Blogs Against Humanity - Adventures in Sympathetic Misanthropy

This, the third film-adaptation of Jack Finney's 1955 novel, "The Body Snatchers", does quite a lot of things right, but ultimately falls a bit short.  "They get you when you sleep." - Andy  This is going to get spoilery, so if you haven't watched this flick and don't like spoilers, then you may want to skip this review.  So, as I mentioned before, this is remake month, and as was the case with DRACULA (though not to the same extent), there are more than two film adaptations of Jack Finney's 1954 science fiction novel "The Body Snatchers" to choose from. So, before I hit this version, I watched both of the previous versions, titled INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS , from 1956 and 1978, respectively.   Those adaptations are widely considered to be absolute classics by movie-buffs and critics alike, so, when compared to its predecessors, BODY SNATCHERS has some very big shoes to fill. We have another new setting, this time out of an Army-base...

DRACULA (1931) ***1/2 Tod Browning's Dracula is adapted from the then-popular stage-play, and the influence is quite obvious upon viewing, as the film eventually becomes quite stagey and static. A lot of the camera-work is pedestrian, and the scene transitions are often short and somewhat jarring. Too much exposition also slows down the film, and when compared to its contemporary, James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN, it simply doesn't fare as well. As some critics have remarked, its essentially a stylistic holdover from the silent-film era. And, as a last critique, this film doesn't end so much as simply STOP, and there's a big difference between these two concepts. However, for all its flaws, this movie definitely deserves its classic status. Even without a pair of fangs, Bela Lugosi set a standard as Count Dracula against which all others would be measured to this very day. His Dracula is stiff and formal, yet prone to sudden bursts of quick-fury. He's quite obviously...

So, let's take a quick look at how I rated the 10 films I watched for the pre-show: CHILDREN OF MEN - *****   Best movie of the pre-show, a phenomenal, moving film, with powerful performances and some extraordinary cinematography. I cannot recommend it highly enough.   CONTAGION - ****1/2   Easily the best pandemic-type film in terms of the science. great acting all-around, some surprises, and very prescient.   RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR - **   Starts off strong, claustrophobic and bleak, ultimately let down by bad science. BOO-ums!   PONTYPOOL - ****1/2   Extremely clever, well-acted, low-budget thriller in what amounts to a stage-play on film. Stephen McHattie is a Canadian national treasure. 12 MONKEYS - *****   A sci-fi tragedy by Terry Gilliam. A great film that I don't personally love.   REC - ****1/2   Easily one of the best found-footage style horror-flicks ever made, very much in t...

Yes, my friends, it is indeed almost that time again! I'll be starting my annual marathon of horrors with a week-long pre-show on August the 25th .  This is the sixth year that I've done this, and generally I just post about it on Facebook. I'll be doing that this year too, although I'm paring back the FB coverage this time out because, well, screw Zuckerberg, and screw Facebook. While I'll post notifications about what and when I'm watching on FB, my reviews will no longer be posted there. Instead, I'll be posting them right here, where they belong. So, for this year's pre-show, I have 10 films lined up. The theme is pandemics (naturally): Children Of Men (2006) 12 Monkeys (1995) Blindness (2008) Maggie (2015) REC (2007) Contagion (2011) The Seventh Seal (1957) Right At Your Door (2006) Zombieland - Double-Tap (2019) Pontypool (2008) Out of these, I've seen Pontypool and 12 Monkeys . I saw the former about 9 years ago, and the latter I proba...

The team is held hostage, but looks bored. I feel ya, ladies. Oh man, if only this flick was as entertaining as its poster and promo images lead you to believe its going to be.  GIRLS WITH BALLS is a French/Belgian sports-themed horror-comedy, directed by Olivier Afonso, that simply manages to lose track of what sort of film it wishes to be, and flounders its way to an unsatisfactory ending. To be honest, I should have known from the start that the tone-deaf vagabond-cowboy-bard narrator with a penchant for spoilers was a bad sign. Unfunny singing-narrator aside, the first act does its job well, and establishes the characters in rip-roaring fashion, via a Volleyball cup-match, and subsequent character-interaction inside the team's RV once the game is won. Schlocky, silly, and sophomoric, it manages to be a lot of goofy fun for the first 15 minutes. When the team gets lost and detoured towards a backwoods hostel populated by inbred, cannibal-hicks, the bad-guys are established, an...

So, that promised BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER rewatch? Yeah, that's on hold, and I apologize.  Why is that? To be honest, I may be going about it the wrong way. I had decided to do a very in-depth deep-dive style of review, and that's what I was working on as I watched Welcome To The Hellmouth , but in the end, I may have waded into deeper waters than I have the energy to navigate. The review I was writing got so long and involved, it frankly became a slog. And why? Why should I turn something like that into a slog? There are Buffy deep-dives aplenty out there, and have been since the very start. I really don't know if I can say anything new about the show with an in-depth approach, and honestly, I just don't have the background in things like philosophy and film-studies to justify it, I'd just be building off the work that others has done before, and done better. So, I'm going to hang back, and take a more relaxed approach to it, and see what develops. Rather th...

...the great BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER re-watch and review of 2020 is coming.  I've watched Buffy. A lot. I've probably watched the complete series from end-to-end about 3 times. I started my 4th re-watch back in 2016, so I could watch it through with my Girlfriend. However, it petered off in season 3 due to scheduling, and it was never completed.  I'll go into greater length about all of this when I start my reviews proper, but suffice it to say, BUFFY and ANGEL both mean a hell of a lot to me to this day. Even though I didn't grow up with it, since I was a grown man when it began, its still a part of the fabric of who I have become.  Sure, I've watched it, read books about it, read some books and a lot of comics set within its universe, listened to the music from the series, and even sat in on discussion-panels at conventions about it. But, even though I have at times analyzed its content and its themes, I've never truly sat down and watched it with an eye ...

I'm a sucker for a well-done homage, and that's absolutely what we have here. LAKE NOWHERE is a loving tribute to those halcyon days of the 1980's VHS era, and does a great job of invoking the memories of finding an unknown gem of a flick sitting on a shelf in the horror-section. And I have to say, its definitely worth the nostalgic ride that follows. In this modern world of digital releases, its as easy as proverbial pie to find something worth watching. From Netflix, to Amazon Prime, YouTube, Hulu, Shudder, Disney Plus, Tubi, Pluto TV, and more, you can browse, select, and start watching in less time than it took to wait in line at BLOCKBUSTER (I don't miss you, btw), or your favorite mom-and-pop video store (I do miss you). Now, as AWESOME as this convenience is, there's also something that has been lost in the process, a feeling that amounts to the thrill of the hunt, not to mention that sense of anticipation once you had it in your grubby, little hands. Back ...

So, there are gonna be some spoilers . Let me sum up the overall plot just a bit. At Superman's urging, the Justice League, fearing an all-out invasion by Darkseid, decide to strike first in an attempt to destroy Apokolips itself. The attack fails utterly, and Earth is devastated by Darkseid's forces. Two years later, with the planet facing complete annihilation, a now-powerless Superman, alongside Raven of the Teen Titans, has a plan to defeat Darkseid for good. To do that, they're going to need the aid of John Constantine, who seems determined to drink himself to death. Hoo boy. That was definitely a thing that happened. The Apokolips War is a relentlessly-grim action-vehicle that out-Snyder's Zack Snyder, and asks the all-important question, "How many recognizable characters can we kill with extreme brutality?" Add the odd bit of humor here-and-there, and some (largely stilted) touching moments, and there you go. The whole thing is driven by what the plot-...

Not-so-little observations , because sometimes I have a lot of words. Please forgive any changes from past to present tense, because sometimes I do that. Perhaps I was a time-traveler in a previous life? * After an adventure in 2005, its time to travel into the far, far future onto a hospitality satellite called Platform One. To be precise, the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six, 5 billion years into the future, to watch the Earth die. Gravity satellites have held back the long-delayed expansion of the sun into a red-giant, AND the host of this event, the so-called National Trust has even moved the continents back into their 20th/21st-century configuration, because that's supposedly the "classic Earth". Makes sense, because that's the configuration for the rise of Homo Sapiens and their various cultures. * Nice global-warming shout-out. Pity we've done so little about it in the 15 years since this episode aired. We suck. * No, the Platform attendant...

This movie is batshit insane . RABID GRANNIES is a film I've ducked for years. Why? Because the original, cheesy VHS cover-photo did nothing to endear me to the idea, nor did the ridiculous movie-title. And then there's the fact that TROMA released it here in the states, and I have something of a love-hate relationship with the studio, because I find them incredibly hit-and-miss. To be fair, they didn't make it, they just distributed it, and that's a fact that eluded me until recently. Now, ducking out on this 1988 Belgian horror-comedy may or may not have been a mistake. I lean towards being wise to do so, because for years now, most of the releases boast big cuts to the gore-quotient, which makes no goddamn sense for a Troma release. However, some kind soul decided to take various releases and use them to cobble-together what may be the most complete version of the film to date, and then opted to put that on YouTube for free. This person is a God among mortals, and th...

Okay folks, time to actually USE this thing on the regular, yeah? So, in addition to anything that just strikes my fancy to watch, I had the urge to re-watch something, and I finally settled on something long overdue for a re-watch. And here we go... Little observations: * After so many years in the wilderness, the first episode of "NuWho" goes so right where the 1996 Fox TV movie went so very wrong. It distills down the entire premise into something very simple and easily accessible. Russell T. Davies doesn't load us down with a truckload of nostalgia-driven continuity references, or a needless regeneration sequence. Nope, what we get is quick, simple, streamlined, and effective. The episode smartly focuses in on Rose Tyler herself, only introducing the Doctor himself a few minutes into the show when Rose is menaced by a classic-series enemy that we haven't seen in FOREVER: The Autons. Backing Rose into a corner and then bringing in the Doctor when, out of nowhere he...

So, I've owned THE INCUBUS for over 2-decades on VHS, but I'd only ever watched it once before. My recollections of the majority of the film were somewhat dim, and I recall it being slow and a bit boring. What I did recall quite clearly, however, is the essence of that last minute or so of the film, which I won't spoil here. That climax (no pun intended) really stays with you. Its a shame the rest of the film can't quite measure up to that powerful and disturbing ending. Don't get me wrong: THE INCUBUS is a good horror-flick, and easily in the top-tier of horror flicks to come out of Canada in the 70's and 80's. It has a creepy atmosphere that creates a constant sensation of unease, as if you know something malevolent is out there, lurking just outside your field of vision. The scoring is excellent, and lends to those feelings of unease, and it also boasts an excellent soundtrack. The performances are good, with John Cassavetes delivering a strong, if odd, p...

Ahhhhh yes, THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. It was one of those films I wanted to watch as a child, but wasn't able to do so during the time of its release. I vaguely remember coverage in FAMOUS MONSTERS at the time, not to mention some old video of Rick Baker showing a child around his workshop in the late 70's, which was very cool, footage which also featured the Melting-Man masks. All-in-all, it left a big impression on a young horror-fan like me, despite being unable to see the film itself. It was also a very formative time for me as well, for good and for ill. My parents got divorced, which was both good and bad. And on the brighter side, STAR WARS came out that same year, SUPERMAN would hit theaters the following year, and being a regular PBS viewer, I would soon discover DOCTOR WHO when one of the local PBS stations started airing the first bundle of Tom Baker serials in 1978. Heady stuff! It wasn't until I managed to spy a copy of this for rent at a small mom-and-pop v...