Reviews

"The Firm" tells the tale of the McDeere family - Mitch, a criminal lawyer, Abby (Mitch's spouse) - a school teacher, Claire - their 10 year old daughter, Ray McDeere (brother of Mitch) an investigator for Mitch; and Tammy (Ray's girl friend) who also works for Mitch.

These five people have voluntarily come out of ten years in witness protection, having turned state's evidence that lead to the conviction and imprisonment of the head of a crime family. They now must face readjusting to the world; trying to lead normal lives; and without knowing if the mod is still looking for them..

When Mitch is offered a partnership with a large legal firm, he quickly finds himself and his family drawn into a conspiracy involving murder, money and greed; that puts his family in mortal danger. Can they survive.

What happens to this family seems very unbelievable; but in saying this, each episode is well written, and extremely well acted.

Of all the characters, Juliette Lewis as Tammy, steals the show. Lewis' character is quirky, sexy, smart, challenging, and very believable. Lewis is able to provide lighter moments and clarity during what can be a very dark and hopeless situation.

A series that is very well worth watching.

"The Midnight Hour" is a 1985 fantasy / horror tele-movie set on Halloween. It tells the story of five teenagers who unknowingly release the dead. Some of the dead wish to harm people, while others are just happy to have some fun.

The hero of the story is young Phil Grenville (played by. Lee Montgomery), who is.interested in Vicky Jensen (played by. Cindy Morgan), but Vicky is interested in someone else. Depressed, Phil heads for home, only to meet Sandy Matthews (played by Jonna Lee). Together they encounter ghouls, a werewolf, and many vampires, who want to suck their blood. Can Phil and Sandy save the town folk from being turned in to ghouls; and what is Sandy's secret?

The movie is scary, but is also a lot of fun. Many of the cast have been or will be in genre movies or television.

The voice of Wolfman Jack as the DJ on the radio, along with some great Halloween themed music adds the final touch.

Certainly worthwhile watching alone or with freinds on Halloween night.

I remember Deadly Earnest presenting this movie back in 1970. The movie is an edited version of the 1945 serial "Manhunt of Mystery Island". The movie centers around Captain Mephisto, who is intend on taking control of the world's supply of a valuable ore.

Deadly Earnest was renowned for making fun of the movies he presented. I remember Deadly particular fun at this movie. IT was quite a poorly make re-edited movie, with the story not making much sense.

Throughout the movie, Deadly did make several funny intrusion, with his very witting and demeaning comments.

So funny. A great pity that these episodes have been lost to time.

What do you get if you have Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller and. Jonathan Winters all together - you have a very funny movie.

The movie is about a widower - Bob Hope, who has seven children and a dog; who works as an accountant at a local bank. One day he finds a lot of money. By coincidence, it is discovered that $50,000 has been.embezzled at the same bank that Hope works at. You guessed it, the bank believes that Hope has stolen the money.

Fearing that he will be arrested, he gathers up his seven children and the dog; and hits the road.

The movie is full of skits and site gags; featuring the very talented comedians of Hope, Diller and Winters. It reminded me of a Jerry Lewis movie.

Well worth watching.

Basic story line is a hunter has been hired to locate a young male who had gone missing with his parents many years earlier in the deep dark jungle. The parents had died, but there were reports of a young male being sceen hanging out with monkeys. Sound familiar. The hunter happens to bring with him a tiger that he had captured in India - so you can guess where this will go.

The movie runs for just over an hour, so one would think they would be able to fill in the time with a good story. Unfortunately, a lot of the movie was filled with fun time with cheeky monkeys, playing with animals, stock footage, animal fights and a crazy gorilla, though the man in the gorilla suit was not too bad.

If you have an hour to kill, and you do not mind a cross between Tarzan and The Jungle Book; pull up a chair, and turn on YouTube. Make sure you have some snacks.

"Toxic Alien Zombie Babes from Outer Space" is a feature length science fiction and horror movie from the stable of Australian film maker David Black.

The movie tells the tale of when alien babes invade the Earth, seeking out men to kill. Can the alien babes be stopped Will the Earth survive? And how is the Universal Dickhead?

The movie is shot in various parts of Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Kenya Lebanon, Spain and the USA.

Linking the various segments was Didactic DAVE with his continuing commentary on the invasion, along with the Man In Black - but you will need to watch the movie to find out more.

David Black also very clearly embedded references to classic SF movies including "The War of the Worlds" (1953) and "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964).

A well made and very funny movie. Well done to David Black and his very talented team.

"Train To Busan" tells the tale of a father trying to take his daughter to her mother. They board a train to make the journey. Also on the train are a man with his pregnant wife, two teenage sweet hearts, a pair old older women; a street person and an executive, As the training is leaving - the zombie plague erupts. A person who had been bitten by the zombies manages to get on the train.

That is when it all goes to hell. She turns, and then bites someone. Before long, half the train have become zombies, while the rest of the passengers fight to survive.

Zombies come from everywhere, falling out of the sky, bursting through windows and doors; and seem to erupt - like a volcano spuing out larva.

Hats of the the little girl who was so convincing as she displayed so many emotions like a professional acted who had been doing it for years.

Zombies - so many zombies.

The move is set at a very fast pace, well acted, great effects, and a very simple story line.

A great movie.

This short is a dark comedy. The story is very straight forward - ask your guests what kind of pizza they want, until one demanding guest has an unusual request. When they don't get what they wants, things really heat up.

I found this to be a very well acted short film, will the lead actor's character being very believable, scary and very strange.

It is a pity that there are not any credits for this short.

Are you a person who only eats one type of food?

I won free passes to see this movie. Now, the movie featured Nicole Kidman, Australia's national treasure, so we were expecting a great movie.

In short, the movie is set in the late 800s till the early 900s, in the land of the Norsemen (aka Vikings). It tells the familiar tale of a child who sees his father murdered by his father's brother. When the child is grown up, he seeks revenge.

I found the movie extremely violent, blood thirsty and brutal. This I could live with. The movie had a lot of metaphysics, supernatural aspects, that were hard to follow, and distracted from the realism.

The other issue was that everyone spoke with a Norwegian / Swedish / Danish accent to give a great sense of realism. Unfortunately, it did make it hard to understand what the characters were saying.

So did he revenge his father's murder - you will have to see the movie for yourself.

"The Middle Zone" - Season 7 of "The Middle" episode 6, "Halloween VI: Tick Tock Death" (aired 28 October 2915), it is Halloween night, with Brick Heck (played by Atticus Shaffer) dressed as Rod Serling from "The Night Gallery"; although many people think he is Rod Serling from "The Twilight Zone". Brick presents the episode in true Serling style. As Serling, Brick would interact with the viewer, as Serling had done; with these scenes done in black and white. This was very well done, and a great homage to Serling.

"Brother's Nest" stars Shane and Clayton Jacobson, who play two brothers Terry & Jeff that have planned to murder their stepfather Jeff over their dying mother's will - leaving everything to the Roger.

The brothers have a great plan to make the murder look like Roger killed himself; but with all great plans, things just start to go wrong.

It was great to see Shane Jacobson in another movie. A very funny actor, who seems to be able let the viewer the humour even in unsavoury. Situations.

This is a very dark comedy/drama, with some very fine Australian actors.

The Jacobson brothers carry the movie on there lonesome for most of the movie. Kim Gyngell as Roger, plays the role very straight and well acted. Add in Lynette Curran as dying mum, and all is set.

A great movie.

I had been waiting for this movie for so long. It was great. There are so many connections to the 1984 original Ghostbusters.

The story is around the. Spengler family who inherit.a round down farm of Dr. Egon Spengler.

After the family arrive at the farm, strange things begin to happen, which leads to the young Phoebe Spengler discovering that her grandfather was a Ghostbuster.

From early in the movie, characters from the 1984 Ghosterbuster start to make appearances.

As I watched the movie, I was flooded with pleasant memories from the original Ghostbusters.

A very well made movie, well done to all concerned.

"The BBQ" is the story of an Aussie bloke Dazza, who just loves to BBQ, so muc, that he BBQs every weekend, much to his wife's distress. Just when he promises to stop, his boss enters him into the great Australian BBQ competition, where he will be up against some of the best BBQ champions from around the world. Like the Karate Kid, Dazza must go to the master of BBQ, to learn how to BBQ like a champion.

Shane Jacobson as Dazza, plays this role in a realistic and comedic way that is entertaining. Magda Szubanski is the Scottish butcher known as "The Butcher", who must mentor Dazza.

Overall, a great Aussie movie, featuring the traditional Aussie meal - BBQ steak.

"Doug The Human" tells the tale of a man who has been abducted by an alien - who shall be known as "Big Hole". He has not been taken for scientific experiments or any other devious alien schemes, but simply to be company for a lonely alien. You see, the alien treats the human (who she named Doug) like a pet dog.

This is a very funny short film. Well filmed (on location in Western Australia, Australia). It is entertaining, as well as a refection of how we treat intelligent creatures, such as dogs. When we take them on as the family pet.

Well worth watching.

"Escape 2120" tells the tale of Dave, a young man who had lost his parents, and was looking to escape his life. He wins a competition with his prize of helping two scientists with their experiment in time travel.

The story has great ideas, in both who to travel through time, and what the world would be like in the distant future.

Unfortunately, the movie was very slow moving, with a number of the concepts, not very well explained.

Too much time was spent on dialogue, and not enough on exploring the world of the future.

I did like the Doc - who seemed to be a cross between Doc Brown (Back to the Future) and Max Headroom.

With a bigger budget, this movie would have had the potential to be very impressive and entertaining.

I did watch this movie till the end, but it was a struggle.

A feature length Australian Zombie movie, that tells the tale of a zombie outbreak. An army unit is sent in to a refugee camp in Victoria. It all goes wrong when a zombie outbreak erupts in the campaign, which escalates. Jumping forward one year, and survivors struggle to remain alive.

The story follows the usual zombie plots, which some nice twists. The acting was relative average, except for the character of Mr Bennett, which was outstanding.

With many zombie movies, there are usually not enough zombies, but with The Last Hope, there are so many zombies - they are everywhere. It seems like that there are hundreds of zombie - well done.

The movie ends in a way to leave it open to a sequel.

Range 15 tells the story of some ex military friends who are caught up in a Zombie apocalypse. By mistake, they discover a cure; and must take the cure to Range 15, where is can duplicated.

Even with some great cameo actors, including Danny Trejo, Sean Austin, Keith David, William Shatner, and Dake Dye; nothing could save this movie.

As a comedy, its toilet humour was not funny. It suffered from unnecessary violence, sexism, poking fun at people with physical disabilities and more....

And on top of all this, the story just did not make any sense at all.

The only redeeming quality was that it eventually came to an end.

The story is set in the future, and commences with a space ship explosion in space. Parts of the ship crash into an unknown planet. Survivors of the crash find themselves confronted by a variety of dinosaurs, including T-Rex, raptors and pterodactyl. Survivors soon fall prey to these very hungry dinosaurs.

The movie was well acted, with go CGI, good story line. It it really failed was that it was implausible.

The carnivore dinosaurs were large in number, but there were no herbivore dinosaur in sight anywhere. For so many carnivore dinosaurs, there would need to be hundreds and hundreds of herbivore dinosaur in herds everywhere.

For a movie to be successful in its story telling, it needs to be realistic in its presentation. Unfortunately, in this aspect, it failed.

The Vikings is the tale of the Norsemen, romance, adventure and action. It is the story of the Norsemen raids along the English coast line that lead to the capture of an English princess, her escape aided by a slave, with the climax ending in an assault on an English castle by a large Norse army.

Overall, a good story line full of lots of action, with lots of fun bits.

Probably one issue would have to be the costume that Tony Curtis wore for most of the movie. While everyone else were well covered to protect themselves from the harsh whether conditions, Tony Curtis wore the shortest of shorts. He must have been freezing throughout the making of this great movie.

Paul Gerard Kennedy

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is the tale of adventure, action, romance and death. When a scientist finds a webbed hand of a prehistoric aquatic man, he returns to civilisation with his discovery. Soon and expedition of scientists, including one female scientist, head back to where the hand was originally found.

The expedition soon discover that that aquatic men, or at least one is not extinct, but alive and well. The expedition must decide whether to capture or kill the creature. Meanwhile, the creature has plans of its own. Besides wanting to kill these meddling humans, it has also taken an interest in Doctor Kay Lawrence; girl friend of Doctor David Reed.

The scientists soon find that the creature is extremely clever; with it killing and injuring members of the crew and team; setting traps; and being able to elude these humans.

The movies has a lot of action, suspense and drama.

What really makes this movie so good, includes the underwater photography, realism of the monster; and the wonderful music through - enhancing the creepy /scary scenes.

Released in 1954 - sixty-six years ago; this movie is still extremely scary; and wonderful to watch time and time again.

Paul Gerard Kennedy

This is a tale of knights who are tracking done a dragon. Along the way they encounter Amazons, and lots and lots of Zombies. The knights have real difficulty in killing the Zombies. Now being the middle ages, they did not know that if you want to kill Zombies, cut off their heads.

The acting is not too bad, with the fight scenes done quite well.

What lets done this movie is that the knights, with their Amazon allies, do not seem to have any idea of military tactics; that leads to them loosing a number of their team.

Overall, watchable.

With two very talented comedic actors Jerry Lewis & Madeline Kahn you would expect a hilarious movie. Unfortunately this is not the case. Not a funny moment. Very hard to sit through the entire movie.

Tries as I may, I could not find a redeeming feature. I bought the DVD for $2.00; and after seeing the movie, I feel that I paid too much.

Really not worth watching.

Vincent Price has to be one of the all time best presenters of all things scary and spooky. In this 30 minute direct to video, Price presents, in his special style, a small collection of science fiction and horror movie clips and trailers. Although it is hard to say why each of these clips where selected, most of them are very well known and enjoyable to watch. Throughout the video, there are also various clips from "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" showing Christopher Lee being pursued by a crawling hand. All in all, not a bad 30 minute video.

I have just finished watching this wonderful movie. The concept of having television shows and movies within this movie was a well researched and well executed idea that really worked.

Doctor Dreck needs to earn money, so he presents his idea of a medical show to the local television station, who instead end up giving him his own horror movie show, with his co-host Moaner Johnson (a zombie) and Stu (a rubber rat that talks).

Meanwhile the station owner continually tries to kill Dreck and Moaner.

My favourite character was Moaner, the Zombie Cheerleader. So believable and well acted by Lorna Nogueira.

A must see movie for lovers of horror-hosts.

The USA is now Zombieland. Most of the population is either dead or zombies. This is the story of a young man known as Columbia. He is trying to survive in Zombieland. He meets up with three others, and together they fight their way through a constant stream of zombies.

This is a well written story, full of humour mixed with absolute gore and carnage.

From the outset, there is completed action, without the story slowing down, even for a minute. When you least expect it - there are more zombies.

Bill Murray, places himself, and is excellent. A really funny guy. One of his best parts in a long time.

The zombies are the fast running kind, who can climb fences and ladders. They are some of the best zombies I have seen.

The photography and special effects are first rate, as humans and zombies meet their messy ends.

The script has many great lines, and links to many movies.

This movie is not for the faint hearted, but if you can bear the gore, you will love the humour.

Cannot wait for Zombieland 2!!!!