If you are expecting to read about the atrocious remake with Sam Worthington, you should be ashamed. I am talking about the “classic” (relative to whom you talk to about this movie) mythical adventure film that gave us one last fan fare send off by dynamation creator (a form of stop-motion animation) Ray Harryhausen. I remember watching this when I was little and being floored by seeing these fanciful creatures coming to life on screen. A winged horse, a mechanical robot, fucking Medusa and the Kraken all coming to life on screen. Sure, looking back on the movie now, the effects are cheesy and look downright comical at times. You have to understand and appreciate the old school techniques that Harryhausen pioneered to give us this creature fest and memorable film. Yeah it doesn’t hold up very well to time, but it’s cemented in history for the effects and story telling (again my opinion).
So good and campy that I had to go ahead with the second one in the franchise. I certainly won’t be pushing any praise on that craptastic third Blade film, Blade Trinity, cause fuck that sucked. No I want to go into the often crapped on, but ultimately pleasing sequel to the breakout hit Blade with the sequel directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Yeah, he ended up making a wildly satisfying flick that gave us more of what made the original fun to watch, but neglected to give us anything in terms of plot, dialogue, or anything else that could have made this flick. But fuck all that, lets get to the Daywalker goodness of vampire hunting.
So Wesley Snipes got out of prison this past week, which means a Blade 4 or whatever is probably going to be in the works as we speak. Now I liked the first two Blade pics, not the last one with Ryan Reynolds and something about a super vampire or whatever, but the Blade series has always been this campy, fetish style horror, action flick that delivered on what it wanted and that is about all you can ask for. I am not looking for something deep or prophetic, just Blade going around town, killing vampires, playing techno music and always betting on black.
Oh my god yes! This is what cinema is for folks. Movie like Inframan are the reason that I go to the movies, watch untold hours of movies and generally love everything about movies. Infra-Man is basically something that a 10 year old version of me would make if given the opportunity to take my adolescent ramblings about robots and karate and turn them into a reality. A completely off the wall action film the likes you have never seen before and I am going to talk a bit about this movie today in preparation for my chance to see it on the big screen next week at the Alamo Drafthouse. This is the shit folks.
I will admit, as I have done many times over the course of writing on this blog of mine, that I am not a big big horror fan. Horror movies are not my jam and the amount that I watch horror movies dwarfed by an average horror movie watcher. That much is certain, but I have particular tastes when it comes to the scares, blood, gore, and other aesthetics of the genre. That lack of horror movie watching even extends to Halloween itself, where I hand out candy from time to time and will dress in costume on occasion. Maybe it’s because I don’t have that passion for the holiday or genre that reflects said holiday, but I will tell you what, I am glad there are people out there like the one’s in today’s post who embrace their love of the spirit and holiday. The American Scream is a scary, lovely, labor of love.
Ah yes, The Deadly Spawn, a movie that truly embraces it’s B movie qualities and low, low budget fair in order to craft an unforgettable horror flick. I think the trailers over exaggeration of this being the movie that sci-fi fans were waiting for, might just be a bit of a reach. I certainly enjoyed the general terribleness of this movie and I adore this even more since I got the coolest thing in the world that only enhances my enjoyment of the movie…which you can view after the jump.
I am going to keep with the pandemic theme since my illness is still kicking my ass and this is a late post. Sucks being bed ridden and tired. So yeah, I Am Legend, I got to say that I am a fan of this movie, but I will contest that there are a lot of things that hampered my initial enjoyment of the movie, which I will get into after the jump, but suffice to say I am a staunch supporter of this movie despite the blow back from viewers. Again, this movie hits upon the whole post apocalyptic tones that I love in movies, seeing the lone survivor angle in a wasteland of danger and desolate locations. The ending though, bad bad bad. I do much prefer the “controversial ending” that was included on the home video release and it isn’t really controversial.
I loved…LOVED…playing the video game House of the Dead at the local arcade. I mean you can’t go wrong with a game that just lets you shoot the undead and various monsters. It was fun, entertaining, and a quarter waster. It had a story, I think, about some detectives looking for a girl or something. Whatever it was a shoot ‘em up arcade game and damn fun. This Uwe Boll movie, yeah I am covering one of his movies, is nothing even remotely close to what the game was. Shit I would have rather watched two video game inept people try and play the game for two hours instead of watching this movie.
I just had to, HAD TO, post this movie again for the final day of my month long horror movie post. This…this movie is the seminal childhood movie that I look back and think, “yeah, I am a movie watcher now”. It is this movie and The Goonies which will be my favorite childhood movies ever. Undisputed classics, but for Halloween, I felt I needed to bring this movie up again. It is one of my favorite movies and it includes all the classic Universal Monsters in their glory.
This movie has it all, teen adventure, comedy, horror, vampires, mummies, werewolves, nard kicking, silver bullets, chubby fat kid that ends up being bad ass, action, frankenstein, creatures from some sort of lagoon and even montages!
If you have never seen this movie, I don’t want anything to do with you. If you are a lady and haven’t seen it, well that’s ok i guess, but see this movie now.
Below is an excerpt from my original post and a link to the whole enchilada. Happy Halloween!
There were three movies from the 80′s that made me who I am today. First was The Wizard and the fact that I like to game, also it helped that I am a boy and video games are ingrained in my DNA coding. Second, The Goonies was more or less a pivotal coming of age story to me. A band of misfit kids going on an adventure, getting shot at, discovering a lost pirate ship, all without the supervision of adults. The last movie did more than define me a man, it prepared me for life. A life in which vampires, mummies, creature from some sort of Black Lagoon, and Werewolves were real and can be defeated. No longer did I need to fear these obviously fictitious creatures, but rather I use this as a holy bible to defeat mythological creatures. Also it taught me the word “nards” to mean balls. I really wish people would use “nards” again. The Monster Squad takes me back, like a young college student looking back on their posted Facebook pictures from some drunken night, I look back on this movie with great fondness and befuddlement. Seriously, where the fuck were all the parents in every single one of these kid movies. Kidding me that they can battle the undead and monsters without mom or dad asking questions. The 80s were a weird time.
If those Gremlin things went up against the creatures from Critters, I would go with Critters every time. This is just an insane movie, cheesy, but insane and fun to watch. I have to really give it up to the USA network during the early 90s cause they just played the hell out of these b-movie classic and Critters, along with all of its sequels, were shown on constant rotation. The quintessential step-brother to Gremlins, I think this movie is just kickass. Little furry balls of death that devour anything in their path. That poor, unsuspecting and typical horror movie setting mid-western town doesn’t know what’s about to come.
