This was not a good movie. it wasnt quite the worst I’ve ever seen. but it was pretty bad. We’re talking just south of Clarke Paylow bad. which is pretty bad. this film isnt badly made…I mean it’s badly cut and tinted (In my opinion) but it commits the cardinal sin…it’s really boring and it just retreads existing ground that the first film covered. it’s a needless sequel. it literally serves no purpose other than to exist…and to me thats a real downer….
I think I thrash this one pretty consistently in the video below…but if you want an even shorter review than that. You’re unlikely to fall onto this one in the wild. and if you do. run the fuck away from it. it’s almost Hallmark christmas movie bad.
(The cover is literally the best thing about this…and even thats a bit rubbish…)
This movie brings to a close a 3 year trilogy of Film Roman (and film roman esq) Christmas movies. Starting with Dot and Spots magical Christmas adventure, and then last year with Nick and Noel. These tend to be the most common animated non mainstream kids films out there. And honestly? most of them could go in the crushy bin for me.
I think out of all of them Dot and Spot was probably the one I enjoyed the most, Nick and Noel was okay but a little bland and this film has way too many problems despite it’s mightily impressive cast list. Holly and Christopher are just a bit creepy to me and in general the bears who saved christmas is just a pretty mediocre christmas special.
I dont want to be a scrooge about this but honestly; there is much much better out there. You can do better and deserve better than these movies. I dont know if there are any more film roman christmas specials out there. honestly I havent looked that much further beyond these three films…there has to be more surely?…surely.
(There are no good covers for this special…and it never got a poster…so…bleh. this’ll do)
This was probably my favourite older “Find” of 2019 I realise it wont be for everyone taste wise but it’s mixture of Campy horror, faux 50’s rock soundtrack and the genuine feeling that Norman J. Warren enjoyed his time making this. Really shines through with Bloody New Year.
We’ve done a full length commentary of this movie landing this new years. and I was shocked that my partner in crime Ben wasnt as enthralled with it as I was. he found it funny but he said it was more irritating than anything else…Which while not shocking did surprise me a little bit.
Either way. Here’s Bloody New Year…A film that apparently only looks worse over time.
(This VHS cover is so badass…all the other promotional material generated for this movie never really manages to land the campier absurdities this film offers…this VHS cover to me is the closest it’s ever come.)
It’s Red Letter Media who should really get the thanks for properly introducing me to XTRO honestly…I had seen clips from this film before but I didnt really get a chance to properly understand the context of those clips until Mike, Jay and co properly broke this film down. It was after watching there overview of this movie that I knew I had to see it for myself.
And I really wasnt dissapointed…this films a real oddity. and it’s genuinely one of the hardest films I’ve had to catgorize for my channel really…I still have doubts about whether it should have been a “Red Triangle” episode or not…but I just dont think the films smart enough or tonally in line enough to be an out and out arty horror film…it’s just kind of…On the level. Which is fine! dont get me wrong if your looking for a movie to watch I DEFINITELY recommend you go and check this one out. But if you’ve had any prior exposure to this one beforehand. do lower your expectations. You may have it in your head that this films going to brilliant. It is enjoyable…but it’s not earth shattering. Your not looking at a top tier cult classic here…it’s definitely cult. but I think it’s got a bit more time to go on it yet before I can personally call it an out and out “Classic”
Enjoyable. This films enjoyable. I’ll probably watch it again. I still really want to get my hands on the Bluray for it at some point. but for now there are other pictures to be cracking on with. And im not in a major hurry to revisit this one.
I’ll repeat here what I said in my review (And im going to “Caps” it to be annoying) IF YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH THIS MOVIE, GO AND BUY THE BLURAY!. I really cant stress that point enough…this film looked fine on tape. But on Bluray I imagine its infinitely much more enjoyable!
(There are a couple of posters floating around for this one…neither of them really capture the true essence of XTRO though…I do realise that is a big ask.)
Back again just before the years out! Dan and Ben decide to take on a Fulci movie! but not just any fulci movie! arguably one of the strangest and biggest knock-off fulci movies there ever was! 1982’s Manhatten baby is far from a classic but it certainly gave us a run for our money (As you’ll no doubt see!)
(The poster makes this film look a hell of a lot better than it actually is)
A shorter post than usual from me this time round but I thought I would try something a bit different with this one. I’ve wanted to cover Documentary as a genre on my youtube channel now pretty much since I started it over 2 years ago. but whenever I’ve tried (And their have been many failed attempts) they’ve either come out WAAAAAY too short or I just wasnt happy with the end result. I always felt they were lacking…and while Im not going to say im exactly a beacon of high water level quality; I do want to make sure that im at least happy with what I put out.
And so the idea to compile a few of these was born. apart these reviews felt a bit orphaned. but together I feel like it forms a comprehensive look into some of the films I’ve wanted to talk about for years but never actually had the chance to. I didnt really get into watching documentaries until my mid to late teens (More often than not I was having them thrust upon me rather than me actively deciding to seek them out) so im not exactly brimming with documentaries to recommend. but I have a few I’d like to share (And this video did a bit better than I was expecting) so I may well do a DOC-SHOCK 2 (Electric Boogaloo) at some point in the future.
For now. I can recommend any of the 4 I speak about in this review and they’re all (For the most part) quite easy to find. I hope you get a kick out of them in the same way I did.
(Out of all of these my favourite poster has to be the Video Naties one. Though “The Nomi Song” also has a soft spot in my heart in terms of posters)
It took me a while to get around to the other feature shown on the prism leisure ultra cheapo kids double pack collection which featured the worst film i’ve ever seen “Lets Ruin Dads Day“. Indeed I put off talking about “Little Hero’s” for so long purely because I couldnt face seeing what film would be deemed “On par’ with such a terrible terrible movie. Which I think is why Im so non plussed about this movie. it’s not offensively bad, but you definitely could do better.
Its a rip off film at it’s heart mainly happy to try and suck any life it can get from the Home alone movies or the “Talking animal” genre which became very popular in the early to mid 90’s but by 1999 was most definitely on the wane.
Honestly; if you never saw this movie you’d never miss it…which is probably the most damning thing I can say about it. it’s impact in the world is as such that if it completely vanished off the face of the earth tomorrow. Probably only half a dozen people would even notice or care.
the cardinal sin is “Thou Shalt not Bore” and this films predictable plot, bad acting, below standard slapstick and generally poor production values (Made only worse by the blatant pizza hut promotional pieces) just left me waiting for this film to end.
I will do the sequels at some point…but at the minute my “To Watch” Pile is literally terrifying and I also am in desperate need of making a new blog for the site…so it may be a while before we find out how good the script was that a studio decided “Little Hero’s 2” was a good idea.
(This film didnt have a film poster (As far as I could find). So here’s the DVD cover. I dont know what im looking at…it looks like someone just took random stills/promotional work and laid them over someones shed…to me; its an offense to the eyes)
As mentioned in my last video review post here I’ve quite recently worked in collaboration with the team over at “Inside the Nutshell” to cover both “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (Available here) and it’s equal “Shock Treatment” and here is the 2nd part of that.
Personally; whether it’s down to overfamiliarity with the former or whether the charm has just rubbed off I’ve found myself somewhat weining to Rocky over recent years…by contrast Shock Treatment feels like a booster shot in the arm of life! it’s so high energy, rocky and relentless I loved it on the first vieweing and fell in love with it on the 2nd viewing.
Im very fond of this movie and having been able to produce this review with likeminded friends my memories of this movie have only grown more and more positive. And I cant wait till I get to watch it again in future 🙂
(Also how striking is this film poster!? Jesus!?…it’s not one i’ll forget in a hurry!)
Well! that’s it! Halloween 2019 done and dusted! and here we find the final part of our month on Vampire movies! I had a lot of trouble choosing which 80’s movie was “SO” definitively 80’s and a vampire movie…I could have done “Fright night” but I’ve only ever seen it twice and both times I watched it I got so absolutely fed up and bored of it that I couldnt bare to both sit through it again, nor end a plesent month on vampires with a film I was going to slag off (I will talk about it in the future though…dont worry about that!)
The Lost Boys was the other strong contender for this one but I felt it was too late 80’s for this kind of thing…it’s a good film (Of what i’ve seen of it) but it missed to many crucial elements of the early 80’s to make it an all incompassing feature. “Vamp” by contrast is 80’s to it’s marrow. it has the dark and brooding styalisation that would come to plague the late 80’s but it also has the charming and heavily art driven style that the early 80’s neuwave brought to the scene…add to that that it’s painfully self aware and a bit of a screwball comedy at times and I truely think this is probably the best all encapsulation of an 80’s vampire movie…it pleases neither side of the 80’s movie experience but it covers both.
I enjoyed this movie…and I really hope you guys do too! Happy halloween! and till next year! Unpleasent dreams 😉
(There are tons of variations of the “Lips” Vamp poster…but I think this one kind of covers everything you need to know about the movie…)
So we kind of need to step sideways in order to move forward here with Vampire month this halloween. While it could be argued that cinema in general was shifting towards the late 70’s to the 80’s film format that made massive successes of movies like “E.T”, “The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys” it wasnt without seismic shifts within the industry and within specific genres.
I chose to talk about “Phantasm” as part of Vampire month because the Symbolism is there, the attitude is there, the “Vibe” (For lack of a better word) is there. it isnt a vampire movie. and yet it somehow has the ora of one. I really REALLY liked this movie. it was a fun and interesting side avanue into the Horror genre. At some point I will look at the sequels (Though by all accounts this series is a bit like the “Hellraiser” movies…in the sense that the less you know about the universe the better the movies are…
Who knows when that’ll be mind!? my “To Watch” pile is frankly absurd these days…all I know is: Go watch Phantasm…right now.
(Seriously underwhelming poster for this one sadly…Theres so much they could have done with the themes and look this film has…and they settled on “Throw fucking everything on the poster…the more it looks like sick, the more people will want to see it!” Dissapointed.)
TYTD Reviews 