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Reviews
Rawhead Rex (1986)
Rawhead Rex and the forgotten monster horror genre.
So the year is 2011 and time has not been kind to poor old Rawhead Rex (1986) and the monster horror genre in general.
Anyone who has read Clive Barker's short story Rawhead Rex knows that this is a downright disturbing and wicked tale. The monster Rawhead has sexual issues, he hates women, he pisses on priests and has an appetite for eating small children/babies. However, all these awful things are what makes the story such a page turner and adds more depth to what would otherwise be a mindless monster work.
The movie Rawhead Rex (1986) suffers from a very low budget. The main offender is Rawhead's mask itself. Its cheap rubber with little to no animatronics and the rubber shakes as the actor tries to move quickly. A higher budget would have done this monster so much justice, if only a creature master like Stan Winston had gotten involved, this would have been a whole different movie experience.
I would love to see Rawhead Rex remade today with all the trimmings, but unfortunately Hollywood is a complete mess. Bad actors are thrown into quick PG-13 horror crap fests and CGI technology has become the only main focus of everything.
I think it's time for someone to step up to the plate and re-boot the monster movie genre. Rawhead Rex could be an action/monster movie extravaganza if remade correctly. Hollywood simply refuses to take any chances and because of this, the horror genre is more or less dead. In the end, Rawhead Rex is still an enjoyable monster flick for the bored late night horror buff. But it just doesn't measure up to the more well-made 80s monster classics like "Pumpkinhead".
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
A DISASTER. Hollywood ignorance at its finest.
It's pretty simple really
Transformers 2 is one of the sloppiest pieces of garbage ever made. This film holds a proud place next to "The Wild Wild West" and "Van Helsing". The reality is that Michael Bay does not care about Transformers fans or ANY fans for that matter. Bay never took nor wanted to take the Transformers property seriously. It was Steven Spielberg who had kept Bay on a tight leash for the first Transformers and that's why the original movie is a decent film.
TF: Revenge of the Fallen is a relentless mess of childish comic relief, horrible characters, and the worst writing in Hollywood history. And did I mention the jokes? Oh yes the jokes!! Sex jokes, pot jokes, fart jokes, penis jokes, ghetto robots, more fart jokes, and John Turturro..Nuff said. I swear this movie is so bad; it's almost as if Michael Bay was trying to purposely mock his own audience. Bay never liked Transformers, so now he has spent 2 ½ hours making the audience suffer for liking a franchise that he considers stupid and juvenile. It's amazing really
Sure, Transformers is based on a children's toy line, but it didn't have to be like this. We could have had a quality adaptation that was on par with Star Wars or Harry Potter. But instead we get a big pile of garbage from a man who is such an ignorant film maker and some of the worst writers in history. .
Shame on Michael Bay and his terrible team of Hollywood hacks
Kickboxer (1989)
Van Damme at his best!! A true classic from better days.
I first saw Kickboxer on VHS back in the early 1990s. It was a great time to be a kid. Street Fighter II was huge! Ninja Turtles was still booming and there was a big martial arts craze going on at the time. So there was nothing cooler than renting an R-rated Van Damme movie! Kickboxer comes from a long line of classics that spawned from the 80s and early 90s. It was truly a great time for movies and Hollywood had not yet burned itself out like it has today.
For this film, Van Damme is in full form fresh from his breakthrough performance in Bloodsport. This time around, the plot is that of classic martial arts revenge and even more cool training. The best thing about this type of movie is that it doesn't try to be anything more than it already IS, and for that it truly succeeds. Van Damme demonstrates his classic (long forgotten) charisma that once made him a mega-star. Not because he was an amazing actor, but because he had so much HEART.
The fight scenes are some of the best ever filmed. Van Damme really shows off his impressive physique and his unique martial arts form this time around. Nothing was cooler than Van Damme’s famous air born spin kicks.
Kickboxer is not perfect, but it is very enjoyable and is always a big reminder of how cool these types of movies used to be before both Hollywood and Van Damme sadly burned themselves out.
Awesome movie!! 8 out of 10 Classic!