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btara_ktahn
Reviews
Curse of the Headless Horseman (1972)
This movie makes you appreciate the simple things...
... like driving nails into your head with a pipe wrench or slamming various body parts repeatedly in a car door.
I want to put Spoiler on this, but I think the movie's spoiled enough on it's own. Just scrape it into a Glad bag and leave it on the curb.
I'm amazed that someone actually made a movie that manages to be WORSE than "Manos: The Hands Of Fate."
Thank you, Leonard Kirtman, for making me renounce my home theater system. If there was a way to give a movie a lower rating than 1 Star, I would've jumped at it and shoved it down this movie's throat. (And I'm usually not a violent person...)
We picked this stink-burger up in a 50 movie boxed set for $9.95 (which comes to about .20 cents per film), and that's still .20 cents more than this was worth (and probably pretty damned close to what it cost to produce it in the first place). I'm tempted to go back to the store and demand my .20 cents back for this one.
The package said that it had a headless horseman on a ranch. That sounded cool!... Headless horseman in the Old West? How cool would that be?! So I put it into the machine. It's just a bunch of hippies getting stoned with a Super-8 movie camera and stumbling around a poorly created 'ghost town' set that would've made a much better paint-ball field than a movie. In fact, I think I'd rather have watched a bunch of stoned hippies stumbling around playing paint-ball than this. At least that would've been entertaining.
So here's a list of Pros and Cons!
Cons: Bad acting when they actually remember to act. When they aren't acting, it's even worse.
Poor sound recording. I think I understood maybe 6 words in the whole movie. Everything else sounded like it was recorded at the end of a 100' galvanized pipe.
Jumpy editing. They have Day for Night and Day for Day and they toss them all together into the same scenes.
Lame monster. He goes around flinging blood at people from like 10 feet away. Doesn't actually kill them. I'm guessing that the Fur Is Murder idiots use this as a training film.
Drug use indicated by flipping color filters. It didn't really get the point across so much as make you realize what a total moron the director was. The actors weren't good enough convey it, so I guess the director decided it was up to him to show us what was going on. And, it didn't work. At all.
Pros: ..... um..... dammit. I guess I don't get a RAM chip, Joel. :o(
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
Teen Wolf Too: The Neutering
If werewolf movies have taught us anything, it's that werewolves make the absolute BEST boxers! From Lon Chaney Jr in "The Wolfman" to Benicio Del Toro (also in "The Wolfman" but not the same "The Wolfman"), boxing has been a major theme throughout ALL werewolf movies, no matter what their countries of origin.
*checks with her sources* Oh, wait... werewolves DON'T box?! Werewolves are the ones that bite, claw and scratch, right? All are maneuvers NOT allowed in boxing (unless you're Mike Tyson, then biting seems to be okay).
This stink-burger should've closed the book on Jason Bateman's career. I'm just glad that he was able to redeem himself with "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" (I loved him as "the Mutant").
Teen Wolf had that dopey Wolfman Dance, but it was still a watchable movie.
"Teen Wolf Too" is just... bad. And it's not a GOOD bad. You know, the GOOD bad movies where you sit with your friends and a nice sugar rush and riff the snot out of a bad movie? There's nothing to riff with this. You watch it and wind up commenting on books that you have on the coffee table, or you look around for something else to do... something that could POSSIBLY hold your attention, because "Teen Wolf Too" does not.
La tumba de los muertos vivientes (1982)
I've Got A New Super-8 Camera! Let's Make A Movie!
I'm not sure how accurate my title is, but it fits this piece of schlock pretty well.
I rather like how the person who got credited for "Continuity" at the beginning of the movie doesn't appear to know what the word means. It starts out with zombies attacking two girls in short-shorts in the day time, then sort of decides that the zombies can't come out in the daytime during the rest of the film. At the end of the movie, the zombies simply disappear in the sunlight. Maybe they confused "Continuity" with "Caterer".
The zombie effects didn't blend with the "actors" skin-tones under the makeup.
*does the quote/unquote thing for actors since this movie didn't appear to have any in it*
It was a nice effect to have a live worm on the face of each of the zombies for their close ups. I guess they got the parts for being able to balance the worms on their faces and walk at the same time.
The Hammond organ soundtrack seemed to be made up as the film goes along. You'd think the person playing it would've gotten better as they progressed. It only seemed to get worse.
There's a scene in the movie where you see a tourist with a home movie camera filming the call to worship at a mosque. I'm not sure how they captured him filming with the camera while his sound man is recording the sound for it... unless they found someone else with a Super-8 camera for that scene and asked to borrow their's.
And speaking of camera work...
Much of it was Mr. Cameraman zooming in on a single object, then panning around to another object, then down to another object, then cutting away to a closeup of another object, then jerky camera movement to another object and finally resting upon a Nazi swastika with some dead palm fronds around it. After about the tenth time, you're like, 'Okay, we get it. Let's move on, please!' But you're afraid of them moving on because they don't use tripods or dollies in this; it's all Mr. Cameraman and his ability to run around with his little camera thinking he's every bit as good as the same person using a steady-cam. That queasy feeling you're experiencing isn't terror... it's motion sickness.
And, back to the actors...
NO ONE in this film seemed to be the least bit excited to be IN the film. They're all like, "Would you hurry up? My ride is here. Can I go now?" At least William Shatner and Roger Moore DO something when the camera is on them. They don't spend their time looking drugged up and staring off camera. Roger Moore's got that eyebrow acting thing he does, and Shatner has that... I'm not really sure what it is that he does, but his fans seem to like it so I'm happy for him.
And then there's a Sheik and a British officer during a flashback after the British officer gets killed showing what is supposed to be a German officer years later where the ambush occurred. However, both the Shiek and the British officer are both the same ages in 1981 that they were in 1943 or so. Oh, and the Shiek is the grandfather of the guy who takes over as the star of the movie when the flashback is finally over. Ponce de León apparently was searching for the Fountain of Youth in the wrong continent. I'm glad it wasn't in Florida or we'd have zombie conquistadors attacking Disney World every night; which come to think of it, would probably liven up the festivities quite a bit.
Mama Dracula (1980)
Just because you CAN make a movie...
... doesn't mean that you should.
And few films seem to exemplify that more than this one.
I gave it 1 star because:
1) there wasn't anything lower available to give it here other than 0 stars, and it ain't getting off that easy, and
2) I did enjoy some of the music in the movie (when it wasn't trying to sound 'comical' when the twin vampires were doing whatever the heck it is they're doing while the cameras were rolling... it sure wasn't anything funny, that's for sure.) So, I gave it 1 star for some of the music. It's still probably 1 star more than it deserved, though.
The lead actress is Louise Fletcher who went on to portray Kai Winn in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I probably should go back and give it an extra star just for her... but that would probably cause people to think that I enjoyed this... thing... more than I didn't. And that would be the same as lying; and I don't want to be called a liar.
Vampire fans - If it was at all possible to drive a stake through the heart of a movie, I would gladly volunteer my services to do so in order to save the rest of you from ever stumbling across this rancid pile of guano.
Louise Fletcher fans - Watch something else which you will be able to enjoy her performing in, because this just ain't it.
In all, it was 90 minutes of my life which I shall never see again, and countless brain cells which I could've killed off with a good beer buzz, instead. I wish that I had a beer buzz right now; maybe it would help me forget this.
Okay, I don't see anything that qualifies as a spoiler in here, so I won't check-mark that box. It's impossible to spoil this movie any more than the director, writers and actors already did. In fact, this movie is so spoiled that it probably should be thrown out with the wilted lettuce and that expired milk carton in the fridge.
It's just... that... bad.
Shi di chu ma (1980)
A Big Steamin' Bowl of Chop Sockey... just like grandma used to make!
I picked this DVD up at GameStop during their Buy 2/Get 2 free sale at our local store and I have to say, it's one of the funniest Jackie Chan films I've ever seen! The situation comedy throughout it was wonderful, especially the parts involving Jackie's character and the police chief. The action scenes were good, too... but I really have to recommend it for the comedy. I was going to give it 9 stars due to not caring for the very end of it, but the rest of the film just urged me back up to 10.
*possible spoilers*
It's got a lot of potential for riffing, too. More than once I found myself singing The Imperial March when some of the music started up in certain scenes (the brass and timpani reminded me of Star Wars at certain points) and during the fight in the street when Jackie's in the orange skirt, you really can't help but shout "Olé!" each time he stops and strikes a pose. (The fact that they're playing bullfighter music in the background just makes it seem so right, you know?)
Anno zero - Guerra nello spazio (1977)
This movie hurts
When one of the characters walks into the base control room and punches another character in the face, then tosses a triangular chit onto him before turning and walking away, I swear I could hear Crow (Mystery Science Theater 3000) say, "Here's that 10 bucks I owe you." I just wish Tom, Crow and Mike were here to continue riffing the film for me as my head hurts too much to continue on my own.
The scene where one of the astronaut is outside working on a satellite battery (I guess... I'm not really sure what he was doing), he breaks something and battery acid leaks out onto his spacesuit. He was warned that something like that would happen if he didn't come back inside and take another astronaut with him! I don't think the commander actually foresaw that, he had probably just read that day's script (it seems to change between scenes so that there is no real cohesion in the story to hold it together). They just make it up as they go along, and drag the poor viewer, kicking and screaming, along for the ride.
Anyway, back to the acid spill...
The guy is screaming in pain about the acid and how it's burning and such, yet the commander tells him it'll be another 3 minutes or so before it eats through the suit and that he should get back to the ship before then. Why is the guy writhing in pain about the acid eating through his arm if he's still got 3 minutes before it ever gets to him? I was going to tell about other things in this film that grate like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, such as the sound effects, music and that electronic screeching garbage that plays ALL though the movie, but that would require me to watch it again and start jotting down notes; something I have no intentions of doing... especially if it requires me to watch it again.
After suffering through this stinker, I honestly believe that it should be illegal for any Italian other than Sergio Leone to own or operate a movie camera... ever... and this movie cements that belief into my soul.