TYTD Reviews

One thats been on my list to check out for probably the better part of a decade, ‘Let My Puppets Come’ was one of those movies i’d always heard hushed discussions about over the years, and now having seen it, I kind of understand why.

This is basically the quasi blueprint for self aware adult pupeteering that was really driven from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s (think ‘Crank Yankers’, ‘Avanue Q’, to a lesser extent ‘Team America: World Police’) Which is quite impressive given this is essentially a semi sleazy porn comedy led predominantly by blowjob loving puppets.

The plots pretty simple, 3 brothers own several semi-successful companies…until they dont. after all their businesses fold pretty much simultaineously, they’re left with very little money and facing liquidation. That is until someone comes in off the street and tells them the best way to try and make a comeback, is to sink the last of their cash into making a porn film, and regrow their company via adult entertainment. Which they’re DELIGHTED to jump on because they’re all pretty much perverts.

anyway, cue puppet based beastiality, porn parodies, felt based S&M, TONS of oral, multiple all singing and dancing musical numbers and a a sentient singing penis. all corralled by Gerard Damiano and Annie Sprinkles seemingly.

And…to keep it simple, this is really more a porn parody than anything straight up erotic. its got burlesque spirit and vaudville humour. theres a thick layer of sleaze all over this thing. But its just WAY too darn charming to hold against it.

The puppets are all very animate and have lively personalities, the scenes are frankly demented but are fairly well structured and considered. i’ve seen porn films with an all flesh and blood cast have WAY less soul and personality than this puppet movie. Which is INSANE when you think about it.

While i’d stop short of saying this is a ‘must see’ as the middle of the film does droop a little as the ‘We need to make a porn film!’ dissolves into ‘we’re making a porn film!’ It does have enough going on it that, whether your interested in the adult film industry or not, i’d say it’s worth seeing at least once…just for the total bizarreness of it all. I had a hoot with ‘Let my Puppets Come’ I found it sincere and highly engaging, and I think you probably will to.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/let-my-puppets-come/

Not a traditional holiday special to the UK. This was my first time watching it all the way through and I appreciated its humour and simplicity. The idea of comradeship defeating the Christmas blues is a nice idea and really helps put you in the Christmas spirit.

It’s a hug in a Christmas sweater of a TV special. I liked it, but I don’t have the childhood nostalgia associated with it to say I outright LOVED it.

That being said, the soundtracks astoundingly good, given this was basically only made because Coke wanted to sponsor something…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-charlie-brown-christmas/

Not a tremendous amount to say at this point about this one. Its a non cut and paste Godfrey Ho movie that somehow manages to be almost as confusing AS his cut and paste movies. It follows 3,4 or 5 ‘good guys’ who end up being ‘good guys’ by one of two means. Either:

A: They take on a towns local fighting competition which turns out to be a semi-murderous racket. they escape being murdered and swear vengence on the racketeers.

or.

B: they end up trying to defend a towns local open market by beating up some bullies. only to find out that the bullies are part of a larger organisation and that the towns terrified of them and dont want to rock the boat.

As you can imagine, it later transpires that the fighting competition organisers and the market bullies are in fact one in the same and are working in tandem to steal and sell antiques using the fighting competition as a front to pick up new henchmen and to launder money.

And…thats basically the plot. The good guys occasionally spar with the bad guys periodically across the runtime, theres some light comedy elements played out in places. But theres realistically about half an hour to 45 minutes worth of plot here thats been expanded out to 90 with long LONG fight scenes and subplots that dont really go anywhere.

i’ve heard that this is considered one of Ho’s better offerings. But I personally found it kind of pedestrian all things considered. The plots confusing and incoherent at times, the directions okay, it feels like the crew are all old hands at doing this, but thats kind of the problem…they’re old hands who, at this point, feel tired doing what they’re doing and are just going through the motions.

the cine is kind of bland and middle of the road too, just about passable. the fight choreography is fine enough, but nothing *too* grand happens here, they use soft touch contact fighting for most of the movie, but they the way the cine has been utilized renders what *should* be very powerful punches looking almost like the gentlest of taps. Like, its fiiiine…but thats all it is.

performances are kind of mixed ability, theres a nice campy overtone to proceedings which I enjoyed. But the sub of this film is SO badly translated, and the dub just feels kind of flat. so…its hard to really fully get immersed in this thing.

And the soundtrack is predominantly stolen from spaghetti westerns…according to those lovely folks at Gold Ninja Video, the martial arts genre was heavily influenced by westerns and thats why they pinched a lot of the soundtracks…But its kind of plopped into this film, it doesnt feel like it fits the tone they’re actually going for…which is a shame.

All in all? eh. i’ve ABSOLUTELY seen better. But this could have been worse. a bit of a bland viewing experience. This wouldnt be what i’d point you to for an example of Ho’s work, but if you’ve seen a few martial arts movies and do have a soft spot for Godfrey’s work, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-dragon-the-hero/

Watched on Monday December 4, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jack-frost-1997/1/

To give you an idea of how seriously this film takes itself. This is the kind of movie that randomly decides to smash cut to our entire antagonist group in FULL SS death squad uniforms mid rally on a tennis court, having had almost NO Nazi ideology up to that point. It’s literally just rumbling along and then BOOM. Black Nazi death squads…I laughed for a solid 2 minutes.

I’m generally not one for Nazisploitation, I find that more often than not they’re just an excuse to make a faux torture and snuff film with a veil of historical ‘classiness’ for lack of a better term…But I love Blaxsploitation cinema deeply. So combining the two…I had my doubts.

But! I’m pleased to say ‘The Black Gestapo’ while…a *tad* misleading, is a VERY campy and over the top gritty romp, that I was actually very pleasently surprised by!

The plot? A city is being overrun by pimps, drug dealers and ‘protection’ rackets who’re making the streets unsafe and putting people in the hospital. A local black power quasi military group are supporting on the ground to try and get help to people who need it and support in any way they can to keep the community going, but they’re generally pacifist by nature and believe that the crime waves should be handled by the LAPD.

Well…except for one of the soldiers, who thinks they need to get tough, bring in 20 strong men, teach them combat and take the action to the streets to get results…but he’s talked down.

That is until the leader of this movements partner gets assaulted and then later raped. Its at this point he grants the squad 6 men to train, on the grounds they’re used SOLELY to keep the peace…which…almost IMMEDIATELY doenst happen as they go after the key dealers who’ve been attacking people and racketeering.

However; once the main gangs have all been dealt with, our group splinters. With the ‘Violence first’ group essentially filling the void thats left by the pimps and pushers leading to an even BIGGER surge in violence on the streets and drug issues.

anyway…they skip a couple steps and suddenly, they’re also nazis…and I’ve gotta say they’re the most casual nazis i’ve ever seen, I had a good chuckle watching them just casually strolling in full SS uniform…But I digress…its down to the pacifist faction to take up arms and put the new neo-nazi faction down before the whole thing escalates into a city wide warzone.

And what I will say is, for blaxsploitation? this isnt a terribly well made production. But for Nazisploitation? its a diamond.

The script is basic, but effective. its a gritty urban exploitation film at its core that seems pretty preoccupied by a lot of the ‘Black Power’ movement beliefs of the time. With the key battle lines being drawn between ‘violence gets results’ and ‘talking gets results’. Its pretty clear though which line THIS film falls on…and the spoiler here is, its not the side that portrays the violent ones as LITERAL nazis. While the truth and reality lies somewhere in the middle of these two points. This isnt the film to be having that conversation. It’s too goofy for that.

Its got a solid 3 act structure. it knows what it is, it knows what its trying to be and it nails the tone and pacing near perfectly. Leaving me personally not really wanting more. But fully satisfied with what i’d had.

The characters are *just* about complex enough to be interesting without getting too deep or being too shallow. and it ends pretty satisfyingly too.

I enjoyed the plot progression, I found the characters worked well in the scenarios set. If I was going to be critical, i’d say that the actual ‘Nazi’ element isnt really utilized very well…the opening titles and end credits are basically filled with old WW2 footage or audio of hitler…and theres one scene about an hour in where they show WW2 stock footage too…

But theres no build up to them becoming Nazis…like, the lead character never once expresses any inclination to liking the Nazis or wanting to BE a nazi. he wears normal clothes and a standard uniform for most of the films runtime and then out of nowhere BAM. NAZI. It wouldnt have maybe been nice to see it build a little, maybe show him as being interested in WW2 history and then GRADUALLY tease out of him that he has Nazi aspirations.

Instead; because they ‘crash the nazi’ it just makes it jump from a fairly decent, but a little slow blaxploitation flick into an ultra goofy production that took me by surprise.

The direction and cine are decent we have solid compositional choices, the print quality looks great with nice use of depth of field. the styalisation here is a little forced if im being honest, but I think it handles sequence building pretty well. the scenes largely keep a good pace, it maybe could have been 5-10 minutes tighter to really get maximum value out of it (theres a few scenes that feel like they repeat a bit that could have been trimmed out) but…on the whole? this is proabably one of the better Blaxsploitation offerings and absolutely one of the better Nazisploitation ones…

The performances are the big selling point here, all the leading cast members are campy, over the top and very VERY sweaty. some of their line deliveries are just delightful and im about 99% sure that this film influenced Quentin Tarantino’s writing for Samuel L. Jackson. theres just this perfect level of ‘badassery’ going on with highly animated and VERY physical performances. I loved it.

The scoring was a little generic all things considered. I didnt dislike it, but honestly; it wasnt memorable enough for me to have a strong opinion either way. It did its job, it wasnt overly intrusive…I cant complain.

All in all, this one really surprised me, the quality of the production married up to a tonally strange script that simultaniously manages to be totally Daffy Duck…While at the same time raising genuine arguements and comments about culture, war, society and violence. Was something I really got on with.

HIGHLY recommended if you like Blaxsploitation cinema, or are looking to get into the genre. I think Nazisploitation fans may be a little underwhelmed by this one. But I’ll absolutely be checking this one out again!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-black-gestapo/

Coming in strong as a mash up of ‘Children Shouldnt Play With Dead Things’, ‘Theater of Blood’ and ‘One Dark Night’, ‘Frightmare’ is a fun enough little romp, though ultimately it doesnt really feel like anything we havent already seen before.

The plot revolves around an aging horror icon Conrad Ragzoff (heavily modelled on a kind of hybrid of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price) who passes away unexpectedly but swears his imminant return as one of his dying words. A couple of nights later a group of hardcore superfans of the actors work, break into his crypt, abduct the body and take it back to there frat house, where they play with his corpse, pose with him and generally do things you shouldnt really be doing with a corpse, with the understanding that they’ll take the body back before sun up.

Unfortunately Conrad has other ideas, ressurecting with newly psychic/telekenetic/Scanners powers and murderous revenge on his mind. The students are suddenly thrust into one last horror film of Conrads making!

And…yeh, theres not really a whole lot to say about this one, its got a light campier tone, which is always welcome, its a little slow boil even at only an 86 minute runtime. It could have lost 10-15 and felt so much better for it. The characters are kinda one note and all fairly interchangable, but I felt Conrad as a character did bring a level of charisma and uniqueness to the role. I liked how they introduced some kind of magic viewing screen element in which Conrad could talk to the teens and advise them of their incoming demise, I thought that was a nice touch.

The act structures are a little messy here and there, but I think they do keep a fairly well balanced three act run here.

The direction and cine are to standard, even going a little above and beyond in places with some of the more gory kills being particularly well handled with this one, I liked that the cast were much more animated than some of these films tend to be, I just wish they really got a bit more lively and physically involved in the sets to really help take this to the next level.

Cine composition is fine, everything blocked nicely, colour use is a little underplayed which is a shame, and as mentioned the editing probably would have benefitted from one more pass through just to ensure everything was as tight as it could be.

The performances outside of Ferdy Mayne as Conrad are kind of unforgettable, which is a big problem with this genre, so I wasnt too surprised to see it here…but it is a shame non the less.

and the soundtrack was pretty solid too for what its worth.

All in all this ones *just* barely above average for me. The script is interesting but a little too slow going for my taste, the direction is technically pretty solid, but again; a little pedestrian for 1981 standards, the cine is above average in their attempt to try and keep things as fresh as possible, but it is held back from greatness by a slower edit and some underdeveloped performances.

It’s…fine. Im a little dissapointed by it honestly as I’d had this one my ‘To Watch’ list for about 10 years. But I think the dissapointment is more a me problem than the movies problem. This is a fine enough production, it does the job a supernatural slasher should do. It just doesnt do any more than that. a bit of a mediocre offering. I could see myself watching this one again, I couldnt see myself recommending this one though.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/frightmare-1981/

‘Merlin: The Return’ is a missed opportunity, with catastrophic results. Almost every aspect of this picture feels like it’s been fumbled, watered down or gotten lost in translation at one point or another across the runtime.

Indeed; the title itself would suggest it was a sequel, presumably if ‘Merlin’ is returning, we must have had an adventure with him previously? NO! No we havent ladies and gents. Instead, ‘Merlin: The Return’ is a strange hodge podge of time travel, witch craft and transdimensional portals embedded in stone henge that quite honestly was a chore to try and keep up with.

The plot is thus, its the year of our lord 1999. and theres trouble brewing. Y’see? 1500 years prior, a great battle was held between a powerful sorcerer called Mordrid and his army, and King Arthur and his armies assisted by Merlin. the battle reached a fevered pitch as Merlin fought against Mordrids spells, Mordrid managed to claim the sword Excaliber, giving him the edge in battle.

He reveals that Arthurs most trusted Knight ‘Lancelot’ has been banging King Arthurs Missus. and in the confusion, Merlin uses his powers to seal both himself and the ENTIRE battle in…what I can only describe as a ‘time lock’…They were essentially frozen in time in some kind of pocket reality thats tied to Stone henge.

Back in the year 1999, a scientist by the name of Maxwell is working on some studies around the manipulaiton of the earths magnetic poles, and in doing so, she creates a ‘schizm’ in the timelock reactivating everyone who was put in there, but keeping them trapped in their pocket dimension. Merlin manages to escape, as does King Arthur and some of his men, who all hide out in the woods and attack cars thinking they’re beasts.

At the same time we’re introduced to Kate, Ritchie and their respective families. Kates mum is a medium and Maxwell (who has discovered the pocket dimension) is trying to contact the beings inside it. eventually using Kates Mum as a conjuit to speak to Mordrid. Who gives her the instruction required to start working on busting open the time lock.

Ritchie meanwhile is new to the country, his dads just died and he’s feeling all angsty and upset at the world (but like…in a way that magically vanishes unless the plot needs it) he arrives in the village and they almost kill Merlin, who teleports into the real world from the time lock and is deeply confused.

Anway; to cut a long story short, the kids find out Mordrid is up to no good when they catch Kates mum possessed by him, Merlin finds Arthur and his army and the pair begin to plan on how to seal Mordrid away for good, the kids follow Maxwell back to her lab (as does Merlin) and adventures are on for people who consider themselves easily exciteable.

I honestly dont even know where to begin with this thing. Probably with the thought that marinated in my brain from about 5 minutes in right the way up to the end credits…YOU HAVE RIK MAYALL IN YOUR MOVIE AS A WIZARD…AND YOU SOMEHOW MADE IT BORING!

I wish it wasnt the case, but this films somehow managed the near impossible feat of taking MULTIPLE really cool and fun little ideas and just…utterly draining them of any and all charisma and warmth. The plot sounds awesome on paper! Arthur, Merlin, a load of knights and an evil wizard all get pulled out of the 1500’s and dumped in 1999 to finish off an epic battle of magic and sword play, while also getitng accustomed to a world that basically must be alien for them.

I was envisioning Mayall in robes prancing around a battle field zapping people into rabbits, cracking *slightly* naughty jokes and being whimsically baffled by modern technology, while also giving off a warmth to the kids that would really bring in a ‘family movie’ dynamic.

I was basically thinking of ‘Hocus Pocus’ meets ‘Harry Potter’ crossed with ‘Drop dead fred’ but it just…isnt. Its an incredibly straight laced 3 act piece that largely consists of MULTIPLE phoned in performances. almost NOONE on set seemingly cares about this film. i’d say the tone was all over the place, but that would imply it had a main tone to begin with. It’s vanilla ice cream, it doesnt commit to being overly serious, it doesnt commit to being funny or silly…

The plot itself opens awkwardly, establishing the pocket dimension and the schizm FIRST, then introducing the characters who caused it SECOND…THEN introducing the kids…who dont even become relevent for 15 minutes past that point…and finally introducing Merlin and Arthur properly. It meant that all our pieces were on the board by the 30 minute mark. But they’d been thrown on so haphazardly that I had to stop the film for 10 minutes and go back over my notes to understand exactly WHAT i’d just sat through.

Its sluggish all the way through, they cant seem to nail the pacing of any of the action scenes, meaning everything just feels like an elongated struggle to hit the next cue. the dialogue is utterly abysmal. The characters have ZERO definition or complexity. what you see on screen is what you get with these characters, as far as this films concerned they started existing when you hit play on the movie, and when the credits rolled they may as well have died.

The directions not great either, it really kind of smacks of ‘made for TV movie’ fodder, a lot of my rating for this film is going on the technical ability of this movie because, fundamentally…it’s not a bad looking film. But its incredibly bland and has nothing really going for it to make it stand out against any other transatlantic co-production of that time. It really visually reminded me of shows like ‘Hercules: the legendary journey’s’ or the 1996 ‘Doctor who TV movie’…which…if THATS what your films reminding me of?…thats not exactly a gold star of quality indicator.

The cine struggles for most of the runtime, composition is kind of flat and lifeless, the CGI has NOT aged well and looks like a mixture of digital smears and clipart .GIF’s. they do utilise some interesting lighting choices in places and the scenes do have a structure to them, but the edit is sloppy, it loses the narrative thread INCREDIBLY easily (and repeatedly) and as a warning, if your prone to seizures…dont watch this thing because the final 15 minutes of this film is basically like being flashbombed through your TV non stop. Im prone to migraines and didnt need to see that…soooo…im writing this while I can still see.

The performances are dire. I dont talk about child actor performances as a rule…thats genuinely a mercy for this film…Rik Mayall is phoning it in for 99% of the films runtime, honestly his best performance is in this films ‘making of’ where he has to pretend to be enthused about the movie…and he cant even muster that without his trademark sarcasm. the rest of the cast all feel like am-dram performances, everyones stiff as a board and barely uses their set space, there seems to be some confusion around where the frame begins and ends, the dialogue deliveries are LITERALLY some of the worst performances i’ve ever seen put on film. i’ve seen bad AI bots deliver dialogue more convincingly.

The audio for these performances constatly switches between on set and ADR…its a really poor show with no real standout winner…

The soundtrack? I quite liked, it’s orchestral, it suited the tone of the film fine enough, but its probably one of the most misused OST’s i’ve ever heard. they have a really odd gentle ambient track that runs for the entire duration of the final battle of this film (the final battle being three wizards firing spells at each other and being smashed around the place while an army cause mischief in the background) It really needed a more action oriented score behind it to emphisize the action we see on screen, it needed tighter shot composition, more focus on facial features and reactions…instead we get 10 minutes of wide shots backed by what sounds like late 70s Brian Eno on an off day…

I didnt hate ‘Merlin: The Return’ If it were on in the background, I wouldnt mind…but it is a poor POOR film in almost every other regard. Mayall is wasted here, the rest of the cast cant be arsed, the scripts dull, the direction and cine are borderline and the soundtracks misused.

When you could have had King arthur trying a motorbike as an alternative to a horse, Merlin astounded by television (and with it being Mayall, the adult channels no doubt) and some goofy kids who could have had a heartwarming and silly experience with the real life court of king arthur…to boil it down to an hour and 27 minutes of heavy discussion about magnetic polarity, opening and closing portals and the status of a sword?, all played fairly straight cut?…its a VERY dry experience…and one I am unlikely to actively pursue again…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/merlin-the-return/

Watched on Sunday November 19, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/carol-for-another-christmas/1/

An odd title to find while browsing the horror section of my local second hand store, 2003’s ‘Exorcism’ seemingly had the brief of ‘Can we make a horror film for the YA Christian crowd that’s scary, but doesnt stray *too* far into devil worship and the obscene?’

If that WAS the brief this film had, it’s succeeded tremendously, this film was rated ’12’ in the UK…and thats not a modern ’12’, thats a 2005 ’12’ (which incidentally was the same rating the first series of the revived ‘Doctor who’ scored when it came out on DVD)

Ever wondered what an ‘exorcist’ knock off would look like if it had a ’12’ rating and was produced to appeal to teen christians? Look no further.

The plot? a family begin to experience odd goings on at their home, paranormal events that they cant account for. The mother of the house has a brief spell in hospital, but before leaving a nurse corners her, reveals herself to be a demon and tells her that husband isnt going to be around for much longer.

The husband, while on the way to collect her from the hospital gets into an accident where he’s put into a coma. While in the coma it’s revealed that a coven of demons have been praying on him as he made a deal with them in the mid 70s asking for a successful and properous life which they granted. And nows the time to collect on the debt.

The fathers brother is a catholic priest who firmly believes we’re in the end of days, putting mass murderers and other unfortunate souls actions NOT down to a mental health crisis in the country…But an over running of demons who must be vanquished. Word reaches him that his brothers in a coma in the hospital and he rushes to his bedside, ALSO getting grabbed by the demon nurse who makes it clear he’s going to have his work cut out for him.

After some time in recovery the father returns home, but it quickly becomes apparent that he’s FAR from all there which leads his brother Father John to contact the church with the request to perform an exorcism.

While this is going on there are also two B-plots going on. The families daughter is attending a non catholic church where the preacher is giving a lecture on demonology and exorcisms, which causes friction between her and her catholic uncle.

Theres also a plot about a group of home invaders who, at the start of the film break into our main families house, only to be scared away when a literal angel busts out of a picture and scares the crap out of them. This then causes them to have strange encounters with demons fo their own.

Oh! and theres ANOTHER B-plot that creeps in around the second act as a pair of journalists get a tip off about the possessions and exorcisms going on in town and decide to investigate.

Non of that really matters though, as (mild spoilers, but trust me, you’ll thank me) The journalist plotline literally never gets resolved. they just…forget to close it. the last shot they’re in is them chatting about the previous night (where they visited a church to discuss exorcisms…but got brushed off) and nothing really comes of it.

The home invaders plotlines dont really get resolved or tied up either. One of the gang (named Dan) has a fractured relationship with his dad, in the opening of the film you see him arguing with his dad, who isnt happy that he’s lazy, has no aspirations and doesnt wanna hang out with his pop or do anything really…then later in the film Dan discovers faith, gets saved, returns home to tell his dad he’s turning over a new leaf…Only for his dad to be EVEN MORE angry, because now it means he wont drink or gamble with him…

That plot doesnt get resolved either, nor does Daniels character arc, Nor do ANY of the home invaders character arcs really. They’re last seen in an exorcism scene (thats not a spoiler, this film drops exorcisms like they’re going out of fashion) and then they basically dissapear without a trace.

The script for this thing is kind of awkward honestly, the B-plots leading to nothing is dissapointing, but the main plotlines kind of retreading old ground, a censored melting pot of ‘The Exorcist’, ‘The Evil Dead’ and ‘Night of the Demons’ theres nothing really new here explored. they just kind of take the generic demon/exorcism tropes remove all the gore, graphic imagery, nudity, and any kind of aggressive violence and add in a TON of faith indoctrination…

Expect bible verse titles to be quoted, without actually being said…meaning you have to look them up yourself to see what they’re referencing (which is another reason I believe this was made for a church audience, and not really for your average horror connisaur) Theres tons of religious debate…but not like…faith based debate, I mean; everyone in this movie agrees that gods and demons are real. Its just which *side* of that you sit on…with plenty of the movies runtime given over to debate on which side of christianity and catholicism is correct.

The pacings weird on this thing too, it opens quite strong at a good pace and tone, but slowly seems to lose its momentum across the runtime, really slowing down around the end of the 2nd act and rendering the 3rd act a total slog…which makes it all the more surprising that they didnt bother wrapping up large chunks of the plot, given they clearly had time for extended conversations between Father John and church on the ethicacies of doing an exorcism alone.

I’d say the tone is pretty consistent throughout, though it does dabble in more lighthearted moments here and there, it’s kind of ‘vanilla’ in it’s overall execution. I feel like the self imposed censorship here doesnt really do it any favours, and the dialogue at times borders on a sermon which…is not really how I wanna spend my horror movie.

The characters are all SUPER preachy…with anyone who DOESNT get super snobby and particular being relegated to background characters or supporting cast at best. There isnt really a lot of depth to them, theres little to no backstory beyond the fathers deal with the demons in the 70s, I think it really would have benefitted the film to give these characters a bit more complexity and depth than they ultimately ended up with. just…something that stops them being ‘generic religious character with strong moral compass’ maybe some tests of faith, or moments of doubt would have just helped give them a bit of a boost.

VERY surprisingly, the direction and cine for this thing is actually quite impressive. we have sharply honed vision executed to studio standard. While there are a few CGI moments that really havent aged too well, I honestly couldnt really knock this thing. for a low budget production it REALLY looks quite decent. I cant speak for continuity, but the practical effects look good, theres solid composition, the grade is nice, theres solid use of creative lighting in places, the sets are well dressed (mostly…the demons lair at the pit of hell is kinda poor…but I reckon they did those shots near the end when the budget was running low)

I think William A Baker had a clear vision for this and delivered it excellently. I just wish he’d developed this style a bit more, rather than pivoting into conspiracy theory-esq documentaries.

The performances are a little choppy, Our main cast come across as a little bit Am-Dram in places which wasnt ideal, theres a degree of woodness that lingers around this production with only Jack Donner and Tony Burton REALLY setting my socks on fire as polarised exorcists Father John and Bishop Harris. they really got into their roles, their performances came across as sincere and I was glad we spent most of the movie with those two as they’re easily the best performers in this thing.

Throw in a decent soundtrack and overall? I kinda liked this one…I cant say I outright LOVED it, but I could easily see myself pairing this movie up with something like David Heaveners ‘Dawn of the living dead’ as movies that were clearly christian audience motivated but have ended up in the wider horror distribution chain.

As for the movie itself? I think it’ll all come down to how much patience you have with christianity and censorship. If your okay with your horror films having a heavy YA Christian sermon vibe and next to no gore or violence…but a fun enough tone. You’ll probably be okay with this one.

If you get riled by the thought that ‘Five Nights at Freddys’ got a PG-13 rating when it ABSOLUTELY should have been an R at minimum…dont bother with this thing, its not your stomping ground.

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

Caught the MST3K dub of this today and…at least with the ‘riffed’ version its a hoot! A little slow, but the jokes carry it over the finish line for me!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-black-scorpion/