Reviews

The name says it all. I'm not sure why this movie ended up at the Fangoria Festival. It's not a horror movie. Not even close. The catalog advertised it as a Russ Meyer tribute which tells you what to expect.

There's a group of attractive young women with ridiculous names like Camero. They're bad girls who go after a crime boss in the desert. That's the extent of it. The plot is secondary to the sex and mayhem.

This was definitely a fun movie. I've read that a lot of green screen was used but it wasn't as distracting as some have claimed. I have no idea why Jamesbond would have compared it to Rocky Horror. Maybe it was the only cult movie he had ever seen. Rocky Horror it's not, but it's a great looking time waster.

To be fair to this movie, I might have been worn out after an entire night of classic horror knockoffs. The Fangoria Festival had more than its share. This was just the last in a long line of movies that reassembled the clichés of earlier cinema into the clichés of a contemporary imitation. It's not the amazing movie some of the IMDb reviews would have you believe. It's not a complete disaster either.

If you're a fan of eighties slasher or possession cinema this will probably be the movie for you, scratches and all. If you're not, then you'll probably find it a snooze. It takes its time getting anywhere. Again, the reviews on IMDb seem to reinforce that there's little middle ground.

I'm not sure my review will add anything major to the debate. Having watched a whole evening of better tributes, I left before the end. Maybe I missed the big payoff.

This was another film I was on the fence about. It grabbed the midnight slot at the Fangoria Festival which was appropriate. There's nothing mainstream about this movie, even though the plot was stolen from the Chucky series.

The "twist" is that it's a black radical, serial killer who gets reincarnated as a dummy. The puppet struts around talking ridiculous jive lingo. He assaults and tortures a lot of naked white actresses. There's even an Ouija board explanation thrown in for good measure.

It's obviously intended to be outrageous and offensive. No one mistook this for a serious horror flick. BDD was even genuinely hilarious at times. I've got to admit that I was a little troubled by the fact that it seemed to reinforce so many negative stereotypes. As d-lewis points out in his review, there's a fine line between spoofing racial stereotypes and feeding into them, especially when you're as white as the filmmakers who manned BDD's Fangoria table.

The first movie at the Fangoria Festival in Vegas and the most challenging. It's not a movie for everyone. A number of the films that followed used predictable classic horror formulas to tell predictable stories. This picture seemed determined to do its own thing.

Tom Savini showed some comic chops as the over the top villain. He dominated every scene he was in, flipping his cape about like Leslie Neilson playing Dracula. It was great to hear his explanation after the film. He had such a good sense of humor about the role.

I was glad I didn't have too many preconceptions going in, because the movie offered a lot of surprises. The story was funny and profane and unusual. There was a lot of love lavished on the look. Most important, it had a weird edge to it. Unlike many of the movies that followed and tried to use a similar classic horror style, this was a movie that used its look for a purpose.

There were a lot of movies at the Fangoria Festival with bigger budgets, but none that dared to be this different.

I have no idea what to make of this flick. Is it a horror film? A sick joke? All these things? The plot is about as uncomplicated as you can go. A theater director named Sardue specializes in presenting torture and murder to a bunch of bored New Yorkers. They don't know that what they're watching is real. They don't seem to care. The theater is a front for a white slavery ring that he is running with his sadistic dwarf. Girls have their hands sawed off. Their heads are crushed. Brains are sipped through straws. The effects are horrible and the script stupid, but it is still nasty stuff.

There were a few lines that made me think this was supposed to have a point about our love of violence but I dismissed it because of all the nudity.

Was this the basis for Hostel? I'm not sure. I turned it off about halfway through because I was to bored to care.

The ending almost saved the film for me. I won't spoil it for those that haven't seen it but it's definitely downbeat. It's the kind of thing you don't see a lot in Hollywood films. It makes you forget the silliness of the previous hour and a half.

Let me save you all some time: Keifer is a police detective on leave after a shooting incident. He's got substance abuse issues, a failing marriage, etc. All the things that would make you feel sympathy for him. He takes a job as a night watchman in a creepy, burned-out department store that was built over the foundation of an equally creepy mental institution. Before you know it, there's a demonic possession thrown in for good measure.

And that's before the film really gets schizophrenic. This had the makings of a good film but ends up playing like a collection of scenes from better movies.

I've got to agree with other reviewers that this setup is nothing special. You've seen it a hundred times before. A group of kids get trapped in an isolated location and are hunted down by a maniac. The end.

But this time there's a difference. These aren't just your average teenagers, they're amateur porn stars. And this isn't just any maniac. It's a Frankenstein wrestler sewn together from dead wrestler bodies (one of the goofiest backstories I've ever heard).

Backstories aren't what people rent these types of films for, however. It's all about the murders and the sexy girls, both of which this movie has in abundance. It's also got a great location (a Mexican ghost town) and some good camera work, which keeps the film entertaining (even if there are a lot of moments stolen from better films).

Overall, a great time waster and much better than many of this type.

My buddy showed up with this a few nights back. "You got to see this movie," he says. "You won't believe it." He sure was right. I don't know what it was I saw. Was this a horror movie or a comedy or a just a weird collection of crap? I'll be damned if I could tell.

What I do know is that it was entertaining from start to finish. It's not like any Japanese movie I've ever seen before. Lots and lots of nudity. No monsters to speak of, but there is a horror movie edge. And it's got one of the weirdest endings I've ever seen. Did the couple get blown up? Were their heads still supposed to be alive? Was this intended to be funny or deep? Crazy stuff.

I was so confused I listened to part of the commentary track, hoping it would shed some light on the picture. Let me warn you, don't do it. The guy sounded like he was on downers and the track sounded like it was recorded in a bus station. To make it even worse, he said nothing about this movie. I mean it. Nothing. He talked a lot about the director, mostly just listing hundreds of other movies he made, but nothing about this one. It was a major waste.

The commentary might get a zero, but I've been thinking about this movie ever since. It definitely earns its score.

The Coen Brothers don't need my nod. They done great with this one, just like they have with most of their other films.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has got it all. There's a lot of violence. A creepy killer that outdoes just about any other serial killer I've ever seen in the movies. Lots and lots of action. Did I mention the violence? The only thing that bothered me was the ending. I'm all for trying to make the audience work, but there were so many loose ends hanging that I had no idea what was what. I didn't know who was dead, who was going to be, or where the money ended up.

I suppose that was the point, but I would have settled for a shotgun blast to the face:)

I'd heard all the hype about this film months before I got the chance to finally see it. Who hadn't? But I was really impressed with the whole thing. It had some great performances, as many have pointed out. The score was also excellent, very creepy.

The thing I enjoyed the most about it was that it didn't use all those crazy camera moves that so many other films do. It just worked hard to tell a good story.

In the end, I guess they did make the movie a bit long. I felt like they could have cut about a half an hour without hurting it, but when you've got acting this good people will forgive you for the little stuff.