Change Your Image
hitfan
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The City of the Dead (1960)
A flawed classic
I'm a bit of a horror movie geek. In a typical week, I can watch anywhere from 1-4 horror movies. I usually go through a lot of public domain collections, and I watch quite a bit of schlock. But that's OK, because I sometimes like schlock if it has certain charm to it.
With a title like "Horror Hotel" I was expecting more of the same, but I was pleasantly surprised. This is one of those unknown gems like "Carnival of Souls" and "The Sadist" that really deserve more attention. While I gave those 2 aforementioned movies a 10), I cannot give this one a 10 because there were quite a few plot holes and things that did not make sense.
But these flaws did not ruin the experience for me, I loved the creepy and ghost-like atmosphere presented here. The main protagonist, Nan Barlow (played by Venetia Stevenson) is drop-dead gorgeous, it is a shame that she lost interest in acting and moved on to other things. I wish that modern horror films would go back to the style that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s, when focus was actually on creating actual atmosphere instead of cheap jump scares and mindless slasher fare.
The Wicker Man (1973)
Not what it seems
I watched "The Wicker Man" (the original 1973 film) for the first time a few days ago. I admit, I disliked the movie quite a bit in the first half, trying to make sense of it all.
However, the final 20 minutes or so are an awesome spectacle and the weirdness and the flaky hippie atmosphere of the whole thing built up quite nicely to the climax.
SPOILER AND ANALYSIS: I was expecting this movie to be a "pagans=good and misunderstood / Christians=bigoted and intolerant" type of political screed. Instead, the film kind of takes more of the tack of "a pox on all their houses" when it comes to the subject of religion.
There have been horror/exploitation movies made about the Inquisition, witch burnings, slavery in the Deep South and Nazi atrocities. I'd like to see one made about atrocities of the Soviet Union (specifically the forced famines of the 1930s).
I got into a 'debate' with someone the other day about the root causes of war, and his response was a typical one: "Religion is the cause of all suffering and misery in the world". Well, they stripped out religion in the USSR (or at least they tried to) and that society was just as horrific (if not more) than Medieval Europe in terms of misery and death. I think that oppression by the use of religion is just a symptom of the darkness of human nature and it's inclination for social control over others.
So I think the film is trying to say that whatever ideology or religion (whether it be Christianity in medieval Europe, forced atheism in the USSR or paganism in an isolated community) would be used by those in charge to maintain control at any cost, even resorting to "state-sanctioned" murder. SPOILER WARNING AGAIN: Wicker Man starts off showing many beautiful songs and dances of the old religion and then ends with a horrific human sacrifice--an ironic dichotomy of a Utopia devolving into the worst aspects of all the other idealistic societies.
On the flip side, religion/ideology is a necessary evil that maintains social cohesion. Sure, we have pluralism and multiculturalism today, but there are "anti-hate" laws in place (state-sanctioned ideology) that force people to get along with each other, for good or bad. It remains to be seen if pluralism (the new religion?) will be able to survive economic collapse.
Ring of Terror (1961)
Not that bad -- a nice short ghost story.
I watched this movie at 2:00 AM on DVD. It's one of those public domain cheapies that you can buy in the bargain bins. I got mine as part of the 50 movie megapack "Nightmare Worlds" for which I paid $20 for. So this movie basically only cost me 40 cents.
The best part of the movie is the graveyard caretaker who opens and closes the movie. The setting up of this character really does provide the mood and atmosphere. While not the greatest movie, I found it entertaining nonetheless and I was wondering how the protagonist was going to have his demise.
For fans of 'retro horror' this might be worth a look.
Death Proof (2007)
Tarantino's homage to the "B" movie does not feel like one
I was one of the few moviegoers looking forward to "Grindhouse" as it was being advertised before it's release. I've recently acquired several DVD box sets of public domain horror films (Treeline's 50 Movie packs: Classic Horror, Nightmare Worlds), along with a few Hammer films and a lot of Elvira Movie Macabre VHS recordings. I'm pretty much the target market for "Grindhouse" and I easily recognized the elements that were parodied here.
While the first half, "Planet Terror" was a lot of fun to watch, I found "Death Proof" to be lacking. Some have argued that a lot of 1970s low budget films contained too much dialogue with only a handful of money shots, which is what this film sought to emulate. Call me a 'male chauvinist pig', but to hear endless girl talk on film is akin to being forced to listen to the sound of a cat scratching a blackboard or watch "The View".
There's a few things that I did like, however. I thought that the opening montage was quite clever--we get to see a brief frame "Thunderbolt!" being covered up by a "DEATH PROOF" title card giving us the impression that this film had a previous theatrical release under it's former name. A lot of low-budget movies would be recycled in this manner, apparently.
I did like Kurt Russell's "Stuntman Mike" somewhat. In the first half he was quite entertaining, but I was saddened to see him degenerate into a caricature of a wimp in the second act. If one should make a feminist revenge film, I think it's better to make the villain even more macho right to the end. Film heroes are only as good as their antagonists.
The Oblong Box (1969)
Atmospheric and entertaining, though nothing like Poe's "Oblong Box"
I recently got the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe (in a single volume) for Christmas and around the same time, I acquired "The Oblong Box" movie through a tape trader on the internet which was recorded from a 1982 broadcast of Movie Macabre--where Elvira provides her own colorful commentary just before the commercial breaks.
I had put off watching this film because I wanted to read the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name. In that story, a man brings an oblong box on a ship voyage to New York. A hurricane causes the ship to sink, and the man refuses to go on a lifeboat, clinging to the box as he drowns. We find out later that the contents of the oblong box was the corpse of the man's recently deceased wife.
The movie version is nothing like this, of course. It involves Vincent Price burying his brother alive after which, the latter goes insane and lusts for revenge. It might have been more fitting to call this one "The Premature Burial" (another Poe short story) but there is another movie with this same name (a Corman film also based on the Poe story).
In spite of the misleading title, I enjoyed it. Vincent Price is one of those actors who makes every movie, no matter how bad, very entertaining when he appears in it. Christopher Lee also appears, though I wish he had more screen time with Price. I really liked the period settings and costumes which contributed to the overall enjoyment of the film.
On the B-movie scale, I rate this a 9.