And so we have a bit of a work in progress/pilot here! long before I started making reviews or even before I’d set up this website I would more often than not spend my time sat in a comfortable arm chair with my very good friend Ben watching movies in the front room of my house/flat/cardboard box and generally being irritating, getting drunk, eating copious amounts of terrible food and taking the absolute piss out of whatever was happening on the screen.
I enjoyed my time doing that so much that I invited Ben to join me in picking up more or less where we left off, only this time we’d do it live with a microphone in the room.
So what better way to open a feature length audio commentary series where people drink, eat pizza and chat crap than with a gloriously bleak film about the literal apocalypse!
Series 4 was a sturdy season if ever there was one. While I have quite fond memories of the opening half, the latter half to me did seem to drag a little. Though this was almost entirely my own fault.y’see when I was structuring this season I made 2 seemingly small mistakes which completely through my season off kilter. first and foremost. I overproduced. there was a “Red Triangle” episode that was supposed to be part of this season. But due to my collaboration with Raymond it ended up being pushed off the schedule and into Season 5 (You’ll see it in November)…but that threw me out by nearly a week due to the time it took to make the episode.
The other issue that I encountered was that I had assumed that “Armed Response” was some kind of cop drama…it wasnt. it’s a martial arts movie. and I didnt realise it was a martial arts movie till I was sat watching it and it had been locked into the schedules. meaning that an entire months worth of videos was almost entirely made up of martial arts/action movies! which kind of began to grate on me a little bit (Im having similar problems with season 5 at the minute as I’ve discovered I have a few too many kids films in the mix for my taste personally)
Ignoring that though Season 4 has some gems in there in my opinion. “Tales from the Quadead zone” was a brilliantly fun little film to sit through, I was able to continue my reviews of the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, I covered “Braindead“! a Peter Jackson Classic! and I had my mind fully rotted away by “Bikini Model Academy” and it was an out and out pleasure to be able to work with my “Comedy dining experience” partner in crime Ben in producing my first year anniversair special on Public Information Films (PIF’s to you and me)
This was also the season that would see the launch of “The ______Comedy dining experience” and im hoping there’ll be more of these in future! so do keep your eyes peeled!
All in all, I liked working on this season…half of it was done while I was in a very mellow place and half of it was done under some very heavy stress…whether that shows or not I cant really say…this is also the last season where I really get a say on whats being reviewed until 2019 at least…what with Halloween and Christmas on the Horizon…so savour it! it’ll be a while till we’re back on the freewheeling days of pick what you want!
(It’s a shorter run than normal, but I like to think that just means the quality is more concentrated)
I’ve always been reluctant to do “Multi film” reviews…I suppose it’s because I like the detail that longer form reviews offer and that it lets me add a bit more of a personal touch to the movie im talking about to go in depth and talk at length about my own personal feelings about the film i’ve selected.
However, when I was contacted by Joel to take part in the B-movie hall of fame over on the movieforums.com (A message board I can highly recommend) I kind of felt compelled to do this. in part because I thought it would be fun to try and write without notes for a change (Every review I do is heavily noted…I currently have 7 books worth!) and also because it meant that editing these could be a bit more creative and fun.
It was nice being able to check out movies I’d not seen before and especially films that i’d have probably have skipped had they not been on this list…hell 2 of my new favourite movies ever I’ve found while doing this challenge alone!
So far Im really enjoying it in all honesty and I cant wait to get round to watching the remaining 6 sooner rather than later (Though I’ll be honest; time is most definitely working against me these days…there’ll be more info in an upcoming Blog I have planned…if I ever find the time)
With October bringing in Halloween it’ll be a little while before Part 2 of this makes it’s appearence though theres some absolute classics on the list yet to watch so do keep an eye out in November when it should go live!
(Seriously go watch “The Child” and “Jack Frost” if you’ve never seen them before…Great stuff!)
It’s collaboration time again! this time with a good friend of mine Raymond. This has been many months in the making we wern’t entirely sure of the best format to present this one in. I like Raymonds video style. he always finds a very entertaining angle to his reviews and he’s arguably one of the most thorough critics in his field when it comes to finding out info.
In the end we settled that I would give way on my channel to him and vice versa for me! as a result this weeks episode is a majority Raymond based episode! it’s a corker and im very proud that the months of scripting and working we did together finally came together and paid off.
Over on Raymonds youtube channel you will find a review for 1993’s Terminator woman in which I had the pleasure of turning up (I’ll be posting that one on here as well seperately) but in the mean time here is arguably one of the strangest movies I’ve spoken about in a while.
With this video we finally draw a close on season 4. it’s been the longest season to date and while making it I had my doubts…though looking back. im kind of happy I went the way I did with this one…next week will pretty much be quiet so Join us in September for the first episode of Season 5! which will take us right up to the end of the year!
(This is technically a part 2 of 2 I’d advise you go and watch “Terminator woman’s” review first also this is a fairly meh poster…its too busy and blocky)
So! Heres a review you lot probably wernt expecting. In fact it was rapidly approaching 6 months ago that I first sat down with the director of this film Kenneth Hansebraten to request whether I would be allowed to talk about this project. Luckily for me the gentleman that Kenneth is he more than Obliged and that is how this review ended up here and now.
I originally uploaded this one in April 2018 at Kenneths request. However after a day or so he politely asked me to make this review “Unlisted” until such a time that this short was released officially (So as not to spoil too much of it) as it stands this film has now seen a release and sold out (In a record 39 minutes!) a testimony to it’s success I can assure you.
As a rule I’ll only review films I find if they genuinely peak my interest. and I have to say Dead world does just that. it’s a brilliant little movie and I highly recommend if this ever gets a second run release that you go and hunt it out! it’s a tremendous piece of cinema and I really look forward to Kenneths follow up to this! Im sure he’ll knock it out of the park!
So this week we’re looking at “The Strangeness” a 1985 indie horror flick thats probably the last recommended film I’ll review for this year. Thats not to say that I dont want requests or recommendations coming through! no no! I love it when people tell me about strange crap I’ve never seen before. But we’re rapidly approaching Autumn and with it a block of specials that pretty much means that as of today (the 2nd of August 2018) I can pretty much tell you the entire schedule of whats to come review wise from next week through to the first week of January. This is because depending on how the Halloween poll goes (that closes in 2 days by the way! just for your information!) I’ll be doing either 5 videos on the theme of general halloween spookiness or 5 films on the history of vampires. but they’ve already been decided…equally all of Decembers films have pretty much been organised and locked in at this point as well…which only leaves 3 weeks in september and 4 weeks in November to fill! And the 3 weeks in september are all but locked down right now as it is! honestly; I have 1 slot unaccounted for at this point and it’s in November… and thats likely to fill up pretty quickly as time pushes on!
So yes, basically if you recommend me a film or make a request between now and the end of the year please dont be diheartned if I dont get round to it dramatically quickly. It will get done I guarentee it! it just may take me a little while…
In the mean time though. please enjoy this strange strange film…I dont really have too much to say about it beyond whats already mentioned in the video. it didnt thrill me…but I wasnt disgusted either!
(What I will say is this VHS cover is VASTLY superior to the current DVD cover…I dont know what this VHS covers about but I know I want to see the film BADLY!)
Im ashamed that I left watching “Braindead” till as late in my life as I have. It’s not really considered a mainstream horror in the same way that the “Nightmare on elm streets”, “Friday the 13ths” and “Halloweens” of the world are…in a sea of slashers where the closest thing to compare it to would be “The Evil Dead 2” Braindead stands out by a country mile as a truely shocking and twisted slice of Dark horror comedy.
It had always been on the outskirts of my film viewing horizons. I’d seen clips from it over the years but for one reason or another i’d just never got round to watching it…I was still trying to get the “Classics” under my belt…missing by a country mile the classic I could have been watching all along with this beauty!
I decided when I finally did down this movie that I had a choice…I could either watch it in pristine bluray quality (Bootleg but definitely enjoyable) or I could watch it for the first time in mangled VHS-vision…I chose the latter and I really dont regret my choices. The general nastiness of this film is enhanced tremendously by the nasty, grainey and semi chewed up fuzz that VHS provides…I actually own the Rental copy of this movie…It came from a video shop in Rhyl (It still has all the stickers from the shop on it and everything!) and watching it back through the murk you really get a feeling for the history that this tapes been through in order to arrive in my collection. I really do treasure it…Until peter jacksons 4K remasters of these movies come out it’s the closest I’ve got to watching this film in it’s intended condition…Though equally if they were to do what they did with the “Nekromantik” Bluray and include a polished up Super clean cut…alongside a trashed “Grindhouse” cut I’d be terrifically grateful…
I’d love to see Jackson return to these kinds of films…controversial, shocking, and brilliantly wicked fun…I know he probably never will but I can dream!
(Also this is one of those films that has never quite been able to get it’s promotional marketing quite right…this is the best representation of the film I could find (The rental cover) and it says absolutely bugger all about the film itself…It just looks really cool…)
This is one of those moments where I think I nailed my exact thoughts on this one perfectly through the video review.
Octopus 2 is not a good film. But just writing that really doesn’t do a service to just how craptacularly awful it is…while we’re not exactly in “Let’s ruin dad’s day” territory. We are worryingly close. Which does concern me…
All I can really tell you about this is that they stopped at Octopus 2 and having suffered through this movie so that you can get an idea of why you should avoid this like a plague rat all I can really say is, just don’t do it.
EDIT: So! todays been eventful! I originally wrote this post quite quickly while on a break at work and very shortly after I wrote it I recieved an email from youtube telling me that this video had been blocked worldwide by “Lasso Entertainment” for a 1 minute section that had been clocked as containing there “Visual content”.
Now; Apart from the fact that “Lasso Entertainment” dont even own the rights to “Octopus 2” this video is covered by fair use as I only use a small portion of the overall movie to help justify my opinions on the film. I use non of the audio (Not that that really matters) so I find it very difficult to see why they think it’s okay to hit me with one of these strikes. I naturally contacted Lasso almost immediately to try and get this resolved but they refused to respond to me and as a result i’ve had to reupload this video with approximately 1 minute and 1 second cut out. I can only apologise and hope that fewer of these kind of incidents happen in future.
(I much prefer the UK DVD cover for “Octopus 2” the US poster makes it look way more interesting than it actually is…)
Something a bit different today and a bit of a bonus here. While working with Ben on producing the Public information films special we had some downtime and we decided to watch the feelgood film of the 80’s “Threads” better still we recorded the experience which I present to you here as a fully functioning feature commentary!
(Warning!: this is not as well researched or thought out as my typical reviews, throughout this both me and Ben are drinking and enjoying the finest takeaway my city has to offer…this is much more laid back and mainly for fun…with that in mind I hope you enjoy…)
I have never honestly seen a film quite like “Tales from the QuaDead zone” I’ve been aware of Shot on Video (More affectionately known stateside as shot on Shitteo) for years but theres seemingly a major gulf in quality when it comes to the shot on tape genre.
On the one side you have genuine attempts at producing a quality product on a limited budget, these lo-fi cinemasterpieces push the boundaries of tape as a format and are usually produced by film makers who would go onto make great things.
On the other side of the spectrum however you have films like QuaDead, in which all sanity and reason gives way to unregulated pandemonium. This film and films of it’s ilk are atrociously made with no technical skill implemented on almost any level. But what sets this film apart from all the others is its heart. This film has soul. it has feeling. in a world where there are hundreds if not thousands of shot on video movies out there that desperately want to be better movies and are distinctly dead behind the eyes “QuaDead zone” positively oozes character and feels very much like it desperately wants to stand on its own.
In that respect it more than does this successfully. and While I havent seen any of Chesters other films just yet. The two that he has produced are both truely unique viewing experiences that I can highly recommend you check out.
(The Soundtrack is craptacular. and I wish I had this box art as a T-shirt)
TYTD Reviews 