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Crazy Guy with Super Kung-fu (1979)
Well, I can honestly say It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film quite like “Crazy Guy with Super Kung-fu” (Also known as “Yu tou dai lao ben tu di” in its original language) The closest film I can compare this to would be “The Dragon lives again” and I first watched that film in 2009. So it was a very welcome change to watch a martial arts film that didnt take itself seriously, played more for comedy than it did the action pieces, and didnt fall flat on its face in the way “Descendants of wing chun” did…
But this film isnt all prat-falls and bad jokes. Theres actually some really well choreographed fight scenes thrown into the mix and it appears that the same company who dubbed “Wing chun” also dubbed this film as several voices and styles of delivery are painfully present here…in particular theres one voice actor in many of these films who sounds to me like a spot on “Carry on” era Kenneth Williams…
This voice acting cant be serious. I know it cant be serious. because if they genuinely thought that giving these films the voice styles they did would make the movie look and sound cool then they’re viewing a different version of reality to my own.
There are moments in this film that are just downright surreal. See the scene in my review with the homless person dancing around the restraunt singing about how the buildings condemned. its not completely out of place with the rest of the film tonally, but I do have to wonder what on earth was going on in the film makers minds when they stitched this one together.
Though weird and suffering from the effects of combining two genres that shouldnt go together (Super serious kung fu action and Campy “Carry on” comedy) I actually quite enjoyed this one. So much so that it actually earned a place on my “Do not chuck” shelf. Which is home to my blu-rays, DVD’s and tapes and contains all the classics and rarities that I simply will never even consider throwing away. I think this would be a good b-picture to “The Dragon lives again” in many ways…something to warm the audience up and give them a good kicking into the kind of mindset that would get on with the likes of “Dracula vs Popeye” It’s dirt cheap on amazon and I’d say go and check it out if you can. I dont recall it being groundbreaking, but its still an enjoyable picture.
As a final note. This is another review I wasnt 100% happy with. I had to record it in a different place to where I normally record my audio, it was the middle of the night, and I had to be quiet; So I dont really feel like I got the best out of the recording that I could have…equally there are a few structuring issues with this one that I feel had I given it a bit more time I’d probably have been able to rectify…Still, you live and learn! I still pretty much say everything about the film that I wanted to in this, but I may come back to it some day just to tidy it up a bit…
(“LOOK AT THIS OLD CHICKEN!, YOU COULD SEE IT’S A GRANDFATHER!” – Crazy homeless man with clackers – 2017)
Cyborg Cop (1993)
From the worst movie I’ve ever seen to frankly one of the most unmemorable films I’ve ever seen. In all honesty I can only recall three things about this movie:
*John Rhys-Davies camping it up to an astounding degree
*A scene featuring a “Terminator” knock off slowly destroying a car and then a person
and David Bradley getting involved in a high speed car chase.
Other than that and some very fleeting memories of an opening combat battle which has a man fully on fire I literally couldnt tell you one thing about this film. In fact arguably had I not reviewed this film I may have forgotten that i’d watched it all together.
…
…
Okay so I’ve just rewatched my review of it to see if it jiggled anything out of my memories. It did nothing…I seem to have enjoyed it more than I remember at the time of writing so I may well be misremembering how I felt. But I can only honestly tell you how I feel about it now. And how I feel about it now is that I dont have a strong opinion about it either way it’s a “Grey zone” movie in my mind. I mentioned in the review that I think it could work well as a B-movie or as part of a double or triple feature. And I actually think this is probably the best way to describe this film. Its by no means an “Essential watch” but if your using it to subsidise another film (Like say “Terminator woman” or “Robocop”) then I think it could work really well…I’ll probably do the sequels to this at some point in the future…If I can remember to…
(You wont believe how hard it was to source a film poster of this movie for this review…I ended up using the VHS cover because it was the only “Medium” sized image I could find”)
Let’s Ruin Dads Day (Coming Unglued) – 1999
The Words “Worst movie ever made” are thrown around a lot these days…sure there are some people out there who’ll rag on the latest blockbuster or who’ll go onto netflix and find some new release that “Sucks harder than anything thats ever sucked before” and in there world it must be nice to watch the new Marvel film or some indie piece of cinema and think “This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen”…
I wish I could relive those days…I really do. I wish I could go back to a time when I could watch “A Nightmare on elm street 4” and think it was the worst movie in the world. they seem like the “Good old days” comparitively. in 2009 I saw what I thought at the time was the worst movie ever made “Dolla Morte” a Production by Bill Z. Bub. And I hated myself for having it as the worst film i’d ever seen. for multiple reasons, but mainly because it was intentionally trying to be a bad movie. something that nowadays I disqualify films aiming for the “Worst movie ever” title for. Its not so bad it’s good. it’s not even so bad it’s bad…it’s so bad it’s boring. boring, and edgelord-esq with all of the bark and non of the bite. I was ashamed that I had to tell people this was the worst movie I’d ever seen because I felt it gave it some kind of mythical “Challenge” status which it really didnt deserve.
But in 2017 quite by chance I stumbled upon “Let’s ruin Dads day” and it fundamentally changed my opinions on film and the viewing experience forever. Y’see, Let’s ruin dads day isnt just a “So bad it’s bad” movie…it’s a “So bad it could actually harm you” movie. Completely unbeknownst to me I discovered that Kids movies are effectively a portal to actual Hell. when they’re good kid’s films are charming nostalgia trips that are entertaining and amusing in there own right…theres a reason why the Disney movies and films like “The Pagemaster” and “The Goonies” stay in the public conciousness as much as they do. But Bad kids films? Bad kids films are almost the opposite of that. irritating insufferable nightmare rides that purposfully Cauterize parts of your soul and mind to the point that you genuinely lose all faith and love in the craft of film.
Since starting these videos I’ve only explored a handful of kids movies and every one thats been bad has far FAR outweighed any adult oriented bad movie 10 fold. I would happily sit through “Dolla morte” or “Jesus: the total douchebag” or any of the american pie spin off movies for hours and hours and hours rather than watch even 5 minutes of a genuinely bad kids movie. And “Let’s ruin Dad’s day” to me at least at this point in time is the absolute worst kids film of all kids films. Not only because it actually irritates from a scripting, directing, acting, cinematography, musically, editing, lighting, animation and sound design standpoint. But because it actively promotes ideas and scenarios that in real life would typically end with your kids either kidnapped, on drugs or molested. This film both actively and subconciously is telling your children that it’s okay to take rides from strangers and that meeting up with people on the internet is a perfectly okay thing to do. And I have to assume that the reason this film is the way it is is because its produced with the angle of opening up a dialogue for parents to talk to there kids about stranger danger…But the DVD gives no hints that this is the case and any parent buying this for there kids would have no idea that this was its intended purpose unless they watched it, understood and took on board why some of these plot elements are dodgey, wrote a plan of action of how to broach the subject with there kids. And thats all before the sprogs even set eyes on the film.
What im saying is its unrealistic to assume that parents would pre-watch this and that even if they did it would be unlikely that they would think anything of the plot points in this film. But to a wide eyed child this could well be the movie that makes them get in a car with strangers, or agree to meet someone they dont know in real life…and thats horrific. combined with the frankly atrocious technical aspects of this and the rehashed trite script work. Let’s ruin dads day is not just a bad movie. it’s a dangerous movie. And I seriously cannot emphisise that enough.
(Even the DVD cover is obnoxious, generic and poor quality…jesus.)
Also; Because im a nice person, I realised a while ago that Let’s ruin dads day has absolutely shocking representation in google images…the highest resolution image of the cover was frankly insultingly low. So I bought a copy, scanned it into my computer at 8k and tweaked it on photoshop so there would be a hi res copy of the cover people could use going forward…See below…your welcome.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
And so with this, My first set of Halloween specials came to a close. I really enjoyed making these episodes (So much so that I fully intend to do another season of themed episodes this October!) but I was always a bit concerned about what to do with this 5th slot. I was stuck as to whether I should Review this, “Zombie flesh eaters 2 (Zombi 3)”, “Land of the dead”, “Return of the living dead”, the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the dead” or that weird version of “Night of the living dead” that came out in the early/mid 90’s that was literally just the 60’s version of the film with additional 90’s shot on video scenes added into the mix.
In the end I settled on “Shaun” for a few reasons. I thought that it ended the series on a high note, I thought “Shaun” was a good reflection of the zombie movie genre in the modern day and it feels a bit like a continuation of the natural progression of these kinds of films within this series. We started with 2 different versions of “Night of the Living dead” and ended with a 21st century affectionate tribute to those zombie movies.
I also like to think that this is a good “Bookmark” point to end on. While it may not be for a couple of years I fully intend to revisit The Zombie Genre again at some point. And ending it here gives me a nice place to pick up from whenever I decide to reopen this series.
This period of time would also see me launch the first ever “TYTD Horrorthon” a 6 hour live stream of public domain horror films that amassed a grand total of 3 viewers for a few seconds at one point…and then 1 viewer pretty much for the remaining 4 hours and 55 minutes. Though doing this livestream was one of the first times I ever got positive feedback from someone for what I produced. A mother got in touch with me the day after the stream to thank me for giving her children something to watch before they went out trick or treating. and it really made my week. It only reinforced my personal belief that as long as one person comes away from it happy it makes it all worth it. I’ll be doing the stream again this year (Though as of yet I still havent decided what films will make the cut) and if your around and free at that time I’d love to have you on board! but I digress…
In and of itself “Shaun of the dead” is my favourite of the cornetto trilogy and further still is one of my favourite comedy movies of all time. The balance between the comedy and horror here is really quite fantastic and as I mention in my video its a veritable Who’s who of mid 2000’s UK comedians. If you’ve never seen it, even if you dont like horror movies, I highly recommend checking this one out.
(You’ve got red on you…)
Zombie Flesh Eaters – (Zombi 2) (1979)
Whenever I think about “Zombie Flesh eaters” My mind kind of unfurls a bit. This is because on face value and to any unsuspecting stumble-uponers; “Zombie Flesh Eaters” is just a run of the mill (If not somewhat extreme) zombie movie from the 70’s.
But as soon as I remember that this film is legally (In Italy at least) connected to Romeros original “Of the Dead” movies it feels like the needles jumped on the record that is my brain. Further still when I remember that “Zombie Flesh eaters” is in fact not only legally connected to the “Of the dead” films but it actually sets itself up as the Prequel to “Dawn of the Dead” my mind goes into a bit of a funny shake for a few minutes.
The Balls of the studio that commissioned this movie into existence. The sheer balls of the people who sat down and thought “Hey we have a half finished horror film in pre-production…how can we make this more “Dawn of the dead-eier” It astounds me it really does…
What astounds me even more is that in some regards this film actually surpasses Dawn from a technical standpoint. It may not have Goblin or Romero behind the camera. It may be lacking Tom Savini’s personal touch. But Fulci and his team really put there heart and soul into this movie and it looks great for it. I’d also argue that for a majority of this movie. that the special effects are better than some of the ones seen in Dawn. Purely (As I mention in my video review below) because the effects of the zombies look so much more gnarled and realistic here compared to “Dawns” Pasty Blue/Grey zombies…I can honestly say that in hindsight while I may not be this films biggest fan. I have to give it credit that it surpassed my expectations in terms of what I was expecting.
(Also; that Shark VS Zombie underwater sequence has to be one of the best sequences Fulci ever directed. Astounding work!)
Day of the Dead (1985)
For me, this is the turning point of my reviews. at least in my mind it is. Up until this review I’d found that I just wasnt quite hitting the right vibe I was looking for with these videos. I mean; Im very proud of what i’ve done up to this point. But from here on in I feel like I really finally got to grips with my video making process. I’d got the formula properly down. And while there would be 1 or 2 minor hiccups along the way; I feel that with this video I finally hit a good running stride for a while.
I still find it absolutely bizarre that around the time this video went live I only had about 12 subscribers (If memory served I would hit 13 just before Halloween itself) And thinking that this was only about 6 months ago it really astounds me to see how much I’ve grown since this video went up.
Arguably this isnt one of my most popular videos…it’s not one that gets a lot of attention. But I have a real soft spot for this one. I really enjoyed working on it and I was happy with how it turned out.
I find that the film itself is often terribly underrated by fans and critics alike. Though in recent years it has seen a significant reappraisal. I would argue that to me both this film and Dawn of the dead Jostle for the “Best zombie movie ever ever!”…It all depends on my mood. if Im wanting to watch something comic book-esq and maybe a little silly I’ll go with “Dawn” if however Im in the mood for something altogether more nihilistic then “Day” is definately my go to film. Everything about this movie is a totally bleak affair. it features some of Savini’s finest work and Cine and direction that arguably surpasses “Dawn” for me in almost every way.
Really this is an essential watch in terms of horror films. I can guarentee you probably wont see anything quite like this.
TYTD Reviews 