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The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
Hilariously Un-Scary
Totally overproduced, all-CGI plastic, including the performances. What could have been a taught thriller is so fake, it's unintentionally hilarious.
Everything is obviously pre-lit with light grids (this one being the ubiquitous teal-and-steel. Adding more fakery doesn't make it better; and they pile it on like Diet Cool Whip (all artificial ingredients)!
The goofiest part is when one of the killer's victims is hit on the back of his skull, and his eyes literally pop out of his skull like a bad 3D effect - boinnng! Right at the audience, like something out of Roger Rabbit or SCTV's "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Beef."
The original story is one of Barker's best; but the director clearly has no clue how to depict tension. Here we are, stuck in a confined space with no possible escape, and we get... boinng! It's not even remotely scary. Don't waste your time.
Space Master X-7 (1958)
Rusted out
I have no idea why other reviewers are upbeat about this one. First, it barely qualifies as sci-fi; it's mostly a dry melodrama. The plot involves scientist Paul Frees who discovers an alien fungus that grows in his lab and kills him passively (looking mostly like a hunk of wet canvas).
But the majority of the movie involves his estranged wife, supposedly a carrier of the fungus; she is constantly on the run, believing she's criminally involved with his death. We never ever see the monster in action, we only glimpse it a few anticlimactic moments. The stuff shows up in a freight car, in her apartment, but illogically, she is never affected by it; nor do we ever see it attack anyone. The film ends with stock footage of an airplane making an emergency landing.
And that's all you get. If you want better fare along these lines, try MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE. This one's totally forgettable.
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Overcooked
I was really looking forward to this one. The opening diner scene is unpredictably violent and edgy. It's hyper-kinetic, with a dizzying array of color, flash cuts and unsparing gore.
However, after awhile it becomes numbing instead of intriguing. Apparently it's meant to be a social satire about media obsession with violence, and the public's glorification of violent misfits. But satire requires subtlety, timing and irony. NBK beats you over the head, pounding the viewer nearly senseless until there's no genuine irony or satire at all. It leaves you with the impression that it's not satirical at all - people are indeed mindless automatons with no moral compass. I felt like shouting "I get it, alright?" The entire movie is like a root canal with a shot of Novocaine to the brain. I couldn't wait for it to end.
Balada triste de trompeta (2010)
Unique
Beautifully rendered and splendidly unique. There is almost no way to fully describe it; but THE LAST CIRCUS is a love it or hate it movie. I loved it.
The performances are top notch; the script is sharp; every scene is unpredictable, the way a high wire trapeze act is.
Perhaps I'm generalizing too much, but I don't want to add even a specter of a spoiler. I grabs you from the first frame and never lets go. The director never tinkers with emotions, he plays them out grandly with a magnificent cast - like a juggler or a knife thrower. The circus itself is a perfect metaphor.
Buy it see it, but with this caveat - the film is grotesque and quite gory, but not for exploitation. You're not being snookered. Buckle up for one of the greatest shows on earth.
Acción mutante (1993)
Grandly grotesque
One of the best and most under-rated films I've seen in years! A black comedy in the truest sense. The scenario is outrageous, but never jabs you with that "get the joke?" elbow. The performances are true to character and slyly developed. I've never encountered any of these actors before, but they are all terrific and I'd watch almost anything they've subsequently made.
You may have to hunt for a crisp English subtitled print; beware the Substance 2002 DVD release that claims to be remastered, but is quite muddy, and I highly doubt it's a "remaster" as I've seen better non-subbed prints.
PS - the wedding cake scene is worth the price of admission alone.
Le foto di Gioia (1987)
Nothing to see here
Yes, the actress is gorgeous. Great cheesecake if that's all you're looking for. But I expected a lot more from this director, the gratuitous gore and violence he's notorious for.
Maybe it was titillating back the pre-internet 80s, but by today's standards it's nothing special whatsoever.
*SPOILER* What makes this such a letdown is the buildup to a totally anticlimactic cliché ending you've seen a million times.
The villain is just about to get his way, and then Bang, down he goes with one shot. The end.
How lame is that?
Bride of the Monster (1955)
Poor Bela - and where's Criswell?
BOTM isn't quite the delirious howler like PLAN 9, but it sure has its fair share of giggles. The atomic salad-bowl helmet is a treat (and makes a cameo appearance in Ed's NIGHT OF THE GHOULS as well). But Bela doesn't "shine" as much as he struggles through it all with the tattered remains of his dignity. For that alone, we applaud him. If you want to see what a great character actor he truly was, check out his performance as Ygor in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN.
Dracula will always be his signature role, but when he fit the bill he did it flawlessly. If you've never seen him in Universal's THE RAVEN by all means do! Even the lesser productions such as DEVIL BAT and THE HUMAN MONSTER are delightfully sinister. He is sorely missed.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
So-so
Like many fans of the original Apes franchise, I was expecting a lot more after the apocalyptic Beneath. This one is a comedown; it would have made a decent 60 or 70 min TV movie, but has neither the scope nor the impending sense of doom that pervades the first two.
The teaser opening, with Cornelius, Zira and Milo returning to preset day Earth is captivating. But it's completely undeveloped, and what should have been the underpinning for the story becomes a throwaway hook. The big questions raised but unanswered are: how did they recover Taylor's ship, repair and learn to fly it? Are they here as prophets? What else could they have brought with them? Instead we get a disposable "genius" character, Milo, who's quickly strangled by a zoo gorilla.
The rest plays like a Quinn-Martin crime drama. Despite solid performances, the hyperbolic threat of we-must-kill-them-to-save-Mankind is painfully simplistic.
Escape is for completists only, and can easily be skipped to the next, and far better follow-up, Conquest.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Sterile soft porn
I've always been a Kubrick fan, but EWS is a long-winded, meandering dud. Every scene except for the masquerade is excruciatingly overlong, and talk, talk, talk. At least a half hour could easily be excised. Worst of all, there is no dramatic buildup - it drags the viewer to a head-scratching anticlimax that makes you want to scream, I sat there for well over two hours, and then it simply ends? As for the supposedly controversial sexuality, it feels more like you've been groped by a blue-gloved TSA agent. If you want to introduce a friend about why you're a Kubrickian, start off with Dr. Strangelove or A Clockwork Orange. EWS isn't even close to being entertaining, let alone provocative. Wish it were otherwise.
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
B-Monster Bliss!
I love this film! Well paced and brisk B-movie, incredibly gory for its time. It is NOT a "comedy-horror" as shown in the listing, but it has at least one unique comic relief character: a hippie raft drifter named Omar is warned not to come near the island shore, teeming with Flesh Eaters. "Yeah, gimme the love, man!" But the Hero shouts back, "Shut your big mouth before you end up a skeleton!" Omar is totally befuddled. "Hey, I feel the love dryin' up, man."
Martin Kosleck is, as always, a quintessentially sadistic villain, using victims as guinea pigs for bacterial warfare experiments.
*SPOILER ALERT*: In the most sadistic scene, Kosleck drops a flesh eater into Omar's drink that chews a hole through his stomach. Kosleck tape records his agonizing death screams, and sets Omar's corpse back onto the raft with the tape playing.
My only gripe is that I wish they had restored the deleted scenes back into the original print, rather than show them separately as an extra. Nor does it have the original red-tint color scene, but I've only seen that from old 16mm transfers. This print offered on the DVD is very clean and well worth the price. And that music score - just perfect. Highly recommended for b-movie monster fans.
Dagon (2001)
Where's Coombs when you need him?
I wanted to like this one, especially after Stuart Gordon's RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, both of excellent revamps of HPL. But this Dagon is over-lit, generic "big" music, and overall not very atmospheric. Jeffrey Coombs would have compensated for this, he's got screen presence.
Instead this hero is a dorky doof better suited as a Friday the 13th victim - you just want this goof to get it - and we sure don't need to see him making out with a hot girlfriend for the first 10 minutes.
It's reminiscent of the endless Italian horror cheesers of the 1980s, more adolescent than adult. A shame.
Read the original HPL - that story literally oozes gloom; the film version just drips.