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tbyrne369
Reviews
Auto Focus (2002)
Excellent film about sex addiction
Fascinating movie. Auto Focus is about sex addiction but the movie never comes out and tells you its about sex addiction because the main character never goes into recovery. If you didn't know any better you'd watch it and think "what the hell did i just watch???" Because its just degradation after degradation after degradation. It just gets worse and worse. Whats the point?
These were the facts of Bob Crane's life sadly. He was a sex addict. It seems a strange story to tell because he seemed like such a straight arrow dude but apparently it wrecked his marriages and ultimately his life.
Greg Kinnear does a great job as Bob Crane. He's like human Teflon. Equally good is Willem Dafoe as John Carpenter, Crane's electronics whiz buddy and the main suspect in Crane's murder.
Children of the Corn (2020)
Much better than expected
Not bad re-tread of Stephen King's story about a small, isolated farming community in Nebraska that gets taken over by a cabal of malicious children who worship a demon God that lives in the corn. The children kill all the adults as a blood sacrifice to "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" (what they call their demon god).
There have literally been like 12 sequels to the original film which was made in 1984. Most of them are them are just awful. This sequel got terrible reviews so I was surprised to find that the film was much better than I expected. It's clearly higher budgeted than all the others and the director actually knows what he's doing. They've injected an environmental angle into the story as the reason the adults are murdered. It kind of works, kind of doesn't. But whatever. The performances are good by the two stars: lead Elena Kampouris is excellent as heroine Bo and young Kate Moyer is appropriately scary as the villainous Eden. The director keeps things moving along. In short, this is well worth seeing. For some reason this got terrible reviews but it didn't deserve them.
Forced Entry (1973)
Nightmarish vision of sex and violence
It seems Shaun Costello set out to make something more than a simple porno here. Forced Entry combines aspects of horror and experimental film and does so quite well. I have to admit I was impressed with what he pulled off here. This is the real deal. If you are looking for the meanest, roughest, nastiest porn that also combines aspects of horror films you've found the holy grail.
Reems (sans moustache and nearly unrecognizable) is a gas pump jockey and young Vietnam vet with brain scrambled and traumatized from the war. He gets women's addresses when they pull in to get gas and he breaks in and assaults them later on.
That's pretty much it for the plot. Not a lot happens.
The film makes up for the dearth of action with texture, grime and some of the ugliest sex scenes you've ever witnessed. For that reason alone Forced Entry also stands as one of the strangest hardcore films ever made. I've watched many porn films but I don't think I've ever watched one where the sex scenes are not meant to arouse the viewer but to repulse the viewer. It suddenly makes you wonder what it is exactly you're watching. Why was it made? Social commentary? Who knows
Although I'm sure unintended Forced Entry is also visually striking in its simplicity. The camera goes everywhere and gives the impression that you aren't watching a porn film but some disturbed renegade film project made outside the boundries of law and good taste.
Rough stuff but very effective.
Prey (2022)
I actually really enjoyed this
I dug this newest installment in the predator franchise which is almost 40 years old at this point and has had multiple films, comic books, etc.
The decision to make the main character a young girl may have been politically motivated (as everyone on here just can't stop whining about) but it was a great idea. The setting - 1700s Northern plains, and the protagonist being a young female are the film's two biggest wins. Both are original and put a totally new spin on franchise that was frankly growing stale.
The main girl is likeable and charismatic and we start out in a hunter/gatherer society until the sci-fi element is quite literally dropped straight into the middle of it. And it works!
The film has drawbacks, like any action movie. The characterizations could be stronger and yikes they really made those french fur trappers a bunch of grotesque goons.
But once the action gets going its all good.
And leading actress Amber Midthunder did a great job, I thought.
Like It Is (1968)
fascinating
Interesting film from exploitation director Rotsler. Not as well known but (in my opinion) far superior to his film Mantis in Lace which was also released in 1968. This film is a hybrid documentary of the late 60s hippie culture in Haight-Ashbury and expressionist experimental film that tries to recreate the visuals of a drug trip.
The hippie documentary portion is very, very loose. We just get endless footage of hippies hanging out in S. F., sitting about naked smoking grass, making love, sleeping, eating, doing this, doing that. Meanwhile one person after another goes on about the "hippie lifestyle" in voice-over. Surprisingly, this proves quite interesting. I never got bored.
Then the movie goes into one of its drug trip sequences where we see girls, multiple girls, nude, dancing wildly to frenetic music at various speeds, images overlaid one another placed closer or further away from the viewer, while film, flashing and strobing lights, fireworks, images, and shapes are projected on the walls and on them.
We follow one girl who takes LSD then lays down naked on a couch. Her trip starts out fairly pleasant and fluid before edging into a fear state with candles and skulls floating toward her.
The whole thing is very much like an experimental film but it tends not to be boring. Anyway, I liked it.
...Y el demonio creó a los hombres (1960)
awful
Saw this years ago. Somebody loaned me an old VHS tape and said it was a good movie. I think it was meant as some sort of sick joke. I wasn't amused.
This is a horrible black and white Isabel Sarli crapfest which has her cavorting around on a beach with a bunch of thuggish-looking guys who are all vying for her attention. In between the romance scenes the film shows graphic, uncut scenes of sea lions being viciously clubbed and murdered en masse. It's absolutely hideous. They never would have allowed this today.
Firestarter (2022)
Embarrassing
Inept adaptation of Stephen King's sci fi/horror bestseller about a little girl with pyrokinesis (ability to start fires with her mind) and her father on the run from a CIA-type operation that wants to weaponize her power.
This was previously adapted back in 1984 into an unremarkable but nonetheless entertaining and enjoyable film that benefitted from good performances by Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, and Drew Barrymore.
I've read the book twice. It isn't Stephen King's best book by a long shot but it is quite good and it does a good job of exploring the backstory of the creepy MK-Ultra-type LSD experiments and the irreparable harm that things like Andy McGee's seemingly harmless "push" abilities could do to someone's mind in the long run.
In this new adaptation, the plot has been stripped to its bare bones and all that's left are horrible performances, an awful, stilted screenplay, and chintzy fx. Compared to this the 1984 version is a masterpiece although to be fair Zac Efron does give a strong performance.
The most puzzling thing is why Blumhouse, probably the most successful company producing horror films at present, would put out such a cheap, shoddily made fim. This seriously looks like it was made for television. The cinematography is so dark and murky it seems you're watching the movie through a cloud of black smoke.
What happened? How did this dreadful film get made?
The Novice (2021)
Fascinating
A queer college student joins her school's crew team and throws herself into the accompanying obsessive lifestyle with unnerving abandon.
The movie is mostly repetitious inserts and and sound cues that are meant to illustrate the student's thought process as she puts her body through the grueling ordeal of becoming a successful crew team member even though its apparent she is not terribly good at the sport.
It becomes obvious that this isn't a movie about rowing but a movie about someone with a problem that they're trying to fix by obsessively molding themselves into an athletic lifestyle.
That's the movie's real puzzle that is never explored or explained: who is this girl? Why is she driving herself to such insane lengths to be something she's not?
Regardless, the movie is fascinating and beautifully made. Its kind of a deconstruction of strange behavior.
Vice Squad (1982)
Excellent, hard-bitten tale of life on the streets
I saw Vice Squad as a little kid and I found Wings Hauser utterly terrifying. He's like something that sauntered out of a nightmare. Frankenstein on speed in a cowboy hat.
I saw it when I was older and I was able to appreciate his presence more and he actually gives a riveting performance. I was also able to appreciate that this is an excellent movie about sleaze and crime in Hollywood.
Vice Squad is basically a horror movie which I think throws people off. They're expecting more of a by-the-numbers crime film. The guy who directed it, Gary Sherman, is more known for horror than drama. Its also beautifully shot by Oscar winner John Alcott who worked on Stanley Kubrick's movies.
Total winner of a movie. But it is rough.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Superb horror film
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out and I was really surprised. I was expecting a standard horror remake but this movie makes you sit up and take notice. Its almost impossible not to be pulled into the story.
This was Zach Snyder's first movie and he really brings the firepower. This is a very scary zombie experience on steroids and a game changer in many ways. Horror films couldn't get away with slacking like they used to. Dawn of the Dead changed that.
Definitely check this out if you haven't seen it.
Le dernier mercenaire (2021)
You people make me so darn mad
How come no one's talking about this movie?? This is a GREAT film that should be on everyone's radar. There should be a mandate that this is required viewing. It's THAT good. This film has everything you could want in a film: action, suspense, humor, a deep story, characters you care about and believe in. When I watched this film I had NO idea what to expect and I was totally surprised.
There's one scene that combines a motorcycle race, ten surfboards, and a diaper, and juxtaposes these elements in the most insane and yet super artistic way. I was just really blown away by how beautiful this film is. I was also impressed by how the film shades aspects of the story with allusions to fourth-wave feminism and larger, macro concepts like red-lining and the generational effect of urban sprawl on marginalized demographics. Artistically speaking, parts of the screenplay are like living poetry and there's a whole sequence thats like watching a mosaic of futurist painting but as like a kinetic sculpture. Its mind blowing.
I'm making it an emergency mandate. As of right now. Viewing these printed words represents an unspoken but very real and legally binding contract wherein you agree to (within a week's time) view the film in question, credits to credits, forthwith. In the name of our Lord, with glory to thee. Hence, goest thou, seek and view.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Fascinating
In many ways this is on a slightly different level than most slashers from the 80s. Most movies like Friday the 13th and Halloween the killer a blank-faced cipher. Here, not so much. This film is low-budget and there are parts that can be laughed at but something chokes off the laughter.
The girl who plays the main character has the most haunting stare I've seen in a horror movie. And there is an underlying theme of sexual repression, bullying, and homosexuality. The victims are not the innocents being dispatched that you normally see in a horror film. Most are taunting karma.
And that ending is a shocker. I saw this movie in my 20s and was quite disturbed. That's recommendation enough, I think.
High School (1968)
excellent Wiseman documentary about high school life
Another great Frederick Wiseman documentary. This is one of his first and has little of the muckraking content of some of his other, more disturbing titles, like Titicutt Follies, Primate, Meat, and Law & Order. Here we have life at a high school in the late 60's and the times they definitely are-a-changin', as they say. We have the classroom of bead and sunglasses-wearing proto hippies railing against restrictive policies, students whining about not wanting to wear gym clothes, girls performing calisthenics to music while wearing outfits that look like burlap sacks, pushy parents fighting for their kids' rights, a creepy sex education lesson, ex-students coming back from Vietnam with war stories, and a strange, fat-shaming girls class that was either fashion design or carriage (I couldn't figure out which).
What we really have here is an x-ray of society on the brink of change. Teachers with 50s values and manners versus kids breaking away into the freedom and chaos of the late 60s. Fascinating.
Wiseman is considered one of the godfathers of documentary film so i would definitely recommend this.
Moment by Moment (1978)
I loved it!
You people make me so mad. This is a good film. It has range and a lot of scope. The director (Jane Wagner) worked VERY hard to make this a very special, committed, intelligent dialogue between two intelligent Californians. And that is what we get here. We get Trisha Rawlings (Tomlin) who is about to be divorced from her silly husband then we get Strip (Trovalta), who is a car gopher. They met once before at a party you see and he's got the drugs he'd like her to try. Everyone likes a toot now and again.
She partakes and soon they're zooming off into a May-December romance which is really romantic. There is a scene in a hot tub which is really steamy and if you have kids you probably want them out of the room for THAT. But I just love both these stars and all the hard work they put into it and i really enjoyed watching it. I may even watch it again if it comes out on dvd. cheers~!
Cobra Kai (2018)
Effortlessly compelling
Brilliant writing and direction and great acting. Utterly addictive. I sat down to watch it and watched the entire first season. Its so good. Whoever created it did a amazing job of throwing the original characters 30 years into the future. This is the kind of show that makes entertainment looks easy.
47 Meters Down (2017)
thalassaphobia
I can understand people who are experienced divers disliking this movie. Even as a non-diver some of the stuff involving their air seemed a little sketchy. But if you can suspend your disbelief a little this is actually a really cool film. There have been three quality shark movies released in the last five years: The Reef, The Shallows, and 47 Meters Down. No, none of these holds a candle to jaws. But they are all entertaining little movies if you dig shark horror.
What 47 Meters Down does very well that none of the other shark movies do is give you a strong sense of being plunged down into a cold, dark, dangerous place where visibility is virtually nil. There is a lot of black space which makes it very scary because you never know when the shark is going to come roaring out,. Its also a race for time, as their air is swiftly running out. Some of the scariest parts of the film, in fact, come not from the sharks but from the fear of becoming lost underwater due to lack of visibility and then running out of air.
My only quibble with this movie is the ending. Didn't like it. It appears as though they shot a more downbeat initial ending and then (for some reason) went back and stacked on a more upbeat one. Probably the studio's idea.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Remarkably fresh take on the werewolf legend
Canadian horror film that works amazingly well thanks to a screenplay written from a female perspective and two remarkable lead performances from Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins as teen outcast sisters.
The sisters are unusually close and both are fascinated with extreme morbidity. Sort of dark and gothic. You know the deal.
One of the girls is savaged by a werewolf one night and slowly begins to change. Her body, her personality, it all starts to change. The rest of the movie involves them trying to find a cure for the werewolf infection.
This movie took me by surprise. I knew it was a cult classic but you never know when you hear "cult classic". Some movies have a reputation for being great but then you watch them and its like blahhh. Not Ginger Snaps. It really sucks you in. The characters are three dimensional and exceptionally well drawn. Just start watching it and you likely won't want to turn it off.
The movie contains gore, scares, but also quite a few laughs.
El patrullero (1991)
One of my favorite movies
British director Alex Cox made this brilliant film after he was blacklisted from Hollywood for working during the 1988 writer's strike.
Prior to that he was an up-and-coming talent who had made two movies, punk rock bio "Sid and Nancy" and cult hit "Repo Man" and he was on the verge of hitting it big. After the strike, he was placed on the "do not hire" list by all film studios and he ended up having to go to Mexico and make a film in Spanish.
The awesome part is that the film he made is brilliant. It's an episodic look at the life of a young Highway Patrolman named Pedro, played by Roberto Sosa. It begins as he graduates the police academy and quickly learns that lying, cheating, and graft are often necessary components to a uniformed cop's life.
The film follows Pedro through various assignments, a failed relationship with one woman who is borderline homicidal and another who is a prostitute. He has kids and he often has to work other jobs just to survive, and through it all is the spectre of his absent father who never really thought much of him or his chances in life.
It sounds really downbeat but it isnt! Cox makes it all remarkably enjoyable and entertaining and the camerawork is INCREDIBLE. Many of the scenes are a single unbroken shot that ends up being very complex. It's great!
Check out this movie if you get a chance.
Fandango (1985)
Wonderful movie. But very sad
I saw Fandango in college and thought it was amazing. Something about it really captured my heart. It's a fun movie about a group of frat guys who go out on a last road trip before graduation and the real world. It takes place in 1971 and a few of the guys are going to be sent to vietnam so it has a definite poignancy.
Much of the road trip involves frenetic adventures the friends have but the overall tone of the film, reflected in the empty Texas desert and skyline, is one of barren sadness and melancholy. Kevin Costner's relationship with the girl who was the love of his life is never talked about but the film illustrates metaphorically in a dream sequence how Costner destroyed the relationship. And its remarkably sad.
Fandango didn't have much of a release in 1985 so it got lumped in with all the other teen exploitation garbage that was being churned out at the time. But its so much more.
The Fanatic (2019)
"Mr. Dunbar!! MISTER DUMMY- BARRRR!!!"
Absolutely wretched, bottom-of-the-barrel film has Travolta playing an autistic, movie-obsessed geek named Moose (the name is never explained) who slowly but surely sets his sights on an action movie star named Hunter Dunbar, played by Devon Sawa.
Dunbar is a total jerk to Moose every time their paths cross but for some reason Moose becomes more and more obsessed until eventually he just starts stalking him.
Virtually nothing in the movie makes sense. Travolta lives in a nice apartment but he's never shown working and we're never told how he makes a living. Occassionally he dresses up as Charlie Chaplin and does routines on Sunset Boulevard for a few bucks but other than that we know nothing about the guy.
The movie honestly is so stupid and illogical I only watched it to laugh at it. I did feel bad for Travolta because he's a good actor and he really deserves better than this.
Angel Heart (1987)
One of the scariest thrillers EVER made
The first time I saw this movie the twist at the end scared me so bad I felt like someone had snapped the lid closed on my coffin. Seriously!
I had to go outside and walk around to get rid of the feeling it was so freaky.
I have probably seen Angel Heart ten times since then. It is brilliantly acted, directed, written, and photographed. It has so many little details that you miss the first time around. I rate it easily as one of the best films of the 80s. I'm so glad (and not at all surprised) that people are rediscovering it now.
If you havent seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out. This is a brilliant, terrifying noir thriller with a little eroticism thrown in for good measure.
And that ending!!! Wow!
In Broad Daylight (1991)
Superb
Superior 1991 made-for-TV movie towers above most other made-for-TV movies of the same era as it recreates the true story of small-town Missouri sociopath and "town bully" Ken McElroy (here called Len Rowan). Thanks to ineffective lawmen, wily attorneys and the flat-out incompetence of the legal system McElroy had free reign to terrorize the citizens of his small town for almost two decades. He basically robbed, assaulted, threatened and raped at will. It wasnt until he had shot and nearly killed two people that he was finally stopped.
It's an amazing story and the film brings it to life with great richness and not a little terror. A young Marcia Gay Harden is excellent as McElroy's battered but still loyal wife but it is Brian Dennehy who stands the tallest. He is completely terrifying as McElroy. The way he uses his considerable physical size to intimidate and create tension is just brilliant. Total embodiment of evil.
This needs a DVD release!!
They (2002)
Superb little horror movie! Unjustly maligned
I saw this in the theaters when it first came out and thought it was an excellent, razor-sharp little horror film. It hinges mostly around psychology and childhood fear manifesting itself into adulthood. Genuinely scary, with an ending that is straight-up dark and nightmarish. For some reason, critics destroyed "they" when it came out and I never understood why.
Unfortunately, it died at the box office and the film seemed to disappear into oblivion. Hopefully, now people will give it another chance. It really is a cool flick.
Directed by the same guy who made the original "Hitcher", which was also an excellent horror film.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
One of my favorite horror movies
It's no secret that fans of the Halloween series and Michael Myers in particular absolutely LOATHE this movie. In a way I do understand. The filmmakers went for something different and people just didn't bite so they went back to Michael Myers.
Regardless, this film is an indelible part of my childhood. It delves into the occult and the concept of remotely inflicting harm through television signals. If that isn't a cool idea for a movie, I don't know what is. It's cold blooded (sacrifice of innocent children to the gods) and bares all the hallmarks of having been ghost directed by John Carpenter (compact narrative and perfectly geometric framing from beginning to end).
I feel obligated also to stick up for this movie because I sense that some of the hate thrown its' way is somewhat irrational and there's a dog-pile aspect to it. If that is the case I would urge people to lighten up and give this film a second glance. I'm not saying its the greatest horror movie ever made, but its a damn good one.
Sticks and Bones (1973)
weird memory
This was indeed (as another reviewer stated) shown on tv at some point in the early 80s. I remember vividly. It's one of my strangest memories because I had no idea what it was and I was only about seven or eight years old. If I remember correctly it was shot using the same type of framing you see in a sitcom (minus the canned laughter of course) which made it feel dour and creepy.
I wondered about it for years until i read the play in college and the memory jumped back at me. I would love to see it again. Rabe is such a brilliant writer it would great to see it unearthed although it looks like at this point it may not happen.
Real shame.