Island Claws (1980)

Director: Herman Cardenas

Writers: Colby Cardenas, Herman Cardenas, Jack Cowden, Ricou Browning

Composer: Bill Justis

Starring: Robert Lansing, Steve Hanks, Nita Talbot, Jo McDonnell, Martina Deignan, Barry Nelson, Tony Rigo, Raymond Forchion, Dick Callinana, Dolores Sandoz

More info: IMDb

Plot: A biological experiment in Florida goes awry. The result: 8-foot long land crabs which roar loudly and kill everything in sight.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This barely better than average horror film takes itself seriously.  It needed to.  The performances are very good for this sort of thing (it's nice seeing the first James Bond, Barry Nelson, again).  That alone surprised me.  The direction is good and the story, though by the numbers, is good enough.  There's really nothing bad about this picture.  One drawback is that you don't get any killer crab action until the end and it's one gigantic crab that's right there for the actors to work with and not some camera trick.  It's fake looking but it's better than some processed shot that's even phonier.  I was surprised to see that this is the sole credit for Hernan Cardenas.  It's a well-directed film and it's especially good for a first-timer.  Of interest is it's co-written by legendary Ricou Browning and the nice location shooting in Florida.

The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)

Director: Michael Anderson

Writers: Eric Ambler, Hammond Innes

Composer: George Duning

Starring: Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Cecil Parker, Alexander Knox, Virginia McKenna, Richard Harris, John Le Mesurier

More info: IMDb

Tagline: From the great suspense Best Seller about the ghost ship Mary Deare!

Plot: A disgraced merchant marine officer elects to stay aboard his sinking cargo ship in order to prove the vessel was deliberately scuttled and, as a result, vindicate his good name.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

At first I wasn't sure what kind of picture this was going to be.  We spend a lot of time Patch (Cooper) and Sands (Heston) alone on the ship.  Then things happen and it goes off somewhere else and it was a good somewhere else.  There's a little bit of tension, a lot of mystery and a good deal of deception but it all works.  The performances are good and it's got a good mix of action and drama.  It's neat seeing Richard Harris in the first year of his making movies.  He plays a swell creep, too.  Then there's Gary Cooper at the end of his career before he died (he had one more picture after this).  It was a good paring of Cooper & Heston.  The trailer is good but, boy, does it give you more information than you need...probably too much.

Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness (1986)

Director: Tim Ritter

Writer: Tim Ritter

Composers: Johnny Britt, Ken Karlson

Starring: John Brace, Mary Fanaro, Bruce Gold, A.J. McLean, Christopher Bontempo, Jon Creamer, Christine Duff, Jennifer Duff, Prescilla Duff, Kerry Ellen Walker, D.C. 'Dash' Goff, Rick Paige, Mona Jones

More info: IMDb

Tagline: June 1, 1986.  It's time to play...Truth or Dare?

Plot: Mike Strauber catches his wife Sharon in bed with his best friend Jerry. He gets mad and takes off to embark on an adventure of murder and self-mutilation in demented games of truth or dare.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

80s slasher requirements: blood?  Check.  Fun kills?  Check.  Titties?  Check.  OK, everything's here.   It starts off really slow in taking way too much time to let us know that Mike (Brace) is super bummed out that his wife is cheating on him.  It picks up once he picks up the floosie and takes her camping.  From there it's a fun ride.  The acting is over the top (big plus in this case), Mike kills a lot of people including a baby (another plus) and it's actually pretty funny although not enough to consider this a comedy.  It's definitely a horror picture but fuck did I laugh a few times and it wasn't unintentionally.  Ritter knew what he was doing.  It's a low budget picture but Ritter gets a lot of mileage out of what he had to work with. There's a little bit of HALLOWEEN (1978) in that the killer's name is Mike and he wears a mask that he made out of copper in the metal shop at the mental institution!  That's where the comparisons begin and end.   One running gag that I loved was how Mike somehow has unexpected and wild weapons.  His first day back at the mental hospital he busts out a huge hunting knife and a hand grenade.  Once he escapes he's somehow acquired a sub machine gun and later pulls a drive-by chainsaw to kid!  AWESOME!!!  This guy's got some imagination.  The opening goes on way too long but once it gets going, it's a hoot...all the way to the very end, including the cheesy as shit ballad during the end credits called "Critical Madness" (that ends before the credits do).  You need to watch this wackiness. 

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)

Director: Paul Morrissey

Writers: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Paul Morrissey, Arthur Conan Doyle

Composer:  Dudley Moore

Starring: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan, Prunella Scales, Roy Kinnear, Kenneth Williams, Terry-Thomas, Hugh Griffith, Joan Greenwood, Denholm Elliott, Penelope Keith, Dana Gillespie, Irene Handl

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  You'll piss yourself laughing!

Plot: A Sherlock Holmes spoof about a family that has been haunted for years by the curse of a horrible hound.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Ugh.  I'm being generous giving this a 6 but it's got such an incredibly talented cast and there's a lot to like.  But the problem is it's sooooooooo slow and there's a lot of jokes that don't land or land flat.  Dudley Moore's nasal voice doesn't help.  Why he just didn't go with his normal voice is beyond me.  He's playing a cartoon character.  Kenneth Williams can get away with it because his face works well with it and he's playing an aristocrat.  Having a funny voice can work but not this time.  This isn't all to say Moore isn't funny.  He is, especially when he's playing Sherlock's mother.  Hilarious.  Moore also wrote the score, which is rather neat, styled after early silent movies.  Neat.  Penelope Keith is soooooo hot!  I love that broad!

One of the funniest bits was Denholm Elliott's chihuahua pissing for about a minute and a half.

Hilarious, and it got even funnier when he held the dog to water the flowers under the window.  I think the trailer is very funny (the original, not the one embedded above) but it's a shame that so many great gags get mired in a film that drags on and on with a lot of unfunny.  Still, you couldn't keep me from watching this movie, knowing all of this and watching the trailer.  I'd have to find out for myself.  The MGM DVD sports a great looking anamorphic widescreen print and trailer (also A-wide) but that's all for extras.

Chasing Sleep (2000)

Director: Michael Walker

Writer: Michael Walker

Starring: Jeff Daniels, Molly Price, Ben Shenkman, Gil Bellows, Michelle Held, Emily Bergl, Julian McMahon, Guy Sanville, Lisa Sodman Elzinga, Dennis North, Patrick Moug, Zach Grenier, Eros Biox, Tom Whalen

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The nightmare begins when you open your eyes...

Plot: A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Whether or not you know or figure out what's going on, this is still a good, mysterious ride.  The performances are great but it's the journey, not the destination, that is the meat of this film.  Walker wrote and deftly directed a fine thriller that has you asking questions all the while you feel perfectly comfortable in waiting for the answers.  I don't want to spoil anything but it probably wouldn't make a difference.  It's a good film and one I'd never heard of until recently.  I'm glad I watched it.  For a thriller (and horror), it's quiet and relaxing which is something you don't see much in these genre.  Most thrillers strive to be shocking but they often leave me feeling cheated or insulted for not taking proper care with the material and go for a long game of tension in lieu of jump scares and one-dimensional puppets.  This is one that succeeds where a lot of them fail.

Signs of Life (1968)

Original title: Lebenszeichen

Director: Werner Herzog

Writers: Werner Herzog, Achim von Arnim

Starring: Peter Brogle, Wolfgang Reichman, Athina Zacharopoulou, Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg, Wolfgang Stumpf, Henry van Lyck, Julio Pinheiro, Florian Fricke, Heinz Usener, Achmed Hafiz

More info: IMDb


Plot: A wounded German paratrooper named Stroszek is sent to the quiet island of Kos with his wife Nora, a Greek nurse, and two other soldiers recovering from minor wounds. Billeted in a decaying fortress, they guard a munitions depot. There's little to do. Slowly, in the heat and torpor, Stroszek goes mad, drives the others from the fortress, and threatens the city with blowing up the depot. With care, the German command must figure out how to get him down.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

There's a moment where Stroszek (Brogle) loses his shit at the top of a hill, flailing his arms and firing his rifle into the air.  There's no sound but the Greek score and it's brilliant.  5 minutes later he's taken the ammo dump hostage.  Herzog does a good job of constructing a series of scenes to get to that point so that the audience can get a good idea of how this can happen.  These few people are essentially stranded at this place, seemingly abandoned by the world.  The Greek-influenced score, while sparse, is fantastic.  The end is abrupt but I suspect that was a budget constraint.  We hear about what happened in the narration but it does feel a little like a cheat.  The New Yorker DVD presents the film in its original fullframe presentation. There are some extras; you get a commentary track with Herzog, the theatrical trailer and 4 trailers to other New Yorker Video films.

The Strange Door (1951)

Director: Joseph Pevney

Writers: Jerry Sackheim, Robert Lewis Stevenson

Composer: ???

Starring: Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest, Richard Wyler, William Cottrell, Alan Napier, Morgan Farley, Paul Cavanagh, Michael Pate

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of TERROR

Plot:  Noble-born cad Denis (Stapley) has been tricked into a forced stay at the eerie manor of the Sire de Maletroit (Laughton), an evil madman who can't get over the death of his beloved, twenty years after she married his brother (Cavanagh) instead and subsequently passed away during childbirth. Maletroit is determined to have his revenge: the brother has been stowed away in the dungeon for two decades, while he's convinced his disreputable house guest will make a suitably hellish husband for his niece. As luck would have it, the young couple manage to fall in love, and with the help of manservant Voltan (Karloff), they try to make their escape, but not before a final confrontation with Maletroit in the dungeon's crushing deathtrap.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

Karloff fans will be disappointed to know that he's not in the picture much.  But then it's got lots of Charles Laughton having a ball playing a deliciously nasty cad.  The production design is wonderful as is the black and white photography.  The story is quite, good, too.  The one problem I have with this picture, and it's a doosey, is the wooden, near-monotoned acting from the hero lead, Richard Wyler.  He's bad.  I'd love to know how he got the role because it certainly wasn't on his ability.  It doesn't help that he's surrounded by much better actors.  He brings down the picture quite a bit but he doesn't come close to ruining it.  There's a lot to like with this film, with or without Wyler's contribution. The final ten or so minutes have minimal dialogue, no music and a good deal of suspense.  This is one of five films in The Boris Karloff Collection box set from Universal.  There are no extras for this film.