Blogs Against Humanity - Adventures in Sympathetic Misanthropy

What ye sow, so shall ye reap, or some shit like that.  "Name's Buck. I'm rarin' to fuck." So, when the first line spoken in a horror film is the above quote (spoken by a baby-faced Robert Englund) you'd be forgiven for double-checking to make sure that you hadn't rented a porn flick instead. After that, you really shouldn't be too surprised by the batshit lunacy that follows when you remind yourself that this is the second film made by director Tobe Hooper, creator of the legendary 'TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE' , and it became one of the first films to be labeled a "video nasty" in the UK. Scuzzy lunacy of the batshit variety is exactly what you get here. While 'Chainsaw' is definitely the more harrowing and grimier of the two, this one is definitely bloodier and sleazier than its predecessor, and just as bizarre.   Part of that is down to the fact that this film is stage bound, which makes it feel rather artificial in a way that...

Surely my online interactions won't bite me in my ass in a literal sense. Right? "Drifted apart? Is that how you remember it?" Yeah, yeah, it's been forever. Read up anyway! 😆 The overall idea driving this film is somewhat simple and boils down to "Slasher-flick but over Skype" which is one of those notions that could certainly go either way. As with pretty much everything else, it all comes down to the execution, doesn't it?  'UNFRIENDED' is a film that garnered some bad reviews and mentioning it in places like r/horror can still drum up a contingent of naysayers. I agree with some of the criticism, but a lot of it seems like reflexive disdain for "these kids today and their bliggetty-blogs and their facey-spaces and their tweety-pages" (my apologies to Denis Leary) rather than any genuine observation and analysis of the film on its own merits. So, let's get the bad out of the way, and then we'll talk about the good.  When it...

  A 1979 TV movie about Vampires? Oh come on, that can't possibly be very scary...right? "You'll sleep with the dead, teacher."   Sometimes you get a little tired of soulful and seductive cinematic vampires and long to see a return to a more unsettling depiction where they are portrayed as ruthless, remorseless predators who seek out the blood of the living, both to feed their insatiable hunger, and to increase their own numbers. If that's the sort of vampire tale that gets your own blood pumping, then this is a film for you. A somewhat sad truth of horror-cinema is that flicks based off the works of Stephen King are something of a mixed-bag. You have the likes of ' Carrie ', ' Cujo ', ' Christine ', ' IT ', ' The Mist ', and ' Misery ', all of which are good adaptations, and also very good films in their own right. Then you have excellent non-horror adaptations in the form of ' The Green Mile ', ...

This cult-classic tale of a guy who has totally fallen head-over-heels for a hot alien lady who happens to be a Vampire from Space may count as a guilty-pleasure to some, but for me, it's an old favorite. “Don't worry. A naked girl is not going to get out of this complex.” - Dr. Hans Fallada Tobe Hooper and Dan O'Bannon's LIFEFORCE is a film I've liked ever since I first watched it on home-video when I was about 17 years old. Granted, at least 70% of why I enjoyed it at the time is directly attributable to the spectacular assets of the strikingly beautiful French-born actor Mathilda May, but I enjoyed it all the same.  Produced by the notorious B-movie factory Cannon Films (and arguably the best film the studio ever churned out), the movie bombed at the box-office, and most critics were none too kind, but it ended up becoming a cult-classic and did so on more than the inherent charms of May's pert physique. And sure enough, across the intervening 34-odd years ...

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...