When it comes to Horror hosts, Elvira is almost certainly the gold standard. witty, quick and charming; Cassandra Petersons creation has held up for over 42 years at this point and is still more than going strong. And, inevitably in the late 80s when the likes of ‘Weird Al’ and ‘Pee Wee Herman’ all getting big budget ‘alternative comedy’ outings on the big screen, it was only a matter of time before Elvira got to strut her stuff.

Given that Elvira prior to this film was quite literally just ‘Macarbe Vally Girl on sofa periodically riffs terrible monster movies’ building a world for her to have an adventure in was always going to be an interesting development, how do you play it? What do you have her do?, do you go big or micro? theres infinite scope with a blank canvas, and while I think they could have played this thing a *bit* better than it turned out, it absolutely could have been worse.

The main plot revolves aroun Elviras late night hosting show facing the axe unless she can come up with some serious money, at exactly the same time her great aunt passes and leaves her something in her will, forcing Elvira to travel to a far flung town with incredibly modist and puritan values. It turns out that her aunt was the town parriah and as soon as Elvira rolls into town the townsfolk (led by the wonderful Edie McClurg as ‘Chastity Pariah’) almost immediately take a disliking to her.

It turns out that Elviras Aunt only has 2 relatives left alive, her and an elderly uncle. At the reading the uncle gets almost nothing and Elvira (who’s dreaming of big bucks and speedboats) is gifted her late aunts house, a delapodated wreck of a place that makes the psycho house look like graceland.

Her uncle is furious to be snubbed in the will, not because he wanted any riches, but rather because hes secretly a wizard/warlock and Elviras Aunt was a great witch who had an incredibly powerful spellbook he was hoping to pilfer. As such he immediately tries to smooth talk Elvira into selling him the book, and when that falls through he begins to plot to take it.

From there the film splits into 3 seperate stories, The Town VS Elvira, Elviras Uncle trying to take the book, and a blossoming romance between Elvira and a local townie who runs a theater by the name of Bob.

And, I like the plot of this thing, its very tonally fitting for Elvira a a character, but what drags this thing down like a stone for me is a mixture of the humour and the pacing. This things INCREDIBLY one note. it’s literally just double entendres and rude puns from start to finish intercut with boob and butt shots. You may ask how thats a problem particularly. and I agree that that type of humour IS really funny when its used appropriately and timed well. In my opinion, that isnt the case here. Instead we’re effectively blugeoned with this one type of humour and nothing else for the full runtime and after about 25 minutes it gets tiring, by 50 minutes im groaning and by the 3rd act, im waiting to get off the ride frankly.

Its the one thing thats against Elvira as a character really, cheeky jokes in 5-10 minute bursts interspersed every 15-20 minutes across a movies runtime works fabulously. But here, its like a vaccume. Films like ‘UHF’ and ‘Pee Wees Big Adventure’ had characters behind them who are layered, who do have the range to work multiple different types of comedy and can afford to give the film some breathing space. This films just the one type of comedy over and over again. and its painful.

Outside of that, this is just pretty fair studio grade fodder across the board, the pacings a little bit slower than i’d have liked. I’d have REALLY tightened up the 2nd act as, once it’s established its ‘The Town vs Elvira’ they spend most of the 2nd act just pulling pranks on each other and bitching about how the other sides terrible. It would have maybe been nice to actually put them all together more often, either that or chop some of it out to help speed things up a bit. The dialogues good and solid throughout, though it does have a bit of a TV movie quality to it. Its an okay script, technically, it’s just the execution and lack of variety that lets it down.

As for all other aspects, I dont really have a lot to say. The direction and cine are pretty standard fodder for studio movies of this time. Its not particularly standout, but its not awful either. It has the odd flourish that helps give it a sense of identity and theres a couple of nice visual gags. But nothing showstopping. Compositions solid, its got a decent stab at stylisation. its easy on the eyes…but nothing remarkable.

The perforamances are all a bit awkward as well, I think there was a bit of a debate as to *HOW* melodramatic to play this thing. With some of the cast going absolutely up to 11 on the campness, and some kind of awkwardly, half heartedly trying to be a bit campy. Which did let things down a bit for me. Cassandra Peterson is fabulous as ever as Elvira and the creaking sound you can hear throughout the movie is clealy of her and Edie McClurg carrying this thing. Because they’re both easily the best parts of this movie and do help kick things up a notch. Though, it comes to something when this isnt even the best movie Cassandra Peterson OR Edie McClurg has starred in.

I will say a lot of the cast do bring a strong character to the physical side of their performances, and it IS nice to see them really muck in to help sell this thing. I figure whether you like a good lively performance will largely dictate if you can make it through this thing, I feel it was enough to keep me seated though.

The soundtracks arguably one of the best parts of this thing, its a mix of rocky, new wave entries and some pop and rock and roll classics combining to create a soundtrack that really helps give this film a sense of identity, right out of the box. I loved it and I hope it gets a vinyl release some day.

All in all? Meh. Not one i’d go out of my way for, ‘Elvira, Mistress of the Dark’ DOES have some nice moments, some of the gags are fun and its absolutley of a standard technically. But its a very repetative experience to sit through for the most part and even some half decent performances cant fully save it from that. Its inoffensive, one i’d probably have on in the background for a lark, but its not a favourite of mine.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/elvira-mistress-of-the-dark/

It’s been a DAMN long time since I put a film on that opened so strongly only to actively ebb away any and all goodwill I had towards it across its full runtime. And yet, with 1987’s ‘The Video Dead’ I seem to have stumbled on exactly that.

Its initial pitch is great! a magic TV/VCR thingie is randomly delivered to someones house and when it’s plugged in, an old zombie movie plays, the catch being that the zombies in the movie slowly but surely hobble their way up to AND THROUGH the screen into the real world! Whats not to like!? establish a world where zombies are clearly make believe, THEN add zombies!? Brilliant!

Unfortunately, once this initial premise is put in front of the audience (basically the first 10-15 minutes of this film) it doesnt really seem to know where to go, and from there it begins to flounder, as we kill off the initial owner of the house in the first 10 minutes, then introduce a young brother and sister who’re waiting for their parents to get home, THEN they mess about about ANOTHER 30 minutes kind of sort of repeating what they did in the first 10 minutes, but with more stoner gags and nudity.

The scripts almost as slow burn and pedestrian as the zombies in this thing. quite sincerely, had the film managed to build on it’s establishing 10-15 minutes, or even if it’d managed to keep the pace of that opening for the majority of the runtime, this could have been great! You could have really knuckled down on the premise of ‘a haunted video tape’ or ‘a magical VCR’ that brings to life whatever films put into it…In a pre ‘Ringu’ world, that would have been an amazing idea with near limitless scope!

Unfortunately, the script beyond that 10 minutes slows right down to a crawl as we basically just end up spending most of the runtime with an ex stoner and a guy in a cowboy hat who comes bearing warnings about their ‘magic TV’ as they wander around a house and a woods talking about how awful and dangerous the magic TV is, intercut with VERY tame and uninteresting zombie kills.

Theres a next door neighbour who winds up being something of a love interest and the stoners sister, both of whome get almost nothing to do in the movie and barring a bit of ‘mid movie melodrama’ barely feature at all in the thing, theres an act structure but it’s SUPER rigid and clunky, the dialogues more wooden than a…wooden thing. it’s super basic, sounds like NOTHING that an ACTUAL person would say and comes across and just poor, rather than entertainingly cheesy.

Throw in an underwhelming ending, and you have a movie that I feel really was aiming to trade more on a title and a poster than in actually trying to make anything close to decent.

The directions bland, despite being shot on film, this looks like an SOV effort…and not a GOOD SOV effort, theres a couple of moments that did stick out as being reasonably impressive visually. But make no mistake, this is a cheap CHEAP looking movie, that largely feels like it was made with what was available to the crew, rather than what the film needed to succeed (likely because there was no money for this thing so they HAD to use what they had available rather than what was needed)

I will give some credit to the zombie makeup however, while some of them do resemble a cheap halloween mask and body paint, broadly speaking the zombies actually dont look half bad here. Which is arguably one of the most imporatant elements, so it’s good to see they kind of nailed that.

The cines largely drab and lifeless, theres a few moments that stood out to me, but a lot of its just really basic shot setups with not much thought to composition with mixed ability sequence structuring and a weird use of B-roll…Where its needed, it isnt, and where it isnt…it is. throw in a lack of experimentation and an ‘all filler, no killer’ soundtrack and your left with a movie thats almost as dead behind the eyes as it’s monsters.

Honestly? if they just cropped the first 10-15 minutes (basically everything from the opening titles up to the first kill) and then maybe tacked on a 2-5 minute long ending. This would have been an AWESOME short film. Something really fun and interesting. Instead its a bloated, barely coherent, stumbling picture that, had it not been for the zombie makeup, the inoffensive scripting (it’s poor, but I didnt hate it) and the odd moment of visual interest. Would have been one of the poorer offerings i’ve watched this year. Not one i’ll be revisiting in a hurry.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-video-dead/

A boisterous and colourful romp, 1986’s ‘Terrorvision’ is an Empire pictures effort thats…a little bit different from the norm. The basic plot is an alien transporting a wee beastie accidentally ends up releasing the creature or is zapped down to a….lets say ‘eccentric’ family via their newly installed satellite television system. The creature then slowly begins picking off the family members and more while the families youngest son desperately tries to convince his other relatives that, if they dont act soon they’ll all be turned to mush…quite literally!

I dont have a tremendous amount to say about this one, it’s a purposfully zany script thats pretty decenly paced out, though maybe a little slow and aimless in the middle, the endings solid enough and theres a clean act structuring across the runtime that transitions pretty seamlessly.

The characters are all dialled up to 11 on the dialogue front giving hyper manic readings of wonderfully demented lines. This is unapologetically cheesy and over the top for the most part, and while I can absolutely see it turning people off, I felt quite at home (though, I do feel this is a movie I’d very much have to be in the mood for)

The directions pretty standard, they’ve heavily styalised this thing to the point that i’d argue it falls more in line with the new wave/art house movement of cinema than the more mainstream popcorn fodder that Empire was working with at the time. I really like the style of this thing (though again I could totally understand how it’s garish use of coloured lighting and the directors structuring choices for scenes could be a put off)

Direction of the cast too is loud, aggressively garish and manic to boot. It feels like they told everyone involved to really kick things up a notch. They absolutely succeed in that request, but I think there are moments here where it probably would have helped had they had some contrast to the intensity, a little dark to help offset the light. I think, for the time that it’s a unique work that is effective, but it would probably have to be something I was in the right headspace to properly experience.

The monster effects are cheap and cheerful, but funky and fun at the same time. This really isnt a movie thats taking itself too seriously, and I feel that they’ve about pegged the quality that this kind of story needed for the budget they were given. if things were *too* high quality and polished, the cheesiness wouldnt have quite worked, any lower and it would have started to look a bit depressing. So it’s a win in my books.

The cines fabulous, with some wonderful use of moody coloured lighting and a clear eye for compositional choices, even if you dont like the script, even if you loath the perfomances, as a work of mid 80s new wave cinema, the compositional choices, sequence structuring and cine in general is fine, fun and poppy. we’re not in masterpiece terratory by any stretch, but its solid enough.

Add to this a totally killer soundtrack thats equally as new wave, weird and a solid slice of 80s cheese and you’ve got the makings of an all round hunk of 80s weirdness. It reminded me a lot of Brian Yuzna’s ‘Society’ and I was actually genuinely surprised to read that this film predates it by about 3 years. while maybe not in line beat for beat on the plot front, This film and ‘Society’ could be seen as inverse versions of each other. With ‘Society’ deciding to go for the moodier, bleaker, and more toned down approach, and this film being as 80s as possible from start to finish.

In short, I enjoyed this one. Its not a ‘must see’ I wouldnt begrudge anyone for hating it even, but I could easily see myself putting this thing on when I dont know what to watch and I just want something ticking over in the background. it’s light, easygoing, maybe a little slow at times, but ultimately just a weird little piece of 80s scifi horror cinema.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/terrorvision/

Simply put, one of the greatest films ever comitted to celluloid. ‘The Wicker Man’ is my favourite British movie, it’s my joint first favourite horror movie with ‘Theater of Blood’ and it’s damn near one of the greatest films i’ve ever had my pleasue to sit through, any cut, doesnt matter if its first thing in the morning, or last thing at night. If ‘The Wicker Man’ is on, im watching ‘The Wicker Man’.

I’ll keep it brief, the script is razor sharp, acidically bleak in its comedy and while not *entirely* accurate about its depiction of pagan rituals, it goes a lot further in its accuracy than most may think. barring the ‘Directors cut’ (which in and of itself is more of a ‘complete’ cut than the directors preference) the pacing is perfectly balanced, the act structures cleanly marked and seamless in their ability to transition.

All the characters are superbly written, have solid, multi layered character arcs, are consistent, and feel fleshed out. The plot twists are genuinely unexpected and rewatches, like a fine whiskey only further enhance the complex flavours and tones of this film as, once your aware of the twists, you realise just what kind of 4d chess is going on.

The dialogue is delightful, ripe for quoteable lines and still as wonderfully fresh as the day the ink dried on the first draft. its punchy, powerful and honestly, I’ve seldom found a stronger work than this, that so fully captures a vision and narrative.

The direction, given the absolute trials and tribulations the production had to even get off the ground is nothing short of miraculous. It looks incredible and barring a couple of night shoots where the heavy grain film stock renders things a little *too* overdark. this is a professional and solid looking production that had a LOT of research put into not only the locations chosen for the shoots, but the history and mechanics involved in trying to recreate some of the more intricate moments of pagenism.

direction of the cast is faultless too, it’s a lightning in a bottle moment when a cast and a director almost in lock step seem to understand the exact tone and nature of a production. it’s BEYOND lightning in a bottle when chunks of the cast are actively falling out with a director over the terrible filming conditions while ALSO giving the performances of their careers. I cannot understate just how astounding Robin Hardy’s work is here. its unreal.

the cinematography is gorgeous, with astounding and colourful compositions, each of which could easily be a portrait, carefully curated into gorgeous and powerful scenes that blow me away on every rewatch. Depending on which cut you choose to watch, your milage may vary as to the itensity of delight with which you take this film. But for me, even the worst cuts from the worst version of this film still stand head and shoulders against some of the best offerings of mainstream cinema. it’s a gorgeous film.

And the performances!? dont even get me started. Forget Dracula, THIS, is Christopher Lee’s defining picture, the one i’ll always remember him for. He waived his fee to appear in this film because he wanted to save the production money and he so sincerely believed in it, he did anything he could to get people in front of it. and he was absolutely correct in this assertion. As Lord Summerisle he’s astounding, a genuine ‘once in a lifetime’ performance that, in my opinion is unlikely to ever be bettered and is seldom even remotely equalled. he’s lively, spry and smarmily condescending in the absolute best possible way. Every second he’s on screen is simply some of the greatest.

Same applies to Edward Woodward as Sgt. Howie. an ASTOUNDING performance of a devout christian police officer trying to unravel the mysteries of this most unusual island. he has a wonderful level of arrogance thats downplayed by a genuine sincerity in his beliefs. There are no heros on Summerisle.

and thats before we even GET to the supporting cast ALL of whome are frankly astounding. They’re absurd, bizarre and not one person given a talking role is forgettable. they’re all just…BEYOND amazing. With Britt Eckland and Ingrid Pitt astounding with cheery to the point of concern performances (and thats not even mentioning the nude scenes which, im certain for many men and women of a certain age were quite lifechanging)

add all of this to frankly one of the most gorgeous soundtracks ever put to magnetic tape. a near all acoustic folk soundtrack that, in and of itself is a tremendous work. but when coupled to such a striking script, astounding direction and breathtaking visuals only further cements this film as one of the greatest works of the 20th century and a film that I sincerely regret brushing off watching till my mid 20s. I could have easily had years of extra enjoyment from it.

I dont need to recommend this one, it speaks for itself. an essential to any film collection and beyond compare. I own it on VHS (twice), DVD (twice), Bluray (three times), I have 3 streaming copies on standby not to mention 2 copies of the 180g Vinyl pressing of the soundtrack (sealed and unsealed to preserve my folk music) and frankly, when the 4k version is released. I’ll be grabbing that too…probably in multiples. I never want to be in a position where I dont have semi-immediate access to this film.

Oh! and because I cant really fit it in anywhere else:

The Theatrical cut has always been a longstanding favourite of mine because of how concise and to the point it is.

The Final Cut is gaining appreciation from me as the years go by, at first I thought it was a bit overlong, but I enjoy the extended scenes more after rewatches and I feel it strikes a nice balance of letting the film breath a bit, but not too much.

And the ‘Directors cut’ (which now isnt really the directors cut as Robin Hardy considers the ‘Final’ cut to be the true ‘directors cut’…the ‘Directors cut’ is just, as much of the film as survives assembled and released. is probably my least favourite of the bunch. Its still a lot better than most films, but I have to conceed that its overly long and whats added in doesnt really add to the experience.

I think the final cut is probably my defacto viewing experience at this point as it keeps most people happy, followed very closely by the theatrical cut which was my introduction to the film and one im very fond of, and following up the rear is the directors cut, which i’ve seen approximately twice. and I should probably catch again at some point, but it’s just…SO long for what it is.

…Go watch ‘The Wicker Man’.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wicker-man/

I’ve been a long time admirer of the work of Chris LaMartina, when people have asked in the past for recs on what to watch around Halloween, ‘Dead Teenagers’, ‘The WNUF Halloween Special’ and ‘What Happens Next Will Scare You’ have usually been some of my immediate ‘go to’ picks. So when, in 2019 A crowdfunding campaign run by Chris to try and get a ‘WNUF Halloween Special’ sequel off the ground landed on my radar, I backed the everloving crap out of it, as ‘WNUF’ at this point has basically become a Halloween tradition in our household.

Then, the Pandemic happened. Production got jostled, things seemingly had to be rearranged, refocussed and replanned out before finally, in 2022 ‘WNUF 2’ emerged as ‘The Out There Halloween Mega Tape’ an indirect sequel to ‘WNUF’ set just shy of 10 years after the events of the first movie.

The films presented as a ‘Recovered’ bootleg via a ‘Something Weird Video’ style mail order company known as ‘Trader Tony’s Tape Dungeon’ and as such is a double feature recording with two features from 1995 and 1996 respectively.

The first is an episode of a talkshow hosted by one ‘Ivy Sparks’ who’s leading catchphrase of ‘Be Nice’ is designed to diffuse tension with the guests on the show. Ivy comes across as a bit of a careerist and across this first half we basically establish who she is as a character, her motivations and the kind of ‘Schtick’ shes into.

The second portion of the tapes from 1996 and covers an hour long extended special of a paranormal investigation show ‘Out There’ in which its revealed that Ivy’s talkshow has been cancelled and she’s instead been moved into co-hosting on ‘Out there’ and this is pretty much her debute on the show.

In this special, they hope to get to the bottom of all things ‘Alien Abduction’ and repeatedly refer back to the strange goings on at a top secret US airbase. As you can no doubt imagine, it doesnt take long for things to start getting a bit creepy and unusual, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

From the off, do I think this is as good or better than ‘WNUF’? No. Unfortunately I dont. Theres a few reasons for it, but some of it lies in the cinematography choices and some of it lies in the scripting. and i’d like to preface my below thoughts with the understanding that this was largely shot in the middle of a pandemic where restrictions were in place that made it impossible in certain circumstances to shoot the movie conventionally. I appreciate that, and the below criticisms come with the awareness of this.

Probably the biggest single gripe I have with this film is, ironically the thing I loved about the first movie. The Ad breaks. With both this film and WNUF being imitations of ‘live television broadcasts’ there are ad breaks and all of them are fictitious and created entirely by LaMartina. In WNUF these were a nice breathing spaces that helped give the film a sense of time and place.

They wernt completely perfect, but they felt natural within the nature of broadcasting. we cut to them at reasonably paced intervals and because advancements in technology were reletively slow going in the world of low/no budget 80s advertising, there was quite a bit of leighway cut in setting ‘WNUF’ in 1987 as an advert from 1984 and 1988 if the budget was low could easily have happened at any point within that window.

‘Out there’ is specifcially set in 1995 and ’96. and the trouble with trying to mimic the style of 90s advertising is that the 90s in and of themselves were a constantly changing and developing era. barely 18 months would go by without a MASSIVE change in culture, style and tone. As such a lot of the adverts featured in this movie dont really feel ‘era’ approrpriate. Some feel like they’re trying to be too close to the hypercolourful style of early 90s advertising, while other feel like they’re aiming to be closer to that sleeker, cleaner minimalist future tech style of advertising that the late 90s/early 2000’s worked on.

As a result, to me at least, it made the film feel a little less immersive than ‘WNUF’ was, which wasnt helped by the compounding issue of there being SO many ad breaks in this thing, WAY more than most television broadcasts would ACTUALLY do. In WNUF they were spaced out in roughly 7-10 minute intervals, sometimes longer. Here; I dont think 5 minutes went by without a commercial break.

Thats not to diss the concept of commercials entirely I must add, when this thing nails the vibe of mid 90s television adverts it does so EXPERTLY I really cant fault it, but i’d say that happens about 30-40% of the time. theres maybe a 20% window for ads that are *close* to getting there stylistically but just dont quite hit it, and for a large % of the runtime its either adverts that are way off stylistically the time they were supposed to be happening in, or strange animated adverts that have been done on modern animation programmes and again just dont quite look right when converted to VHS.

I admit openly, that im probably too close to the subject if im being honest because I’ve spent most of my life watching old retro commercial compilations as a way to unwind, so im probably quite hypersensitive to this kind of thing. But I honestly believe that less sometimes can be more, and I think had they had longer narrative pieces with less ad breaks, that pooled together the better efforts (Dr. Pizza, Mullers Light, RB Harkers were standouts to me.) into a tighter package. it would have really helped in maintaining the immersion and probably helped out with the tone a little bit too.

Which is the only *other* thing I really had in the way of criticism for this thing, the tone is ever so slightly different compared to ‘WNUF’, ‘WNUF’ was largely trying to replicate a TV broadcast and as such, while it did have it’s tongue in it’s cheek throughout, there was always at least a vague attempt to try and sell you on the idea that this was actually ‘found footage’ it may have gotten a little silly in places, but it kept one foot firmly in reality.

‘Out there’ from a writing perspective has decided to lean eeeeeeever so slightly more into the humour than ‘WNUF’ did, and as such it kind of loses that more suspensful energy that the first film had, it means that some of the characters get to be a bit goofier and do goofier things that didnt really appeal to me, the ads get to be a bit sillier and less realistic and the ending…which I wont spoil here, essentially ends up being a bit of a gross out slapstick affair thats been done to death over the years. I enjoyed the ending more this time around than I did the first time I watched it, because the first time I watched it I audibly groaned at some of the humour in this.

With the issues I have out of the way, what are we left with? well, despite what i’ve mentioned above, a DAMN fun little sequel. from a script perspective we have something that works about as well as it can do. the pacing of the host led segments are fantastic and perfectly in spirit with the first film, I like that their are little references and extensions of the WNUF lore embedded throughout this thing, I think the characters that are introduced here are fleshed out nicely, are given decent arcs and develop smoothly across the runtime.

I love that they put little bits of bait in across the film that could be used to make more sequels (mild spoiler here: but theres a passing reference to another halloween special that Frank Stewart shot before ‘WNUF’ that mysteriously went missing…thats got to be easy prequel/sequel bait if ever i’ve seen it)

Despite my issues with the ads the ones that work are phenominal and had they been randomly inserted into actual 90s commercial blocks I wouldnt have batted an eye. and the pacing out of the broad overhaging plot is, maybe a little bit quicker than i’d like, but still very rewarding non the less.

In fact, barring the ending, which felt a bit rushed and ‘Done’ I enjoyed this script, tonally its a bit sillier than the original, but I still largely got on with it even if some of the humour bordered on ‘Dad joke’ level cheesy.

Where this film really comes into its own is the direction, and Chris, as always is 100% dedicated to the cause, multidubbing VHS tapes to get generational defects and deterioration is a pastime of mine, and what Chris has done to make this film look ‘weathered’ is beyond impressive and must have led to many a sleepless night. it’s an incredible work that looks fantastic, is heavily styalized and barring 1 or 2 tape faults here and there that I felt actually kind of worked against the aesthetic. This is if anything, better than WNUF in what it’s trying to achieve. I loved it I sincerely did.

As for the cine? well, for the most part, again, it’s perfect. a lot of WNUF’s style seems to have come from ‘Fox’ in the mid 90s at a glance, but theres clear influence from loads of different places dotted throughout and it was almost a game in and of itself to try and spot the influences than it was watching the film itself! They’ve reallly nailed the tone and vibe of mid 90s television shows, and barring the odd digital effect here and there, where, in the mid 90s it would have been analogue (a huge pain in the ass to replicate) I’d say this was damn near spot on.

In fact, barring what i’ve mentioned about the ads (some of the cine is a big factor for why the ones I personally feel didnt work…didnt work. IE: strange out of period animation work, CG that was a little too advance for the time, filming techniques on sequence building that was either too new or didnt quite use the right colour palettes for the time) This is probably one of the most decent replications of 90s tv that i’ve ever seen.

Performance wise; Melissa LaMartina has a mixed experience in the role of Ivy Sparks. I think in the talkshow portions she absolutely nails the brief and gives a really fantastic performance that captures the tone and vibe those kinds of hosts needed. Her performance in the ‘Out there’ segments are a little less spot on, she lands more than she misses, but there were times where the physicality wasnt quite there, the line delivery was a little too dry, it just felt like it wasnt quite as confident a play.

The actor playing Tate (theres no credits for this film, and IMDB doesnt have him listed) is very much in line with the kind of host you would get on shows like this back in the day, he’s equally spot on, gives a decent range of performance and holds himself in such a way that the likes of Jonathan Frakes would have in his own 90s paranomarl investigative show.

Together the pair work together wonderfully in terms of tone, it just maybe would have been nice to see them utilise the location space a bit more, as a lot of their sequences were basically just ‘bolted in place’ direct to camera pieces. but on the whole they work great.

I would comment on the lack of a properly defined and well rounded supporting cast…but y’know…covid and that…so I can kind of understand why they’re limited in that capacity. But near the end of the film, it did make me wonder whether, had this film been delayed by even 18 months on the production front. Whether the end results would have been considerably tighter…the world may never know.

Despite my criticisms above (which come very much from a place of love for these works) I absolutely enjoyed ‘Out There’ its a more than decent companion piece to WNUF and I could easily see it entering my regular rotation or forming a rock solid double feature night.

Definitely one i’d recommend. it’s not perfect, but it’s heart is very much in the right place, its good fun. and if you liked WNUF, im almost certain you’ll enjoy this.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/out-there-halloween-mega-tape/

Watched on Sunday April 30, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/halloween-4-the-return-of-michael-myers/1/

Living in the UK, I dont feel like ‘The Wizard’ had quite the same impact over here as it did in the US. Speaking to my US pals, this is a VERY nostalgic experience for them. Almost all of them have memories of seeing this in the cinema, or at the very least, picking up the VHS. The gamers in amongst them talk about the sequences involving the (then unreleased) latest Nintendo game “Super Mario Bros 3” as something of a ‘core memory’ from the time.

So having gone into this film completely blind barring a group of Americans telling me that it was SO weird, but a key part of their childhood, I really didnt have much in the way of expectations for this thing. But i’ve got to be honest, I had quite a bit of fun with this thing.

Its a pretty standard roadtrip movie as brothers Cory and Jimmy flee their respective parents with the aim of going to California. Along the way they meet up with a young girl by the name of Haley who, ONE; finds out that Jimmy is INSANELY good at video games, and TWO; tells the pair that theres an upcoming competition called ‘Video Armageddon’ with a $50k cash prize and the prestige of being the ultimate gamer.

The boys are intreagued, and thus a journey of life, love and self discovery begins! with Cory and Jimmys dad and a hired private investigator hot on the gangs trail with orders to bring them home. Will they manage to make it to the competion or wind up getting a game over!?

The scripts a little slow to get started but around 3/4 of the way into its opening act it finds its feet and from their we get a fairly lightweight zippy script that isnt particularly challenging, is DRENCHED in early 90s stylisation and is *largely* tonally pleasent.

It does have its faults, that opening act is a little sluggish, they keep details about what exactly is going on with Jimmy deliberately vague, but that does hinder the plotting a bit as it makes him a harder character to connect with. and while the tone is largely alright, theres a LOT of weird and uncomfortable moments in this thing. Mild spoilers but a sequence in which two truckers try to hunt the kids down and steal there money, followed a little later in the movie with a scene where Haley accuses one of the investigators whos trying to grab Jimmy of touching her breasts (when he hadnt) made me do a double take frankly that the film would even go there.

It’s also strange in the fact that, bring blunt. This is a near hour and three quarter advert for Nintendo, and yet; Nintendo arnt really the key focus of the film until the 3rd act. Yes; Nintendo consoles pop up infreuently throughout, the ‘Powerglove’ gets an airing and Super Mario Bros 2 is briefly glimpsed. But the main focus of the film is always on the kids adventure over the games and consoles themselves which almost take a back seat for most of the runtime. Even when they do pop up, it’s mainly for 3rd party titles like ‘Double Dragon’, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ and ‘Castlevania’ Honestly; this is more an advert for Konami than Nintendo.

Beyond that though, this is a somewhat wobbly, but charming movie that has memorable and quotable dialogue, well paced scenes and is absolutely every inch as cheesy and ‘of it’s time’ as it’s possible to be. I couldnt IMAGINE a kid born after 1998 watching this thing with anything other than utter bafflement and boredom. but for kids born between 1978 and 1998. I imagine it’ll give you a MORE than hearty nostalgia blast.

The direction and cine are more than of standard, it’s a studio picture and it feels every inch of it (On top of this being an advert for Nintendo and Konami, Universal Studios get MORE than a decent stint in this film to sell you a vacation) Everythings about as polished as it can be for a mid budget kids film, visually its drenched in kids culture 1988-1994 and the cine is rich. With largely solid compositional choices, decent use of B-roll and depth of field and lively camera that isnt afraid to get up to some panning or tracking action.

As for the performances, theres a wonderful energy between Fred Savage, Luke Edwards and Jenny Lewis. I try to avoid talking about child actors performances when writing these kinds of reviews. But I will say as a triptic? They brought a lot of energy to the picture, seemed to be having fun, and given a lot of the movie lives or dies by how they handled their scenes together they more than carry this thing.

Jackey Vinson as Lucas is a solid ‘baddie’. As is Will Seltzer as the private investigator Putnam. If anything the baddies in this film almost feel a bit out of place compared to usual kids film baddies. they go a little bit extra comparatively and I feel it only adds another strange layer to this wonderfully weird experiment of a movie.

All in all? I cant kid myself that this thing is anything other than an extended attempt at selling kids on an NES, the Powerglove and the near 100 games (at the time) that were available. It fails at the first rule of advertising however, which is that the focus should always be a call to action for your ONE product. it should be ‘BUY THIS!’ not ‘Buy this! and this! and this!’ As such, the advertising has a weird relationship with this film in the sense that, the film wouldnt make sense without it, but because SO MANY corporations want a piece of the pie, the message the film ultimately wants to send gets lost in the mix.

That being said, despite the clear intention of the picture. I had fun with it. It reminded me heavily of movies like ‘Mac and Me’ in terms of tone and vibe, in fact the pair would probably make for a hell of a double bill.

Is this thing gonna hold the attention of the average 21st century kid these days? ABSOLUTELY NOT. this thing might as well be dubbed into a foreign language with no subtitles for all the relevence its going to have to todays children. But if your a glassy eye’d nostalgic X0-something and looking for an hour and 40 gateway back to a time when cerealboxes had toys in them, restaurants had ‘smoking sections’ and making your food or drink ‘green slime’ coloured/flavoured was about as appitising as it got. I can almost guarentee you’ll have a fond time with this thing.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wizard/

Y’know, it’s times like this that I kind of wish we could ressurect Mary Whitehouse and take her to the movies.

Evil Dead Rise sees the return of the much beloved franchise 10 years after it’s last cinematic outing (itself a quasi reboot/remake of the original 1981 classic) and I would argue its something of a triumphant return after Warner bros damn near dumped the thing on HBO max.

The plot revolves around a family in a small collapsing apartment complex. The complex is set to be torn down in a months time, so single mum Ellie and her 3 kids are getting things ready for a move. That is until her estranged sister who’s work requires her to travel arrives at the complex with quite important news. Before too many words can be exchanged however an earthquake hits the apartment complex revealing a (previously undiscovered) bank vault, inside which sits several mysterious records and a book with teeth.

If you’ve seen an Evil Dead movie before, you know it doesnt take long for limbs to start flying, squishy bits to start being gauged and all manner of grim and unhiged oomska. With the big question hanging over the movie being: Will whats left of the family survive a night against the deadites?

Right off the bat I feel the need to clarify, if you havent seen this movie, it’s much more in line tonally with the original ‘Evil Dead’ and the 2013 remake than it is ‘Evil Dead 2’, ‘Army of Darkness’ and ‘Ash Vs The Evil Dead’ This is a movie that, while it doesnt take itself BITTERLY seriously, is not the goof around that the other ‘Evil Dead’ films can be at times.

I was quite thankful ultimately that someone told me the vibe was more in line with ‘Evil Dead’ (2013) than ‘Evil Dead 2’ because had I gone in prepared for the latter, i’d have been dissapointed. What we have here is a *slightly* uneven but ultimately VERY gory thrill ride of a movie that absolutely has its moments, but didnt quite hit the mark for me.

The script is a bit on the lumpy side, with a 1st act thats a little bit too slow for my taste in terms of setting up the characters, establishing the setting, introducing the necronimicon and the whole ‘deadite’ thing. Which then gives way to a near breakneck 2nd and 3rd act that if anything goes too far the other way, characters arnt even allowed to breath letalone develop and in the 2nd act particularly we do end up in a bit of a cycle of deadite attacks and rests.

Equally, while the more serious nature of this film is more than welcome and I do think it does a tremendous job in setting and maintaining an atmosphere of unease, I personally did kind of wish the film would have gotten at least a *little* bit more playful with its characters. For the most part everyone involved is playing it largely straight The Deadites here have some fantastic lines at times, but apart from one or two moments where they mess with the humans, they dont really do much. It would have been nice to see them play around with possessing inanimate objects, gaslighting the humans and…well…causing chaos. There are chaotic moments. But they’re just that…moments. I never really felt the film lost control, nothing surprised me and a lot of the more ‘horror’ oriented moments relied on jumpscares…Which is just cheap and really didnt do it for me.

The gore kind of fell a bit flat for me too, especially based on whats come before it. With most of the more violent sequences either being stuff we’ve seen before in previous entries or Over CGI’d gumpf that felt forced and looked poor. There were a couple of practical effects moments that did have me squirming, but they were very few and far between and the rest? well it just didnt quite have the mania of violence and carnage that previous Evil Dead movies had.

Thats absolutley not to say though that this wasnt a fun watch! quite the contrary! If you can push past the first act you’ll find a rip roarer for the most part thats entertaining, adds to the existing mythos of the franchise and most importantly, manages to survive without Sam Raimi or Bruce Campbell gripping tightly to the reigns. THAT, in and of itself HAS to be applauded. I wont get into spoilers here, but what I will say is, there were a few continuity issues that cropped up in the 3rd act that undercut the ending a bit for me. But if this thing gets a sequel (and I sincerely hope it does) it more than gives some scope for this thing to really break out and flourish.

The Directions more than decent, it’s nice to see fresh faces tackle the franchise and I feel here, Lee Cronin has done a fabulous job in taking what Raimi laid as a foundation and added to it. it carries its own distinct style, puts the occasional nod to Raimis work in there but it isnt restrained by it. it’s more than happy to go off and do its own thing. While that does garner mixed results (there were parts of this film where it started to feel a little like a generic mainstream zombie movie and less like an Evil Dead film) those moments were mercifully brief and when this thing punches, it punches HARD. A really solid attempt at re-establishing the franchise and a more than solid foundation for a sequel to build on. I thought it was great.

The cine too is punchy, creative and vile in all the best ways. While I dont quite think this entry hit the stylistic highs of ‘Evil Dead’ (2013) it certainly holds its own, and barring a few scenes in one of the hallways that were a little over-dark making it difficult to make out what was actually happening. We had rock solid compostion, decent use of colour and lighting to create a vibrantly moody atmosphere that didnt so much steal from the other films, more recycle and upcycle what was there into a more contemporary vision.

The cast were astounding Alyssa Sutherland is probably one of the greatest deadite performances the franchise has seen. Dancing the line between aggressive, quietly terrifying and unhinged. She works a tremendous range, gives her all to the performance and is EASILY worth the price of admission alone. Its a shame most film awards overlook horror as a category, because she really was a force in this thing.

Gabrielle Echols is also fantastic as Bridget (Ellies Daughter), its almost criminal just how underused she is really in this film because, while in the first act her performance is a little on the dry side, by the time the 2nd act revs up she really hits her stride, totally gets into the swing of things and then the film shifts focus away from her. I’d have genuinely loved to have seen more of her in this movie honestly.

Equally; It would be amiss of me not to mention Lily Sullivan, who does a more than serviceable job as ‘Beth’ she doesnt *quite* get the range that Alyssa does in this, and as a lead, shes maybe a tad on the dry side. but she brings her own voice to the production. I didnt dislike her and when the 3rd act opens up she really embraces the role and clearly is having fun with it.

What I will say is, a lot of these performances do teeter just a bit into a generic TV acting style, the kind of performances you’d see in a TV movie (which…again, is probably understandable given WB were going to put this on HBOs streaming) While it didnt exactly ruin the experience for me, there were a few moments in this where things felt a little too safe, and I never really felt like any of the characters (based on their performances) were ever in any *real* sense of danger. in a film where the cast should (rightfully) be panicking when their mum is turned into a deadite, instead for a lot of the scenes, the cast just came across as quiet. not concerned. and thats a bit of a problem.

And the soundtrack? it’s oppressive. Im not sure if it’s the theatre I saw this at or if this is how the films actually mixed. but it’s INSANELY loud. like…kudos to them for mixing the vocals high enough that I could actually hear what the cast were saying (a major problem with a lot of modern films) but there were points here where it very much felt like the ‘score’ was just a sound technician cramming as much noise as he could onto the timeline and peaking the crap out of it. I have ADHD and there were several points where the films score got so loud that I ended up dissassociating and I could only hear static. it was crazy. AND it didnt work if the idea was to make me feel scared or uneasy, because I was so preoccupied thinking ‘This is BLOODY loud!’ that I couldnt focus on the spooky stuff on screen.

All in all? ‘Evil Dead Rise’ is a more than fine entry into the franchise. I enjoyed it, I could easily see this being a film that improves with rewatches, I could absolutely recommend it, is it the best Evil Dead movie? No. Absolutely not. it’s probably not even in the top 3. But it’s still an entertaining piece to experience, and I really hope (based on its current success in the box office) that they do decide to build on this, because theres a LOT of potential bubbling under the surface of this thing.

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

I didnt quite know what I was getting into when I checked out Stuart Gordons take on ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ I figured maybe a slightly more graphic take on the Roger Corman effort from the 60’s. This was not the case.

Instead Gordon HAS gone the route of Corman, in essence taking the original Poe story and wrapping it around a completley fresh take, largely focussed on the inquisition and it’s cruelty towards anyone they deemed to be ‘of sin’ and in particular of a young woman who begs mercy on behalf of a woman during a witch trial, only to find herself charged with witchcraft too.

It’s not bad all things being said, It could best be summed up as ‘What if someone made an exploitation adaptation of a Poe film?’ with gratuitous gore, people being set on fire, full frontal nudity and at least a couple of scenes of dry humping. it cant be said that this film isnt at least TRYING to be entertaining.

The scripts fine enough, the dialogues a little odd as they blend ‘ye olde’ type dialogue with zingers and more modernist language, which did kind of pull me out of the film a bit (I wish it had picked a lane) The bulk of the film is largely centered around the relationship between the bakers wife and the head of the inquisition who’s openly corrupt. Theres absolutely a sense of drama here and the tone and pace, especially for a ‘Full Moon’ production I thought was actually really quite solid.

Theres a clean 3 act structure that transitions nicely between the acts with a real smoothness, characters that are noteworthy all seem to get a decent bit of establishing and development (though, a couple of characters who arnt in the film very long, but DO steer a lot of the plot did come out a little underdeveloped I fear).

The only thing script wise I didnt much care for honestly was just the fact that it in places can be rather unpleasent. I know the whole point of the movie is that these are unpleasent people, doing unpleasent things at an unpleasent time. But that kind of thing usually works best with a bit of nuance, some light to contrast the dark. Here, it’s all dark, and as such I found it quite an oppressive watch. I cant deny it isnt entertaining and reletively well made. But BECAUSE its so oppressive it kind of stopped me out and out loving it. I think there needed to be a bit more there than ‘We establish half a dozen characters in act one and then slowly torture them to varying states of death for acts 2 and 3’

The directions rock solid, I wouldnt have doubted Gordon for a minute and here he delivers a piece that really feels professional, cinematic and heavily styalised. Theres a couple of nice homages to the Corman version of ‘Pit’ dribbed and drabbed throughout which I thought was a nice touch. But Gordon here has largely managed to bring a distinct and clear take on the story to the surface and i’d arguably rank it amongst some of his best quite honestly.

The cine too is relatively sharp, its a well paced edit with plenty of experimentation and B-roll to work with, shots are well composed. the colour pallet is a little bit too muted for my taste, but the style they’ve gone for is a muted piece punctuated with sharp contrasting colours to help offset it. It works in places, but i’d have personally been happier to see more colour in the offing honeslty. This is a bit above standard professional film work, and I was generally impressed for most of the runtime.

As for the performances? it’s a mixed bag. The bulk of the cast are good to wobbly honestly, delivering performances that seem uncertain. Some go with melodrama and that I feel is where the film shines best, others seem to think this is some kind of serious adaptation and they’re the ones who I feel suffer the most. That being said all the cast are at least animate and work with their set spaces to some degree and it’s clear Stuart Gordon worked closely with them to get the best out of them that he could.

The absolute showstealers here though have to be Lance Hendrickson and Rona De Ricci as the bakers wife and the leader of the inquisition. they BOTH seem to PERFECTLY get the tone this thing is searching for. Which is very fortunate as they’re the people we spend most of the time with on screen. they’re both super memorable, give melodramatic and over the top performances that are entertaining and genuinely fascinating to see. I loved them both in this, and they were easily the biggest reason to check this thing out.

Oh…and the soundtracks fine. nothing mind blowing, but it does the job. I know some people absolutley love this things score, im just happy to settle for “At least it doesnt sound like every other Full Moon film”. It punctuates the film at just the right moments and helps add emphasis. It’s not lifechanging. but it gets things done.

All in all, I thought this was okay, definitely recommended if your getting into ‘Full Moon’ and want to see some of their best offerings. While I personally probably wont catch it all too often due to just HOW opressive the film is in terms of themes and scripting. I thought it was a perfectly competent entertaining little watch.

Though it did get me thinking about similar match ups of exploitation film makers and classic literature. Im sure we’d all be down for Russ Meyer’s “Sense and Sensibilities”, Tinto Brass’s “Great Expectations” or David F. Friedmans “Jane Eyre”…hmm…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-pit-and-the-pendulum/

While not *technically* a ‘Full Moon’ production (This is an Empire pictures offering and Full Moon wouldnt be established till 5 years after this film came out) ‘Trancers’ is about as ‘Full Moon’ as its possible to get really, and given that this film has now been ‘rebadged’ to carry the ‘Full Moon’ logo at the beginning of the film AND that all the sequels to this film were produced and released by ‘Full Moon’…AND that this was directed by Charles Band AND it contains a lot of cast and crew who would go on to work more or less full time for ‘Full Moon’, Im just gonna go ahead and give this thing a free pass into my current and ongoing ‘Full Moon’ marathon.

The plots actually kind of original all things considered for the time. The films set in the 23rd century and follows rogue cop ‘Jack Deth’ who’s obsessed with taking down the remnents of the ‘Trancers’ almost zombie like remnents of people who are being controlled like human puppets by a psychically powerful criminal called ‘Whistler’, when the film opens Jacks on the trail of the last of the Trancers, but it quickly becomes apparent that Whistler is FAR from deceased. and has instead escaped back in time to 1985 where he’s inhabited the body of one of his decendents with the intent to kill the descendents of the legal teams who put him away, thus not only erasing them from the timeline, but all their reletives leading up to that point.

In the opening moments of the film Jack hands his badge in as the chief of police isnt too happy with Jack going off brief to try and take out the Trancers, but they manage to convince him back when Whistlers plan is revealed and it’s here the main plot of the film kicks in. Jack is to travel back to 1985 with some spy gadgets and bring Whistler back to future alive in order to stand trial. Jacks initially hesitent because he wants Whistler dead, but agrees and heads back into the body of one of his decendents, where he’s immediately met by said decendents punk girlfriend ‘Lena’

Between them Jack must find his bearings in 80s Los Angeles, locate whistler and prevent anyones bloodlines being wiped out. in a fairly firey and action packed production!

While I cant say I was absolutely smitten with this one, I did have a fun enough time with it. The plot is really quite original for the time given the likes of ‘Highlander’ were still 2 years away, I enjoyed the Neo noir aesthetic of the 23rd century and when the action shifted to the 80s that wonderful grimeyness reminded me a little bit of a lower budgeted ‘cheap and cheerful’ version of ‘Big Trouble in Little China Town’

The pacing is a little stop/start for my taste, it would have been nice to have things gradually ramp up and down depending on act needs. But i’ve seen films handle this kind of thing way worse, tonally it’s solid, it knows the kind of world it wants to build and how it wants the characters within that world to behave, theres maybe a few wobbly bits on the scientific accuracy of some of the stuff touted here, but if I came to Empire pictures for scientific accuracy, I might as well go to my plumber for tap dancing lessons.

Theres a more than clean 3 act structure that DOES transition between those acts fairly well. Its a short film, clocking in at a measly 76 minutes, which I for one am VERY grateful for. and while the pacing is bit inconsistent, I was also grateful that there wasnt too much in the way of padding. All in? this is just a fairly original, decently written low-mid budget script that gets in, does what it needs to do, and gets out. If I was being nitpicky i’d have maybe finessed a little more off the running time, another 5 minutes could have been lost with no major issues and it probably would have worked as a tighter piece all round, but hey. These guys were making all sorts of rubbish around this time. This is decent.

Directions rock solid too, again its inescapable that budget was clearly an issue as some of the set designs do look a little rough around the edges (putting drainpipes down the sides of an early 80s hatchback does not a future car make) But Band works with what he has as best he can and I was genuinely kind of impressed with what he and the team managed to pull off. especially in the 80s parts of the movie where they really help drive that griminess home in places.

Its also clear the cast were worked with closely (presumably because they couldnt afford for too many mistakes/redos) as they all give fairly professional clear and clean performances they work with the set space and are animate and precise with what they’re doing within the scene. Which I think saves this film in more than a few places, as it would have been so easy for this thing to devolve into head and shoulder shots of people firing exposition at each other for over an hour.

The cines solid too we have sequences where the camera isnt afraid to move around the set/location with a decent mix of shot types ,pans and tracking shots, it adds a real veneer of professionalism that does help smooth out the rougher aspects of the set design. Theres a nice use of colour with plenty of neon getting a showing and the sequences themselves are tightly packaged, with good amounts of B-roll.

I absolutely think this thing could have gone further with experimentation. But for whats there? we have a rock blood SOLID piece that does go above the average on delivery and even though it could have gone further, its trying, and I have a lot of appreciation for that.

Performances are all solid as well though for my money Tim Thomerson is easily the show stealer as Jack. he really works with those noir elements to help bring out a character thats 1 part ‘Maltese Falcon’ to 1 part ‘Blade Runner’. He works a more than decent range across the runtime of this thing, hes animate, lively and bang on on the delivery front throughout and I thought he was easily worth checking this thing out for alone.

All in all? This was a DAMN fine work, probably Charles Bands best work as a director (in my opinion, nothings topped this as of the time of writing at least!) While imperfect, if your looking for a decent original piece of Sci-fi that, may not necessarily WOW, but is satisfying, confident in its own ability, entertaining and able to hold your attention for the full runtime. Then ‘Trancers’ is almost certainly worth checking out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/trancers/