Teenage Tramp (1973)

Director: Anton Holden

Writers: Anton Holden, David Sawn

Composers: Joel Dein, Steve Seltzer

Starring: Robin Lane, Alisha Fontaine, Anthony Massena, Don Jarrell, David Sawn, Jack Garner, Steve Hofstetter, Eric Jay

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Old enough, Ripe enough!

Plot: Wayward and uninhibited young runaway Kim has fallen in with a bad crowd. Kim decides to flee said crowd and goes to the west coast to reunite herself with her uptight and neurotic estranged older sister Hilary so she can collect some of the inheritance left behind by their deceased parents. However, evil drug dealer Maury and his flock follow Kim to Hilary's house.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

When you've got a movie called TEENAGE TRAMP and it's from 1973 and it's not much over an hour long, you get a certain level of expectations that you need fulfilled.  I don't know, like maybe lots of nudity and tramp-y shit?  Nope.  You do get hippies...

and giant eating utensils...

a creepy ass drug deal/cult leader...

and, yeah, you do get the titular character...

but she's hardly a tramp.  She bangs her sister's boyfriend.  That's the extent of her trampiness.  Seriously.  The movie is OK.  The acting isn't bad nor is anything else but it's an exploitation title that screams for some exploitation and my copy didn't have it.  It's more of a drama that dips it's toe into the 'sploitation pool.  I needed this one to go skinny dipping instead. The old copy I had was a fullscreen VHS rip that looks like nearly all of the nudity has been removed.  That's bad.  Only now do I see that a proper widescreen copy is available that keeps the good stuff in tact.  IMDb shows the UK cut is 74 minutes (what I've got apparently) and the US cut is 80. That six extra minutes might have helped and it's something I wish I had known before turning this on.  Live and learn I guess.

Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)

Director: Jack Weis

Writer: Jack Weis

Composers: Dennis Coffey, Mike Theodore

Starring: Curt Dawson, Gwen Arment, William Metzo, Laura Misch Owens, Cathryn Lacey, Nancy Dancer, Butch Benit, Wayne Mack, Ronald Tanet

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Name: Nancy Dancer. Measurements: 38/24/36. Born: Gary, Ind. 12/21/58. Died: N.O, LA. 2/13/78. ... and that was only the Beginning.

Plot: Police try to capture someone who is committing ritual murders of women during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

My rating: 3/10

Will I watch it again? No.

You know those no-budget, bad horror movies that have about 25 minutes of actual plot but they stretch it out to 90 minutes?  Yeah, this is one of those.  It took me two tries to get through it.  It's pretty bad and amateurish and I'd say it's so bad it's good except for the excessive filler.  Nearly every scene goes on too long.  Actors take forever sometimes delivering their lines.  It's stuff like that that will ruin any chance of feeling like you're at least having a reasonably good time.

But if there's one good thing I can say about it, the gore effects are impressive and there are several scenes where girls get cut up.  Sure, the gore is good but it's the same effect done multiple times and even that gets old.

They did a great job matching the dummy with the girls.  I'm impressed.  But after you see it a couple of times, it's no longer impressive and it gets swallowed up by the rest of the picture with its dreadfully slow pace.  The music is too sparse when the characters aren't in a nightclub.  You'd think being set in New Orleans would be great but we're rarely ever outside so this could have easily been shot anywhere and spliced together with someone's vacation footage.  Besides the nudity and gore, the best scene in the movie, unintentionally, was when the two detectives get THE ADDRESS of the suspected killer and rather than go get the guy, they go to a bar for a couple of drinks. When someone busts in, who has been trying to find them, tells one of the detectives that his prostitute ex-girlfriend has been abducted by the killer, only then does he have a fire under his pants to get him to act on it.  They get to the guy's lair, save the day and give chase to the bad guy.  Now we get a chase scene filmed in N.O. but it's the last five minutes of the movie.  It's too little, too late.  I kind of dug writer/director Jack Weis' earlier picture, CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS (1976), which is filmed in southern Louisiana in the swamps. I'm going to have to revisit that one.

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

Director: Noam Murro

Writers: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Frank Miller

Composer: Junkie XL

Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro, Jack O'Connell, Andrew Tiernan, Igal Naor, Andrew Pleavin, Ben Turner

More info: IMDb
 
Plot: Greek general Themistokles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Sure.

It's been an awful long time since I saw 300 (2006).  I dug it.  I was skeptical when talk began of a sequel, wondering where you could take this.  Having not read the Frank Miller graphic novels, I wasn't sure but it was pretty much a given that I'd see it regardless. For the most part, it's a fun picture.  The visuals are neat.  The entire picture looks like it was filmed on green screen (I feel for the actors on this one) but it's THAT kind of picture that benefits from that CGI look.  It's a fantastical action movie.  Just substitute CGI with testosterone and you're getting a lot of the same things you got in the first film.

The big difference here is that there's a lot more story to tell.  OK, so you can simplify the plot down to a couple of sentences rather than one like in the first movie.  It's still pretty basic but there are more characters and more going on.  It's a prequel and a side-by-side-quel to 300 which makes it kind of neat. And don't you know they left room for a sequel, which in essence would also be a sequel to the original film at the same time as RISE ends a day or two after the first film.  The dialogue is often flat with that " 'tis I who should" this and "for tonight we fight for the 'morrow" kind of language that we find in movies that are set in ancient history.  Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Anthony Hopkins can take lines like these and make them work; they're amazing actors with boat loads of talent, but not the kids in this flick.  So it comes off really cheesy.

Say, speaking of cheesy, I'm beginning to detest the motivational speeches given by leaders moments before leading warriors into battle.  I lost count but I'd swear there are four or six of them in this picture, some made by Themistocles (Stapleton) and one or two by Artemisia (Green).  They're laughable.  What makes it worse is they're speaking with such a low tone that only the immediate half dozen dudes in front of them MIGHT be able to hear them.  But these are things that you expect in movies like this.  I'l love for a film to seriously have fun with this silly trope and make something special and brief.  Stapleton does a fine job with the lead character as does Eva Green who is especially fun in this.  She makes for a great ass-kicker and it'd be easy to make a case that she's the best part of the picture, with or without her fun love/fight scene with Themistocles (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those cans of hers).  The length is just about right if not a few minutes too long.  I was ready for the closing credits but I enjoyed it.  I'm sure I'll get the 3D Blu-ray once the price is right but I won't be in a hurry.  I'd say it's time to revisit the first one and maybe a couple of those great 1960s Peplum/Sword & Sandal pictures.

She Freak (1967)

Director: Byron Mabe

Writer: David Friedman

Composer: William Allen Castleman

Starring: Claire Brennen, Lee Raymond, Lynn Courtney, Bill McKinney, Claude Earl Jones, Ben Moore, Vanteeen, Madame Lee, Marsha Drake, Felix Silla, William Bagdad, Sandra Holcomb

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A Barbarous Experience!

Plot: A sexy waitress decides to join up with a traveling carnival.  It doesn't take her long to adjust to carny life but there's one thing she can't abide by and that's freaks.  That all comes to bite her on the ass at the end of the film.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

SPOILERS AHOY!!!   YARRRRRRR!!!

OK, so the other day I watch FREAKS (1932) twice in a week (because it's that damn good) and I learn that SHE FREAK is a 60s remake AND I've got the disc sitting on my shelf, unwatched (I've got tons of those Something Weird Video DVDs.  I LOVE those guys).  Um, sold!  It opens with lots of shots of a traveling carnival and it looks great with the wonderful colors just popping off the screen.  It makes me want to be there and it's all behind a great, groovy surf rock score.  NICE!!!

Then we spend some time in a greasy diner getting to know Jade (Brennen) and Greasy (Jones).  She's ready for Splitsville to join the carnival.

Look!  Go-go dancing!!!

Easy, Tiger.  She doesn't take her clothes off.  And that's a damn shame, too, 'cause nobody does, not once.  This picture could have stood for at least a couple of scenes to spice things up.  I kind of dig the picture, whereas a lot of folks are going to find it boring as hell.  I really dig carnivals so getting to hang around that scene, 60s style, is really neat.  As a movie, it's reasonably entertaining with some not to shabby acting.  OK, the acting is at least better than what you'd expect, anyway.  My biggest beef with the picture is the ending.  We don't see a single freak (unless you count the little guy) until the very end of the picture when they come out to get revenge on Jade and even then, they don't look like freaks.  Seriously.

Say, isn't that last guy on SONS OF ANARCHY?  The ending is a huge disappointment although the makeup effects on Jade after the 'freaks' fuck her shit up is pretty damn good.

Another disappointment is that this is just loosely based on the 1932 film but there's enough in it to recognize and have fun with...well, sort of.  The SWV DVD comes with commentary, a trailer, some exploitation art (always fun) and one 8.5 minute vintage 30s carnival freak show short which is great fun.

Dracula in Istanbul (1953)

Original title: Drakula Istanbul'da

Director: Mehmet Muhtar

Writers: Umit Deniz, Ali Riza Seyfi, Bram Stoker

Composer: ???

Starring: Annie Ball, Cahit Irgat, Ayfer Feray, Bulent Oran, Atif Kaptan, Kemal Emin Bara, Kadri Ogelman, Munir Ceyhan

More info: IMDb

Plot: A re-telling of the 1931 film, Dracula.

My rating: 3/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Oh, for fuck's sake.  I watched a horrendously 'n'th generation VHS rip with no English language option.  Wait, I tortured myself sitting through it.  Then, as I wright this up, I see that it's on YouTube with a MUCH better print and with English subs.  Ugh.  I wish I had know that before.  Well, a lot of my displeasure with this picture is because the copy I had was in such a terrible condition.  It was really tough to watch.  If you're curious about seeing this, just watch the above YouTube video.  I wish I had but I can't base this review on anything but what I saw.  It was a slugfest to endure with the picture quality so poor and all and I couldn't understand the language.  I don't know why I'm even bothering putting this up on the blog except for I'm obsessive about putting every movie I see on it, regardless.  The music is repetitive, the acting and direction stale and flat.  The only positive I've got to say is the one thing Bram Stoker and Tod Browning completely dropped the ball on omitting.  Belly dancers!

Critters 4 (1992)

Director: Rupert Harvey

Writers: Rupert Harvey, Barry Opper, Joseph Lyle, David J. Schow

Composers: Peter Manning, Robinson

Starring: Don Keith Opper, Terrence Mann, Paul Whitthorne, Anders Hove, Angela Bassett, Brad Dourif, Eric DaRe, Martine Beswick, Anne Ramsay

More info: IMDb

Tagline: In space, they love to hear you scream!

Plot: Just before bounty hunter Charile triggers his gun to destroy the last two Critter-eggs, he gets a message that it would be illegal to extinguish the race from the galaxy. He's sent a transporter where he puts the eggs - unfortunately the transporter takes him with it and then gets lost in space. After 53 deep-frozen years, he's found by a private wreckage collector team under the unscrupulous Rick. On behalf of the mighty company Terracor they bring him to an empty space station - but Rick is curious and opens the box... so Charlie has work again, to keep the Critters from eating everybody.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I think space is where franchises go to die.  Don't quote me on that.  This is the fourth and final of a series that I haven't seen until now.  I suppose I'll need to go back and at least watch the first one.  I've nothing else to base this series off of except this one.  It's not horrible but it's such a bland ALIEN (1979) clone that it can't come close to living up to that classic (not that they try too hard) but then again, when that happens you're practically forced into thinking about the better film.  But hey, it's got Brad Dourif and Angela Bassett.  They're fun to watch.  As for the Critters, it felt like they were barely in it.  There definitely should have been more Critters action.  And Zenomorphs from ALIEN.  that would have spiced things up and shorten the picture by a half hour in the process.  This crew wouldn't last ten minutes with one of them sumbitches on board.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Director: Stephen Herek

Writers: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon

Composer: David Newman

Starring: George Carlin, Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Bernie Casey, Clarence Clemons, Martha Davis, Fee Waybill, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Al Leong, Jane Wiedlin, Robert V. Barron, Rod Loomis, Hal Landon Jr.

More info: IMDb

Tagline: History is about to be rewritten by two guys who can't spell...

Plot: Two seemingly dumb teens struggle to prepare a historical presentation with the help of a time machine.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

Here's yet another one I haven't seen in more than twenty years and it holds up a little better than I expected. Despite the bonehead leads of Reeves and Winter, they're really likable and charmingly funny.  Even when they do the silly and retarded air guitar riff I bust out laughing every time.  All I really need to say is the picture needs more Rufus (Carlin).  The first half of the film is stronger and better paced than the other side.  I really don't care much for the final twenty minutes during the school presentation. It bores me.  But there are enough gags before it that work that about make up for it.  I can't remember a single thing from the sequel and I'm not even sure I ever watched it.  I'll give it a spin before getting rid of the disc.  I was barely twenty when the first one came out.  I'm almost certain it would play better for me now if I had been 14.  Ah, such is the life of a juvenile comedy.