Barbarians, swords, sorcery and sandals - Part 1

I needed to watch some barbarian and sword & sorcery movies for a project I'm working on, so I bought 11 more or less classics from the genre. That being the 80's Conan copies and of course the Conan movies themselves. Here's my thoughts on the first six of them in no particular order. As a warning for the fans of this genre, I must say I'm not a big fan of them so don't hold it against me if I fail to see the greatness of some of these movies.













Red Sonja (1985)

Brigitte Nielsen is Red Sonja, a master sword swinger who seeks revenge on the evil queen who killed her family. The queen has also stolen a magical orb with destructive powers and Red Sonja tries to retrieve it. Joining her in this adventure is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kalidor, a warrior on a quest to destroy the orb. They are also joined by an annoying kid prince and his servant, serving as the comic sidekicks I guess. This movie follows very predictable paths, bit of sword swinging and adventure with of course a bit of romance in there as well. The acting is quite bad most of the time, but then again the cast is there for their looks not because of their acting talents. I guess the real reason this movie was made was that Brigitte Nielsen looked hot in that tight warrior outfit. Highlights of this movie was Ennio Morricone's music, but unfortunately not much else. At parts the movie gets so bad it becomes funny, but then it just becomes bad again, so can't really recommend it as a campy fun movie either. Anyway it had it's moments and kept me somewhat entertained despite it's flaws.
40%

The Blade Master (1984)

From a barbarian movie by Joe D'Amato you'd expect quite a bit of sexploitation. Much to my surprise there was basically none, if you don't count the nice outfit of Mila. Well anyway, this is a bad movie and unfortunately it's not the kind which turns into great comedy for being so bad, so I won't waste much time for it. Apparently this is a sequel for Ator the Fighting Eagle (1982), though absolutely nothing is this one made me want to see what the first, or the third for that matter, are about. Ator (Miles O'Keeffe) is this some sort of a great warrior who is living at the far edge of the world which seems to be about a day away from everywhere. One day Mila (Lisa Foster) brings bad news about his mentor who is captured by a bad guy named Zor (David Brandon). So off they go with their mute Asian sidekick, funnily named Thong (Kiro Wehara), to rescue the mentor. Bad effects, horrible acting and a nonsense plot follows. A few scenes cracked me up in laughter, like the snake fight and the hang gliding scene with those hand grenades for example, but mostly the only excitement this movie offered was watching the incredibly short skirt of Mila. So it's not really anything more than just a bad movie. I'm just wondering why did someone make this in the first place? Why did someone finance this horrible excuse of a movie? Why did someone release it as a DVD? And most of all why did I buy it? Well luckily it was cheap, but I'd still rather have my 3.95 back and most importantly my one and a half hours back.
10%

Ironmaster (1983)

Umberto Lenzi is more known from his violent crime movies and cannibal films, but like most Italian exploitation directors, he too wanted to cash in with the success of Conan the Barbarian (1982) and this is what he made. It's basically not a barbarian movie as it's a story about cave men who discover iron, but the themes are quite barbarian. Vood (George Eastman) kills his tribe leader and the hero of the movie, Ela (Sam Pasco), drives him out of the tribe. But Vood discovers an iron blade and comes back to claim the leadership of the tribe by force. Then Ela is cast out while Vood decides to take rule over all of the neighboring tribes. Ela then joins forces with a peace loving tribe of hippies and they of course have a bloody battle. That's the story in a nut shell, but there's plenty more than that. There's lions, men in monkey costumes, disease ridden people who look like zombies and of course the horribly bad acting. The fights are clumsy as usual but this time, this one being an Umberto Lenzi movie, there's some gore effects to spice things up a bit. The music was quite horrible and annoyingly repetitive. For most parts this was just a bad movie, but there were quite a few absolutely brilliant moments that were so horribly bad they were great comedy. So I must say I was surprisingly entertained and in the end this was quite an ok campy trash movie.
48%

The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)

This is the first feature length movie of Albert Pyun, the self proclaimed master of cheap b-class action movies. True to his filmography and the genre in question this movie is not good either. The story in this one goes something like this, an evil guy called Cromwell (Richard Lynch) resurrects an evil sorcerer just to kill him moments later. Then Cromwell goes on to kill the king and become the king himself. The son and the daughter of the king escape and years later try to take over the kingdom from Cromwell. There's some twists I guess I shouldn't mention in order to not spoil it, even though I wouldn't really recommend watching this movie in the first place. It clearly shows that Pyun is trying to go for the feel of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) with the hero, the music, the dialog and the action, but of course missing the mark by a mile. Though I must say the hero, played by Lee Horsley, was by far the best thus far out of these movies, well at least he tries to bring some comedy into it if nothing else. There are some scenes which were absolutely brilliant in how idiotic they were. For example a scene where an evil jailer gets his head slowly pushed into a grinding wheel which is powered by his own legs. Still makes me laugh to think about it, I mean if your head is about to get grinded out maybe it would be wise to stop pedalling the damn thing. Anyway that's just one example, there are more of those, but unfortunately they are few and far between. So in the end this is not really worth watching, unless you want to waste your time on garbage for a few hilarious scenes.
36%

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)

Thus far this is the only movie I might consider leaving to my collection out of this bunch. Don't get me wrong, this is a bad movie, but it's so bad it's simply hilarious. The story is basically a copy of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), this time set on planet Ura. Two groups are fighting over the control of a village's only water well, in comes a strange warrior called Kain (David Carradine) who has other plans for the village. You can guess the rest. Anyway, the fighting was bad, the tits were plenty, the acting horrible, the creatures were oddly cute, the effects hilarious, the dialog ridiculous and did I mention the tits already? The movie is horribly edited, it looked like someone did some cuts to the final print of the movie as even the music cuts from time to time and not only between scenes, but within a scene as well. Though that only helped the goofy feeling of the movie. I must say I wasn't bored and I did get some nice laughs, even though I kind of doubt I'll be watching this one again any time soon. Maybe I'll save this one for some hangover morning in the future.
65%

Can't find a linkable trailer for this one, so here's the opening credits, for what ever that's worth...

Deathstalker (1983)

Deathstalker (Rick Hill) is a sword swinging warrior whose goals in life are to have sex with as many ladies as possible and to obtain the three powers of creation. He gets one power, a sword, from an old witch, the other two are held by an evil magician Munkar (Bernard Erhard) who just so happens to arrange a big tournament where the winner gets them. So Deathstalker heads to the tournament and is joined by Kaira (Lana Clarkson) a warrior woman in probably the most ridiculous and sexist outfits I've ever seen. That's about all there is to the story, some sword swinging and plenty of tits to follow. I must say the entertainment values were quite high in this movie, especially during the first half, but unfortunately the second half focuses too much on the story and the sword fights, which of course are not much to go with. Apart from the outfit of Kaira there were quite a few hilariously weird moments, for example a funny sex scene which might give homophobes some very bad nightmares. All in all this was an ok bad movie, had some good laughs and it kept me entertained throughout. Though in the end there are so many better good bad movies out there that this one will just vanish in the vast averageness.
50%

That's it for the first part, the second part with the Conan movies and a few other 80's exploitation flicks, will follow eventually when I get the time and mood to watch them. Might end up watching the Conan remake as well, but don't hold your breath for it.

When North Korea takes over the world, or at least a small city in the USA

Red Dawn (2012)

The first thing I thought when I heard about this remake was why the hell would someone remake Red Dawn (1984)? It's a cold war era propaganda wrapped with a ridiculously idiotic story. As the cold war is over you are left with the ridiculously idiotic story and unfortunately this movie doesn't even try to bring anything new to the table. Actually it just simplifies it and switches the Soviets to North Koreans, that leaves not much to go with. So the story is that one day this small town somewhere in the USA gets invaded by North Korean troops and some local teenagers start to fight back. Calling themselves the Wolverines after their local football team they start a guerilla war against an army and of course kick ass. This movie is just beyond stupid, it's like the creators of this are thinking that no one in the audience has any brain activity. Maybe their target audience are the vegetative state patients at a coma ward. At points I was actually cheering for the North Koreans for putting some of those annoying kids out of their misery. It's badly acted, most of the characters are extremely annoying, it's horribly shot with a shaky camera, it's edited by a 12 year old with ADHD, it's directed by a stunt man and like I said the story is just ridiculous. Though at points it gets so bad it becomes funny, so I did find myself laughing a few times. But in the end it's a horrible movie with a few unintentionally funny moments.
11%

Jason Voorhees - The man behind the mask part 2

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Passed the half way marker on the series and I still haven't lost my sanity, that's a great thing I guess. But damn, the timeline goes absolutely crazy in this one. I mean it was around 1997 when Jason ended in the bottom of the lake and in this one Jason was already in the lake when Tina was a little girl so that adds at least 12 years to it again when Tina is grown up and this story begins. So that would mean this movie is supposed to take place in around 2009. Well didn't see any cellphones or ipods or digital cameras or anything like that, just the usual 80's stuff. Either those country folk are really behind in development or I should just stop trying to figure out the timeline. Anyway this part goes back to traditions with a flashback start, though this time there's a new narration to it. The plot in this one is that a young woman, Tina, with telekinetic powers comes to the lake with her mother and doctor in order to get her powers in control. Of course on the next door there's a group of teens hosting a surprise birthday party so that's a definite check on the fresh meat. Tina ends up resurrecting Jason with her powers and the killing starts again. We get the first kill already at around 7 mins, but it's not Jason who does it. Jason's first kill comes at around 20 minutes, that's the slowest thus far from the parts where Jason is actually doing the killing. But once he gets started he's not wasting any time, so it's not a big problem. Again there's plenty of good kills, but the best is the sleeping bag slam. Brutal. Though I really liked the skinny dipping kill also but for a very different reason. Speaking of that, the t&a department is back in order again which was a big plus. The story borrows quite a many themes from Carrie (1976) and of course goes totally over board with the powers, but I still quite liked it. The movie was cut to a torso by the damn MPAA, so many of the quite innovative kills are mere flashes on the screen and it seems very mild in modern standards. This movie is also remarkable because it's the first movie with Kane Hodder as Jason, who of course is the most known actor to play Jason and ended up reprising his role in the following movies as well. I must say this was actually even more entertaining than the first part and turned out to be my favourite thus far. It doesn't try to be funny, but it doesn't take itself seriously either, so when ever it goes to the unintentional comedy it actually works quite well, just like a no brainer slasher flick should.
77%



Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

The story continues where the last one left, Jason is at the bottom of Crystal Lake and a boat anchor cracks a power line which jump starts him again. There's not exactly a flashback in the start but the guy in the boat recaps the past events to his girfriend, and he was even kind enough to bring a new hockey mask for Jason. So of course they end up dead and Jason takes a swim to a nearby cruise ship where a group of teenagers are heading for New York. The title is actually quite misleading as only a very small part of the movie happens in New York, it's mostly on the ship, at the docks, back streets and sewers which could be from what ever city. This part was a major let down, only thing it had right was the t&a, but even those were quite few and far between. We actually get tits before the first kill which also happens a bit late at around 10 minutes. I didn't like the look of the movie, it was too dark and dirty. That would have fit it well if the director would have even tried to build some suspense, but as he goes only for the gore effect (which of course got cut out by MPAA) it fails quite miserably. The timeline of course gets even weirder, but even though I decided to not care about it as they clearly just ignore the previous sequels, it still made an idiotic turn on it. I mean Rennie, the heroine of the story, was supposedly getting drowned by Jason as a little kid, well that all fine, but Rennie is 20-something and Jason drowned in the 50's. She sure looks young for a 45 year old. Anyway that's not even the most idiotic thing about this movie, the ending is just something colossal in stupidity. And saying that for this series where the stories are quite far from smart is something special. Also what the hell is up with Jason's teleportation skills? I mean immortality and super human strenght I can take but that's just too much even for me. Crappy movie and even the kills weren't anything worth watching. For the best kill, as a Finn the sauna kill warmed my heart, though I did like the boxing kill in it's goofiness also. But other than that, there's nothing to see.
28%



Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

First there was The Final Chapter and now it's The Final Friday with Jason going to hell. Don't they ever learn this series will never die? Anyhow the biggest question with this was what New Line was going to do with the franchise after buying it from Paramount. The movie starts up great, we get some nice suspense, a very nice shower scene and most of all Jason is back (and not as a fucking kid like in the last part). But then it all goes to hell. Jason gets blown to pieces and we get this nonsense about his soul or what ever switching between bodies as hosts. Then there's some killing and even more idiotic plot about Jason having a sister who is the only one who can kill him. Horrible excuse for a Friday the 13th movie as this has very little to do with it. People want to see Jason killing teenagers in his hockey mask, not some Body Snatchers ripoff. There is some fine t&a which was well needed as there's really not much else to look for. The first kill was probably the slowest of the series at just before 17 minutes. Best kill was by far the safe sex kill, which in a real Friday the 13th movie would have been one of the best in the series but in this it's just a waste of a good idea. This was the second fully uncut movie in this series thus far, but that didn't really help much as the kills aren't that great, apart from that safe sex bit. This was a crappy waste of time and money.
17%



Jason X (2001)

The last part ended up in a scene which set up the idea of a duel between Freddy and Jason, but for some reason they decided to send him into space instead. So the story goes something like this, Jason gets cryogenically frozen and his icicle is found 450 years later when Earth has become uninhabitable. He is taken to a space ship and defrozen, and of course the killing starts again. I didn't really like this part, the whole idea of taking him into the future was a bit too silly and felt like a desperate attempt to bring new life to the series. Jason belongs to the countryside, not to a space ship. Anyway, what I liked was that the body skipping bullshit was abandoned and it's the main man himself doing the killing again. And there are some quite good ones in this part. We get the first kill around 6 minutes so it surely doesn't waste time and the body count is quite high, actually if you count in the whole space station he indirectly destroys it's more than in the whole series alltogether. Best kill was the frozen face slam, though the guy spinning in the drill was also fun. Even though there's a lot of sex scenes and sexual references, there's not really any t&a. One set of fake robo-tits and two pairs of hologram simulated titties, so very weak in that department. I didn't mind that they took a comedic approach to the series, other parts did that as well, but the comedy in this one is a bit too idiotic. The SuperJason was just retarded, sure it made me smile but it was so unnecessary. This part was way better than the previous, but still far from the better ones from this series.
36%



Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The fans had been awaiting for this movie since the 80's and after being disappointed that the previous movie wasn't what part 9 promised, they surely were anxious to see this one. And I must say I was also. I mean I had long before lost interest in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as apart from the good first part they are very bad, but still to see Jason and Freddy fight it out in one movie sounded great. Freddy is pissed as no one seems to remember him and thus he has no one to kill, so he decides to call in some help. He appears in Jason's dream and convinces him to go to Elm Street to do some killing. So Jason takes a little trip and sure enough bodies start to pile up and the first suspect is Freddy as the older people in the town haven't forgotten him. But then Freddy has another problem, Jason is an unstoppable killing machine that cuts through the teens in such a speed that he can't get a kill in between. So Freddy needs to stop Jason so he can have the kids to himself and the battle is on. I actually like this movie, it's very entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. There's also enough t&a to keep things going and surely no shortage of kills. We get the first kill already around 5 mins, but it turns out to be a dream. The first "real" kill is around 13 mins and it's also one of the best kills in the whole series. I liked how the story tried to stay true to both of the franchises and at least I interpreted the ending that Jason won. At least he won the bodycount as Freddy manages to get only one kill in the whole movie. Sure it had it's flaws with some stupid dialog and idiotic actions that the characters make, also the acting was quite far from great. Anyway, this was a surprisingly good spinoff, very entertaining and fun, just what it's supposed to be.
73%



Friday the 13th (2009)

After Jason had been to space, hell and the future among other things it has become time to reboot the series. I actually don't know why, it's not like the other sequels were that loyal to eachother anyways or that the origin story was worth telling again, so they could have just taken Jason and slap him where ever they want and have a guy recap the past in a few sentences like before. At least I would have been perfectly happy with that. But they went for the remake which got me worried. I hadn't seen this before now as even though it had some interesting people working on it I thought it would still end up pissing on the horror icon. Marcus Nispel did a surprisingly good remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), so I thought he was quite a good choice to helm this reboot. Also it's written by the same lot that did the previous which I enjoyed quite a bit. But enough about that and on with the movie. I kind of liked the fact that they compacted the first three parts into one, we see the mother, Jason with a potato sack on his head and the legendary hockey mask. Then again that raised the question why is this a remake as it mostly focuses on the adult Jason slaying teenagers it could have just as well been part 12 as far as the story goes. I also liked the fact that they kept the horror as horror and the comedy was in between the killing, I mean it was nice for a change that they didn't make fun of Jason. The movie doesn't waste time getting the first kill as it's in the first 3 minutes into the film, but it's not Jason doing the killing. We have to wait a bit over 12 minutes for the first kill by Jason, but then again there's plenty of them so it didn't matter at all. Best kill by far was the machete to the head at the pier, one of the best in the whole series. There was enough of t&a also, so everything could have been in order, but it really wasn't. I mean now that I've seen all the parts back to back I've of course formed a view of who Jason is and this movie didn't really fit into it. First of all Jason doesn't torture people, he kills them, I mean he's a very efficient guy so when he comes at you with a machete he will chop you up, not set up some sleeping bag barbeque. Also he doesn't kidnap people, he just kills them, especially anyone who tries to impersonate his mother. Nor does he collect bodies, the only body he keeps is his mother's, the rest he buries into the woods or leaves out in display for the teens to get scared of. This new "personal" Jason felt like the director had mixed the characters from his previous remake as this wasn't the Jason we've seen before. Had there not been the hockey mask this could have just as well been another part of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I also hated the corny product placement ala Michael Bay, at least in the previous movies they were power tools or some other gadgets used to kill people, not just to market a beer brand or something like that. Anyway the movie was still somewhat entertaining modern day slasher with all the cliches it brings with it, too bad it was called Friday the 13th as it kind of missed the essence of this series.
38%



His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th (2009)

This 90 minute documentary hosted by Tom Savini goes through all 12 parts of the franchise. Right from the start it's obvious that the fans of the franchise will get the most out of this as I kind of doubt that there is anyone out there that would watch a documentary like this without knowing what's it about. And those who know what's it about either like the franchise and watch this or hate it and pass this one. So that being said I was a bit disappointed that it also tried to fish in new fans going through the obvious stuff everyone who has seen even one of the movies already knows. But luckily there are quite a bit of interesting info as well, some of which even I didn't know about even though in the early 90's I wore out the tapes and digged up every bit of info I could get. The interviews are great and they have really dug up pretty much everyone who was anyone in the series. There's all the directors, all the guys who played Jason, many actors from each part and lots of horror fans who all give out their take on the series. It's fairly well made and luckily they got to show clips from each part as I think some of them are from different production companies so it must have been a hassle to get the rights. Even though Tom Savini does a good job hosting it, I felt that the theme park thingy was a bit out of place and felt a bit too corny. Also it was funny that he was hosting in character but he was also being interviewed from the effects while being himself, so it looked a bit goofy. Anyway, fans will get at least something out of this, even though it's not the best it could have been.
68%


So, 12 movies and one document later I think I still have my sanity. And further more I still think Jason is the ultimate slasher icon. What makes him different from his colleagues is his efficiency he has in his work and the fact that he kills without any pleasure of killing, it's just an action for him. While Freddy, Pinhead and Jigsaw toy around with their victims getting pleasure from the thrill of the kill or feeding from their fear, Jason just gets the job done without any fancy bullshit. He's a working class mass murderer that doesn't put up a show, he just gets the job done and there's something you got to adore in that mentality. Michael Myers is actually quite similar to Jason, but I guess it's the woods and the hockey mask that ultimately makes Jason better.

She who should have been left without a sequel

The Vengeance of She (1968)

Another one from the Hammer Collection. This was supposed to be a sequel to She (1965), but they decided to do a remake of the story with a bit of a twist. This time it's a woman who is haunted by a man giving her dreams to go to a lost land in Africa. The movie pretty much assumes the viewer has seen the original as it really doesn't bother to explain things, so unless you've seen the original you're going to have a hard time making any sense of this. The leading lady, Olga Schoberova, looks stunning but can't act one bit. Rest of the cast isn't exactly shining either. The dialog is about as intelligent as in an average pre-school theatre act, so the bad actors really don't mess up much. I didn't really like this movie much, the start was quite good, but then it got dull and never really came out from it. A bad sequel/remake of a below average movie, not really worth wasting your time for this. The picture quality on the DVD was ok and there was a trailer on the disc as well, no subtitles as usual.
17%

Stupid does not equal funny

The Legend of Awesomest Maximus (2010)

I really don't know why I watch these movies. I'm always thinking that I need some light entertainment that will make me smile for an hour and a half. But yet most of the time these end up being quite painful experiences. I'm talking about those crazy comedies that make fun of famous movies and/or TV-series and/or famous people. This one had the National Lampoon name in it so I thought it would be something in the line of those quite good Chevy Chase films. It wasn't. This movie is not funny even though it desperately tries to, it's just stupid. Luckily there were some tits and asses, but not much else worth watching.
18%

Bronson cleaning the streets

I read the book Bronson's Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films and that inspired me to watch the movies again. The book itself was quite ok, it loses track more than once as it's based on so many different interviews, but yet it manages to dig up enough great info to keep it interesting. Too bad it's quite short as I ended up reading it quite fast and it left me wanting more of it. But it's great for what it is and definitely great read for anyone into the Death Wish movies. Anyway, here's what I thought of the movies.



Death Wish (1974)

The movie which kick-started the vigilante genre watched today seems a bit corny and superficial at parts. But it still has a whole lot to offer and the importance of it can't be denied. Paul Kersey, the vigilante, is definitely Charles Bronson's most iconic character. I bet pretty much everyone has seen at least one of the movies from the series or at least some of the iconic pictures of them. In this first movie his wife is killed and his daughter is raped by punks who invade their home. The daughter gets traumatized and loses the ability to speak. Kersey doesn't jump to a gun straight away to seek revenge, at start it looks like he doesn't want anything to do with the mess. Only the growing violence around the neighborhood and the incompetence of the police drives him to arm himself for defense. As he first time needs to defend himself against a mugger, he gets a whole new sensation in form of an adrenaline rush. He notices that the criminals can be dealt with and so he decides to go and hunt them down. So there is a bit of depth to the story as well and it surely is quite striking even today at some parts. The cast is quite great and the look of the movie is nicely gritty. The city looks menacing and the dark alleyways hold all sorts of low life criminals. Sure it's totally over the top, but this movie is not about subtlety, it's about extremes. Despite it's few corny moments it's still a strong movie, even today and definitely deserves it's spot among the best of it's genre.
89%



Death Wish II (1982)

This time Paul Kersey lives in Los Angeles with his still traumatized daughter and his new girlfriend. One day five thugs break into his house raping and killing his housekeeper. When he gets home they knock him out and kidnap her daughter. The daughter gets also raped and killed, so Kersey is out for blood once again. This movie doesn't seek motives too far and jumps quite fast into the main point, termination of the criminals. This one is a lot more brutal than the first one and also a lot more straight forward without much thought to the dilemmas of the subject. So the entertainment values are more on the action exploitation side and that's not at all bad as this is quite entertaining movie. The acting is quite bad and even unintentionally funny at parts. The dialog is very corny, though there's not that much of it anyways. This movie made the character a bit more like a hero and opened the road for the absolutely crazy third part, but more about that below. In the eyes of an exploitation movie fan this kind of cut out all the nonsense of the idea and focused on the juicy parts. Far behind the first one in content and depth, but still surprisingly enjoyable no brainer action flick.
66%



Death Wish 3 (1985)

Over the top would be a horrible understatement about where the third part took the series. It's absolutely bonkers. This time Kersey doesn't even have to lose a family member, the death of a Korean War buddy is enough to set him on a rampage again. And this time he just doesn't shoot a few muggers with a puny pistol, he has a 60 caliber machine gun, a hand cannon even Dirty Harry would be jealous and a fucking rocket laucher to boost. The story is basicly that this small part of the city is over run by a gang, they terrorize the elderly people living there and the police is helpless. So what does the police do? They of course ask Kersey to help them out. And a total all out war is the name of the game. So the script is ridiculous to say the least, the acting is quite bad most of the time and the movie is tons of fun. The camp values of this one are extremely high. As a serious movie this is total crap, but as an insane campy fun ride this is the best of the series. And since I love a good campy movie, that's how I'm going to rate it. Absolutely brain numbingly brilliant!
92%



Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

So after the completely insane third part, where could the series possibly go? Well the start of the fourth part is quite brilliant, kind of like making the Kersey character a super hero, avenger in the shadows rescuing the damsel in distress. But unfortunately that was just a dream and the reality is not really what you'd hope for. Kersey has given up his vigilantism and is trying to settle down with his girlfriend, but him being Kersey, things don't work out as planned. The daughter of his girlfriend overdoses on crack and dies. A wealthy business mogul whose daughter has also died of drugs hires him to kill the mafia behind the drug traffic. With a bit of moral support he soon accepts the deal and on we go. So this time the small time criminals and muggers are switched to mafia men in suits. That's the biggest problem in this movie, it's not as interesting to see him as a hitman without the revenge theme, sure it was thin on the third already but still, kind of taking the vigilante theme in the wrong direction. And speaking of direction, Michael Winner who directed the first three didn't return and J. Lee Thompson took over. That unfortunately shows as this movie was surprisingly straight forward with only a few nice looking scenes. Not that the previous 3 would have been especially stylish but they had that gritty exploitative feel to them, this one looked like a James Bond movie done cheap with all it's clean action. Sure there's a big bodycount like in the previous one, but this time it's quite unimaginative and the movie is trying to take itself a bit too seriously in the light of the thin script it has. Despite the few good moments, got quite bored watching this.
44%



Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

After a wife, a daughter, two girlfriends, a step daughter and a Korean War buddy being killed, you'd think Paul Kersey wouldn't want any friends and family. Add to that the fact that most of his friends and whoever he comes close to end up getting hurt also, you just wonder why he even bothers to trying to live a normal life. Should just stick to cleaning the streets. Well quess he's after the nookie or something as this time around he's again in a relationship and as soon as he proposes things end up bad for the woman. What a surprise... Again he's after the organized crime but this time even the action is very poor. So this final part has really nothing to give to the series and is quite a pointless sequel. Even Bronson mostly just looks tired and you can see that he's thinking "I'm too old for this shit". And at the age of 72 he sure was. They should have let the series die at the third part or even at the fourth part as that still had it's moments. This one has none.
18%

So over rated, it took my breath away

Breathless (1960)

I often get criticized for having a mainstream movie taste, that I like what the critics like. Well, can't do much about it, I like good movies. But my opinions don't always reflect those of the critics. This is a movie I always get good conversations going with other movie freaks. Thou they mostly just end up calling me stupid for not getting the beauty of this one. Well it's innovative that's for sure, but it doesn't have a clue on how to use it's innovations. The camera is always present, making it near impossible to fall into the movie. When ever you start to get into it, the camera makes itself noted again. Wether it's some choppy drive, shaky handheld footage or some weird angle. Sure many of them have been perfected later on and yes I understand that a movie gets credit for being one of the first to use them in such effect, but if it doesn't support the story and feels just as it's made in test purpose, it doesn't make it a good movie. Then the story, or the lack of it. There's really not much happening in this movie apart from the very start and the end. So it's really boring to watch. And the characters couldn't have been worse, both of them are quite repulsive and the woman is so annoying I really had hard time to keep me from stopping it. So basically it's a movie where nothing happens and you watch two nobodies talking about, yes you guessed it, nothing. As a test footage I would give it around 80%, but as a movie only 15%. Really one of the most over rated movies I can think of.
15%

The one that sunk

Titanic (1997)

Don't ask me why, but I had to watch this one again. I mean I was basically forced to. I saw it when it came out so this was the second time I saw it. And here's the review for whatever it's worth. A shipload of stories and one of the most tragic events in the history to tie them together. How the hell can anyone mess it up? Well I guess James Cameron said "forget all that and lets do an overly long cheesy romance around it". And the biggest movie in the whole history until then was born. 11 Oscars and 1.8 billion dollars in ticket sales, no movie had come even close to that amount of money. That's absolutely ridiculous. First of all the story, it's pathetic, the age old story of a love between a rich girl and a poor boy with nothing but overly used cliches to offer. Then the length of the movie, the story would have fit in 90 minutes easily, but it just goes on and on and on and on. I have no problem watching over 3 hour movies if they are interesting, this one surely wasn't. The characters couldn't have been more superficial, the rich snobby girl is mostly just annoying, the dumb poor boy is of course ridiculously heroic and of course there has to be the devil himself in there to mix things up. There's absolutely no one to relate to and feel with, all the characters were pushing me out instead of inviting me in. Then the acting, I've seen better performances in a local children's theatre. I mean come on, an Oscar nomination for Kate Winslet? She spent half of the movie looking puzzled and screaming "Jack!". Not even close to a decent performance, let alone the best of the year. Surely the movie looks and sounds great, but it's like a beautiful apple that's rotten inside. Looks good, but after you taste, it leaves you puking. This movie has now taken over 6 hours of my life and I honestly hope I never have to see it again. It's just not my thing.
10%

Yellow on yellow done by the master of yellow

Giallo (2009)

Giallo is Italian for yellow, but it's also a genre of horror film which characteristics are stylish camerawork with unusual music and extremely long murder sequences with sometimes slow motion footage. Dario Argento is, or at least was, the master of giallo's, his earlier works are true definite genre classics. So when he gets to direct a script that sounds like a homage to all of the giallo classics with a fairly large budget and a very solid actor, Adrien Brody, starring it, every giallo fan should be jumping with joy. Well unfortunately the main emotion among the fans was probably fear of what the outcome will be. At least it was for me as for the last 20 years Argento has made a mixed range of movies mostly from bad ones to the absolute garbage. Seemed like the master had lost his touch, or maybe it was just that he wanted to try to do some conventional horror with quite bad results. Surely he can still return to his level of brilliance where he was with the genre he helped to define. Unfortunately not. First of all what was good in this movie. Adrien Brody does a solid job with the dual part he has and is the carrying force of the movie when everything else fails. The rest of the cast isn't anything special, but do a fairly ok job none the less. The script is a bit too corny at parts, but still in the company of it's kind, it's not bad at all. Sure the idea of a man with a liver disease that turns his skin yellow running around in a taxi killing young women in a movie like a giallo is a bit over the top in "yellow". But then again it has all the right ingredients in there so it didn't bother much. What really did bother was that Argento is completely lost in the world he himself helped to create. Apart from the name of the movie, and of course the color of the killer, there's not much giallo in this one. The visual style is very straight forward, being even quite documentary like at parts and that's definitely not what giallo's are all about. The music is like a stock horror movie music, another thing that's definitely not from the world of giallo's. The murder sequences are somewhat typical, but without the visual and audio style they lose all their effect and just become numbing. At the beginning there were a few shots that made me believe there is hope for the movie, but it crashes and burns soon after. As a conventional horror movie this is decent, a bit below average but not a horrible effort as Adrien Brody and some good parts of the script manage to hold it together when things go wrong. But as a giallo, it's unfortunately the worst giallo ever made and thus one point. I really beg that Dario Argento would just retire from film making and let his legacy live it's own life. I mean I absolutely love the older Argento movies and really adore his style in them, but his new movies are just pissing on the old ones and while doing that also on me as a fan of them.
19%

Look up! The Brothers Strause are coming for you!

Skyline (2010)

Had the chance to see this at a preview tonight and as I kind of liked the teaser I saw, I was happy to go and see it. Well I guess I should have looked a bit more into the movie before that. When the title credits rolled I saw something that gave me the chills. The infamous sounding name The Brothers Strause. Now where had I seen that before? Couldn't figure it out at start and on we went to the story. We are given a hasty introduction to the characters and quickly rushed to the main thing, the annihilation of human race by aliens. We witness this grand scale event through the eyes of few people hiding in the penthouse of a tall skyscraper. Lots of eye candy in form of digital effects are slapped into the eyes of the viewer, but the story seems quite thin and the characters are even thinner. Then it hit me, Strause, AVP: Requiem! I nearly screamed in terror after that, not that the movie was scary but the guys who made that hideous excuse for a movie were now consuming my time again. I managed to calm myself down as I was seated in the middle of the row I didn't want to disturb my fellow viewers by leaving. Even managed to get myself into thinking, maybe, just maybe there will be some hope for this one. Well it turned out there wasn't. The story is paper thin with basicly no drama at all, just a series of sequences leading to the end "twist" while not forgetting to show off some pretty effects in between. The characters are given dialog as interesting as reading the phone book. So the characters are mere posers and the actors portraying them are not making it any better. The movie looked nice and the effects were pretty, but come on it can't be that hard to put a bit of an effort into the story as well? Kind of like getting a nice big beautifully wrapped package on christmas, but when you open it, it's filled with horse shit. And the ending, well there is none, it's left nicely open for a sequel with this ridiculous alien with a human brain fighting back to save the damsel in distress. Oops, did I spoil it? Believe me, you won't care. Some points for the effects and I'm going to do everyone a favour, just look at the effects here and skip the movie, saves you a lot of time.
11%

Bondage leads to a Stockholm syndrome

Journey to Japan (1973)

A Danish distribution company called Another World Entertainment dug up this very rare film from the realms of forgotten celluloid and brought it to us in a glorious DVD format. Well unfortunately there is a reason this one was forgotten, it sucks (no pun intended). A Swedish girl, played by Christina Lindberg, arrives to Tokyo and accidentaly gets into a wrong car which she believes is her escort. The driver of the car is a poor loser who has no idea what the woman is talking about and why did she get in his car. Well then he of course decides to bring the girl to his shack, tie her up and rape her. Well to keep it short, the girl gets away only to be raped again, gets back to the man and falls in love with him. So yeh, that's basicly the story here. Lots of softcore sex and Christina spends most of her time naked tied up in various ways. There are a few individual scenes that were quite nice and the wacky ultra wide format it was shot in actually works quite nicely on some parts. But damn the movie is just so bad I had a hard time to keep my interest on it. Kind of like a bad porn movie without porn. Some points for the couple of nice scenes and Christina Lindberg who is always nice to watch.
19%

Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3010

Halloween for me means the biggest horror, cult, exploitation, sleaze, fun movie festival of the year, Night Visions. Was my 10th time in this festival and this year the festival was bigger than ever with tons of great movies. Had really difficult time to choose, but went more for the newer movies and not that much for the golden oldies.



Haeundae: The Deadly Tsunami (2009)

Didn't see this at the festival as I had it on DVD, but as it's in the program, I'll add it here as well. Korean disaster movie on a grand scale sounded promising. Unfortunately it falls into the same old cliches as every Hollywood disaster movie. Was hoping that the new cultural perspective would have brought something new to the genre, but it could have been San Francisco just as well as Haeundae. So it was a huge disapointment with tons of Hollywood influences. Some scenes were good, like the bridge sequence, but not enough to keep the interest up.
35%



Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Seen it before on DVD, but again as it was in the program, I'll put it here. When I first saw this I really didn't like it at all, I thought it's just another slasher with nothing to give to the genre and even poorly made. But this gets better with time and it does have some quite thought provoking themes in it. You just have to see past the goofy skin of it. I like the fact that it focuses on the killer and not the victims, though this does bring the problem that you don't care for the victims. But the thing isn't the victims that get cut up, the thing is the killer himself and how he got messed up to be kind of a victim himself. Sure the acting is bad and the direction kinda lost, but it's still one of the better slashers from it's era and definitely worth watching if you're into that genre in any way.
66%


The festival had Frank Henenlotter as a guest this year and 4 of his films were shown. I actually didn't see him or any of his movies at the festival as every time they ran there was something else I wanted to see running or I just couldn't make it due to other activities. Kind of a shame as some of the movies I saw instead were surely not worth skipping him. Anyways I'll put 3 of those 4 movies which I've seen earlier here. Haven't seen Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010) but will give it a try when it lands on DVD some day.



Brain Damage (1988)

Well this is pretty much a cult classic already so most people even a bit into the horror genre have probably seen this. Though it's not exactly horror, but more of a twisted, bizarre, gory fun ride to the world of mind expansion. Still today it works surprisingly good. Sure the effects are goofy and the acting could be a bit better at times, but still it's weird enough to work like a charm.
90%



Basket Case 2 (1990)

Basket Case (1982) is actually quite brilliant camp classic, but this sequel is not. It starts where the first one left us, so kind of a destroying the brilliant ending of the first part. This time there's of course more of everything and a bigger budget to boost. The new characters are too goofy and at parts even annoying. The acting is horrible, though it wasn't good on the first part either, but this is just a bit too much. Apart from the freak show host and the freak love scene there's not much worth watching in this one. All in all kind of pointless sequel.
33%



Bad Biology (2008)

A story about a super pussy and a monster dick. So tons of soft core porn, a bit of gore and silly effects. This was quite close to being so bad that it would have been actually good, but not quite. It's stupid, but not stupid enough. It's badly acted, but at least they are trying. The story is ridiculous, but not funny enough. So all in all it's just a bad movie with jokes that don't make you laugh.
17%


Then the movies I actually did see at the festival.



Devil (2010)

M. Night Shyamalan has become almost a synonym for crappy pointless movies nowadays with his last 3 movies being absolute garbage. But then again he did make a few good movies in the beginning of his career so there has to be some talent in there somewhere. So in this one he has written the story and acts as a producer but leaves the film making to other people. And that's a good move as some of his stories are quite ok, but his talents in directing are kind of bad. So the setup is actually good this time, but unfortunately everything is not right. First of all the acting was kind of ok, nothing horrible there but could have been a lot better too. The opening sequence is quite nice, the city looks freaky upside down, props for that. Also the look of the movie is quite nice, so the cinematography works good too. The directing is quite good too, nothing to complain in that department either. But the story, the part I thought would be the strong point of this movie, in a way fails. It has tons of great things about it but in the end it focuses too much on the supernatural god-devil crap and leaves the real juicy stuff behind. It's basicly a rollercoaster with a great point raised just to be followed by an idiotic point. So in the end it's just an average thriller with an average story.
49%



The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009)

Uneven is probably the right way to describe this. It had a brilliant start, quite good middle half and not that great ending. So actually kind of a downhill. Though even that it did lose quite a bit of it's momentum towards the end, there still were some nice moments. The cast was quite good and as there were only three characters they had enough space to go a bit deeper too. The direction was quite ok as well, though the dilemma and the emotions could have been used a bit better. The story was quite basic, but still felt fresh enough to avoid the boring simplicity these kind usually end up with. Was worth watching.
64%



The Horde (2009)

This didn't bring anything new to the overly milked world of zombies, but still it wasn't that bad. The look was quite ok, though sure the CGI blood and some of the effects looked bad, but it was still quite enjoyable. As this movie had attitude and somehow reminded me of another movie I saw at Night Visions two years ago, Crime Insiders (2007). Though of course this time with zombies and the setting was just an appartment complex. The biggest problem this movie had was that none of the characters were easy to relate to. So you kind of don't feel anything for them as they go through this massacre. Then again it manages to do enough things right to keep it enjoyable, so it was worth the watch.
60%



Piranha (2010)

Holy shit! Now this is what I call entertainment. By far the best live action 3D movie I've seen. I hate 3D movies, the glasses give me a headache after a while and I really don't see the big deal with all this 3D hype. But for this it really worked, this was short enough to not get annoying, it didn't have a single boring moment so it kept me entertained and it was pure mindless fun. Sure the plot was corny, but all the corny parts were used so brilliantly that it didn't matter as the movie didn't take itself seriously. Tons of blood, guts, body parts, tits and a severed penis floating in a lake full of nasty looking piranhas all in glorious 3D. Add to that beautiful naked ladies, actually funny comedy, nods to some sea horror classics and non stop action. This is just brilliant. I was actually cheering when the credits rolled. Need to calm myself down a bit and see it again some day, but for now can't give it anything else than brilliant score. Maybe because it was friday, I was in a good mood and had a few beers before it, so take the rating with a bit of salt.
95%



Red (2010)

Haven't read the comic so can't comment on that. The movie itself was quite predictable popcorn entertainment with nothing new to offer. Had some nice scenes and some of the characters were somewhat ok, but all in all quite pointless waste of time. Basicly you get the best scenes in the trailer and the rest is just filling in between. Some points for the cast and some of the funny moments.
41%



The Last Exorcism (2010)

Exorcism and people posessed by the devil are subjects that have been drained empty in movies so didn't have my hopes up for this one either. Well it turned out to be a very positive surprise as it really has a fresh take on things. Can't go into the plot much as less you know the better it will work, all I'm going to say is that it's not exactly what you might think after seeing the trailer. At start it actually was more like a comedy than a horror movie. So the idea and plot were quite good. The acting was also decent, especially Ashley Bell did a good job as the troubled girl. The directing was fluent and the shaky handheld look was done in a good way so you could watch it on the big screen without getting a headache. Though it's supposed to be a "documentary" with one cameraman, there are those scenes which couldn't have been done without a second cameraman, so it kind of brought down the mood for me. Maybe not such a big deal for people who are not that much into making movies, but for me it did spoil it a bit as it could have been done better and more "documentary" like. The horror is a mix of suspense and cheap scares, but luckily it's more into the suspense department which is a bit of a rarity nowadays. Sure it has some minor flaws but it's really one of the better suspense movies I've seen in a long while with a good plot that keeps you guessing until the end.
88%



Machete (2010)

Been waiting for this movie since I saw the fake trailer in Grindhouse (2007) so needless to say I was very excited to finally get to see it. And holy crap did it deliver! This movie kicks ass on so many levels it's insane. Stellar cast, over the top violence, beautiful naked ladies, tough guys, more one liners that you can count, ass kicking action, tits, even tougher guys and a take no prisoners attitude all wrapped in a mexploitation burrito of joy. This is what I call entertainment at it's best!
95%



Dog Pound (2010)

Before the movie there was this French fellow from the crew of this movie giving the introduction to it. He warned us that this movie might be disturbing as it's very violent. Well the thing is that everyone in the theatre had just minutes before seen either A Serbian Film (2010) or Machete (2010) which both are ultra-violent, other in a disturbing sick way and the other in an over the top comic way. So when this movie turned out to be a jail drama with couple of fights and nothing compared to the violence of the previous two, it was kind of funny and we had some laughs from it after the movie. Anyways violence aside, this was a drama after all. The drama was quite ok, lots of emotions in it and the young cast did fairly ok. Too bad the movie itself was a predictable recycled cliche of all other jail movies. It didn't bring anything new to the table and just recycled the themes from jail movies seen too many times before. Left me wondering why did they even make this, it's all been done before and so much better. Some points to the no name cast and a plus for the very last scene of the movie.
21%


My next movie would have been Due Date (2010), but I fell asleep before it started and only saw the last 10 minutes or so before the end credits so can't review it here. Like I said, A Serbian Film (2010) was also in the festival and it's review can be found here. All in all a very good festival with many great movies. Too bad I missed some of them as I went home to get some sleep, getting old for this it seems. Hard to choose the best of the festival as there were 2 absolutely brilliant fun mindless violence movies and one very positive surprise so I'll just give the best of the festival to the festival itself as it was quite brilliant this year.

A nightmare of a remake

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Another horror movie franchise that gets recycled. And again, they should have just left it alone. Lets start with the main man Freddy, when this movie was still in production I was looking forward of seeing Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy as I thought he could be a good choice. Well unfortunately I was wrong. His deep nasal voice sounded like he had a bad case of a flu. The lines he was given were simply awefull and the great one liners the old Freddy used to shoot around were just too corny even for this character. The rest of the cast were not a bit better, actually even worse, mere posers. So not good thus far, what about the story then? Well, there was a nice new twist to it, but I think it wasn't used good enough to bring new life to the movie. And what really amazes me is the lack of imagination on the dream sequences. I mean the only reason I could think of to make a remake out of the original would be to update the dream sequences to a bit more modern standards and a fresh surreal vision. But no, it's the same crap as in the sequels. So this movie fails in every aspect it could have even tried to be on par or even better than the original. Waste of time and money.
10%

I usually go through the rest of the movies in the franchise in cases like this, but as it's been more than 10 years since I last saw any of the sequels and not really in the mood to watch them again any time soon, I'll just review the original here. The sequels were very uneven from what I remember, 3 and 4 were somewhat ok, but the rest were just awful.



A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A classic already and not without a reason. It was quite original when it came out and the horror is not the nowadays so typical cheap scares, but at points even quite good tension. Certainly not the best horror movie ever made, but it has it's well earned place near the top of the list. If there's actually someone out there who hasn't seen this yet, go watch it.
84%

A whole lot of Predators

Predators (2010)

Well right from the start I have to say that this is the best sequel to the original. But it's still not even close to being as good as the original. First of all the cast is a bit off, I mean Adrien Brody, a very good actor but a mercenary no way, he just has that accountant look to him that doesn't suit the role. Laurence Fishburne was also a big miss and I almost laughed when he was telling his background, certainly not a good choice. The rest were kind of ok, though I would have hoped for a bit more bad ass characters and the most bad ass of them all gets killed first. So kind of a miss on that department. The story was actually surprisingly good, given that it imitates the first part quite often, but still best out of the other "sequels". The "twist" with one of the characters was quite predictable, but I guess it was kind of meant that way. The action was plenty and entertaining, though there is a bit of over explaining and stupid dialog to get the slowest of viewers into it. The setting looked nice and the "upgrades" the Predators had were slight enough for the true fans. In the end you're left with a barely ok sequel and promises of more to come. In a way I wanted to like it more as it has so many things right, but still it feels a bit pointless.
61%

And here's a quick look at the other Predators.



Predator (1987)

Well what can I say? One of my all time favourite sci-fi action movies and a true classic in it's genre. Macho power from here and out there. Simply perfect.
99%



Predator 2 (1990)

Took the Predator to an urban setting and made it more like an action figure with tons of gadgets. Story had a bit too much going on and didn't really get the most of the juicy surroundings. Certainly not the worst sequel ever made but far behind the power of the original.
58%



AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Ok so you have one of the best sci-fi action movies and one of the best sci-fi horror movies, put them together and what do you get? A total butt rape of both franchises apparently. This movie fails to deliver on every aspect and really makes me wish it would have never been made. Some points for Lance Henriksen and the few nods towards the originals.
12%



AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)

So after a horrible crossover they decided to make another. Needless to say it was even worse...
1%