Fist of Jesus (2012)

Directors: Adrian Cardona & David Munoz

Starring: Marc Velasco, Noe Blancafort, Salvador Llos, Victoria Roldan, Roger Sotera, Jose Maria Angorilla

More info: IMDb & www.fistofjesus.com


Tagline: Jesus is always willing to lend a hand to those in need, but there are others ... that will taste his fist.

Plot:  Jesus unwittingly starts the zombie apocalypse.  Only he can end it.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yep.

OMFG is this funny (and gory as shit)!  It's only fifteen minutes long so you're not in for much of a commitment.  It's also really well shot and acted. I don't know what camera they used but it looks fantastic.  There's not much to say except just watch it already and have a good laugh.

The Bloody Judge (1970)

Director: Jesus Franco

Starring: Christopher Lee, Maria Schell, Leo Genn, Hans Hass Jr., Maria Rohm, Margaret Lee, Pietro Martellazna, Howard Vernon, Milo Quesada

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Horror will hold you helpless!

Plot: This erotic horror film from cult director Jesus Franco is based on the witch-hunting exploits of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys (Lee), a real historical figure who died in prison in 1702 at the age of 54. In 1685 England, young Alicia Gray is burnt for witchcraft. Alicia's sister Mary (Rohm) unwisely falls for Harry Selton (Hass), a rebel against King James II. After the rebels are defeated, Harry is captured by agents of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who defends the crown by accusing its enemies of witchcraft. Also a captive, Mary tries to save her lover by surrendering herself to the cruel Judge, who takes perverse sexual pleasure in sadistic torture.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

#2 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

What starts out as a 17th century witch persecution flick ends up as a witch/war/political picture...but it's LOADED with nudity!  Besides the bushell loads of beautiful babes and boobs it's got Christopher Lee playing a real mean son of a bitch judge oozing with righteous fury.  He's a lot of fun and a great reason to watch this picture.  I like films like this, set during this time whether they're about witches or not.  The atmosphere is great.  I love the colors in films like this made in the 60s and 70s.  I'm surprised that Jess Franco directed it because it's not a bad film.  It looks great and is pretty entertaining except that it's way too long and it meanders all over the place (I did watch the extended, uncut version - the only way to see it).  What doesn't surprise me about this being directed by Franco is the gratuitous nudity.  That man had an eye for gorgeous women and we're all thankful for that.  The problem is that the rest of the picture drags in more than a few spots and that's enough to keep me from coming back for more but I'm glad I got to see it if for nothing else, I got to hear another great score from Bruno Nicolai.

Road House (1989)

Director: Rowdy Herrington

Starring: Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Marshal R. Teague, Julie Michaels, Red West, Sunshine Parker, Jeff Healey, Kevin Tighe

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The dancing's over. Now it gets dirty.

Plot: When it becomes too violent at the Double Deuce road house, the club owner hires Dalton, a professional "cooler" (head bouncer) to clean it up. But Dalton's early successes and budding romance with the local doctor enrages Wesley, the town crime boss. When Dalton continues to defy him, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation that will test Dalton's limits and decide the fate of the town.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yeah.  The Kevin Smith commentary is begging me to.

Boy, was that fun! I finally got around to seeing it.  It was a hell of a lot more fun than I ever imagined.  I love how everyone is playing it straight, especially Swayze.  I thought for sure that the near-two hour run time would hurt it but the pacing was strong and moved along pretty quick. The fight scenes were a gas and there was a surprising amount of nudity.  Say, that reminds me.  Am I the only one who noticed a homoerotic vibe in this picture?

 

Gay

 Gay

Gay

 

And this guy actually says, "I fucked guys like you in prison."

Ocean's Eleven (1960)

Director: Lewis Milestone

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, Richard Conte, Cesar Romero, Patrice Wymore, Joey Bishop, Akim Tamiroff, Henry Silva, Ilka Chase, Buddy Lester, Norman Fell, Red Skelton, George Raft, Shirley MacLaine

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Nobody else would have dared it because nobody else would have the nerve! Just Danny Ocean and his 11 pals - the crazy night they blew all the lights in Las Vegas!

Plot: Danny Ocean and his friend Jimmy Foster recruit their buddies to rob four of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve. The men are all known to one another and served in the Airborne during the war. The plan is to knock out the electricity supply to the city and for their electrical expert, Tony Bergdorf, to set the wiring so that the activation of the emergency generators would open the doors to all of the cashier's offices. The men take up jobs in the casinos - entertainers, waiters, busboys - and all goes well until Bergdorf has a heart attack just after the robbery. Not only does his death suggest to Jimmy Foster's soon to be father-in-law Duke Santos just who the robbers are, Danny and the men make an important mistake when they think they've found the perfect way to ship the money out of Las Vegas without getting caught.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

I'm a HUGE Rat Pack fan.  Frank, Dean & Sammy are the shit.  I've seen this many times but it's been years since the last time.  It's 127 minutes long but it doesn't feel like it.  The cast is huge, cool and fun.  The music's great (Dean's Ain't That a Kick in the Head is one of my all-time favorite tunes).  In a lot of the scenes you get the feeling these guys really dig each other and they're have a gas doing it.  It's pretty tame as far as heist movies go but I don't watch it for that.  I'm in it to hang around with these fellas and be a part of that scene.  Akim tamiroff (who plays Spyros) is annoying as fuck.  I would LOVE to dub his voice with one that doesn't bug the bejesus out of me.  Cesar Romero is one cool, badass sumbitch and Angie Dickenson is HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA!  And I love the HOLY SHIT ending.  The looks on their faces on that long walk down the strip as the credits roll is pricless.  These cats are cool and that's that.

Batman (1966)

Director: Leslie H. Martinson

Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, Stafford Repp, Madge Blake, Reginald Denny

More info: IMDb

Tagline: MEN DIE! WOMEN SIGH! Beneath that Batcape - he's all man!

Plot: When the four greatest arch super-criminals ever to plague Gotham City join forces, their only objective can only be the entire world! Armed with Penguin-personalized a pre-atomic submarine, an army of ruthless pirates, exploding sharks and octopi, and an arsenal of polaris missiles, the Penguin, the Joker, the Riddler and Catwoman have set their sights on the United World Security Council! Can the dynamic duo, Batman and Robin, stop the United Underworld before its too late? Will they save the Security Council from almost certain dehydration? Can they possibly save the free world from the four most powerful villains it has ever seen?

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yup.

A few months ago it was FINALLY announced that ABC and Warner Bros. came to an agreement about the rights to the BATMAN (1966) TV show.  Hopefully we'll be seeing the DVD sets start rolling out this year.  I watched this show obsessively in the 70s everyday after school.  It's such a gas to watch.  You've seen it.  There's no reason to get too involved.  The movie is just like the show but five times longer and that's the biggest drawback I can see.  Otherwise, it's all the wackiness the show delivered with the best of the best in villains.  This picture's a whole lot of fun no matter how you slice it.  And the best gag of all?  The shark repellant scene is a close second to...

Dracula (1931)

Director: Tod Browning

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade, Joan Standing, Charles K. Gerrard

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The greatest horror show of all time!

Plot: After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferal of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again?  Naturally.

It's funny but I always remember this one being more stagey than it is.  I really dig this version of the tale.  NOSFERATU (1922) is my favorite but Lugosi really sells it.  Watch the Spanish version filmed at the same time and you'll see what I mean.  That version is better but it lacks Lugosi's strong presence.  Put Lugosi in the Spanish version and that'd be one hell of a great flick.  I've never dug that it doesn't have a score so, just for kicks, I started watching this with the Philip Glass score.  Big mistake.  It's overpowering.  In the beginning when Dracula pauses on the stairs, hearing the wolves howl, and says, "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."  With the Glass score on you cannot hear the wolves howling at all.  With crap like that I had to continue without the score. I don't care how good it is, if they can't mix it so that it doesn't badly impact the film then I don't want to hear it.  Harumph!

Pink Flamingos (1972)

Director: John Waters

Starring: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Edith Massey, Channing Wilroy, Cookie Mueller, Paul Swift, Susan Walsh

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The filthiest people alive! Their loves, their hates and their unquenchable thirst for notoriety!

Plot: Sleaze queen Divine lives in a caravan with her mad hippie son Crackers and her 250-pound mother Mama Edie, trying to rest quietly on their laurels as 'the filthiest people alive'. But competition is brewing in the form of Connie and Raymond Marble, who sell heroin to schoolchildren and kidnap and impregnate female hitchhikers, selling the babies to lesbian couples. Finally, they challenge Divine directly, and battle commences.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? YES!

The first time I saw this it was in a theater for a cult movie night.  I literally had no idea what I was in for but I was aware of it from its notoriety and cult status.  Holy shit did I laugh my ass off.  I was in love with it from the fist few minutes.  It's one of my all-time cult favorites.  I really dig this early John Waters stuff.  The acting style of yelling your lines is hysterical.  The cast is a beautiful freak show of players and I love every one of them.  The dialogue is fast and there's lots of it.  Who can forget the Egg Lady?  What about Crackers' chicken sex?  Learn the best method of stealing a steak from a grocery store.  Learn how to extend your penis by tying a cooked sausage to it.  Oh, the things you can make your asshole do.  Say, kids, how do you prefer your artificial insemination?  The songs Waters puts in his movies are perfect.  He's up there with Tarantino with their excellent choice of songs.  I fucking love this movie.  It's a great one to turn on to people...especially the unsuspecting ones.  Bwahahahahaha.

Dead Silence (2007)

Director: James Wan

Starring: Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, Michael Fairman, Joan Heney, Bob Gunton, Laura Regan, Dmitry Chepovetsky

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You scream. You die.

Plot: After receiving a weird package with the doll named Billy, Jamie's wife is murdered and he believes Mary Shaw and Billy are behind it. Destined to find out the truth, Jamie goes to the town of Raven's Fair where the ventriloquist Mary Shaw used to perform and is buried. But Jamie is in for more than he expected.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Do you want to play a game?  I half expected the dummy to say that at some point because you can easily tell this is by the same guy who did SAW (2004).  That means you get the same slick style of color-tinted horror that franchise delivered - it looks like it and sounds like it (same composer, too - I dig his style, btw).  If you dig that sort of thing then this will be better than average, if not and you're like me, it's OK at best.  It drags, there are jump scares and the ending is laughably bad.  The movie moves pretty slowly until the final few minutes when suddenly everything moves super quick and we get the fast edit, pounding music reveal of the big surprise with a quick succession of events that tell us the whole story in under a minute...just like in the SAW movies.  I laughed.  I couldn't help it.  It was ridiculously tacked on in an effort to justify the last 90 minutes.

Nightbreed (1990)

Director: Clive Barker

Starring: Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, Hugh Ross, Doug Bradley, Catherine Chevalier, Malcolm Smith

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Lori thought she knew everything about her boyfriend... Lori was wrong!

Plot: A community of mutant outcasts of varying types and abilities attempts to escape the attention of a psychotic serial killer and redneck vigilantes with the help of a brooding young man who discovers them.




My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

This is a tough one.  I watched this about a year ago and all I remember is that it's got a good score by Danny Elfman (ok, so maybe it's a little too big for the picture), great monster makeup effects and David Cronenberg was awesome as Dr. Decker (nice play on words, naming him Philip K. Decker (as in Philip K. Dick who wrote the story that became BLADE RUNNER (1982) whose main character was named Decker).  I can't think of anything more than that except I liked it OK.  I'll have to leave it at that.  I've heard rumors that there's a director's cut that transforms this from flawed to masterpiece and that it's unlikely it'll ever see the light of day.  If that one turns up, I'll watch it.

The Return of Count Yorga (1971)

Director: Bob Kelljan

Starring: Robert Quarry, Mariette Hartley, Roger Perry, George Macready, Walter Brooke, Philip Frame, Yvonne Wilder, Tom Toner, Rudy De Luca

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The DEATHMASTER is back from beyond the grave!

Plot: Count Yorga continues to prey on the local community while living by a nearby orphanage. He also intends to take a new wife, while feeding his bevy of female vampires.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

#52 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Huh.  This is about as good/bad as COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970).  Yorga's back and it's a by the numbers sequel to a by the numbers vampire film.  Mariette Hartley is a nice addition although it doesn't seem like she's given nearly enough to do.  The same thing can be said about Quarry as Yorga.  He's great.  I love his dialogue and matter of fact line delivery but he needs a lot more screen time.  There are some funny bits and most of them deal with the disbelieving detectives.  It's not a bad picture, it's just that there's not much there to hold my attention.  What sense of fun it has is scattered in very small doses throughout 97 minutes but it's not enough.   And like the first one, there's very little gore and no nudity.  It's vampire-lite.

Hitch Hike to Hell (1977)

Director: Irvin Berwick

Starring: Robert Gribbin, Russell Johnson, John Harmon, Randy Echols, Dorothy Bennett, Mary Ellen Christie, Kippi Bell, Sheryl Lynn

More info: IMDb

Tagline: There is no such thing as a free ride!

Plot: Howard is a mild-mannered young man who drives a truck for a commercial laundry. He's also a mother-obsessed psycho who picks up young female hitchhikers, rapes them and kills them. As the bodies start piling up, the police finally begin to investigate.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

I really dig this flick.  It's low budget, the acting is all over the place and it's got one of those great, cheesy country tunes over the opening credits (and with the title in the song!).  Russell Johnson (The Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) acts his ass off as if he's going for an Oscar.  He's hilarious without trying.  Robert Gribbin plays the killer, Howard Martin, and he's clearly not the thespian that Johnson is but he's also hilarious.  Play a drinking game where you knock one back every time Howard's face freezes with that wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look.  Classic.  Usually films of this ilk have a few dull spots but not this one.  It moves along at a pretty good clip for an 84 minute picture like this.  I'm not saying this a great flick and that you're going to like it but it works for me.  Besides, it's a Something Weird Video release that includes KIDNAPPED COED (1976) (which isn't nearly as fun) and a bunch of extras that make it worth your while.

Skyfall (2012)

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Albert Finney, Berenice Marlohe, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear

More info: IMDb


Plot: Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. Whilst MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Of course.

My busy work schedule kept me from seeing this in the theater for over a week after its debut.  It's the first time I missed opening night on a Bond film since A VIEW TO A KILL (1985), the year that I was finally old enough to drive a car.  Since I had to wait so long to see it (it would've felt like forever if I hadn't been so involved in work), it seemed like everything I heard about it was orgasmic.  My expectations were starting to get pretty high.  Then I saw it.  I really liked it but I wasn't all ga-ga for it like the rest of the world.  I've now seen it twice and it was better the second time.  Let's just assume I liked almost everything about the picture (and I do).  The things that bugged me were how he survives the fall from the train (I'm not spoiling anything if you've seen the trailer), I wanted more screen time from the villain (and why does he have to have some physical deformity?), a good number of the one liners from Bond felt shoe-horned in for laughs, Q is too young and I'm sure there's something else I'm not thinking about.  What I absolutely LOVED was the final minutes of the film and how the characters of Dench, Fiennes and Harris play out.  I was left STARVING for the next one.  There were parts of the movie where I started to long for the Bonds of old with Connery and Moore, where things weren't so serious and ramped up.  The final few minutes of SKYFALL gave me a sense of comfort that I have with the first two decades of Bond films.  It's been a bumpy 50 year ride with the franchise but it's also been an awful lot of fun seeing the series continue.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Director: Drew Goddard

Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker

More info: IMDb

Tagline: If you hear a strange sound outside... have sex.

Plot: Five teenagers head off for a weekend at a secluded cabin in the woods. They arrive to find they are quite isolated with no means of communicating with the outside world. When the cellar door flings itself open, they of course go down to investigate. They find an odd assortment of relics and curios but when one of the women, Dana, reads from a book she awakens a family of deadly zombie killers. There's far more going on however than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? YES!

I'm so overdue catching up on the movies I've seen.  I saw this one in the theater, what, a year or two ago?  Loved it and I didn't think I'd even like it.  I knew nothing about it going into it and that turned out to be a good thing.  I LOVE the two guys working the show.  Hilarious.  I need more movies with these cats.  Wheden did a masterful job taking the horror slasher genre and turning it on its ear.  It's funny and at times kind of scary (movies stopped scaring me when I was a kid so I'm not a good person to gauge about such things but I suspect this could scare someone who's reasonable easy to frighten).  And I friggin' LOVE the ending.  This is a great flick.  I can't believe the studio sat on this for two years before releasing it.  Boneheads.

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

Director: Robert Aldrich

Starring: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Geroge Kennedy, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Clint Walker, Robert Webber

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Train them! Excite them! Arm them!...Then turn them loose on the Nazis!

Plot: In late March 1944 a rebellious US Army Major is "volunteered" to train twelve convicted military criminals for a suicide mission - to parachute to a heavily-guarded Nazi general staff officers' retreat to try and assassinate German officers on leave. To get his unorthodox assignment done the Major must convince Army brass to grant pardons to the men, then try to mold the twelve recidivists into a functioning unit, a task made more daunting by the doubts of a by-the-book General and by the suicidal nature of the mission.

My rating: 10/10

Will I watch it again?  Yup.

#42 on Project: Badass Charles Bronson

BRONSON'S AGE: 46
LEVEL OF BADASSICITY (10 being the highest): 10 (he single-handedly brought WWII to an end...OK, he allowed a few other fellas to tag along.)

I'm willing to bet that if you asked every American adult to comile a list of their top 5 favorite WWII movies are this would be on nearly every single one and the top of the list more than any other movie.  This movie oozes manliness.  Having Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson on screen at the same time is deadly.  Someone's going to get hurt and you can bet it ain't going to be Bronson.  See DEATH HUNT (1981) for more on that.

Do you recall that scene in DD where Bronson is attacked and has his ass handed to him by two huge guys in the bathroom at the paratrooper school?  He should have gotten an Oscar for that scene alone because that could never happen in real life.  Bronson is such a badass that he'd never been beaten up by anyone.  In fact, to prepare for that scene, Bronson beat the snot out of some local punks to keep it fresh in his mind what it looked like.  I think he did a remarkable job.  You'll notice who's left standing at the end of the picture.  'Nuff said.  DD is a great flick and a lot of fun.  It made the template for dozens (ahahahaha) of movies to follow trying to recapture they're success.  With a great ensemble cast and great Nazi killin', you'll be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable WWII flick that delivers the goods like this one.

Black Snake (1973)

Director: Russ Meyer

Starring: Anouska Hempel, David Warbeck, Percy Herbert, Thomas Baptiste, Milton McCollin, Bernard Boston, Vikki Richards, David Prowse, Bloke Modisane, Anthony Sharp

More info: IMDb

Tagline: No man escaped her island -- or her whip!

Plot: The film, shot in Barbados, stars Fulci regular David Warbeck as an English gent trying to discover what had happened to his brother after he married plantation owner Lady Susan Walker. A vicious whip wielding dominatrix who rules her black slaves with a vicious lash of her whip or her tongue, even Snoop Dogg and Tarantino would baulk at her vigorous use of the 'n' word. The sugar cane plantation is run by a drunken Irish bigot and a gay Frenchman, and by the end of the film the brother has made an appearance in the form of a zombie like Dave Prowse. Meanwhile, after many whippings, crucifixions and other bodily abuses the slaves rise up against their tormentors in a bloody orgy of revenge and Walker is left fighting for her life, screaming racist rhetoric until her very last breath.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? YES!

#9 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

After you've seen your first Russ Meyer picture, you know what you're in for before you watch your second (and hopefully the rest of his catalog).  I've seen a few of his movies but I never expected to see him as restrained as he was in BLACK SNAKE.  For the most part, I wouldn't have known he directed it by watching it.  There's one scene (during the movie proper) where Lady Susan Walker, the plantation owner played by Hempell, is nude (there's next to no nudity in this picture, unusual for Meyer) and it's only when the camera zooms into and focuses only on her bare breasts that I could tell Russ Meyer was behind the camera an I laughed out loud.  Outside of that, this plays like a serious slave drama, hitting all of the beats you would expect in a picture like this.  I reckon you could say it's Slavesploitation but it's less exploitation than you would think considering who created it.  ??? is a mean sumbitch and you just know he's going to get his before it's over.  The same goes for Lady Walker.  The acting is good and so is everything else.

David Prowse shows up in a surprise roll.  I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum but the future Darth Vader has his moment in the sun...

Remember that scene in DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012) when Django shoots that broad and she goes flying straight back?  Get a load of this...

So that's where Tarantino found his 'inspiration' for that bit.  Nice. 

I don't get the low score on IMDb.  I thoroughly enjoyd it, even if it does skimp on the 'sploitation.  Ooh.  I almost forgot one hilarious bit of Russ Meyer goodness.  The story ends and Meyer's voice over (done with pretty good posh British accent) talking about how much more developed the human race has become and about racial equality, etc.  While that's going on we see sugar cane fields being harvested by large, modern machinery followed by...

I miss you so much, Russ Meyer.  Please come back from the dead and make big boobed zombie movies.

A Blade in the Dark (1983)

Director: Lamberto Bava

Starring:  Andrea Occhipinti, Anny Papa, Fabiola Toleda, Michele Soavi, Valeria Cavalli, Stanko Molnar, Lara Lamberti, Giovanni Frezza, Marco Vivio

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When the lights go out, the knife goes in.

Plot: A film composer hires a country house to write the soundtrack for a horror B-movie. There he discovers something about a mysterious girl called Linda and suddenly people around him begin to be killed. Maybe the solution is in the final scene of the movie he's working on.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? Nope.

I'll give them this much, there are barely any movies that deal with film composers and this is one of them.  This is Lamberto "son of Mario" Bava's second picture, his first being MACABRE (1980) which is the other film on the DVD I have (soon to be 'had').  That one was worse than this but better in that it was 18 minutes shorter.  Either way you lose.  The story on this one is inventive and it's got a neat little ending (love the brick to the head shot) but it soon loses it when one guy has to explain everything to another ala the ending in PSYCHO (1960).  The score by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis helps but not enough.  There isn't a composer out there that could salvage a near two hour leisurely paced thriller.  I guess I have something else positive to say after all...Bava did get a little better on this second outing.  Maybe I should skip the rest of his pictures and watch the 34th and most recent one.  At this rate it should be a damn fine film.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Director: Arthur Penn

Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Evans Evans, Gene Wilder

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They're young... they're in love... and they kill people.

Plot: Bonnie Parker is bored with life and wants a change. She gets her chance when she meets a charming young drifter by the name of Clyde Barrow. Clyde has dreams of a life of crime that will free him from the hardships of the Depression. The two fall in love and begin a crime spree that extends from Oklahoma to Texas. They rob small banks with skill and panache, soon becoming minor celebrities known across the country. People are proud to have been held up by Bonnie and Clyde; to their victims, the duo is doing what nobody else has the guts to do. To the law, the two are evil bank robbers who deserve to be gunned down where they stand.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? duh.

Great flick.  Don't watch it for a large amount of accuracy because from what I heard, they stray from the facts and often.  I'll know soon enough.  I just ordered Jeff Guinn's book, GO DOWN TOGETHER: THE TRUE, UNTOLD STORY OF BONNIE AND CLYDE, which I hear is pretty definitive.  Anyway, I'm not going to get into what's right and what's not.  This movie kicks ass.  I really dig the look of the film, not to mention the wonderful performances, style, cinematography, script, violence, etc.  One small contention I have is when the gang picks up Gene Wilder.  I LOVE Wilder but let's face it, he's over the top here.  While I like seeing him, I could do without the comedy. It felt out of place.  The shootout at the end is off the charts awesome!  And that half minute of silence that follows is golden.  The only other Depression-era gangster like this that comes close is the fantastic DILLINGER (1973) with Warren Oates, written & directed by John Millius.  I'd pay a pretty penny to see these two as a double bill on the big screen.  And can you imagine how amazing it would be to see them back to back at a drive-in?  I'm going to go masturbate now.