TYTD Reviews

Ten years after ‘Killjoy 2’ yawned its way into video stores, Charles Band steps up to produce whats best described as the opening part of a ‘soft reboot’ for the franchise. Carl Washington returns on writing duties, but otherwise; this is a pretty clean break from the first two entries. Recentering ‘Killjoy’ as a much more charismatic and comedy driven figure and moving the franchise from ‘a generic slasher with a supernatural clown killer’ to something resembling a mash up of ‘Hellraiser’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and elements of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’

The film doesnt really acknowledge the first two films, theres a VERY fleeting passing mention to the first film, but the 2nd one is pretty much ignored. As we establish that ‘Killjoy’ is a demon who once again can be summond via blood ritual to take vengence on behalf of someone who’s been wronged. Though; rather than doing it through possession this time, he’s his own agent, and he’s not alone.

Using his…demon…clown powers? Killjoy summons 3 henchmen to help him on his task. But this cut short when he tries to bite off more than he can chew.

Some time passes and a group of college students looking after a teachers house recieve a gift in the mail, a mysterious mirror. Without thinking they unwrap it and put it up, unleashing Killjoy once more to seek his vengence and collect the souls of the living in order to escape his strange clown world.

And honestly? after 2 very stale and awkward entries, its nice to see this series land on something that feels tonally right for it. Its not an original idea, but it picks up this new tone and energy and runs with it for all its worth, producing EASILY the best ‘Killjoy’ movie i’ve seen up to this point.

The characters are all somewhat dimwitted comedy knuckleheads, the deaths are played as grimley reimagined comedic pratfalls, but most importantly. While the script is basically 75% haunted house movie married up to 25% black comedy. It feels like theres been some heart put into this thing. Like; an ACTUAL attempt to just try and make an entertaining and engaging film.

Its not perfect; I have a love hate relationship with ‘Killjoys’ henchmen, particularly ‘Batty Boop’ who I cant decide if her overly cutesy performance is endearing or insufferable. Killjoy himself is a much more well rounded and well written character here than in previous entries, but I do feel we lose a bit of his pathos in this one. I quite liked the idea that he was ultimately a character brought forth of tragedy. The idea that he was aware he existed solely for destruction and was somewhat conflicted about that…NOT HERE though, here he’s playing Mark hamills ‘Joker’…Which is a bit of a departure…but hey, they trade tears for ‘yuk yuks’ Im not gonna complain.

The stories kind of basic, but the script keeps a good pacem it clocks in at 70ish minutes sans titles and credits, I didnt get bored watching it, and most importantly of all! The ending wasnt awful and I was GENUINELY curious to see what the next entry had in store! So thats gotta count for something!

The cine and direction once again get a massive boost! Mercifully; Full Moons streaming service actually has this one in full HD, Widescreen and running at its intended frame rate, but we have an ultra colourful, if not slightly grungy offering from John Lechago which isnt anything *too* crazy, unfortunatley…But to me? it trounces the absolutely washed out, uninteresting and muted schemes that ‘Killjoy 1 and 2’ worked with. This feels a LOT more animate, the cast are given much more carte blanche to work with props and to fully utilise the set space.

The cine is decently composed, theirs a feint heir of that generic ‘full moon’ look about this one in places, but for the most part it feels lively, engaging and pretty fresh. I just kind of wish the script had more to offer than the 2-3 set location offerings we ulitmately ended up with.

The edit is nice and tight, it runs maybe a little bit longer than i’d have like, but I appreciate they were on the border of ‘feature’ runtime with the edit they had…So I cant go too hard on them…But I feel it absolutely could have been 5-10 minutes shorter.

Theres a decent utilisation of colour, with greens, reds, oranges, blues and yellows getting splattered all over the place to great effect. The lighting has had a big boost quality wise too with lots of nice moody atmospheric pieces. Im not gonna lie, this thing still looks quite cheap, but compared to the first 2 movies? its a different ballgame alltogether.

I also have to compliment ‘Killjoys’ redesign in this one, his makeup and new contacts are really well done, While im still not entirely sold on the hair design, its the best so far and his outfit feels very fitting.

The cast are kind of on the generic side, but our demons in this shine through helping to save the picture from being a bit on the dull side. Of note Trent Haaga as ‘Killjoy’ is superb and really brings a less complex, but more consistent tone to the character. His physicality is genuinely impressive.

As mentioned the jury is still out on Victoria DeMare as Batty Boop, but im leaning more towards liking the character than disliking her. Shes very animate, has a stong ‘Harley Quinn’ energy and really cranks up the nutty as and when required. I could see how she could be irritating to some. But I had a bit of a soft spot for her truthfully. And not to forget Al Burke as ‘Punchy’ who probably scored the biggest laugh from me across the runtime and had a few fun moments too.

This really seems like a turning point for the franchise, though quite what it’s turning into, I cant say for sure. The next film will probably clarify, and at this point it could go either way in terms of getting better or much….MUCH worse. For now though, this is the best ‘Killjoy’ movie in my opinon! Not…that that’s saying much…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/killjoy-3/

Having only ever been dissapointed by the original ‘Killjoy’, I decided i’d wasted enough time watching half decent flicks and decided to check out the sequel ‘Killjoy 2’…That and apparently everything AFTER this movie is very tonally different, and having gone through all the ‘Evil Bong’ movies a short time ago, I figured I might as well check out these 5 because theres quite a bit of overlap between the latter day ‘Killjoy’ movies and the ‘Evil Bong’ series.

This however, was basically a blockade stopping me from getting straight to the tonally different stuff. Produced in 2002, its treated as a sequel to the original ‘Killjoy’ but honestly? if I had to sum this thing up as a vibe, it feels like someones inserted a Troma or 90s Seban entertainment villain into a 100% straight slasher movie.

The plot follows a group of convicts who are on a prison transfer when their van breaks down in the middle of nowhere, theres a brief altercation with a woman with a shotgun, and the gang decide its best to set up camp for the night and carry on in the morning. While out there though they encounter a group who recount the plot of the first ‘Killjoy’ film, do an encantation and BAM, Killjoys back…50 minutes in to this 90 minute movie.

And thats the big problem with this thing. Script wise, its such a nothing production, you have 50(ish) minutes of convicts wandering around a desert roadway talking about pointless plot points that dont really come up again, Then Killjoy turns up at the 50 minute mark, basically doing very ungory goofy kills for 30 minutes intercut with more boring talking sequences.

I mean, I didnt enjoy the first film at all, but at least it TRIED to give us an interesting plot. At least it TRIED to create and interesting character, the whole ‘guy gets possessed by a demon and goes on a revenge filled killing spree picking off people who wronged him’ wasnt exactly original…But it gave the characters some motication, it gave ‘Killjoy’ a bit of nuance and character depth beyond just ‘killer clown’

Here? thats all he is. Its assumed he’s just a demon entity at the minute (not possessing anyone) because the depth of the possessed character taking over ‘Killjoys’ plans is entirely gone, and instead we end up with basically Tim Currys take on ‘Pennywise’ from ‘IT’ by way of Lloyd Kaufman.

The actual script is slowburn, uninteresting and largely crawling, the tone is jarring contrasting comedy style deaths with a completley straight cut early 2000’s stylisation of narrative. The plots dissatisfying and doesnt really go anywhere and the resolution, for a 90 minute feature, is very dissapointing.

The direction and cine are *mostly* a step up across the board. I should note that, given this is a flagship title in Full Moons repetoir, they’ve HORRENDOUSLY mistreated their streaming copies of ‘Killjoy’ 1 and 2. The first one was cropped into 4:3, compressed to hell and consistently had an inconsistent framerate (the thing would randomly slow down and speed up for seemingly no reason)

Here? Well, they’ve at least got it in widescreen…AND it looks a lot more filmic (it doesnt feel like someones ‘end of college year’ film… AND they’ve bothered to use B-roll and cutaway footage. but its still compressed to the point that people faces just become pixellated smears in mid shots and the frame rate problem is now constant through the entire film. I had to change the speed in which the film was playing to 1.5x faster than it was uploaded as because otherwise everyone sounded like they were on an Ambien trip.

I do miss the colour and flare that was present in the first one, this is basically blacks, blues, oranges and browns…with only ‘Killjoys’ outfit adding any kind of multicolour flare to proceedings. It looks kind of drab, but they DO utilise decent depth of field, they do build the scenes appropriately and pace out cuts decently for the most part.

And while the compositions arnt anything to write home about, pound for pound they’re WAY better than the original and do feel more professional as a result.

The Performances across the board are dull. Even ‘Killjoy’ the literal goofy clown killing demon barely gets to do anything even remotely bombastic. Instead he’s reduced to giggling creepily, saying weird one liners and AT MOST we get to see him do a kind of goofy waddle around. Non of the other cast bring any kind of energy to the role, theres no sense of surprise, shock or interest from our characters about anything thats going on and they largely stick to cue points and staying still over any kind of interaction with their set…its kind of depressing honestly.

Oh! and I think they largely reuse the soundtrak from the first film as well…ugh.

By a hairs breadth this thing *JUST* about manages to improve on the original, not in the sense that it tries to do anything more interesting or out there. But in the sense that it manages to maintain SOMETHING of a consistency throughout, while minorly improving everything barring the plotting across the board.

The first one was much more interesting, but way too erratic on being good in my opinion. This thing is just consistently fine, but a bit dull. and I think i’d rather consistent than a film thats 40 minutes of ‘fine-ness’ and 40 minutes of wanting to do anything other than watch it.

So far? I cant recommend this or the original. But I hear things change drastically from here on in…I can hope…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/killjoy-2-deliverance-from-evil/

Im gonna keep this one short and sweet, I watched this as the B-feature to ‘Jungle Trap’ after picking up the AGFA release of both of them. From what I can gather this was an unreleased project that was cut together using over a decades worth of footage from various projects including an unfinished sequel to Renee Harmons biggest Hit ‘Lady Street Fighter’

I have NO idea what was going on in this movie, closest I got to figuring this one out was it was something to do with a psychic cop trying to take down a cult of some kind?

It looks somewhat worse than ‘Jungle Trap’ on the direction and visuals, the fact the films predominently shot on film gives it a washed out and seedy vibe, the plot makes ZERO sense. Tonally, this films all over the place.

The soundtracks droning, the actors are about the same hammy/cheesiness that was present in ‘Jungle Trap’ (which…for those who havent seen that movie…is VERY hammy and cheesy!)

Its just a totally aimless, barely coherent mish mash of a movie. Much like ‘Jungle Trap’ this is probably one that you’d stick on in the background of a party for guests to occasionally tune in and out of across the night. But it really wasnt for me. It works fine as an extra feature on the AGFA release, but as a main feature? GED ATTA HERE!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/run-coyote-run/

Somewhere at the intersection of ‘Jungle Holocaust’, ‘Bloody New Year’ and ‘Boardinghouse’ we have ‘Jungle Trap’ an unfinished (or part finished) producution from James Bryan.

From what I can gather the film was shot in 1990, but lingered in post in a barely edited form, completely unscored until in 2016 when Bleeding Skull picked up the footage, edited it to completion (using stock footage to fill in the gaps) and rescored the picture using period accurate synthesizers. The result is a pretty fun little movie…if not a slightly unoriginal one.

The film follows a group of exploreres who are planning an expedition to the jungle to try and locate a long lost tribe who were seen many decades prior before they lost contact, the teams main drive to go on the expedition is due to one of their team mates who was part of the initial expedition going missing around the time the tribe vanished.

The gang are reluctant to go, but are eventually pursuaded and on leaving the plane when they arrive at the jungle, the pilot tells them he has to run other trips and will come to collect them in a few days time. The gang check into their accomodation, but strange paranormal happenings begin to happen. When its revealed that a large number of the tribe were murdered and their bones were used to help reinforce the cement that built the hotel the gang are staying in, a spiritual battle ensues between the spirits of the tribe and our adventurers. with plenty of ‘crouching around hotel rooms’ galore!

The script for this ones a little all over the place, but given this was an unfinished production, without the budget for re-shoots, I kind of get why this thing isnt the most coherent piece in the world. Its really more of a ‘Vibe’ film, something you have on and just; absorb the ambience of the weirdness as it unfolds.

When I said in the opening that this film was a bit of a mash up of 3 other movies, I really wasnt exaggerating. the hotel location and somewhat paranormal shenanigans which our characters spend most of the movie is straight out of ‘Bloody New Year’ the spiritual shenanigans and strangely delivered dialogue (alongside the ‘film on tape’, ‘tape on tape’ and strange yellowish hueing of the PQ) really rang true of ‘Boardinghouse’ for me, and the jungle/cannibal setting, isnt quite as hardcore as ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ but did feel destinctly ‘Jungle Holocaust’ in tone to me.

Like I say, its not specifically a bad movie, the plot may be all over the place, but it moves at a more than decent pace, is maybe a little slower than i’d have liked and feels quite free form in nature. But it is quite fun to sit through and absolutely has its moments.

The direction and cine are a bit flat and lifeless, with the hotel setting there is plenty of scope to work with cutaway footage, play around with styalising and to really get full use of the locations setting. Instead most of the film is seemingly shot in living rooms and bedrooms, often with cardboard stuck to the wall to hide the home decor. a few pot plants are supposed to evoke a Jungle climate, but its too much to suspend your disbelief that far in thinking this is actually some kind of jungle acid trip flashback.

composition is super flat, theres a handful of video effects and cutaways to stock footage that does lighten the mood. But i’d be lying if I said this thing was well made. The edit job that Bleeding Skull have done is nothing short of miraculous. But you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear, and it’s genuinely difficult in places to try and figure out exactly whats going on.

The performances I would say are the biggest draw on this thing, slightly offensive depictions of ‘tribesmen’ aside, the adventurers here are all SO hammy and cheesy it instantly drew me in, we’re talking below ‘soap opera’ levels of ham, so you KNOW this things really playing it bombasitc, campy for hilariously. Non of the cast really work with the set space (presumably because the set space was so cramped and they were unable to see where the edge of the frame was, they lock down into a single space, scream their lines like they’ll be shot if they get them wrong, and get the hell out of there, and I had a lot of time for that.

Add in the new score, which feels PERFECT for this production, if I hadnt have found out this was rescored in 2016, i’d have genuinely thought this was made in 1990, its got a lo-fi thriller-esq quality to it, that absolutely complimented the SOV aesthetics and really gave the film a big boost.

‘Jungle Trap’ isnt a film I think i’d watch everyday, but it seemingly had heart put into it, and even if it IS borrowing heavily from other movies, it mixes the elements it borrows very well into a cheap, but cheerful production that I quite enjoyed. Totally non essential, but worth your time if you stumble on it. I think this thing would be best played in the background of a halloween party or paired up with something like ‘Sledgehammer’ or an early Joe Sherlock production.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jungle-trap/

Probably one of the best films John Waters never made, ‘The Baby’ is a terrifically disturbing and unsettling watch thats got just the right level of sleaze and grime to it to pull off what its trying to do.

The film follows social worker Ann Gentry, as she’s been assigned a new case involving the Wadsworth family. a reclusive group led by an incredibly passive agressive ‘Cigarette mom’ played by Ruth Roman. The family is dysfunctional to say the least, Mrs Wadsworth has 4 children to 4 different fathers and her last child (simply known as ‘Baby’) is the subject of Anns assignment.

‘Baby’ is in fact a fully grown man, and Ann realises fairly quickly that something isnt quite right, as Baby is seemingly able to do things beyond what his disability would suggest, it quickly becomes apparent that the Wadsworths are purposfully holding Baby back from having any semblance of an adult life. When she challenges this, Mrs. Wadsworth retaliates hard, leading to a battle to try and save Baby.

And honestly; this film has it all if your into weird and wonderful exploitation cult pictures. its a thoroughly uncomfortable picture with twists and turns you wont see coming, its an ultra pacy hour and 25 minutes long, the tone is bleakly slimey throughout with highlights of campness puncturated throughout and it maintains the discomfort right up to the closing credits with revelations that genuinely havent left me from the first time I saw this.

Its a very quotable film, its got a bleak sense of humour running through it, and the characters are all fairly well defined, complex and interesting. and even further to the point, the film develops the characters across the runtime and invites the audience to try and second guess their motives. Its a solid work that I genuinely loved.

The direction is razor, everything has this sense of wooziness about it, almost like the films some kind of trippy dream, the cast are all channeling that John Waters-esq vibe of sleazy, loud and aggressive and I feel like the director had a big hand in realising the tone and vision for this thing. The sets are fabulously furnished, for a lower budget production, this thing does feel quite lavish all things considered.

The cine too shines, the compositions are a bit by the numbers, lacking that real creative zeal to firmly take this to the next level. But they make up for it with some wonderful coloured lighting effects and an edit thats absolutely perfect in terms of knowing when to cut, how long to hold a shot and most importantly, the runtime. This runs for exactly as long as it needs to, not a minute longer and left me satisfied and wanting more from the characters. Thats all a good movie should do.

The performances though are really what makes it, with Anjanette Comer playing Ann the social worker with a simply dynamic range, she’s completely and totally watchable, and as the film progresses, she really gets the opportunity to give the character a full set of extra dimensions making us really wonder WHY she’s so invested in the case.

Not to be outshone however, Ruth Roman as Mrs. Wadsworth is phenominal, bringing a Bette Davies in ‘Whatever happened to Baby Jane’ quality to the production combined with a salt of the earth no nonsense quality thats just divine (in every sense of the word!) I could honestly watch these two get catty with each other for a couple of hours, letalone the hour and 20 they do get on screen. they’re both perfect.

Mrs Wadsworths daughters are all also wonderfully demented, each having their own unique spin on the madness thats unfolding, theres a bit of ‘The Family’ from ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ in the mix, but the comparasons to ‘Pink Flamingos’ and ‘Female Trouble’ will not elude the specific audience this film is targeting.

Combined with a wonderfully moody and interesting score that perfectly punctuates this film and really takes it to the next level. I hoenstly have very little to dislike about ‘The Baby’ its a sleazy dark and nasty little picture, that revels in its own weird bleakness for it’s full runtime and left me feeling slightly traumatised. I really quite enjoyed it, and I can highly recommend you check this out if you like your Psychodrama’s or your more cerebral exploitation pics.

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

A 59 minute ‘Experience’ make NO mistake, ‘The Cornshukker’ is an experimental piece that has strong tones of ‘Eraserhead’ and Lynchs earlier short films. But with a distinctly more humerous slant offsetting any true feelings of discomfort or horror.

There isnt really a ‘plot’ for this thing so much as a series of happenings, we follow the titular ‘Cornshukker’ a somewhat mysterious humanoid being who lives mainly off of Corn and Crawfish. The film opens explaining that their are legends about him dating back decades, if not centuries, and its also established that, due to an ever expanding population, the cornfields that the ‘Shukker’ once called home have now been transformed into suburban hotspots, leaving him basically trapped inside an old abandoned house where he utilises telepathy to try and get rid of people he doesnt like, in order to live a quite quiet existence.

The closest thing to a plot that we get is that after several encounters with various ‘Weirdos’ the Shukker winds up having a conversation with an old bigot, who basically gives the whole ‘We dont want your kind round here’ type speech. The Cornshukker promptly kills him, buries him and sows some corn on his gravesite. A sheriff comes knocking looking for the miser, but he cant be found. At which point he implies a mob might take the law into their own hands if the Shukker doesnt keep to himself.

The themes of adolesence in rural isolation are positively rife here (As an awkward teen who grew up in farm country myself can attest) and ‘The Cornshukker’ is essentially some kind of alagory for growing up, feeling out who you are as a person, and the pushback that can occur in close knit rural towns when that kind of divergency happens.

Its a film that is mixed on its messaging about whether being an individual is a good thing, or whether being *too* individual is the thing that’ll ultimately trip you up. Its not exactly hardcore coding in terms of film symbolism. This is actually pretty blunt and basic, but I appreciate that the film at least *tries* to impress a sense of loneliness on the writer and directors part.

It was shot on 16mm and edited on tape, the 16mm rushes are long gone, so we’re basically just left with one of the few copies of this movie that ever saw the light of day (This kind of falls into the ‘Things’ camp of ‘Movies that are considered SOV, even though they arnt really SOV)

The scripts kind of nebulous and abstract, I quite liked the tonal vibes it was playing with for the most part, but i’d be lying if I said that it didnt feel creaky at 59 minutes, this should have been a 20 – 30 minute short MAX…and would have massively benefitted from a couple more pass throughs in the edit.

The pacing is super slow burn, but they insert random eccentric characters which does help kick the audience up the backside roughly every 7-10 minutes or so. These characters are incredibly 1 dimensional…such as ‘the dancing pizza guy’, ‘the sheriff’ and ‘Elvis on a motorbike’ thats what they are, thats what they do. thats all they is.

Bordering on Video art, its kind of hard to judge the quality of this thing from a direction standpoint, it’s largely handheld, predominently styalized in black and white (presumably because B&W film stock was cheaper at the time, and that B&W film is more forgiving in terms of cine and styalization) it’s super rough around the edges, largely reliant on analogue video effects to really try and push the strangeness of the ‘Cornshukker’

I cant say its particularly coherent, but from the looks of it, it was a skeleton crew, shooting on the fly, doing what they could. And this is the directors first and until a couple of years ago ONLY feature film. So taking into account that this was pretty much a one off by people with limited film experience. its bad, but it could have been worse.

Same goes for the cine which is SUPER rough around the edges, but in places actually captures some really quite interestingly composed imagery. Theres not much in the way of B-roll and the edit, as mentioned, is PAINFULLY longer than it really needed to be. But for a first attempt? its alright.

The cast all feel like first timers, with only the actor playing ‘The Cornshukker’ really drawing me in honestly, he’s got a strange kind of crabby spidery movement to him and the constant twitching combined with the fact that his only spoken line is ‘I know.’ creates a genuinely strange experience to behold. But the rest of the cast? they all feel like the crew got some friends in, gave them a gimmick and rough idea of what to do in the shot, and then let them loose. the range is passable to dreadful and your milage will vary depending on how tolerant you are for ‘Actors who arnt Actors’

For what it is? I kind of got on with ‘The Cornshukker’ its by no means an essential watch and its painfully dull at times. But where it shines, it manages to just about win me over. Though, if ever a film was aching for a sequel where a crew of weirdos from the city go out into the cornfield to try and find ‘The Shukker’ Now would be the time.

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

One of the very rare instances of a remake using the original as a base in order to create something new and different. The 1988 remake of ‘The Blob’ takes a harsher more political turn on the 50’s schlocky B-movie with largely positive results.

To clarify, I very much enjoy the original ‘Blob’ but its a feature not without its faults, largely stemming from the time it was produced. The titular ‘Blob’ in the original is kind of an aimless, almost ‘Zombie’ like organism that just eats and grows, it has a more lighthearted slant to it despite all the destruction that happens in the film, and that 50’s peppiness (alongside the vision of a visibly aged and at that point 28 year old Steve Mcqueen playing a teenager)and zany theme tune makes the whole thing feel more like a cookie family sci-fi picture than a serious threat.

The 80’s Blob plays things more or less completely straight, as an organism crashes to earth and viciously hunts down and consumes anything and everything that gets in it’s way. Our core heros ‘Brian’ and ‘Meg’ are in a duel role here trying to both save the town from the creature, while also trying to reveal a government conspiracy that threatens life WAY beyond the sleepy town entering ‘Ski Season’

And while the original had buckets of charm, this film is a much more focussed and coherent production. The script feels a lot sharper, with a more realistic response from our characters vs how the original cast tackled the beastie.

Its got a jet black tone, but it isnt afraid to have fun with the subject matter, its just trading a campier angle in for a daker humour that I feel really helps carry the film off in a different direction. Theres a lot more adult themes present here, which is a nice touch. The films first act almost subverts audience expectation for those who caught the original, and from the 2nd act onwards, it pretty much breaks off into it’s own new story. But the pace is good, the act structuring is solid, theres super smooth transitions between the acts. The characters all have a decent level of backstory established, they feel decently fleshed out and are just plain fun to hang around with for 90(ish) minutes.

It also must be said that the scripts themes of dealing with excess, greed and it’s ties to corporate America were VERY acidic and VERY welcome. I feel like those tones really helped add a bit more depth to what could have otherwise been a just ‘good’ little cult flick.

The direction is gorgeous, with a clean and coherent vision that clearly took significant effort being displayed gorgeously here. With special not HAVING to go to the special effects, which go above and beyond and would honestly give most modern productions a run for their money, seriously, the way they make ‘The Blob’ move in this is astounding and some of the death scenes are very intense and well handled. Yes, theres some green screen here thats starting to look a little bit dated, yes theres some stop motion that is starting to creak. But what this film achieves in effects and its vision is arguably some of the finest to be produced in the latter half of the 80s.

The cine is gorgeous too, a heavily styalized affair thats got a near perfect shot composition track record, it’s ultra tight on the edit, with decent coverage and B-roll, it uses colour grades effectively which really helps give things a further boost. and, in a rare occurance for me. This is a film where the edit feels just about right, not to long, not too short, it feels exactly as long as it should be and left me wanting more, which is just what I want from any decent production.

The cast all handle the material very well with Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith delighting as Brian and Meg in giving rock solid and well ranged performances, they really seem to get the source material and I know they did a good job when I legitimately wouldnt want to have seen anyone else attempt the roles for this thing.

Even the supporting cast are interesting, strange and animate. They all add to the mix, entertain and feel like they could really actually exist somewhere out there. They were a delight.

Throw in a frankly awesome 80s pop rock soundtrack thats up there with some of the greats from this era, and honestly? theres very little to dislike with ‘The Blob’ I certainly will give it a rewatch again sometime soon. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend if you havent seen it, you check it out when you can. I think it would pair up very well with Larry Cohens ‘The Stuff’ or maybe even ‘Friday the 13th Part 6’ for the whole ‘Juvinile gets locked up and has to take on a threat while the sheriffs are trying to take him down’ angle.

This was great fun.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-blob-1988/

I will never get that 82 minutes of my life back. ‘Scalps’ isnt so much a ‘movie’, more…it’s a test of endurance. How long can you sit through a handful of randomers wandering around in the desert before you give up and eject the movie violently?

The spiritual successor to movies like ‘Blood Shack’ and ‘The Hills have Eyes’ results in a product thats somehow LESS charismatic than ‘Manos: The Hands of Fate’ (and THAT’S saying something!). ‘Scalps’ really does feel at times like a 15 minute short film thats been extended to 82 minutes through sheer determination to make it a commercial release.

This was one of the lesser scrutinized ‘Video Nasties’ and having sat through it, I can easily see why…

The plot? an Archeologist wants to do a dig at the site where a supposed massacre of Native Americans took place. At the same time a group of teens and reasearchers head up ahead of him to set up camp. Cue (and im not making this up) SIXTY MINUTES of pissarsing about in the desert, wandering aimlessly, holding up badly made props and talking utter nonsense…they do anything….ANYTHING…to pad the runtime out to feature length.

Ignoring the strange edits in the opening of the film of skulls and demons, the first actual, honest to god kill in this thing doesnt happen till the hour mark. with the second kill happening off screen 10 minutes later.

The scripts meandering, dull, uninteresting. Lacks focus. has no real energy or passion behind it. The characters are equally basic and have no real depth beyond their one mission which is seemingly to wander around the desert and not do very much…

The only credit I WILL give this thing, is that about 7 minutes off the end, it does *sort of* kick into gear and delivers a couple more kills and some very basic, but non the less (at this point) entertaining gore shots. but that REALLY isnt worth sitting through 75 minutes of nothing to get there.

The directions totally drab, flat and lifeless. The version I viewed from retromedia was a total patchwork affair, the bluray boasts a ‘2k scan of the original 35mm negative with censored scenes restored via tape sources’

What that means is that the vast majority of the film looks like a 16mm print thats been duplicated 5-6 times, intercut with THE fuzziest and awkward looking 4th or 5th gen VHS tape sources. This film isnt particularly pretty as it is. Its washed out, awkwardly cut, badly composed, the cast all seem to be adlibbing for the most part, noone knows how much set space they have to work with. But because the source elements that made up this release are so poor, it makes a bad situation SO much worse.

The soundtracks diabolical, the cast have almost no energy behind their performances and sound like non actors who’ve been roped into appearing in a friends film for a laugh and a case of beer.

It’s a totally dreadful movie to sit through, with maybe a handful of fun little gory bits that *JUST* about stop it from being a film I actively hated. The only time I think i’ll ever catch this one again is if I choose to review it for the youtube channel…and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I do that anytime soon. avoid.

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

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/