TYTD Reviews

Im honestly drawing a blank as to how I’ve seen this movie before truth be told, I picked it up after swearing BLIND that i’d seen it riffed by the MST3K or Rifftrax lot, but a quick google search reveals that neither of them have touched this thing…which in some ways is an even bigger confusion causer than how I randomly stumbled on this thing…In either case i’ve definitely watched this one, but I have no memory as to where, when, why or how. All I remember is watching it, enjoying it, and deciding to grab Vinegar Syndromes 4k release of it at the last ‘Halfway to Black Friday’ sales.

And I dont really have a lot to say about this one really other than, it was exactly as fun as I remembered it. The plots a basic Swords and sandles feature about an evil priest/warlock who uses his arm of melty witches to attept to abduct and sacrifice the kings first born before he is born, as the melty witches have prophesized that his birth will mark the death of the Warlock/Priest.

He fails in the abduction however, but not before the Witches brand our hero with a mysterious mark, and possibly do some magic on him that allows him to communicate with animals. Anyway, we flash forward to his adolesence and eventual adulthood where, after a day out training, our now muscular ‘Beastmaster’ returns to his village to find it raised to the ground and news that the warlock/priest is now leading some kind of necromantic army of cursed soldiers, while continuing his tradition of sacrifice…and when a beautiful young slave lady gets thrown into the mix. Well…you best believe adventure is afoot! including 2 deligtful ferrits, a panther and a hawk, who also tag along for the ride and help out using their magical animal powers.

The worst part about this thing? It’s 2 hours long. Thats a real kicker really because not only did this not really need to BE 2 hours long, its easy to identify exactly where it went wrong, when the 3rd act opens with a buldging great wodge of plot filler, that slows things down to a craw about 30 minutes off the end, where it doenst manage to get back up to pace till the final 10…

Outside of that though, this is a big dumb cheesy hoot in every sense. It’s MGM so you know the direction and cine are AT MINIMUM going to be ‘of standard’ but with Don Coscareli behind the wheel in a fairly early directoral piece, it does get a much needed boost that helps take things to the next level. Its all fairly competent, but it does excel in places with weird effects and interesting and creative shot choices.

The scripts pretty basic, but the weirdness and cheesiness shine through beautifully, with some interesting dialogue, strange fight scenes and interesting act structuring. Its an odd duck in this era of ‘swords and sandles’ fodder. But one I really dig the vibe of for just how committed it is to not really taking itself entirely seriously.

The performances match the script perfeclty, adding a big fat slab of ham to proceedings in the best possible way, the added organised chaos that is the fight sequences in this thing really only add to the sense of this being some kind of studio picture that had to be locked away due to being ‘Too radical’

‘Beastmaster’ is a film that tries to keep things as simple as possible, but Coscarelis style and charm ooze out of this thing in buckets, resulting in an end product that is, in my opinion, one of the best fantasty/adventure flicks to come out of this decade. I have SUCH a soft spot for it. If you enjoy the kinds of movies that MST3K riff on the regular, then this absolutley wont dissapoint.

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

Its a bit of a difficult game when watching a movie for the first time as to how ‘blind’ you choose to go in to it. Some people dont like surprises and pretty much want to know everything up front so they can focus on the movie, rather than the false flags. Others prefer to be TOTALLY blind…to the extent of not even knowing the genre of the thing they’re going to see.

Its a difficult debate really because in my own personal preference, I like to know at least a *bit* about what im seeing, but im the sort who, if I find out too much, I quickly go off a film because I just figure ‘what’s the point?’

In the case of ‘Happy Birthday to me’ I went in with two presumptions, that it was a 90 minute 80s slasher flick and that, because it’d been released by Indicator, i’d probably fall almost immediately in love with it. I was wrong on both counts, and had I known what this film actually WAS, I probably wouldnt have watched it tonight as I definitely wasnt in the headspace for it.

So contrary to almost ALL the marketing for this thing, its not your bog standard 80s slasher fodder. Its actually quite a bit more than that, it’s a psychodrama with a decent slug of slasher DNA in it, but truthfully, it borrows almost as much from the ‘Giallo’ genre as it does from the ‘Slasher’ style.

Its a twisting turning murder mystery as a group of friends slowly get picked off in ever more gruesome ways, with one of the friends having terrible memories of an accident from her past thats leading her to think she may in fact be involved in her friends dissapearences.

I dont want to go into too much detail because honestly, the script lives and dies by its twists and turns and this things actually really quite solid. I mean that in every sense of the word, both that its very well made, but also that its VERY dense on plot detail, character development, character nuance, careful wordings, double meanings.

Theres a rock solid foundation that this films working from, the tone is consistent and dances a line between humerous without getting silly, and gruesome without becoming purely morbid. the acts are consistent, giving the audience juuuust enough to keep them invested, and seamlessly transitioning as things progress.

The characters are fully fleshed out and decently written, and its nice to see a horror movie that actually bothers to do that with ALL the characters, even the ones who wont make it to the 15 minute mark.

In fact really, the only thing I can flaw this on is a recurring bugbear of mine, which was made all the worse by the fact that I went into this expecting a fairly run of the mill ‘Slasher’. Thats where my mind was at.

So when I checked in on the runtime about a third of the way in and saw that this film is just shy of 2 HOURS LONG…well, my investment in it went through the floor. Not because the film wasnt good you understand, but rather. I wondered to myself how on EARTH a cheesy 80s slasher movie was going to sustain itself to nearly 2 hours, when some of the all time greats bearly break 85.

It was only when I got to about the hour mark that I realised that this film had more going onto it than just the tropes of the era. But by this point i’d bedded in mentally that the film was something else. Which did kind of sour the experience to me. The next time I catch this thing (and I WILL be catching it again) I’ll know exactly what kind of mood i’ll need to be in to really properly appreciate this thing. Because, while I could see that it was clearly very well made, I just wasnt in the mood for something quite so deep and involved as this.

So the script is actually pretty solid (in my opinion) what about the cine and direction? Well. That too really doesnt dissapoint. its a highly styalised piece that has clearly had a lot of planning and forethought as to its execution. It’s clear the director worked very closely with the crew in being able to pull all the individual areas together, and apart from one or two moments of slightly wobbly audio quality here and there. This is actually quite the marvel for 1981. I really struggled to find much fault in it other than ‘I wish they continued to push the envelope further than they already did!’ which is just about the best critical feedback I can give ‘Your film was out there and excellent, I just wish it was MORE out there and excellent!’

Same goes for the cine, some of the gore shots are starting to show their age a little bit in places and some of the night time shots are a little ‘over dark’ for me. But composition is wonderful, theres a clear attempt at styalisation on hand, PLENTY of B-roll and cutaway footage to make scenes really pop. and scenes must have had very careful consideration during the shot listing stage, because the edit on a scene by scene basis is tight, consistent and frankly delightful, it oozes professionalism. and I love it for that.

In fact the only criticism I can level at this film is a regular critique I have, which is its a bit overlong. It could easily lose 15 minutes and would have been infinitely better for it. There are a LOT of sequences where they’re aiming for suspence, but to modern audiences, its basically an excuse to look up the cast online, scenes of the friends palling around are welcome, but they do go a little overboard on trying to sell the friendships to us, and again, after a few sequences of them just hanging out and not really doing much. I did find my attention start to wane.

Thats not to faul the performances themselves and our cast are absolutely sublime from start to finish, but for my money our leading lady Melissa Sue Anderson easily steals the show, bringing a wide ranging energy and animation to the role that I feel no other actress of that time could have quite matched. She alone is worth the price of admission. and I really need to see what else shes been in.

The soundtrack as well is near perfect in terms of setting the atmosphere. Honestly; had this thing been a smidge shorter and had I known that this was a bit more involved that a brainless 80s stabby movie. I’d have probably had an infinitely better time with it than I did. This is a rock solid, incredibly well made little film. I think some of the twists are a *little* bit farfetched. But if you can suspend your disbelief. Even for a moment, I think you’ll have a great time.

Definitely one for Giallo fans, or lovers of films like ‘Psycho’ or ‘The hand’ if you havent caught this, I highly recommend it, its a bit extra, and Im totally here for that.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/happy-birthday-to-me/

Another ‘Empire pictures’ production thats been fully absorbed into the ‘Full Moon’ branding, ‘Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama’ is often championed as a rock solid 80s campy horror flick. But after 3 watches of this thing now, I still honestly just…dont get what all the fuss is about.

The basic plot? 2 soroity inductees are challenged to steal a bowling trophy from a nearby mall in order to pass initiation, while being briefed it transpires that their initial hazing was being watched by a bunch of nerdy pervy guys, so the sorority sisters suggest as pennance the guys help the girls steal the trophy.

When they arrive at the bowling ally they find a woman named ‘Spider’ attempting to rob the place, but before anything can be done about that, one of the guys knocks a trophy over revealing an imp, who promises the group 1 wish each for freeing him. Unfortunately, as all these wish based horror movies go, what they wish for, and the reality thats given to them are two very different things. Hilarity ensues when the Imp then possesses the Sorority sisters, who’ve tagged along to see how well the girls do at the task at hand, and they slowly begin picking off the group.

And I think my biggest beef with this thing is simply that its inconsistent script wise and really kind of ‘falls between the chairs’ for me in terms of presenting a strong and clear vision.

Its not gory or well written enough to rival the likes of ‘Night of the Demons’ or ‘Return of the living dead’, Its not silly or campy enough to give films like ‘Ghoulies’ or ‘Nightmare Sisters’ any kind of challenge.

Whats ultimately here is a script that HAS got a 3 act structure (just about) but is constantly in a state of ‘yawning’ the opening is a slow burn and takes time to really establish much of anything, the 2nd act is repetative and equally hard going, and the 3rd act is around the time the film actually starts to get a bit more fun. But it’s blink or you’ll miss it because the 2nd act invades the first half of the 3rd acts runtime.

The tones all over the place, theres some overly aggressive streaks in this, but then it’ll swap to being mildly silly for a time. The characters are all playing comedic stereotypes, they dont get much development and the vast majority of the film is spent with our characters just finding every possible way to say ‘WHATS GOING ON!?’ until they’re killed.

The ending is kind of dissatisfying too, I didnt much care for the pacing which was honestly pretty pedestrian. I just think this whole thing needed at least a couple more drafts to really get it in shape.

The directions pretty solid all things considered, we have an early entry here by David Decoteau, who doesnt dissapoint in creating a neon soaked 80s fever dream of a movie. the script may not be up to much par, but the direction has a clear and consistent vision that really shines, and it’s clear a lot of time was put into trying to get specific reactions out of the cast, who deliver on the brief, even if the brief was a little on the thin side.

The cine is mixed to poor, when its good, its great really leaning into the heavy 80s vibe with lots of soft focus shots and contrasting neon to help sell the decade. But compositions can be a bit on the wobbly side and some of the film is shot so dark, its damn near impossible to see whats actually going on.

Add to this, an edit that could have been 10 minutes shorter with no real issues that feels a little bit plodding at times and has rigid cuts that dont help the flow or vibe of the overall edit. Its just kind of dull.

Casting is fun enough! we have the holy trinity back again (Michelle Baur, Linnea Quigley and Brinc Stevens) all of which are a delight to have on screen, bringing what their known for best to the forefront of this production (honestly, a whole star of the rating for this thing is purely at the female casts feet. They absolutely do there best to sell the film, and I feel they did a really good job.) The guys are a little on the 2 dimensional side which is a shame, but; it’s 1988, sex sells and I imagine the average male cinema go-er wasnt taking in this film for its subtle portrayal of the ‘Be careful what you wish for’ narrative.

throw in a killer score that reeks of mid 80s synth based pop rock and alltogether, its ‘okay’ to me. Its a film that has some fun performances and a solid visual style, married up to a TOTAL clunker of a script that barely hobbles over the finishing line. Can I say this is an out and out classic? I personally dont think so. But horror fans seem to remember this one with fondness, so im happy to be in the minority on this one. Not an essential watch, not as much fun as people would have you believe. it’s passably entertaining and reasonably well executed…and thats about it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sorority-babes-in-the-slimeball-bowl-o-rama/

So, what do you do when you lose the license to a property you’ve already invested a TON of money into developing and need to try and recoup some losses by any means necessary? Well, if your Warner bros. Apparently what you do is search your back catalogue for a franchise that hasnt had an airing in a while, slap them into the script and push on through whether it makes sense or not.

That at least is what was rumoured to have been the case with ‘The Banana Splits Movie’. The theory goes that Warner had the license to a ‘Five Nights at Freddys’ movie. wrote the scripts, booked the locations, started building the animatronics, when their licensing rights ran out and the owners of FNAF sold the rights on to blumhouse who offered more cash than Warner.

So! in order to fix the problem, they went into their archives, pulled the ‘Splits’ out of retirement to replace Freddy, Bonnie, Chica etc. and changed the Pizzaria location to a TV studio. Once you realise that this is very likely the case, a LOT of this films smaller plot details suddenly make a lot more sense.

The core plot of the film is that, it’s a young boys birthday and his (currently struggling in a toxic relationship) parents have decided to get him tickets to a taping of ‘The Banana Splits Show’ when they arrive at the lot, the kids older brother manages to convince one of the showrunners to take the kid backstage to meet the ‘Splits’ because it’s his birthday.

At which time, its actually revealed that not only is this the final recording of the show as its due to be cancelled. But that all of the ‘Splits’ are in fact animatronic robots. Who’ve been programmed by a psychopathic robotics technician with the order to ‘Keep the show going no matter what’

When the ‘Splits’ find out they’re about to be pulled off air, they INSTANTLY begin killing people…for some…reason? I dont fully get it either. but yeh. Cue an hour of running around and not really achieving all that much.

And viewed through the prism of ‘This was supposed to be a FNAF movie’ I could see how this could have been a somewhat more interesting opportunity. With a birthday boy going to his favourite pizzaria for his big day and a chance to meet the mascots turning sour when it turns out it’s the final serving day, and the animatronics are out to do whatever they can to keep people locked in the pizzaria and for the party to never end.

It makes the toxic parents angle feel a bit more realistic as I imagine in the original draft it was a bit more of a smaller scale operation, it makes the animatronics going on a murderous rampage make more sense, because in FNAF they’re inhabited by the ghosts of dead children who were murdered by the creator of the animatronics.

Once all of those elements were stripped away or altered enough to make a non letigeous ‘FNAF’ clone of a movie. It just becomes a totally nonsensical mess of a picture that prioritizes gore over any real semblence of a story.

Im not even saying that you couldnt make a decent ‘Banana Splits’ horror movie. Its RIPE for that opportunity, the show used to have cartoons running inbetween the live action segments, so this would have been perfect as some kind of ‘bad acid trip’ psychadelic nightmare anthology film with demented cartoons and psychopathic hosts.

Instead, NON of the format of the original splits makes it over in the translation, the gang are reduced to spouting basic sentences and catchphrases and thats about it. And that’s not to mention that the costumes themselves look PAINFULLY cheap, even compared to their 60’s counterparts, which; themselves were made on a tight budget.

In fact, this whole thing feels almost like a ‘Sci-fi Channel’ movie of the week, some kind of super cheap sub par ‘Asylum’ fodder, which again only reinforces that Warner had a money pit on their hands and wanted to spend as little as possible to recoup as much as possible with this thing.

The Scripts completley one dimensional, the plot itself doesnt develop much beyond the first act and that acts established that the animatronics are going to go nuts, any kind of character development or nuance goes out the window as this basically turns into a 60 minute dull gore movie. Non of the characters are particularly interesting, they’re all kind of stereotypical (and dated stereotypes even by 2019 standards) the resolution is incredibly dissatisfying and they tease a sequel that literally EVERYONE knows will never materialise.

the pacings painfully one note, nothing really gets explored beyond a surface level. it’s a HELL of a dull slasher flick. not quite bad enough to be annoying, but certainly heading that way.

The directions, of a standard. While it may look cheap and nasty in terms of creative vision and visual direction, I will give the film some credit that at least it hits the base level of quality. This is an ugly movie, make no mistake. But at least the director was in tune with the cine and at least the cine was touching base with lighting and the cast for the most part.

Less so is the cine, which is badly composed, lacking in any kind of creative zeal (this thing takes a page out of ‘Saw’s’ book and basically just colour grades all the shots to look a dirty brownish yellow tone, which again, for a film about a psychadelic group of animals having far out times. was beyond dissapointing. The edits kind of loose too, cuts dont feel correctly paced, theres an overeliance on CG to smooth over set issues. It just feels like the whole thing was a ‘We’ll make it work in post’ job. Only…when they got it into post, they realised that it wasnt going to be as easy as that.

The performances are really drab too, not one single actor or actress in this thing leaves a lasting mark or animates beyond the base level. Which is a real shame, because…again; this thing COULD have been a big colourful scary freakout movie, but judging by the performances, noone else seems to have realised that. just cold, lifeless, ultra basic, dead behind the eyes paycheck acting at its dullest. I was not enthralled.

One of the ONLY things that I did enjoy about this film getting made, is the soundtrack. and ONLY because it meant we got two new versions of ‘The Banana Splits’ show theme. which is one of the best theme tunes of the 60s. Otherwise this things drab. ULTRA drab.

‘The Banana Splits Movie’ was beyond dissapointing to me, not only does it come across as a threadbare and ‘made on the cheap’ production, but I genuinely lament the fact that, there IS a decent horror movie in the title of this film. and Warner bros threw it away because they *seemingly* lost the license to FNAF.

This had potential, and it completley squandered it. Not recommended. I didnt enjoy it, probably wont watch it again. I had planned to review this for my youtube channel, but after 3 years of sitting on it, waiting for the right place to slot it in, I realised I actually dont even care enough about it anymore to bother. Avoid.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-banana-splits-movie/

In a distopic, post nuclear war world; The male population has been reduced by 67%, and what men survived are almost entirely sterile. As such a medically driven Matriarchy was formed with one sole purpose. Get as many women pregnant as quickly as possible to help rebuild the population and get back to building weapons to take out the enemy. Oh…and for some reason the radiation has created a large number of anthropomorphic human frog creatures who roam the wastes looking for sex slaves.

Enter ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper as the most fertile man on the planet, captured by scientists, he’s assigned a dangerous mission, resuce a handful of VERY fertile women from the clutches of a frog overlord and knock them up by any means necessary.

This. is ‘Hell Comes to Frogtown’ and I was absolutely NOT expecting the tone this film was putting down.

Its pretty much a parody of movies like ‘Mad max’ or ‘Steel Dawn’ but whereas those kinds of films often attract laziness and direct parody. ‘Hell’ strikes out on its own, creating a unique and interesting take on the post apocalypse scenario thats both tonally VERY tongue in cheek and dark humour, while also not being afraid to get kind of serious in places.

We have a rock solid three act structure with some seamless transitions between the acts, characters are well balanced, have a decent level of complexity about them and have a nice level of charisma to them. The pacings pretty solid, with only slight slowdown in the second half of the 2nd act to really flag up.

Its a script thats punchy, zippy, a bit out there but most importantly, entertaining without dumbing down or punching down on its topic. If anything I do feel it could have stood to go even MORE out there than it ultimatley did. But it’s grimey and tonally playful look and feel were endearing to say the least.

The directions pretty rock solid too, no major complaints from me. I do feel that they undersell the frog humans in this a little bit, I think they dont nearly look as slimey or gooey as they could have looked. But I think our directing duo have done a good job of realising this distinct vision and have utilised the cast and crew well in pulling together a decent interpretation of the script.

The cine is absolutely to studio grade, though I do wish it could have gone a bit more out there with interesting shot composition or with the effects shots. Particularly during the fight scenes where Piper gets absolutely trashed and they make a decent deal to show off the heavy hits and the bloody gory nature of his encounters. But the frog costumes dont get roughed up in any way shape or form, and in fact, the one or two times they do see a bit of action, it becomes painfully obvious that they’re just foam rubber costumes.

That being said, its still a visually interesting, if not a tad underwhelming film visually, and the edit really goes above and beyond in deliviering us the tightest possible edit that absolutely doesnt overstay its welcome.

The performances are just the right side of campy with Roddy Piper absolutley shining through with charisma and great physicality. Im almost kind of upset that our female leads in this dont actually get to realistically do all that much.

They spend a good chunk of the film fawning over Piper and they do get a few interesting lines. But ultimately they all more or less are ‘Damzel in Distress’ architypes and the one woman in this who DOESNT conform to that, is largely left out of the third act ‘big fight’ scenes, and when she does turn up, she doesnt get to do much. I just kind of wish they were a bit more intricately worked into this thing. As, as it stands, they’re fine enough…but dont get to do much.

Chuck in a pretty killer soundtrack and I honestly thought ‘Hell comes to Frogtown’ was an absolute hoot! definitely worth checking out and I think it’d probably pair up quite well with something like ‘Cherry 2000’ to see the other side of ‘one gender is gone, the other must learn to love again.’ or as possibly the best indirect sequel to ‘Threads’ i’ve ever seen.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hell-comes-to-frogtown/

Would have been about a star lower, but I’m a sucker for the alphabet sketch.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/violent-is-the-word-for-curly/

Watched on Saturday September 16, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/healthy-wealthy-and-dumb/

Watched on Saturday September 16, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/tassels-in-the-air/

Watched on Saturday September 16, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/wee-wee-monsieur/

Watched on Saturday September 16, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/termites-of-1938/