Reviews

I saw this after viewing a short clip on you-tube.

I thought Mr. Knotts was funny in this movie, but I thought Anne Francis was fantastic. I am not one to notice wardrobe but the wardrobe in this movie really made the film.

this is not a great comedy it is cute one. and the idea of smut in the mail given our modern context is really interesting. I loved some of the minor characters.

I do want to note that I find it hilarious that user reviews say the mayberry fans/clean cut family types were turned off by this movie. I am sure some of them were. But this movie came in 1969.

let's give it some context. Playboy clubs had been open for nine years. this movie obviously is riffing off of Hugh Hefner's empire.

the "naughty magazines" with "nude" women in this movie show no T or A. while at the time in the 1960s, actual nudie magazines did.

the mock up nude magazine of this movie more fit the pinup culture of the 1940s.

secondly, for all the prudes whose movie reviews are actually social editorials, the big spoiler of the movie is that the movie EXPLICITLY STATES that DON KNOTTS is VIRGIN, and the movie ends with his him STILL BEING ONE.

Woodstock had happened. people were burning bras. they people whose children watched mayberry now had grown children protesting Vietnam.

the rest of film culture had moved to much much grittier work. were stuck up religious nuts turned off by this movie? maybe. But the fact that this film had a more provocative tone may have shown him to a new crowd.

To the people that say this was the "end of his career" as a starring man" because it was not family friendly...that is a nice nostaligic narrative. Butthe fact is that he made the Figgs movie as lead man afterwards. And that movie was very clear in its marketing that it was more family friendly. Why? Because Knott's handlers already realized that if he WAS to be leading man material it was solely to the yuck-yuck family friendly crowd. The film industry and America had moved on. Mainstream America thought Don Knott's sort of humor was great in 1964 but by 1971 his comedy could only be marketed to people with small children. Don't get me wrong, as a cinema geek and classic movie lover, I love stuff like Ghost and Mr. Chicken, but you could not sell movie tickets in a regular theater with Don Knotts as star by 1970s, family friendly or not. That is why he stopped being leading man...no market.

This was the big screen attempt at taking the success of Rowan and Martin from TV to Film. I know it failed as a mainstream hit, but it succeeds wonderfully as broad retro camp. I liked this film overall but it is not one you will watch over and over. It is a one shot watch, maybe once more if you with a good friend who really loves camp or laugh in. This is no classic in the way that Zorro the gay blade or Abbot and Costello were. If this were 1979, I might say pass on this film but just getting the feel of sixties, even a g-rated version, is a lot of fun now nearly forty years latter.

For the record, vampires are mentioned in the movie but do not appear, not even actors who are pretending to be people pretending to be vampires. The fact that in dream sequence one character dresses like Dracula does not merit calling this a vampire/werewolf flick. The vampire angle was played up in way that comedy horror tries to tell the mainstream viewers: "hey this film has stuff like vampires/werewolves/zombies/mummies" Trying to tell people who don't know the difference between a zombie and a mummy that a flick has" werewolves and vampires and stuff" rarely works. One comment said this was neither fish nor fowl. That is the biggest problem of the movie. It borrows from comedy/horror/mystery and buddy flicks in such a way that it has no real focus. The mystery is not that mysterious, the horror not remotely scary, the romance angle weak (they really should have played that one up. If the movie ended with a couple walking off happily ever after THAT would appeal to mainstream people much more than the4th wall breaking so much in the last 5 minutes. This is the next real weak point after the lack of focus: the fourth wall breaking as the ending. It reminded me of The Holy Grail when writers obviously gifted enough to write a passable ending decide to break the 4th wall when they could not come up with a great ending.

I did not like the ending...but it reminded me of dating....the fun of the relationship was worth the crappy ending.

This director takes way too long setting up shots and the action is painfully slow. I am all for watching Heigl dress and undress. I could watch a movie called, "katherine gets dressed and undressed" and be happy.

But even I got bored watching her put on her panty hose to go meet her boss at the copy store! Seriously, what was the point of that. It did not set an emotional tone. It did not advance the narrative. It did not show us anything about her character. This is the kind of movie I might shoot myself because I don't have a clue on how to make a movie! I love the info-tainment angle. But even that got dull.

The romance guy: his looks were odd but it might have worked. But I felt zero chemistry. I don't know why, but i just did not get their chemistry.

The roommate choice I thought was odd but cool. In real life, people have roommates who are nothing like them. Some set up to how they are room-mates were nice. I am all for tall, large black women, but I did not really feel the character had much depth.

I have to say I would have rated this as one of the best horror shorts of all time if it was not for the last 20 seconds.

Fairuza was Great. Micheal was so fun as wheeler. I like how both the killers were not sympathetic characters..it would have been cheap to make one of them an antihero.

I have to admit that as a good watch, this is a GREAT movie. Great pacing. The idea of two dueling serial killers is a statistical stretch.

But I bought it.

The stretch I could not buy was the dumb ending. It was very tales of the crypt. The dumb ending really cheapened the film. An ending like that was cute for the first 100 tales of the crypt gotcha endings, but it is SO Cliché to end a horror movie that way.

4 serial killers on the same stretch of highway? whatever

This movie would have been a mere bore. Steven Weber is good as the cop. His acting and his increasing lostness make sense. The plot itself *somewhat* made sense until after her SECOND murder. That's right..the ultimate buttaface (she is a fox but her face...is ugly!) I get that the cop loathes himself for being sexually attracted to someone so obviously emotionally stunted and facially hideous.

I got the part where the cop wants rough sex with his wife and does not get it, but does get it from Jenifer.

What I don't get is that after you SEE someone eating a cat, a little girl, and a carnie, you are not so full of rage that you overcome your weird little tango.

I actually threw up. It was not the gore. It was her salivating, deformed mouth and how he let her use it SEXUALLY.

seriously, this should have been NC17. Not for the naked. not for the oral sex. but for her hideous/oversexualized character.

I guess that would be a kudo. But I don't LIKE TO THROW UP! Don't WATCH!

Don't see it! If you do see, prepare for a very unhappy ending.

there is a time and place for an ending like that. the reason it was no good is simple: if i read a short story that ended like this, i would say, "Good tale! kind of pointless, but OK, a story of horror/evil of mankind." if i read a novel that had a sympathetic character like that die so meaninglessly i would be angry. now if they die for a thematic reason, that is one thing. but ed/nicks death is meaningless. it does not take a 2 hour setup to show that life is cruel or bad.

if i am watching an independent film, i am less prone to demand some sort of meaning or payoff. nihilism, the cruelty of people, stupid religions, etc are all good themes. but not in this movie.

this movie has no payoff. the ending is a turnoff. if i am watching a tales of the crypt movie i know to expect. but part of the tale telling of tales of the crypt is that a skeleton with bad jokes tells you a horror tale. so if it is graphic or if it is unjust, you knew that.

a good storyteller would not take that long to weave such a nothing little tale. this would be also OK as a twilight zone episode. only 30 minutes, and sometimes twilight zone got dark. i paid 3.99 and i want my money back.

if ed had been a willing sacrifice, it could have been cool. but what is the point of an island full of evil crazies who entrap and kill one man for their own needs? even if those crazed pagans had to kill him, their smugness and joy at his death was annoying. yes, there are people like that. yes, some tribal groups do that. yes, people in America used to love lynchings. does not mean i want to see it.

this movie was emotional smut. and that is no good. i like real real smut sometimes. but some people don't. so if you try and sell a movie that is actually dirty pictures with naked people, but convince people who don't like that to see it, don't be surprised if they get upset.

i kept thinking: somehow, someway, he either won't die, or there will be a meaning to his death.

watching this movie was like watching a lynching of an innocent man. who wants to watch that? Don't see it!!!

6 airplanes in the sky. Headed towards one lone ape. The planes shot and shot and shot but did they kill Kong? No. Twas beauty that killed the beast.

A great film. Not the best characterization, but that has never been Jackson's long suit. So sad, though if you don't know, spoiler, Kong dies. He had to die. He could never be happy alone (notice all the bones of his ancestors in his cave? he was the last of his kind) and he could never *be* with his true love. I thought that the character growth of Jack Blacks's Carl was the most noteworthy..though shallow in the beginning, he truly understood at the end what Kong was about, and where the blame should lie.