge, only for it have made it's way back into the tub and cleaned up it's own mess by the time his dad arrives. It tastes good, low in calories and there's no mess. This really is a super food!

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"What kind of ice cream store is open at 2.30am?"
"The...best damn ice cream store in town!"

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One of the things I most like about it this is how it kinda throws you a little by introducing this kind of shady character in Rutherford, only to twist it by having him walk into something way over his head. Like, how this thing got fast-tracked onto the market, no doubt through a brown envelope or two. Which would explain how the name got by too. Just seems a little to generic to me. Strangest thing though, everyone from food standards who approved The Stuff either up and left the country or died. Well, there was one guy left but then his dog, who had been fed on The Stuff, kind of went a little crazy. I love how his owner, reeling in terror at this rabid dog, tries to reason with it by screaming 'I'll buy more!'.

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He goes to investigate a small town used a test site for The Stuff and runs into 'Chocolate Chip' Charlie W. Hobbs, out for revenge after his family sold his company out to The Stuff. Only, the place is practically a ghost town and what few people are there are very suspicious and are always running off somewhere.

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Meanwhile, Jason's family have flipped their lid and veered wildly off into Stepford Wives territory, speaking entirely in marketing spiel, shoveling down tubs of The Stuff and always wearing a creepy grin. When they try to forcibly make him into one of them by having him tuck in to a tub, they make the bizarre decision to just let him wander off with it rather than force him to eat it in front of them or just force feed him. So, he goes and fills the tub with shaving cream and manages a few spoonfuls before it comes back up and he's forced to go on the run. Jason's Dad has a slight hint of Rob Lowe to him here.

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Mo manages to convince some sort of disgraced Army Colonel running his own militia that his worst fears of Commies infiltrating American industry and poisoning the populace has come to pass and it's through The Stuff. They make a point of creating this Trojan Horse style scheme to get the front gate of the factory open and then just jump over the fence anyway.

And even though they manage to shut the whole operation down and warn the country of the Dangers of The Stuff, these things still have a way of staying in circulation. Which, I think is the most apt place for it, given it's name and all.

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"Yo man, you got The Stuff?"
"If you got the money, I got The Stuff. 100% pure."
"It better be, last guy I bought from cut his with Greek yoghurt."
"Eh, would I do that to you?"

Really fun movie this one. Cool premise, amusing characters and enough weird edits and bad effects to really bask in the B-movie cheesiness.

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Day 17

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Escape from Tomorrow (2013)


I'm surprised it's taken this long to come up but I feel like I could do the entire month of this purely on Netflix. Just browsing through the horror genre feels like a huge deja vu trip as you scroll through movies that look or sound exactly like each other. Then you have any number of monster or rampaging animal movies, with any number of shark movies and then you have killer cockroaches, killer slugs, killer bees, killer bats...killer shrews. Admittedly, I don't think that last one is on Netflix but still. And of course 'Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead'. What the fuck?

But amongst all the covers, this one caught my eye with it's blood covered cartoon hand and what I assume is a 'just different enough as to not infringe copyright' font. The story of a guy who has just lost his job whilst at Dinsey World and starts to go a bit crazy? Ok, ok. I appreciate you have to try and stand out amongst the no doubt hundreds and thousands of movies coming out every year and this is one way to do it but you didn't really film at Dinsey, did you?

Well, jokes on me because apparently they did. Blending in with other guests, using relatively normal cameras as to not stand out, reading scripts from iPhone screens, sound editors having to pick through hours of recordings just to find the right dialogue...it sounds like an arduous process and I have to commend them on all their effort and for the sheer gall to go and film a movie right under Disney's nose.

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I suppose Disney is a good place to do it, with it's sweet and innocent image but with a history of deceptively scary moments. With the black and white look here, even some of this rides can be creepy with the look and soundtrack. Apparently, since they lacked any proper lighting, they had to shoot in monochrome so even though it was a limitation, it certainly adds to the surreality of it all.

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Surreal probably is the word of the day here though caus this thing certainly is weird. As if the attractions weren't creepy enough to begin with, Dad Jim starts to see them with possessed faces and even on his own family. Or maybe he's just going mad from riding It's a Small World. Maybe in real life too, they had to go around 12 times to get everything right. Either that or he drank some of the water.

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The guy is a bit of a creeper though, he spends the whole day in this eery trance following these two French girls around, leering at them from a distance. He's played by Roy Abramsohn, the same guy who played that inept cop in Creepshow 3 who couldn't even handle his own gun.

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A little later he's making small talk with another parent. She tells him the turkey leg he's eating is really emu and starts to flaunt her necklace in his direction, slowly hypnotizing him. He blacks out and wakes up with her riding him. She then starts talking about how all the Princesses at the park are really call girls who get paid thousands to have sex with Asian businessmen after hours.

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It's like all his dreams have come at once when the French girls show up at the pool, stripping down to their bikinis and jumping into the water. But they end up walking off with two boys their own age whilst he has to go get ready to take his kids to Epcot, prompting him to feign drowning. I imagine that's most people's reaction to having to go that giant golf ball.

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He's run into the French girls again that night and one of them urges him to go with them. He refuses even when she warns him that something bad will happen if he doesn't come. She then spits in his face and security come and shock him in the balls with a tazer.

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Jim wakes up in a room beneath the Epcot building, strapped to a chair and being told by some scientist that ever since Jim first came here as a child, he's been part of an experiment that even Jim's boss was in on. Then something in the shape of the Epcot center forms over his head, showing fantasies of him following the girls and of being with another woman entirely. Jim asks if the guy is working for Disney. Wait, that's D***ey, as a helpful censor bleep aids makes clear. Wouldn't want to risk upsetting anyone.

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They even censor some sort of tube of goo he pulls out and sprays everywhere that ends up landing on a control panel, making it explode and freeing him from his restraints. They even play a little 'bing' noise then it shows up as if to make it really stand out.

I think I can honestly say I have no idea what is going on here. I know Disney is 'Where Dreams Come True' but I didn't think that extended to the primal urges of men going through their mid life crisis.

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Day 18

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The Prophecy (1995)


This is the 18th day and up to now, I think this list has been missing something. A certain someone who can bring his unique energy to give me a boost as I cross the halfway point and zero in on the home stretch. In short:

There's some familiar faces spread throughout this (so far) five movie franchise including failed Marty McFly Eric Stoltz, Doug 'Pinhead' Bradley, Tony 'Candyman' Todd and Kari 'Agent Tanya' Wuhrer. At least, that's what she'll always be to me. But, of course, the star attraction here is Christopher Walken with a predictably quirky performance as the Archangel Gabriel, arriving on Earth to search for an evil soul to use in the civil war between the angels. Gabriel has become jealous of mankind for God's love of them, allowing them to rise to Heaven where once only Angels were allowed.

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Gabriel seemingly has a rather sharp sense of smell and will often be seen entering a room and giving it a good sniff to decipher any clues it may hold. That or tonguing fresh blood stains as if he were a cat lapping at a saucer of milk.

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Thomas Dagget is about to be ordained as a priest but sees terrible visions of warring angels. He loses his faith and takes up a career with the police, where he ends up running into an angel, Simon. These angels seem to have a habit of perching themselves on things.

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Simon is later attacked by another angel but Simon manages to fight him off, pushing onto a shard of glass, knocking him out of a window where he lands on top of a car and rolls into the path of another oncoming car that pins him against a wall. Ouch. He's quite the interesting specimen once they police get him down to the morgue, no eyes, blood more in common with that of a fetus and both male and female sexual reproductive organs.

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Amongst his effects is a beautiful hand written bible dating back to the 2nd century that includes a previously unheard of twenty-third chapter of the Book of Revelation that translates into a story of a second war in heaven between the angels. There is also a prophecy of 'dark soul' that will be found on Earth and used as a weapon.

Simon, slowly dying from the wounds of the fight, ends up taking shelter in the semi-abandoned local school and befriends a little girl there called Mary. After he seeks out the body of a Korean war veteran that is laying in state, taking his soul that will end up being the great weapon and hides it in Mary so that Gabriel can't find and use it.

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Bad touch! Very bad touch!

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I'm not normally one to go into these religious movies, your Da Vinci Codes or End of Days or what have you, but this can feel a little like some sort of mob movie at times as Gabriel doesn't like to get his fingers dirty, keeping goons around to do his business. Desperate types that are looking to die but he pulls them back at the last second, promising he'll let them go real soon, just so long as they do one thing. And that turns into another thing and so on and so forth.

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Gabriel would much rather concentrate on his music. He plays the trumpet, don't you know? The one that is played to announce Judgement Day? It's also some sort of mathematical equation that would make my head hurt to even begin to try and understand. Even when he lets a little boy play it here, it shatters windows in the school.

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No mistaking though, this is a big event. Even Lucifer shows up doing the whole 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing because there's only room for one Hell around here and if Gabriel is thinking of overthrowing Heaven and making it into Hell 2.0, that just wont do.

And with his kingdom no longer under threat of dilution, his followers can look forward to The Return of the King.

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Day 19

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The Host (2006)


I've suddenly become very aware of watching two 'The' movies back to back. I managed to not to it with The Blob but then i did The Giant Claw and The Human Centipede and then The Fog and The Stuff. Let's keep this new tradition going! And I'm even knocking one of Jimmy's film club movies off my list, one from my own list of choices no less. I'll manage them all one day!

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This movie actually has a brief mention in the Wikipedia entry for Escape from Tomorrow as it seems as part of their attempts to keep that movie under wraps, they sent it overseas to be edited and it ended up in South Korea and was worked on by the same team who did the effects for this movie.

They do a bang up job here, aside from maybe some fire effects at the end. This is a monster movie, I almost said giant monster movie but it really isn't that big of a beast. I don't even know quite what it is, some sort of mutated fish. I've heard it described as a tadpole-like which probably fits.

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There's a few scenes where it swings around on girders under a bridge like a trapeze artist so that's pretty cool. I'm not sure it's necessarily the best monster though, it just doesn't seem very visually interesting. But maybe that works in the creators favour because he wanted the focus to be on victims, one family in particular, and not the monster.

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Our mutated friend here is caused by illegal dumping of chemicals, hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde right down the drain and into the Han River. I'm guessing he had other reasons but it's semi-implied that the scientist only wants rid of them because his assistant didn't dust them. That'd be some bad OCD.

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A rather dim guy by the name of Park Gang-Du runs a snack-bar down by the river with his father Hee-bong. He's delivering some food when a crowd forms by the waters edge as they look up at the creature hanging off the bridge. They start to pelt food at it but it doesn't appreciate that, coming onto the land and running amok. Gang-Du tries to make his escape, along with his father and daughter but becomes separated from her and the monster snatches her away.

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Father and son, along with his two other siblings, Nam-joo who has just come from winning a bronze medal in archery and college graduate Nam-il join other grievers at a memorial where some military types turn up and try to enforce a quarantine on those who have been in contact with the monster. Gang-Du gets singled out after he announces that some of the beasts blood splashed on his face during the initial struggle. Apparently the monster hosts a deadly virus (that would explain the title) that needs to be contained. The entire family get dragged away to a hospital but Gang-Du receives a phone call from his daughter indicating that she's still alive, not that anyone believes him. Thus he has to break out and go to find her himself.

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The gang that aides their escape then fleeces them a bit for supplies, weapons, a vehicle and a map of the sewers but needs must. You'd think they give the accomplished archer a weapon though. I mean, granted it's not the same thing but you'd think there'd be some transferable skills.

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You want to give the Gang-du slap during the start of the movie but he goes through so much and is desperately trying to find his daughter so you can't help but be won around, even if he is still a bit of a goof at times.

As Godzilla had it's take on atomic war, this takes a few shots at America, something that seemed to bridge the gap between North and South. It's nice when a mutual hatred of a third party can bring two feuding nations together. It specifically plays off a real life incident where the military dumped formaldehyde in Seoul. When the monster starts rampaging and the local authorities fail to deal with it or the infected family, the Americans aren't very impressed and start to take over, instigating their 'Agent Yellow' operation, alluding to 'Agent Orange' used in Vietnam. That's certainly not a nice thing to look up by the way.

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Maybe the monster had just looked at that too and that's why he's vomming up a graveyard's worth of bones.

The Host was met very favourably in terms of both it's box office takings and critical acclaim but plans for any number of attempts of furthering the franchise seem to have fallen by the wayside. Attempts at an American remake seem to have fizzled out, as have those at a sequel and a tie in video game, though there does exist one clip of test footage of a potential second movie. Maybe it's for the best though, The Host more than stands up on it's own and doesn't need a sub-par sequel tarnishing it's good name.

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Day 20

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Sleepy Hollow (1999)


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Blimey, Helena Bonham Carter is looking young here.

Of course not, for once Burton only went for one of his usual pair in Johnny Depp. Outside of him and Christina Ricci here, there's a really nice cast including Christopher Lee, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid and even that paedo from Beetlejuice, Jeffery Jones. I should also note that it does offer 'more cowbell' but sadly, Mr Walken makes only fleeting appearances. Still gets more screen time than Christopher Lee though.

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Well, his head at least. He doesn't even talk, he just runs around chopping off heads with his sword, growling at people and bearing his fangs.

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I think former 'Alfred' here, Michael Gough, is rocking a mullet more befitting of the 1980's than the 1780's.

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Ichabod Crane is a New York police officer on the turn of the 19th century that wants to bring police work screaming into the new century. Tired of the old ways, he wants to implement all manner of new scientific advances. I can just imagine it now, CSI: Sleepy Hollow, screaming 'ENHANCE!' at pencil drawings of suspects.

His ideas are actually agreed to, somewhat, with the young officer being sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate reports of a killer decapitating his victims and trial his methods.

And you can tell that this is way out of his depth, he just wanted to autopsy bodies in the river rather than assume they drowned. Now he's given some sort of crazy ghost that rides around on horse back and doesn't stop till your head is detached from the rest of your body.

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He visibly trembles at stories of The Headless Horsemen, an undead Hessian mercenary that is rather prone to going around and chopping heads off. Crane blusters his way through questions of why the townsfolk have suddenly got to follow a procedure to deal with a crime scene. The Horseman just wants his head back but any one that has the skulls, controls the horseman.

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His kills can be pretty nasty and there's even a two on one duel that's way ahead of Star Wars!

With the Horseman under the manipulation of someone, we end up with a plot involving lots of hastily drawn up new wills and inheritance scheme as one person in town plans to use the Horseman to bump off other people and rake in their cash.

You know what annoys me about this movie though? Katrina Van Tassel, Ricci's character and Crane's love interest, is something of a Witch and hands over a spell book of her's to Crane that used to belong to here Mother. "Keep it close to your heart," she says "it is sure protection against harm". Well, if that doesn't just entirely point out of your big twists.

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Indeed, in a rather cliche manner, the book literally stops a bullet. As if this isn't a big convenience at the best of times, now it's happening hundreds of years ago where guns probably weren't that big of a thing. Seems really out of place.

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But at least we get a Ghost Rider cameo. Quite frankly, he looks as surprised as anyone to be here.

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Day 21

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From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)


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Ah, the grand tail of Seth and Richie Gecko (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) being on the lamb after a bloodbath whilst robbing a bank. Tarantino's character is a bit loopy and prone to reaching for his gun so they rack up a few more kills along the way including burning down this convenience store. Credit to the guy for going out in a blaze of glory though, no pun intended.

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The news is even keeping score and flashing the numbers as they go up. Seems a little tasteless to me.

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Don't worry, the same cop from Nightmare on Elm Street is here to stop them. #GoGetThoseGeckos

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They end up kidnapping a small family and make them take them across the Mexican border. The dad reminds me of Arn Anderson. Cheech better have earned three pay-cheques for all the different characters he plays in this movie.

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Oh man, Tor Johnson is going to be working overtime here.

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Ah, Danny Trejo. I find this choice of outfit a little weird but nice to see you outside of taco shilling.

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Oh, hey reptillian vampire lady. Nice of you guys to show up after an hour. I was almost beginning to think I'd heard wrong on this being a horror movie...kinda.

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What looks like a titty bar is in fact some sort of honey trap for a pack of vampires to lure in truckers and loot their shit. When Richie gets bitten, shit kicks off and we get a rather glorious bar fight. I love how quickly things escalate and, though they have to change instruments, the band doesn't miss a beat. That band is awesome, by the way. A severed head saxophone? Nasty. I wonder if Lordi were inspired by these guys?

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For as weird as it is for vampires to suddenly show up, what really makes you question your suspension of disbelief is a character called Sex Machine played by Tom Savini. He has a very interesting package, so to speak, as on his crotch he has some form of penis gun that he's able to control seemingly by thought alone. What in the actual fuck?

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It's not like he needed an extra weapon though since he was already paying tribute to Simon Belmont by rocking a whip. This just makes me want a Castlevania movie with Tom Savini. Or, looking at this awesome foursome here, some sort of L4D style game or maybe Call of Duty 'Nazi Zombies' team.

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Star of the show though is this 'Nam veteran who just beats the shit out of everything, throwing vampires onto table legs and ripping a guys heart out. I suppose I hadn't really questioned what would happen if you did that to a vampire, he gets back up until they stab the heart with a pencil. Just one those little oddities like in Monster Squad when they explode the Wolf Man and he just re-assembles like the T-1000 because he wasn't killed with a silver bullet.

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Seth makes himself a pretty weird weapon though in the form of what really does look like a fuck machine, a very painful one but a fuck machine none the less.

This all makes me wonder how this movie was promoted upon release, like, I assume people knew it was a vampire movie going in but that would have been pretty crazy to be sitting through this fairly normal movie, wondering if these criminals are going to get away with their crimes or if the family will find a way to escape and then suddenly, VAMPIRES!

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Day 22

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)


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Well, isn't that a pain in the arse.

This is another one of those movies where it's possibly difficult to appreciate it for what it was upon it's release. Watching it now, it's very much treading familiar ground with the age old 'kids visit isolated spooky, old house and run into weapon wielding killer' but was probably a trendsetter at the time.

Director Tobe Hooper is no stranger here, he would go on to do Salem's Lot and Poltergeist. He also did a Stephen King adaptation called 'The Mangler' which almost made the list last year and probably needs to at some point just for the fact that it seems to be about a killer laundry press.

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There's definitely something in the water around these parts though, the hitchhikers just start taking knives to themselves for no real reason.

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We might have an idea though, written in the stars. Something about the alignment of the planets and Saturn being evil and a bad influence.

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I KNEW IT! Malenko's going to snap any day now...

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Pretty sure that thing from The Host passed through here at some point and threw up all the bones of it's victims again, they're just everywhere. When they're not just left laying around, they're made into mobiles or sofas cum modern art installation. Someone give Leatherface the Turner Prize!

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Everyone's just as crazy as each other around here though, even if you get away from Leatherface and seek help from that gas station attendant, he just tries to tie you up. I'm giving you the broom, Jeff!

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Even if I can't help but roll my eyes at the formulaic story, I can still appreciate this movie for all the weird shit it has going on. Like Grandpa here, into his 100's and apparently owing his long life to sucking on the blood of the victims brought to him.

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Or the family dinner table where everyone taunts their guest for screaming her head off the entire time. Your hosts went to to a lot of trouble for this, young lady, so you better appreciate it. Leatherface even got dressed up for you and put on his makeup!

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I think if we got any closer on these close ups on her eyes then we'd be seeing the individual white and red blood cells moving through her blood vessels.

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Day 23

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Predator (1987)


What a tremendously ugly poster that is. I mean, I know what they were going for but still.

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I watched Alien and talked a little about it's teaming up with the Predator in the video game world so it seems only fair to watch Predator too. Predator had even less going for it in terms of stand alone games, unless you really want to play as Arnie in pink fatigues, riding scorpions and engaging in 'Big Mode'.

Admittedly, Arnie is wearing a pink-ish polo shirt as he's being recruited onthis job but it's not like he wears it out in the field.

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Dillon, you son of a bitch!

I don't think the emphatic sound of these hands slapping together or the glistening muscles really do enough justice to how manly this greeting is. Needs some explosions or something as their hands come together It's just meant to be a friendly greeting between two old friends and they turn it into some macho contest, neither of them gives an inch as they maintain their grip, trying to overpower the other. Carl Weather's Dillon discusses some of the missions that 'Dutch' has been on and some that he turned down, like Libya. Arnie says that his team rescues, not assassins. Don't worry, guys, they'll get Gaddaffi real soon. Only 24 years...

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This really is a buffet of manliness, but what do you expect when you have Jesse 'The Body' Ventura around? He doesn't quite agree with my assessment, proclaiming that there's a 'bunch of slack-jawed faggots around here'. But he has just the stuff that will make you a goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus, just like him. I must have missed that particular investigation into dipping, as far as I was aware, it just caused various oral cancers and increased blood pressure but far be it me to question The Body. Clearly that's just a bunch of bullshit from the government meant to deceive the common man. It's a conspiracy, Gorilla.

That segways us nicely into the plot of a cabinet minister kidnapped by guerrilla forces in a Central American jungle and it's up to Dutch and his crew to go and rescue them. Am I the only one that when growing up and the news ever mentioned guerrilla fighters, thought they meant actual gorillas holding guns or something?

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When they arrive, they find another unit strung up in the trees with their skin removed.

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And to make matters worse, seems that Dillon arranged for them to go under false pretenses as this was always just an attack on a rebel camp to stop them invading somewhere else. Still, they do a good job of it, with Arnie sending a truck rigged with explosives into a tent full of soldiers. Nice.

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But the real enemy is lurking in the trees, completely camouflaged and extremely difficult to see, keeping a track on his potential victims through thermal imaging. The Predator is nothing if not a honourable combatant though, he wont attack anyone who's unarmed.

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He might be difficult to spot but that's no trouble for Billy Sole as he is half Native American and, thanks to the powers of Hollywood, a great tracker. Pretty bad-ass of him to call the Predator out for a knife fight though. Not that it really ends well...

It ends badly for everyone really. Ventura gets killed, Mac gets shot in the face at pretty much point blank range and as for Dillon...

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OH GOD HE'S GOT AN ARM OFF!

I'm surprised there's even any one left to GET TO DA CHOPPA!

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I do rather like the design of the Predator itself, this mix of technology and animal and those dreadlocks look pretty cool. I don't know what it is about the Xenomorph design that rubs me the wrong way, the design just seems to blend together and it's harder to pick out any interesting parts immediately. The Predator is much more human like compared to the Xenomorph too so I guess that can make it more relatable and easier to understand. I mean, it walks upright, two arms, two legs, two eyes, some resemblance to hair, wears armour, it's mask is a bit helmet like...just disregard the mandibles and all the other crazy alien stuff.

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Was really tired last night so just finished watching this and went to sleep. Double duty day!


Day 24

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Twilight Zone The Movie (1983)


I was in the mood for an anthology movie but I had the damnedest time sourcing the 'Tales from the Darkside' movie so here comes The Twilight Zone to save the day. Bloody anthology movies, as if I didn't have enough trouble with bandwidth as it is, now I've got to do a thing that'll have like 20+ pictures.

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Things start out with a little bookend story of Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd as driver and passenger, rolling down the road listening to a little Creedence Clearwater Revival until the tape gets chewed up. From then on, they pass the time by first killing all the lights in the car and seeing how far they can go but Aykroyd is not thrilled with this so there's some more light hearted fare with 'Name That Tune' as they roll out the theme songs to the likes of Bonanza, Hawaii Five-O and, eventually, The Twilight Zone. Going a little meta on us, are you, movie?

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Aykroyd pipes up by asking, whilst some of those episodes might have been scary, does his friend want to see something really scary?

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Much like Creepshow, there's a 'superteam' feel to proceedings with the directing talents of John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller at work. The theme of someone getting their comeuppance comes into play too with our first story, Time Out. Here we find Mr. William Connor, very angry after being turned down for a promotion at work in favour of 'a Jew'.

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But they're not the only ones targeted by his bigotry, just probably the main one with all the talk of some conspiracy theory of the Jews running the world and having all the money. He's taking shots at the Arabs, the Asians, the blacks. That last one doesn't sit well with a group of African Americans sitting right next to them. Awkward!

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As he storms out of the bar, Connor finds himself apprehended by two men dressed up in Nazi uniforms, rifling through his wallet and wondering what exactly this thing he calls a 'credit card' is. He manages to narrowly escape but not before taking a bullet to the arm and finding himself in a new location.

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Oh no! He's being attacked by ghosts! Indeed, he's finding himself assuming the identity of the various ethnic groups he slurred and suffering some of the extreme prejudices they faced.

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Which brings us to the final leap into the Vietnam War as he stumbles upon a groups of U.S Soldiers who open fire despite his protests that he's 100% a real 'MURICAN. And this is where we find that perhaps comeuppance went a little too far and even crossed over into real life.

The story goes that the ending for this story was meant to be something of a redemption for Connor as he would lead two Viatnemese children to safety as they were chased by a U.S Army helicopter. Unfortunately, an incident with some pyrotechnics led the helicopter to spin out of control and land on actor Vic Morrow and two child actors. The blades of the helicopter would decapitate Morrow and one of the children, whilst the vehicle wreckage would crush the other.

Wow and damn, that is absolutely horrific. I mean, the Poltergeist curse struck in greater volume but even that didn't do anything as twisted as this. The incident would lead to all sorts of legal drama, not just for the wrongful deaths but also the fact that the child actors were being paid under the table and the production was running afoul of all manner of child labour laws. Whilst Landis and some of the other crew were cleared of manslaughter after a lengthy trial, the families of the deceased were able to claim some damages through civil trials and the accident lead to a crackdown on safety when it came to film-making.

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So, rather than that ending, things finish with Connor being carted away by the Nazi's as his two friends leave the bar, unable to hear his cries for help. What's next?

Surprisingly, something much more cheerful following this disturbing episode, well, as cheerful as a nursing home can be.

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Mr Bloom here is trying to rally the lifeless residents of Sunnyvale Retirement Home, reminiscing over their youth and the games they would play, singing, dancing, climbing trees. One resident, Mr Conroy, is a little curmudgeony about the whole thing but Bloom is able to encourage a small group to join him outside at midnight for a game of kick the can.

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And through the magic of the preservative properties of canned goods, all the old farts suddenly find themselves as kids again. It was a neat idea at first but they all suddenly get to realize that they've been through too much in life to go through it again, they don't want to spend another 20 years at school, they don't want to go through losing loved ones again. So, Bloom tells them to all head back to bed where they'll wake back in their old bodies but perhaps with a renewed sense of passion for life. Mr Conroy wakes up from all the noise of them jumping into bed and runs off shouting about how there are kids in the beds.

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Man, this one is pretty dull. Now, if you'd have had Mr Bloom say "Yes, there are kids in the beds." before turning around, locking the door and start to take off his pants. Now that would have been a twist. But no, he just moves on to the next nursing home to spread some more joy.

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Things finally start picking up with "It's a Good Life". This one is the Joe Dante segment, you can tell because it has Dick Miller in it.

Helen Foley is passing through town looking for directions and stops off at a diner where she sees a guy harass a young boy playing on an arcade machine because he thinks the game is causing interference with the TV. She storms out but just ends up running into the kid herself.

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This is the story that The Simpsons parodied with Bart turning Homer into a jack-in-the-box. I may only be mentioning this because amongst the cast here is Nancy Cartwright, serial voice actress on the show.

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There are several ways in which this story is awesome, the whole look of it for one. Anthony and his powers have turned their home into this weird cartoon like place that ranges from bright, overly colourful rooms to black and white corridors full of shadows.

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Not to mention what he did to the sister that wouldn't stop shouting at him. I have no mouth and I must scream.

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But it's the family and their interactions with Anthony that make it, everything's just so tense as they strive to try and keep him happy, lest he strike them down with some bizarre punishment. They have to choke down his favourite junk food at every meal and they just have this really false enthusiasm that is just hilarious.

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Lastly we have 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet', a remake of what is probably one of the most famous Twilight Zone stories. Only, instead of William Shatner we have John Lithgow who does a really good job of looking pale, drained, panicked and sweaty.

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And they did a way better job with the gremlin here than that furry thing from the original.

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I say lastly but we have the other bookend to deal with first as the crazed Lithgow is being taken away in an ambulance and his driver is talking to him, asking about the scare he had on the airplane. Perhaps he'd like to see something really scary...

As I keep saying during these anthology movies, it's a real mixed bag. The opening story is OK, I don't know what the hell is going on with Kick the Can or why it's even here but the final two stories really improve the whole thing. And you have Burgess Meredith narrating throughout! I might go so far as to say that this might be better than Creepshow and is of course a million miles ahead of Creepshow 2. Did I mention that I still really fucking hate Creepshow 2?

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The kick the can story and the one with the kid are both from episodes of the original series. I'm pretty sure they all are with the possible exception of the first story, which I believe is just inspired by an episode of the original series. You should just watch the original series. One of my favorite TV series ever, especially with episodes like An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, Time Enough At Last, To Serve Man, The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms, I can keep going on and on and on. So many amazing episodes of that series.

I really hate that Creepshow 2 is on Netflix but not the original. Meteor shiiiiiiiiit!

EDIT:

:wub:

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Day 25

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Les Diaboliques (1955)


This month really has been an international affair, at least moreso than other years. I mean, I've strayed into German films in the past, a few from New Zealand but so far this year we've had Spain, Japan, Holland and South Korea. We can now add France to that list.

It seems that this might well have been an Alfred Hitchcock production at one point but he just missed out on the rights to the novel it is based on, Celle qui n'était plus. Nevertheless, the movie would go on to inspire Hitchcock's own Psycho and even Robert Bloch, writer of the Psycho novel, named it as his favourite horror film of all time.

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Our story takes place at a boarding school run by the headmaster Michel Delassalle and it truly is a sorry state of affairs. To the boys that need hearty meals to aid their growth he serves rotten fish, sparking a revolt in the dining room. Not even his staff get any luxuries, he barks at his long suffering wife, Christina, to force the food down to encourage the children to do the same. His mistress hasn't been quite so broken down yet and refuses to eat it.

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It really is quite bizarre to have this situation where the husband is having this open affair with one of his faculty and, even more odd, the two woman aren't at each others throats, they seem to share a bond through their mistreatment at the hands of Delassalle. Indeed, the first time you see the mistress, Nicole, she shows up with a pair of dark glasses giving the usual excuse of 'tripping'.

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Nicole seems to have had her fill of Michel's physical and emotional abuse and has hatched a scheme to kill him. She manages to persuade Christina into helping her and the two set off to a property Nicole owns quite a distance from the school making for a nice alibi. Nicole has Christina tell Michel that she wants a divorce which riles him up and has him on the first train over but with a little sedative in his whisky, he falls asleep and Nicole forces his head under the water in her bath tub.

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To make it look like an accident, the two manage to smuggle him back to the school and dump his body into the pool. They come up with various reasons to have the pool examined or drained and not have it look suspicious, such as dropping a set of keys in it. One of the students volunteers to fetch them, he is a champion frogman after all. I can see how traumatizing a child for life after finding a dead body is a much better idea than simply saying 'this pool water sure is dirty'. It looks like it's covered in algae for God's sake.

The boy finds nothing other than the head's lighter and after draining the pool, much to their horror, the body is nowhere to be found. Even with the grisly site of the headmaster's eyes rolling to the back of his head as he was submerged beneath the water fresh in their mind, they have to question whether or not he was truly dead.

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I could tell you more but the film strictly forbids it.

I'll leave you instead with a humorous story I plucked from a review by Roger Ebert.

The famous story: A man wrote to Alfred Hitchcock: "Sir, After seeing 'Diabolique,' my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your 'Psycho' and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?" Hitchcock replied: "Send her to the dry cleaners."

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Oh hey, look, it finally happened. God knows how you people managed to eat up 10gb in the space of 24 days but you managed it. Because I'm too cheap to pay $3 to get more...guess you'll just have to wait till the 2nd of Nov to see the old stuff unless I can be bothered to reupload them elsewhere. For now, Imgur to the rescure!


Day 26

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Reptilicus (1961)


Okay, okay, I have to admit that I might have let the idea of this whole 'international' thing get the better of me because here we have what I have to assume is Denmark's only monster movie. Denmark of all places! After The Giant Claw, I probably should have given the whole 'weird and obscure giant monster movie' thing a miss but how can you possibly resist a Danish monster?

Though, these is something an issue here in that there are two versions of the film, one Danish and one American, with the Danish one having some extra scenes which I'll touch upon later.

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A group of mining engineers are in Lapland looking for copper. Dang, hoped it would be Santa. Either way, their drill bit comes back with blood on it and they pull out some sort of semi-fossilised tail.

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Scientists take it back to Copenhagen where it's put on ice whilst they study it. They come to find it is reptilian and it ends up being referred to as 'Reptilicus'. It seems to have regenerative powers similar to those of a lizard that could regrow it's tail or a worm that will function when cut in two.

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Now, this is a highly sophisticated operation they've got going on here. The UN is involved, the Danish government, military forces...so why on Earth do they recruit some country bumpkin looking fellow to come in as a caretaker of sorts? They say he's just there to keep an eye on things when the main staff aren't there but couldn't you get some intern who at least has a basic understanding of the situation to do that?

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This guy seems to think that the electric eel is plugged into the wall socket.

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But surprisingly, it's not him that fucks up, rather one of the scientists burning the midnight oil, accidentally leaving the freezer door open which allows the tail to thaw out and start to mend itself. The team start to pump it full of various vitamins and minerals to help promote it's regeneration.

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Meanwhile, the real science is happening somewhere down the hall where the janitor is putting his lunch under a microscope and sees it moving, naturally putting him right off. Now now, it might have just been blue cheese.

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At this point I think the Danish Tourism Board might have gotten involved because the movie makes a sharp diversion into a sight seeing tour as we're shown various landmarks and stop into some sort of bar where there is live singing to entertain some of the visiting forces. Apparently in the Danish version there are more song and dance numbers.

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Eventually we do get to the matter at hand of the beast itself and it's not really too bad, a damn sight better than The Giant Claw, that's for sure. It's some sort of Dragony, dinosaur thing that spits some sort of burning acid slime via a really poor special effect. Maybe Dean Ambrose snuck Reptilicus into Seth Rollins' briefcase.

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Not sure if spitting acid or just sneezing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiAYvmp-tFg

Of course, that's only in the English language version. In the Danish version he's shown flying but apparently this was deemed 'too unrealistic'. Look at him go!

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It's a good job it can regenerate because this thing takes one hell of a beating. Machine guns, artillery, they even break out the flamethrowers. The way it starts screaming makes you feel a little sorry for it.

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But it clearly deserves it, look what it did to mah cows! I thought the Danes only had pigs on their farms to fulfill all the demand for bacon. What a waste, does Reptilicus only eat skin? Take the meat, man. Head cheese!

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You know, the real monster here is the guy that raises the bridge so the monster can't cross through town. All those poor ciclysts who couldn't stop in time...

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Straight up bombing the thing is out of the question because it would just reform itself, or I guess it's implied that it might form new monsters like a being split into separate parts? Either way, they settle on loading a rocket with sedative and firing it into it's mouth. One person is keen to stress that he'd they'd need to fire 'point blank...at very close range'. Thanks for clearing that up, I'm sure the General you're speaking to is very glad you clarified what 'point blank' meant.

Reptilicus is surely better than The Giant Claw, not that that's saying much. But the dumb shit like the night watchman adds some humour and there's definitely a novelty to seeing the Danish military being rolled out to fight a dragony thing.

And I have no idea how I was able to find this movie but not Tales from the Darkside.

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Day 27

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Saw (2004)


I was going to say something about such a large franchise spawning from such humble beginnings and it is indeed quite the franchise, with 7 films between 2004 and 2010 and all manner of video games, toys, costumes. Even a theme park ride! But, is a $1m budget really humble? Seems like rather a lot for a first time director and there are some notable people in this, Danny Glover! But what do I know about film making and budgets? That might be peanuts for all I know.

We're fast approaching 10 years since it's release, if I'd have known I might have delayed this two days, and they're set to re-release it into cinemas to celebrate. It's escaped me during that time period, other than some basic understanding that it has quite twisted and complicated methods of killing people though elaborate schemes, kinda like Dr Phibes and his final scheme of having a doctor operate on his own son to retrieve a key to stop a vat of acid falling on the boys face.

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But rather than the gore fest you might imagine, you get quite an interesting little mystery unfold as you begin to learn about the two guys chained up in this room, how they got there, how there's more going on with them then they're letting on...

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It does get a little too convoluted though, once it gets going it feels like there's a flashback to earlier moments every five minutes. Can't help but feel Cary Elwes is kinda terrible as Dr. Lawrence Gordon, I'm surprised he couldn't break his way out with all the scenery he was chewing. To round out the negatives, there's a few spots where the editing goes a little crazy and they'll just spin the camera around real fast and have this rush of noise.

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Otherwise, it's a cool movie. The twisted premise of making people who waste or don't appreciate their life have to try and fight to preserve it is neat, as is the more focused story of these two guys locked up together, having to work together to try and figure things out but always keeping things from one another and ultimately having the fact that one of them has got to kill the other looming overhead.

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I like Glover's cop character being driven a bit mad by the whole thing too. I guess he was too old for this shit.

For once, I can see how this got spun out into so many sequels. Just seems like there's a lot of potential for cool puzzles, though I wonder how long they could keep up the more mystery aspects of their story before just resorting to straight up torture porn. As I touched on in Nightmare on Elm Street though, I'm just not sure if I can be bothered to go through...

...

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~~~DEH!~~~

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