TYTD Reviews

Another one im using for a larger project.

But in short; I quite liked this one, its played as a pseudo psychiatric examination of womens fantasies, and I like its tone, its playful and creative both in its direction and set pieces.

The australian censor board though around this time was SO weird…like…its got *some* hardcore…but then, 80% of it is softcore and sometimes they’ll do full frontal, but other times, they wont…weird…Im gonna have to look into that a bit more…still! fun enough film, not essential, but an interesting entry in the Ozsploitation genre.

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

Watched on Tuesday January 9, 2024.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-warriors/1/

One i’ve been meaning to revisit for a while, there isnt a whole lot that I can really add to the masses who really truely love ‘Battle Royale’.

Honestly, theres very little I disliked about it, the scripts razor, with a VERY bleak and dystopic tone being offset by wonderfully bleak humour, the pacings pretty solid, though the 2nd act *does* sag a little bit for me personally, It ends about as well as it can do and the characters, all 45+ of them are complex, interweaving and nuanced.

I really dont have much more to say other than I love its complexity and how naturalistic it feels in places. its rock solid.

As is the direction, as is the cine, as are the performances…In fact…if im being brutally honest; the only two things I really disliked were:

*The runtime – It is a film I feel could have been 10 minutes shorter and 10 times better for it

and

*The end credits music – Which I feel is one of the only things that dates it, after a near solid 2 hours of classical and orchestral moodiness, the end credits are a 90s R&B-ish pop track that kind of jerked me out of the vibe of the film…

Otherwise, its honestly fantastic. Other people here could put it better than I ever really could. and I’ll absolutely try not to leave it 10-15 years before watching it again…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/battle-royale/

Another one im watching for work on a bigger project, so i’ll keep it brief:

The final part of Alex De Renzys trilogy is basically almost unrecognisable from the first film. almost a remake of the 2nd film, but softened even further. Peaches 3 has a new Peaches leaving home to find ‘enlightenment’ that coincidentally can only be found through sex.

All the ‘edge’ of the first 2 films (incest, enemas, performance art lesbian gang bang rape) is nowhere to be found. This is just straight porn. VERY low budget straight porn at that, I reckon more money went on the film stock than the casts wages and sets combined.

It starts off poor, but does pick up pace around the mid point and ends in an okay enough place. But its beige. SO beige. the safest and most stable entry in the whole franchise. Its inoffensive to the point that I think i’ll probably start to forget exactly what happend before I even start a write up, less than 12 hours from now.

The subplot involving Peaches Mum and Bobby however is probably the steamiest and most erotically charged moment in the whole series. and was about as enjoyable as this thing got.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pretty-peaches-3-the-quest/

A Dawn French number, played as a pseudo faux documentary about a group of actors attending a summer school in which they must accurately portray an iron age village for a few weeks.

Its not bad, the main source of humour seems to come from actors and actresses putting their feelings ahead of the role (a good example being when Rik Mayall’s character tells the rest of the troupe that, if they REALLY wanted to be period authentic, they’d all be having lots of sex with all the women, and proposes a rotation orgy)

Fine enough, kind of poigniant in places, subtle but the laughs are quality enough. The lack of proper gut laughs really kind of undercuts this one from being something truely hilarious, but as a work broadly speaking, its good!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/summer-school-1983/

Another solid entry from ‘The Comic Strip’ AND it predates ‘Spinal Tap’ by a few months, its a rockumentary following an up and coming heavy metal band ‘Bad News’ and all the mishaps that can befall a not *quite* famous yet rock band.

Great variety of gags, consistent humour, not AS massive a hit rate as ‘Tap’ but still very very enjoyable, and definitely worth checking out…Oh! and it was written by Ade Edmondson too…which was really quite impressive to see!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bad-news-tour/

Solid enough parody of the french new wave movement and its various american and british offshoots. urprisingly closer to a lot of those kinds of movies than some of the ones that came out at the time! Full of fun little moments, but it does kind of run the joke well and truely into the ground well before the credits run.

Single best line in this episode is delivered by Ade Edmondson who VERY enthusiastically says ‘LETS GO CRAZY APE SHIT!’ before flipping an empty ashtray over on a table and doing literally nothing else.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-beat-generation-1983/

Wasnt feeling this one as much, It kind of felt a bit like a 28 minute improv session complete with props rather than a fully fleshed story.

It had a couple of funny moments here and there, but it was a real mess and a big chunk of the short relying on Robbie Coltrane in ‘Yellow Face’ was a turnoff…ah well…I didnt hate it, but I wont watch it again in a hurry.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/war-1983/

I grabbed Severins release of the complete ‘Comic Strip Presents…’ Over black friday having seen a smattering of them over the years and decided it might be fun to go through the whole set in order.

Kicking things off was the first entry in the series ‘Five Go Mad In Dorset’ a wonderful lampooning of ‘The Famous Five’ novels and That quintessential P.G Woodhouse era of british culture, where the men were toffs, the ladies housewives and the ginger ale arriving in lashings.

I had a lot of fun with this one, the humours a little bit dated at this point, but in some ways that kind of enhances the comedy with this ITSELF being a lampooning of the dated opinions of the early 1900’s

Not a gut buster in my opinion, but still a very funny special. It had a decent hit rate and as a parody, its loving, but acidic. definitely one to watch if you enjoy shows like ‘The Young ones’, ‘Blackadder’ or ‘Not the Nine o Clock News’.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/five-go-mad-in-dorset/

A late night endeavour for me as a friend was doing a rewatch and with a title like ‘Bloodsucking pharaohs in Pittsburgh’ how could I NOT take the opportunity to indulge?

Unfortunately, the title is a little bit misleading. as is…well the whole film really…

For a starters, the advertising for this movie is quite misleading…you look at the title of the movie and the first impression is its going to be some kind of ‘killer mummy’/’vampire’ flick…maybe a slightly Troma-esq picture thats ultra gory, ultra sleazy and a little bit ‘Street Trashy’…The film isnt like that at all…it has odd moments here and there…but this is actually a rather grounded production that probably shares more in common with ‘Seven’ than it does ‘The Toxic Avenger’…and when I say that, im NOT saying ‘Its as good as ‘Seven’…’ Im saying that tonally its a lot slower and more serious than the title would have you believe.

The film is VERY loosely inspired by ‘Blood Feast’ and when I say very loosely I mean, the film is about 2 detectives hunting for a serial killer who’s removing peoples organs. and then suddenly about 50 minutes into this 80(ish) minute film, they drop a CRAP ton of lore about Egyptian sacrifices…but they do so in a nondescript way…

In fact, thats probably this films biggest problem, its SO non comittal in anything it wants to do. As mentioned the Egyptian symbolism (barring a very throwaway moment in the opening 5-10 minutes) is entirely neglected until the 3rd act, when its unceremoniously dumped on the audience with no real explanations or reasoning. They dont explain why the specific organs stolen are significant, they dont really explain exactly WHY they’re needed or what collecting them is ultimately going to do.

This is billed as a ‘Horror Comedy’ which is *technically* true. there is some moments of horror and some pretty funny comedy moments. But films that weild duel genres generally work best when they unify the two (bringing comedy into a horrible moment, or offsetting a comedy moment with some awful horror) and they work even better when theres a dominant genre in the mix…so a horror comedy thats leading with horror will pepper its scares with comedy moments, and vice versa.

This film treats them both equally, and keeps them pretty far apart from each other. Meaning the comedy never manages to bed in enough that audience members feel confident in it BEING comedy, and horror fans get a double whammy as the comedy downplays the suspense of the horror, AND due to the producer taking a pair of scissors to the film, all of Tom Savinis wonderfully gory work has been trunkated or removed to secure an R rating.

It script is slow boil, it has its moments, but it feels like, because the film failed to pick a lane, it doesnt really know what to do with itself for most of the runtime. It brings in a load of supporting characters who have nothing to do with the main plot of the film really other than giving the film makers opportunities to pad the runtime. The tones uneven, and as mentioned the act structuring is a bit of a mess because the first act is basically a detective slasher thriller peppered with comedic moments, the first half of the second act ramps things up a little, but not much. and then the second half of the 2nd act swerves violently into an Egyptian sacrifice subplot.

The direction, cine and performances are all fine. like…literally the base level required to make the film feel somewhat professional…I wish I had more to say on it…but honestly its just passably good. Nothing special, it just does the job on all counts. The soundtracks unmemorable…

I dunno…This thing just smacks to me of being an unfinished or rushed production that had a sloppy base that resulted in a sloppy movie. Im kind of glad i’ve seen it for reference, but if this was ‘inspired by Blood Feast’ there are other, better ‘Inspired by Blood feast’ movies out there such as ‘Mardi Gras Massacre’ and ‘Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers’ This? This is something i’ll probably not watch again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bloodsucking-pharaohs-in-pittsburgh/