After ‘Curse of Frankenstein’ helped put ‘Hammers’ horror wing on the map, it was all but inevitable that a sequel would be forthcoming. And lo, 12 months after the original, we have ‘The Revenge of Frankenstein’ a MORE than worthy sequel to the original that manages to quite literally ressurect the franchise from the dead!

The film opens where the first film immediatley left off, with Frankenstein heading to the guillotine for his crimes in messing with human nature (and all them murders wot he done.) But just before the Guillotines blade gets in his way…By some…mad antics. He’s managed to swap himself with the priest who was in his cells.

Yes! Frankenstein lives! and having moved to a small village in another part of the country and adopting a psudonym. He’s continuing his experiements into ressurecting the dead, and building the perfect living creature. He’s managed to set himself up as a new town doctor, and his efficiency in treating patients is the talk of the town (and a great scourge to the towns medical council who dislike how private he is)

It attracts the attention of recently graduated student Dr. Kleve who immediately puts 2 and 2 together and realises that the new doctor in town IS Frankenstein…and after some very mild blackmail, the pair form an alliance. With Kleve assisting Frankenstein in his latest experiment (building the perfect body for a heavily disabled work assistant) and in return Kleve learning all about Frankensteins work and NOT turning him into the authorities.

The rest? well…im sure you can figure out what happens if you put Dr. Frankenstein in charge of a major hospital of sick patients while he works on rebuilding his lifes work. Chaos, carnage and good times for all!

And I honestly really quite enjoyed this one. The script feels ‘Of’ the originals universe without it feeling like a retread of the original. Its main plot line basically answering the question ‘What if Frankensteins work HADNT been interrupted by Paul in the original?’ and I found it fascinating to see how things might have played out differently.

The script does seem tonally a little lighter than the first entry, the more horror driven moments do still have a distinct Macarbre touch to them, but there is a slightly heavier campy aspect to this one that I think nicely contrasts the events of the film.

Theres a bit more of a shift away from the stuffier aspects of victoriana dialogue and more emphasis on the actual characters this time around. Theres also at least a couple of characters brought in almost solely for comedic effect. Im still on the fence about those moments…

Outside of that however, pacings as rock solid as ever, the film once again has a clean 3 act structure that transitions effortlessly across its acts, and it manages to keep the 3 acts fairly equal too. the tone feels a little more footloose than the last entry, but that isnt strictly a problem. I quite like that they expand on and develop the character a bit more here than in the original. Its honestly just a really great and fun little work, that I dont think *quite* matches the original quality wise…But comes pretty bloody close!

One thing of note, that I did find a bit weird…is just HOW many times the script mentions how dirty the people in the movie are. A HUGE chunk of the runtime is given up to talking about dirty patients, dirty locations, digging in literal dirt, jokes about dirty members of the public. its pretty relentless, and I can only assume that, because the first film didnt really mention Hygeine at all, this films had to cram 2 movies worth of ‘dirty peasent’ talk into one movies runtime.

Direction wise there has been a bit more of a shift into the gothic, the first entry was a fairly well lit affair that felt more like a period piece in tone rather than a horror film. This film transitions us nicely into a heavy horror styalization. The gothic horror vibes are out in full force as we enter a chronically night time based picture, with grubby locations, dark and macarbre set spaces, with only the flourescent beakers of mysterious bubbling fluid offering any vibrant colours from this picture thats awash in midnight blues, mouldy greens and dingey yellows.

The cast and crew work in near lock step here, delivering an end product that I think actually surpassses ‘Curse of Frankenstein’ on a technical level. it shows the team learnt a lot in there first couple of the ‘Universal’ adaptations and now they’re able to hit the ground running. it looks superb.

Same goes for the cine, which is a LOT tighter than the original, shots are incredibly well composed, with decent uses of the rule of thirds and blocking. they really set the shots up to make the colours pop and the attention to detail and creative experimentation present is an absolute delight.

All of this of course is wrapped up in an edit that perfectly paced, has the exact amount of breathing space to let the edit do the heavy lifting it needs to and is open to creative experimentation. It keeps a perfect sense of timing and ends EXACTLY as I feel it needed ot.

Performance wise, we have another fantastic turn from Peter Cushing, who’s take on the Baron here is one thats now a much more calculating and considered person than his first outing. he doesnt quite get the range work that the original allowed him, but what he delivers here are easily some of his finest moments.

Credit also has to go to Michael Gwynn as the assitant turned creature Karl Immelmann. This creature gets to talk and we get to explore what he makes of his new ‘humanity’ in all its horrible, real and complex detail. He DOES get a good range to work with in this one and he absolutely delivers on the brief, a stunning performance and easily one of the biggest reasons to check this movie out.

The rest of the cast are all equally fantastic too, I think they’re even a bit of an upgrade over the previous film, where there was a certain degree of stiffness. Here? they’re all perfeclty animate, use the set space really well, and it’s nice to see the camera work match pace to such an animated cavelcade of talent.

While ‘The Revenge of Frankenstein’ doesnt *quite* line up to the greatness of the original. the gap of difference between them is eyewateringly close. had it not been for a couple of strange script choices and a toning down overall of the ‘Hammer blood’ and colour I think this could have easily been the better of the two.

Absolutely worth checking out. Highly recommended. I loved this one, and I regret not having seen it sooner quite honestly.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-revenge-of-frankenstein/

Acting almost like an alternate universe take on ‘Children of the corn’ that answers the question ‘What if the grownups just…didnt give in to the weird childrens bullcrap?’ ‘Beware: Children at play’ feels all too familiar in the ground its treading and the genres its working with. But that doesnt stop it from occasionally striking out on its own.

This is a horror film with a streak of jet black comedy running right through it, and honestly having seen that this is generally distributed by Troma films…A lot of this movies style quickly made sense.

The plot? a perfectly normal family are heading to a small town out in the backwaters to hang out with friends, on the way they stop to help an aging religious fellow who’s heading in the other direction who basically insults most of the townsfolk our leads are heading towards, calling the religious yokels who’ll easily part with their cash the second ‘God’ comes into the equation.

They help him on his way, but on arriving in the town they find out pretty quickly that things arnt right. A large number of children have dissapeared over the past few months/years and a series of bizarre murders have been taking place. It doesnt take long for the film to reveal that the missing children are in fact the ones doing the murdering, and they’re doing so, so that they can feast on the flesh of their victims and use the corpses in satanic rituals.

Its implied heavily that their may be some kind of demonic force at play, and when our ‘normal families’ daughter ends up being abducted by the cannibal murderous children. It sends the father down a rabbit hole of detective work alongside the police to find out where the missing children have gone to, what their end goal is and how further dissapearences and murders can be stopped. All leading to probably this films most infamous sequence, a GRAND finale that even today could be seen as quite shocking and surprising.

I think one of the biggest problems this film has really is its script. This really REALLY feels like it cribbed 90% of its plot from ‘Children of the Corn’ (its basically the core plot, but with the religious overtones tuned down to a more neutral position…and of course, the adults are still alive at this point, whereas the original kills all the grown ups off pretty quickly) It’s lack of originality on that front is actually kind of astounding, im surprised Stephen Kings lawyers didnt step in honestly.

But even overlooking that fact, the first hour or so of this hour and 40 movie is just really kind of slow and dull, it’s largely exposition dumping from our main characters who take WAY too long to cotten onto the fact that it’s the missing kids doing the killing, and a large chunk of the runtimes dedicated to wandering around in the woods or scenic shoots, and not much else. By the time the film DOES finally fully get into gear, theres about half an hour left, and while that closing half hour IS really REALLY good fun. It just kind of left me wondering why the rest of the film WASNT.

Pacing is fairly pedestrian for the first two acts of this thing, it crawls from location to location with only the occasional garish gory kill to help keep this thing from becoming a sedative. the kills themselves are cheap and cheerful (they reminded me a lot of SOV style effects) but they’re fun enough and do help drive up the campiness of the whole thing. the tone is very paletable, balancing VERY bleak horror elements to quite wonderfully self aware and tongue in cheek black comedy. This is a movie that isnt afraid to be a bit silly in places and his happy to push the envelope, and its no surprise to me at all that the UK seemingly never got this movie.

The act structuring is clean, if not a little slow, transitions are a little heavy handed, but they work fine enough. I just…really wish they’d tried to make this film a bit more unique. Had the tone and pacing of the last act been replicated for the first two, this would have been much MUCH higher rated for me. As it stands, it’s never a good look when I have to ask the person im recommending this film to, to ‘Stick with it for the first 50 minutes, because after that, it gets SO much better!’

Direction and cine are pretty solid, Its nothing massively groundbreaking, but for the lower budgeted side of movie making, theres a fairly subtle style here that helps tie the whole movie together, the kills are cheap, but help carry the vibe, the teams all seem to be working in relative harmony together, the cast are all seemingly pretty well involved with the director, who seems to have helped guide them through each scene. The child actors here do seem to struggle a bit more with the exact direction, but given the adult themes present (I.E trying to articulate to a 5 year old how to die on screen and make it look real) Im not too surprised that its a bit of a mixed ability room.

The cine again is to standard, shots with okay composition, theres a little bit of experimentation thrown into the mix. Honestly, i’d like to have seen WAY more here to really help boost its identity, but it’s ‘To standard’ which, while better than nothing, is still a little dissapointing.

The edits slow, has plenty of breathing space and honestly could have lost 15-20 with no issues at all. B-roll seems to be a little thin on the ground as, while the effort was made to capture close ups and some scenes have coverage for alternate angles, a lot of scenes have been left high and dry, with minimal cutaway footage and not a whole lot available to help keep the momentum of the film going. It really could have done with another couple of passes to help get it optimally timed.

Ultimately?; While this one DOES have its fun moments here and there, and that ending is still quite unbelievable (im VERY surprised the MPAA passed it) there just isnt really a whole lot here to warrent it being recommended. it feels very heavily influenced by quite a few movies that were out at the time and that lack of originality, married up to some fairly generic direction, cine and performances just makes a film that left me quite literally thinking ‘welp…that was a movie’ by the time of the end credits.

Not an essential watch, i’d say if you DID like the ‘Children of the corn’ movies and just basically want more of that. Here you go. if your looking for something that feels very different to the usual mid tier horror offerings, this wont scratch that itch.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/beware-children-at-play/

And so, we reach the end of ‘The Paramount Years’ for the ‘Friday the 13th Franchise. and what better way to send the franchise off with a bang than by setting the film the furthest you could possibly get from Jasons natural habitat and then grossly misleading the audience in the marketing!

Because ‘Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan’ Should really be called ‘Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason takes over a small cruiser and then bumbles about Manhatten for 35 minutes’ Because thats basically what this movie is.

The film opens with a quick recap of the history of the series up to this point, as we join a young couple enjoying each others company on a boat on Crystal Lake, they accidentally run over a power cable which Jason is conveniently lying dead on. which ressurects him. He kills the couple on the boat and then…for some reason just…stays on the boat as it drifts out of Camp Crystal Lake and into what is clearly one of Camp Crystal Lakes MANY peninsula’s.

Its here we join a cruise liner heading out to Manhatten with a graduating class of ’89, chaperoned by a couple of teachers. Jason NOW decides to hop off the boat and hitches a ride on the side of the cruise liner…aaaand basically the rest of the plot is a mixture of ‘teen drama’ and Jason slowly picking off the grad’s for an hour…five minutes of the survivors bobbing along in the ocean, and 35 minutes of Jason literally getting into comedy hyjinks across Manhatten culminating in a very strange, campy but entertaining finale.

And while I think this is absolutely the worst way to end your 8 part long franchise, I cant deny that I find this thing SO enjoyable. Its campy, hammy. it gets pretty nasty in places and I really quite liked that they kept that supernatural element that began in part 6, but morphed it again into something a bit different, with Phantoms of Jason as a child appearing to try and warn the graduates that the real Jason was coming to cause trouble.

The script is of course terribly misleading, calling you film ‘Jason Takes Manhatten’ and then setting two of your three acts on a boat *HEADING* to Manhattan is a rather dirty trick on the part of the production. And it’s kind of a shame too because, while the boat stuff is fine…its ultimately a bit flat narrative wise, largely relying on the teen drama stuff to help carry the film for a big chunk of the runtime. Whereas, the second the action shifts to dry land in Manhatten, all this wonderful, colourful and eccentric character types come crawling out of the woodwork.

I almost wish they’d started the film with this kind of over the top tone and built from there, because what we’re left with is 2 acts that are just kind of ‘Okay’ in terms of their execution (FAR from the franchises best kills or plot developments) and an act thats total nonsensical fun.

The acts are a bit clunky with hard signalling for the changes which is a bit of a shame, the pacing is fairly pedestrian on the boat sections and then it suddenly gets 50k volts jolted up it for the Manhattan sequences. The films very self aware, which is a quality I actually really quite like about this entry in particular. It doesnt really care to try and play it cool. Its happy acknowledging that, by this point in the series Jasons been murdered 7 times over, turned into a zombie, drowned, electrocuted twice, hit in the head with an axe. It knows it’s ludicrous at this point, and it leans into it…to pretty solid effect i’d say.

The characters are a bit of a mixed bag, some of INCREDIBLY one note and dull, but these are also the characters most likely to be picked off, with the rest being actually kind of nuanced and subtle in giving them some complexities to work with.

I cant say I love the script for this one, but I can appreciate it as ‘a bit of a lark’ like I say, TERRIBLE ending to a franchise as successful as this, but as its own standalone entry (as it would go on to become) I think this is pretty much just the producers and paramount doing a bit of a goofy, self aware victory lap to celebrate 10 years of Jason.

The directions pretty solid. But it is a game of two halves, the boat sequences do feel a little on the drab side, Its aiming for low light mystery, especially on the segments below deck. but instead it just comes across as all very ‘one colour’, dark and uninteresting…I think they were trying to give ‘Freddys Boiler room’ vibes…but instead it just ends up looking like they didnt have enough lights to achieve what they wanted. I think they were aware that the boat scenes looked a little dull, because part way into the film, some scenes suddenly get ‘Suspiria’ style coloured lighting for NO reason at all!

By contrast, all the sequences in Manhattan are GORGEOUS. they’re grimey, dirty, nasty smokey neon lit goodness, they really capture a heavily styalized vibe and feel here thats PERFECT for this era of film making, They make the city look both beutiful and hideous in equal mesure and they they really work with colour (particularly around Jason) to help create something that hadnt been seen in any of the ‘Friday the 13th’ movies up to this point, it looks and feels distinct and it clearly had a very focussed vision in mind, which between the cast and crew, is realised pretty effectively.

The cine shines through too, as mentioned the use of coloured gels really helps give this thing a neon pop, but its the use of darkness contrasting these lighting choices that really helps give this film the stylistic contrast it needs to solidly define itself against the other entries. In a sea of entries consisting of. ‘greens, browns and beige’ this film is a neon soaked toxic green delight. Composition for the boat scenes are a little lacklustre, but they do have their moments, they do try to be creative on shot setups (with mixed results) and they do put the effort in.

But again, its the manhattan sequences that shine the brightest here, with several scenes getting very creative, experimentting with tracking shots, pans and angling to get the best they can out of making jason look menacing. They shot plenty of B-roll and it feels like all of it was VERY heavily considered, because the end result is an edit that moves along with a clip, but doesnt feel TOO snappy, and doesnt overstay its welcome.

If I was nitpicking? I’d maybe say at least 10-15 minutes of the boat footage could have been cut and that probably would have bumped this up another half star for me. It would address some of the pacing issues the boat sequences have, while also balancing the ‘Boat to Manhatten’ ratio out a little better AND it would help tighten up those first 2 acts, which do get a little bogged down in the ‘Teen Drama’ side of things.

Performance wise, I kinda got nothing, Peter Mark Richman as Charles is probably the strongest performer here, playing a somewhat malicious uncle to one of the graduates, he has a slimey quality that I feel oozes out wonderfully from him. But outside of him and Kane Hodder playing a blinder as Jason. There just…isnt much to say about the remaining cast members. Its one of the biggest porblems this franchise has, but it’s teen protagonists are often just…very one note and dull. They usually have some kind of gimmic (a fighter, a practical joker, a drug addict) and thats all there is. Im not saying they perform their roles badly, im just saying there isnt really all that much for them to do, but read their lines in a way that isnt dreadful, and pretty much kill time till they’re killed. its a shame really.

And the soundtrack! I think this is my favourite one of the whole series. If I had to pick one it’d certainly be a tossup between this and ‘Part 3’ thats for sure. it’s got that F13 quality, mashed up with some of THE hairiest Hair metal ballad and rock tracks i’ve ever heard. Cheesy as sin, its SUCH a fun little score an it INSTANTLY sets the tone and time this takes place (which is supposedly 1994 if you follow the timeline of the previous movies…ah well.)

I have a real soft spot for ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ Its a film that doesnt take itself seriously, and while it does have MAJOR flaws…especially for a closing chapter. Its imperfections are kind of what draws me to it. It stands out, it looks and sounds great and it does something kind of interesting with its runtime, which other entries have only really flirted with.

I’d recommend ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ But only after you’ve seen a couple of F13 movies and you know how the standards for these movies work. This is a subversive picture, and I think if you dont know how the F13 movies from 2-7 work…even in a vague sense…then a lot of what makes this one so fun will be lost in translation.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-part-viii-jason-takes-manhattan/

I was really hoping that with a rewatch of 1972’s ‘Night of the Strangler’ that I might have been able to enjoy it a little more than the first time around. The first time I watched it I was completley nonplussed by it honestly, I found it overly slow with only a few moments really of any interest and it was kind of dissatisfying…With only Micky Dolenz cheeky ‘special guest’ appearence being the reason to check this out. Having now rewatched it…I cant say my thoughts on it have changed all that much.

The plots a kind of ‘proto slasher’ but it’s a ‘Whodunnit’ with ‘Blaxploitation’ elements at it’s core. As we’re introduced to Vance, Dan and Denise. the group have been brought together after the untimely death of their father and while catching up Denise reveals that she’s going to be dropping out of school, effectively throwing away her rather expensive scholarship and education, because she wants to get married…and she pregnant. and her partners a black guy.

Vance is incredibly supportive of Denise though, a little less than happy shes throwing away her education. But Dan, the eldest brother (and also a MASSIVE racist) is apoplectic. Accusing Denise of throwing away her life and her lineage, before beating the everloving crap out of her, swearing vengence against her and disowning her.

Denise heads back to the city to be with her partner, where its revealed that Dan’s put a hit on Denises partner, who gets blown away while the pair are enjoying a picnic in the park.

A short while later, while Denise is taking a bath, an unseen killer enters her apartment and drowns her. causing tremendous distress to Vance and mild disruption to Dan.

But things start to get a bit interesting when the killings dont stop there. Dans bride to be is killed which sends him into an alcoholic stupor and the bodies continue to pile up from there. Eventually a friend of Vance’s, a black priest on vacation drops in to hang with the family and catch up on whats been happening…Only to run acropper with Dan and for things to get rather frosty.

As the cope begin to piece together the murders and gather evidence, ANYONE could be the killer. with a final act and reveal that quite literallly had me on the edge of my seat…because I couldnt see my clock…I wanted to know when this movie was going to end.

The scripts kind of nebulous honestly, the plots not a bad idea, but the actual way its written feels incredibly loose, badly structured and more like a series of happenings than an actual coherent movie. The main plot of this film with the cops, Vance and his priest friend and the killer feel like islands lost in a sea of random uninteresting exposition and padding. this things 90 minutes on the nose and you could easily lose 30 minutes of it and STILL have room to cut. Its a short film, something that feels like it wasnt developed past the ‘Pitch’ stage, dragged out WAY beyond its normal runtime. and it’s painful to sit through for the most part…

Dont get me wrong, when the film remembers its main plot and gets back on track, it can be really quite good fun! but those moments are very few and far between and long sequences of ‘negotiations’ are about as well recieved here as frying pan to the head.

The tone is kind of difficult to read too, on the one hand, it feels like it wants to explore darker terratory like ‘The New York Ripper’ or ‘Black Christmas’, but then; at the same time it doesnt really commit to it, preferring instead to go for ‘somewhat gritty’ over something that feels altogether more real. This is a movie that prefers to shout racist rhetoric for 20 minutes, than actually SHOW or DEAL with any kind of gore or kill scene…and I find that wild.

The characters are super one dimensional, and when your ‘Whodunnit’ relies on well written and well rounded characters to help add a bit more complexity and nuance to proceedings. NOT having that there is a disaster waiting to happen. As such we’re stuck in a movie of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ where the film isnt even ballsy enough to BOTHER doing anything like a plot twist of a good guy turning out to be a bad guy, or anything of that ilk.

The ending is kind of dissatisfying, you’ll either guess who the killer is within 20 minutes of the film playing, or you wont guess and when it’s revealed will call shenanigans on it because its a reach.

All in all, its a mess of a script with poor to no act structuring, badly written characters a predictable plotting, bad pacing, barely any twists or turns and not even any good kills to help carry the thing. its just a series of islands floating in padding.

The direction and cine dont fair much better either, the direction is chronically dull, all locked off shots, all flood lit, no styalization, no creative zeal, this thing was shot for basic function and nothing else. the cast all seem fairly confused on where to be or what to do, theres no sense of them having any creative say in how to do the scenes and it really feels like the crew, for the most part, were working entirely independently of each other.

The cines worse still, ignoring the heavy print damage and overly grainy footage for the time being. composition is badly formed with no attention to detail, the film doesnt care about crossing the line, at least a third of this thing isnt focussed correctly and looks soft. b-roll was thin on the ground, resulting in long running sequences that make the padding even more insufferable. And it really does come to something when my immediate thoughts on the credits rolling were ‘Wow…the titles and credits were the nicest looking part of this thing!’

its a poor show, a really loose edit containing badly shot footage with no sense of style or direction in sight.

The performances arguably are the best part of this thing, With Dolenz playing anxiety ridden and panicked for half the movie and totally wasted off booze for the other half. He does a decent enough job, he’s no oscar player, but I enjoyed seeing him on screen and I thought he approached the role with relish.

James Ralston as Dan is probably the show stealer. He’s basically been asked to play the meanest nastiest racist he possibly can, and again. he REALLY gets into the role, more than meets the brief and when he isnt just sitting around, he’s easily the most watchable character in this thing.

The other cast members are solid too, though the further removed from the main action to you the quality of their performances sharply drop off too. It sounds stupid to say, but its almost like the less important the character was to the scene, the less effort the director took with them, to the point that…once they passed a certain level of unimportant…they were on their own. Again, that sounds like standard practice. But a good director treats even his least important speaking character with the same quality as he would his star. because a poor performance from ANYONE instantly will pull people out of the moment, and good directors acknowledge that.

The soundtracks alright, its got a couple of actually pretty solid tracks in here, but im pretty sure these are all library sourced. Ultimatley; this one wasnt for me, one or two twists and a couple of good performances couldnt save a DAMN slow and uninteresting script, bad direction, poor visuals a bloated edit and stocky sounding scoring.

Its just dull, I can only really recommend it to folks who want to see someone from ‘The Monkees’ act like an alcoholic on the verge of a total mental breakdown. Otherwise…Pass.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/night-of-the-strangler/

With the ‘Tommy Jarvis’ arc firmly put to bed, Part 7 seemingly was somewhat floundering with what to do with the franchise now that they’d pretty much exhausted the ‘Hocky Mask killer stalks teens in the woods’ genre of film making…I can only assume that Jason being ressurected as a Zombie in ‘Part 6’ gave the producers enough dutch courage to eek into the supernatural a bit more by asking the question: ‘What If Jason fought Carrie?’

Because thats kind of what this movie is, as we follow telekenetik teen ‘Tina’ who, after having had her powers commence at an awkward moment that unfortunately resulted in her fathers untimely death, is riddled with trauma and isnt exactly sure how to control her powers now shes in adolesence.

Her mother, sends her out to a facility near Camp Crystal Lake, where the on site doctor is promising to study and treat these psychic abilities with care and compassion. Unfortunately the doctors there seem more intent in antagonizing Tina into using her powers, than helping her control them. After one outburst too many her abilities run amock and in the process the chains that have bound Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake are broken and he’s able to rise to the surface and continue his chaos.

…Oh! and next door to the psychic doctors office, theres a group of teens setting up for a birthday party for one of their friends. You can guess what happens next…

And its at this point in the Friday the 13th franchise that I start to go crosseyed in trying to figure out exactly when the HELL any of this is supposed to ACTUALLY be taking place. With the first film having happened in June 1979, the second taking place not long after in the summer of 1980, part 3 takes place (possibly) in the summer of 1981. Then part 4 happens IMMEDIATELY after part 3, so still summer ’81, Part 5 jumps 5 years into the future to bring us in line with the year that film came out (1985), Part 6 takes place a year after that in ’86…And this film opens 3 months after the events of Part 6 (so Fall ’86) with a Young Tina, before then jumping forward in time 7 and a half years to what is presumably Summer 1993…This film came out in 1988…and Part 8 happens 1 year after this one which means its 1994 in 1989 aaaaaand there goes those crosseyes…

While there isnt all that much in originality in ‘Part 7’. The best way I can describe it is ‘It looks back at the previous films, pinches the best bits and just makes something fairly solid’ and thats basically what this is.

You have a script thats…Not the strongest work in the world and very derivitive, but it IS entertaining, it has its moments and I think its better than AT LEAST half of the films in this franchise on this level alone. The pacings a little slower than previous entries, but what it lacks in build up, it more than makes up for in the 3rd act finale.

Tonally, its a bit more subdued than parts 5 and 6, but we do have some interesting and animated characters, this film isnt afraid to use a little bit of humour here and there and the kills are pretty good fun.

It has a clean 3 act structure with decent transitions between the acts, it takes its time in getting you from scene to scene, which I could see how it would annoy some people, but I was okay with that.

The direction isnt as sharp as ‘Jason Lives’. Because the scripts a bit thinner on the ground than previous entries it kind of lacks a strong vision on that front, which then has a knock on in being able to generate a strong vision within the visuals. That being said, the kills and the final showdown sequence are absolute highlights of this entry and easily some of the series high points.

Direction of the cast is a bit flat, it seems the only directions were where the edge of the frames were, because cast members dont really interact with their surroundings very much, DO seem a little bit lost and it really takes time for these characters to warm up when compared to previous entried.

The cine is actually kind of solid, again; its not *quite* as creatively charged as parts 5 and 6, but it DOES have a destinct stylization in mind and there are a lot of shots here that are visually very interesting and compositionally sound.

Sequences seem fairly well constructed with plenty of B-roll, its nice to see this entry doesnt shy away from using a bit of colour here and there rather than the washed out offerings from earlier entries. and the kill scenes are well choreographed and quite interesting too. Though, I do also have to add that the ‘telekenesis’ used in this did raise a chuckle as I couldnt stop thinking of the ‘Garth Marenghis: Darkplace’ episode ‘Hell Hath Fury’ with some items clearly flying on fishing wire. Its so corny.

The performances are a bit of a mixed bag, a lot of the cast dont really seem to know what tone to go for (I.E: whether this should be a ‘Part 4’ style of performance, or a ‘Part 5’ style of performance) Lara Park Lincoln is probably the best of the bunch here as Tina, she works a decent enough range…But even then shes not the strongest lead this series has ever had.

Throw in some fairly unmemorable scoring which, to my ears, didnt sound THAT much different from the score used for the first 3 movies and you ultimatley end up with a film that is inoffensive. The scripts not bad, but it doesnt break new ground, the direction and cine have their moments, but theres nothing jaw dropping and the cast do what they can…but what they can do is just kind of acceptable.

If Inoffensive is the worst this film gets, then I WILL take it as a win…But at the same time, an ‘inoffensive’ ‘Friday the 13th’ movie is a bit like a chocolate teapot…nice…but ultimately kinda pointless.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-part-vii-the-new-blood/

Caught it in the cinema tonight, even better with a live audience and seeing it blown up reveals so many more subtleties in the performances, it’s ace really…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-return-of-the-living-dead/1/

Probably the closest to an unsettling dream captured on film that I’ve ever seen. ‘Carnival of Blood’ (1972)…(Not to be confused with ‘Carnival of Blood (1973) ) Is a hazy, feverish experience to sit through. And; much like a dream its incoherent, messy, all consuming and woozy.

Theres a loose plot running through this thing about a serial killer who’s picking off victims at a fun fair. But the main…’experience’ from this film is the unpleasently drunk feeling vibe, as we follow a handful of characters as they deleriously rumble through various…happenings for lack of a better word until either they’re picked off by the killer, or end up having some kind of psychopathic breakdown.

highlights include (but arnt limited to) an arguing married couple who go on a date to the fair, where one of them doenst want to be there and the other one painfully tries to drag him onto more and more rides as he visibly gets more and more irritated. A local drunk who hooks up with a young lady at the fair, tries to win her a prize and ends up having an existential, and a recently engaged couple who hear about decapitations occring on the fairs ‘ghost train’ ride, and decide to go undercover to see whats what.

Its a grimey, gritty and deeply unpleasent experience to sit through, the script quite honestly feels like it was written sober and edited drunk, the pacing is consistent, but because the actual story is really more a series of happenings. its less that the films leading you through its 3 acts, and more that the films run you over and is now dragging you from its bumper across the 3 acts whether you like it or not.

The tone is all over the place, with hyper campy weirdness being intercut with genuinely unpleasent performances and heavy gore (with THE fakest blood you’ve ever seen in your life. It makes ‘Hammer blood’ look positively monotone.) The characters all read like they’ve been inhaling carbon monoxide while workshopping them and this is a film that just kind of…Stops. which only adds to the ‘otherworldly’ quality of it.

The direction is totally unprincipled. theres no real emphasis on an intentional style in the direction of this piece. But unintentionally, this film feels like a beast unto itself. A lot of the film appears to have been shot freehand, most shots are balanced or stabalized and the camera is prone to swing around feverishly. It feels INCREDIBLY chaotic as a work, which only adds to the nightmarish dreamy quality of proceedings.

The cine is kind of hard to guage because of how rowdy and unpredictable the direction is. Shots dont seem to have a considered compositional choosing. It largely looks like they were framed for necessity or “because it looked good enough”. It doesnt help either that the print AGFA have scanned for their recent release of it, looks like its been dragged across a multi story carpark several times and left out in the open air for a month. Its horrendous quality with VERY faded colours, scratches, dirt, grime. At times I fully expected to see a ‘Reel Missing’ caption or some kind of snap given just how mangled this thing looks. It absolutley adds to the ambience of the presentation, but It makes it hard to really truely gauge exactly what the film makers were trying to do.

Outside of that, theres a fair bit of B-roll that does help break up the sequences (though they insist on reusing several shots multiple times) the edit here is incredibly fast, loose and almost as chaotic as the direction with cuts that should qualify as ‘Assault’ in some states and a breakneck manic energy that genuinely brought on a sense of delerium.

All the cast are rigid as boards and deliver their lines with the vibe that cue cards are just off screen. They dont utilise the set space well and it only makes the 3rd act even weirder when the killer is revealed and they’re just very plain and dry through their whole performance.

Comparisons to the works of David Lynch or Chris Morris’s ‘Jam’ are probably plentiful when it comes to discussing this work, But I honestly havent seen anything quite so fever dream inducing in a good few years. Im not sure if I enjoyed it or not, nor do I want to revisit it again for a while. But Im certain i’ve seen something here thats very different from the norm, and that appeals to me.

Would almost certainly pair up well as the A-Feature to ‘Blood Shack’…now THAT’S a back handed compliment.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/carnival-of-blood/

After ‘Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning’ failed to set the box office goers socks on fire, the decision was made to pull the plug on that particular pathway that would have seen Tommy Jarvis taking up the ‘Jason’ Mantle…And instead we arrive at ‘Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives’ probably the film I have the most complex relationship with out of the entire franchise.

The plot pretty much retcons the end of Part 5, opening with the news that in between the last film and this one, Tommy has been in a mental hospital and has somehow managed to convince a doctor or intern to bust him out as he feels a big part of overcoming his trauma from Jason, is to see Jasons dead body and destroy it, knowing once and for all that he really is gone.

The pair arrive at the cemetary, break open the casket and a maggot ridden Jason lies in wake. Tommy on seeing the body has a trauma response and immediately starts wailing on Jason with a metal rod, which by sheer bad luck, gets hit by lightning, ressurecting our Hocky mask weilding killer as an ultra strong and seemingly indestructable ‘Zombie’ varient (the varient that’ll now pretty much be THE Jason we have to deal with for every foreseeable entry).

Jason picks off Tommys friend and after a brief scuffle Tommy manages to make it back to his truck where he speeds into town to warn the police. Who immediatley brand him a wacko and lock him in a cell to be dealt with later.

Its here that the real plot kicks in as the sheriffs daughter is one of several teens heading up to the newly renamed Lake Forest Green (Formally ‘Crystal Lake’) to set up the camp ahead of a group of school kids turning up to enjoy summer shenanigans (I honestly cant believe it took 6 entries and 7 years to have a Jason movie set at a summer camp that ACTUALLY HAS kids at camp…wild…)

Anyway; Jason gets back into town, the sheriffs daughter meets Tommy and the pair hit it off, and the rest of the plots basically the usual runaround with Tommy trying to escape police custody to fight Jason and the campers finding the pointy end of Jason’s Machete.

And realistically; I find this film really quite polarizing. On the one hand, after ‘Part 5’, I find this script deathly dull. Barring the introduction of ‘Zombie’ Jason and a couple of tongue in cheek funny moments, I feel like the scripts tipped too far into comedy tonally and has wound up largely just being kind of irritating while also doing very little in the way of breaking new ground.

I get that with ‘Part 5’ being a commercial failure, that they wanted to play it overly safe for the next entry. But this is painfully generic as far as ‘Friday’ movies go. We’re back to councillors just filling time with talking fairly generic nonsense, uninteresting characters who exist just ‘because’, the kids might as well be inanimate objects for how much they bring to proceedings, the tone feels really off to me, not quite getting serious enough to leave me feeling like I watched a horror film, too irritatingly sitcom funny to really appeal in the other regard either.

The pacing is lumpy, distinctly uneven as we lurch from scenario to scenario and even though this is the shortest entry so far (clocking in at an hour and 27) it somehow feels longer than almost all the previous entries and could easily have lost 20 to 30 minutes with no significant loss to plot.

Contrasting the mediocre scripting however, we have arguably some of the best direction and cine that the series has ever (to date) had. Which is almost entirely down to Tom McLoughlin, the guy has a love of horror cinema and in particular a solid appreciation for the black and white era of horror.

This entry showcases that love with a stylization that is perfectly suited to the old ‘Universal’ monster movies of the 30s,40s and 50s. In fact McLoughlin has stated in interviews that the film was originally supposed to be presented in Black and white until the studio nixxed the idea at the 11th hour.

Its a visual feast with several iconic shots, some astoundingly original compositional choices and a keen eye to detail. The edit, while overlong is made of sequences that are very precisely managed, they breath nicely, keep a good pace and have a good comedic timing (even if the comedy itself is largely bad). its easily one of the prettiest Friday the 13th movies ever made in my opinion.

The performances are kind of middle of the road, our camp councillors might as well be avatars for the amount of emoting or deep character detail thats featured here. Most of that can be levvied at a script that seemingly was more interested in kills than making people stand out, but the cast too are fairly stiff, a bit flat on delivery, dont utilize their space as well as they could do and pretty much the second the credits had rolled, i’d already forgotten who they were…they’re that memorable.

The soundtracks ‘Iconic’ but I wont say its good. make of that what you will.

The concluding part of the ‘Tommy Jarvis’ trilogy is, to me at least; a somewhat tepid offering. Bringing a very strong visual identity to a script that really kind of missed the boat. The cast flounder through 87 minutes of this, with only Thom Mathews as Tommy himself managing to really keep the thing afloat.

I cant actively say this is a bad movie because of just how interesting and fun the visuals are and because of the loose handful of moments that are interesting in the script…But broadly speaking, this isnt one of my favourites and wouldnt be my first ‘go to’ pick for a ‘Friday the 13th’ marathon.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-part-vi-jason-lives/

With a title that sounds like the kind of joke offering that would turn up on Jay Shermans show in ‘The Critic’. It was literally only the knowledge that ‘Pride and Prejudice…and Zombies’ was a film adaptation of a highly successful range of books that made me hit play on this thing…In hindsight I should have left it in the charity shop I found it in…UNOPENED I might add…

The plot BROADLY speaking is the same as the 19th century novel, only now theres the introduction of Zombie outbreaks across most of England and our sisters have all been training in Chinese martial arts. it deviates more and more from the original source as it goes along, but all ties back together by the end…and thats kind of this films biggest problem.

It has a serious case of identity crisis. Its a period piece AND a zombie movie…but it’s period elements have all the charm of an unenthusiastic BBC adaptation, and the zombie/horror elements feel fiercely underplayed. Leading to an end product that I dont feel will really appeal to either party. The period fans will feel like the zombie elements and lack of respect for the source material is in bad taste, while the zombie horror fans absolutely WONT sit through the 19th century affairs of the Bennet Sisters…

The script utterly DRAGS on almost every level. I was honestly surprised to learn that the original author apparently had a close hand in shaping this film, because it seems to almost represent the antithisis of what the books represented. What we have here is a very dry production that almost seems to want to shy away from the Zombie/Horror/Kung Fu Bennets element that makes the thing worth watching.

The pacing is beyond a crawl as we slowly and painfully work through what can most sincerely be described as a sighing attempt at period work. Theres been a complete misreading of the tone, this should have been a campy, over the top, jet black comedy with oodles of gore, silly moments and energy as we watch these characters from much loved works of fiction, get thrust into a scenario thats COMPLETELY tonally opposed to what the original work offered.

Instead; we get a meek offering that feels WAY too wedded to the original source material and tries to play it as straight as possible. And dont get me wrong, I can appreciate that sometimes taking a ‘Straight man’ approach to something inherently silly can, in and of itself, make something even funnier. But here, it just results in an incredubly dry offering. Theres maybe one or two isolated momets where them playing a jokey bit straight laced actually works. But for the bulk of the film, it feels like the martial arts and zombies are an inconvenience that the period piece has to just sort of…deal with every 10 minutes…rather than an intigrated and involved part of the narrative.

The act structuring is there, the core elements of a passable script are there, they’ve just been handled so poorly in translation to the screen that they’ve totally missed that POINT of what the book was about. absurdism…and this things about as absurd as magnolia. It clocks in at 102 minutes and you feel every second of that 102 minutes as if it were twice that.

The direction is messy, bland and incoherent, theres a standard to this production…but ‘just bearly holding it together’ from a studio is a woeful endeavour make no mistake. Its a film that trades heavily on post colour correction to give it a style, and I can honestly say that there were better offerings floating around on youtube at the time…which is stunning to think honestly.

Theres no sense of artistic vision here, everythings been shot seemingly for function or because it looked like a cool idea at the time. which has resulted in a tonally disjointed work that, by the 45 minute mark left me asking why I was watching…

Its the cine really where I take the most umbridge. Because the film is kind of seperate into two sections, the period bits and the horror bits. It makes it a bit cleaner for me to talk about them both.

The period bits are bland, they’re shot without any creative relish or interest. if you fed the BBCs period piece output from 1985 – 2013 into an AI generator, this would be the movie that would come out. Theres nothing new to it, no moment where I thought ‘oh this is nice!’ just…total mediocrity across the board as we drudge through the same types of locations, using the same types of shots we’ve seen over and over again. Its. DULL.

The horror elements dont fair much better either, with HEAVY use of CG on everything from the zombie effects to blood sprays and stabbings, most of the horror sequences are tinted dark blue or gray so you IMMEDIATLEY know its a zombie bit. again, shots are drab, lifeless. Nothing we havent seen in zombie related media in the last 15 or so years. its totally uninspired and lacked any real kind of depth or attention.

and only compounding the issues further, the fight scenes and martial arts sequences…Which are supposed to be the main thing to try and hype up the audience…are just SO badly shot and edited it becomes almost headache inducing. This is a film that feels that quick cuts automatically equal fast paced action…rather than it just looking like someone dumped a load of B-roll into a blender and then assembled what survived into 10 second bursts.

Its totally disorienting and left me wondering what I was even watching whenever it was on screen. This combined with the seeming reluctance to even WANT to have martial arts zombie battles just makes what little is there feel even less like it belongs.

The edit is just…awful. the basics are there in terms of cuts, but theres been no thought or consideration as to why. I honestly can say, this could have lost 40 minutes off the runtime easily and still have felt over long, sequences breath till they pass out basically. and the actual interesting bits flounder because of the seeming demand for the period piece elements to be front and center. Its such a dissapointment.

I cant fault the cast particularly, though they do feel a little ‘BBC’ in quality which is a *little* down market for a studio production, same goes for the scoring really which again, isnt bad..but isnt studio grade.

I just feel like this one was a massively fumbled ball. Had it been raw-er, more open to embracing the gore and heavy black comedy elements, more interested in taking a self aware look at itself and less bothered about offending people who likely were already going to be offended at the bastardization of Jane Austins work…Oh! and more willing to actually trying to merge the two genres its working with together, rather than it just being ‘period bit…zombie bit…period bit…zombie bit…period bit (with some martial arts…oooh.)…zombie bit.’ This could have been a completely different story.

As it stands…well, im glad its off my shelf.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies/

Watched on Saturday October 7, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-dead-rise/1/