Tag: Comedy Dining experience

Finishing the Complete Eleventh Season (2022)

Well! when it came to the 2nd half of our 5th anniversairy celebrations, I decided to try and do a bit of everything. Part of me wanted to cover movies i’d wanted to do for years (“Flight to Hell“, “Cannibal Girls“, “Camp Blood“) Some were movies i’d promised id do in the future, and then totally forgot to do in the future (“The American Ninja 4“, “Cyborg Cop 2“, “Alien Species“) and some were first time watches that arrived on short notice and genuinely caught me off guard (“Gatwick Gangsters“, “Night of the Demon“, “Dont go in the house“). Hell, we even rounded off the TYTD Reviews episodes by revisiting our very FIRST video for the channel “The Dragon Lives Again” hopefully finally doing justice to a film I’ve long admired and wished my review of could have been better.

It was a celebration of the old, and a look forward to the future of the channel. With this series marking a few milestones, it being the last season edited in 1080p,the last season edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, The last to use the branding we’ve been using now since 2020 across all fronts and the last season predominantly recorded on my focusrite condensor mic, a mic thats pretty much been what you’ve heard me through since AT LEAST 2020, which also made a few on and off appearences between 2017 and 2019 too.

What does the new season hold? well as seen in the review for “Dont go in the house” i’ve had a systems and kit upgrade on almost all fronts! including a new machine, a new mic, new lights for the packaging shots, new editing software and some other new tools to help give a bit more variety. As such we have new branding across all our main shows, we’ll be solely uploading in 4k going forward with better quality sound and visuals, faster processing power means it takes less time to export and convert reviews now, and as such it means we’ll be able to *hopefully* turn things around a bit quicker which’ll give me some time back to be able to enjoy a sunset or eat a well prepared meal!

There have also been some changes that are not quite as pleasent to announce, but here we are. After 2 years or so of monthly uploads and over 50 feature length commentaries, “The Comedy Dining Experience” will be swapping back to an irregular upload schedule, as it was when we first launched in 2018. Part of this is down to the amount of time it takes to edit the commentaries, part of it’s down to lower uptake than our other shows (we’ve had some episodes record less than 20 views after 3 weeks of being live in some cases) and part of it’s down to both myself and Ben just being absolutely ram jammed with stuff going on at the minute. Im in the middle of writing/recording and editing next years episodes (and I still have stuff to finish with Season 12!) and Bens recently had several good news stories that means he’s a lot busier than he was at the moment.

What this means in practical terms is that the Comedy Dining experience isnt going anywhere, it just means that, for the moment at least, it’s going to be on pause while we sort life stuff out, and when it does come back it’ll be likely an “As and when” affair rather than a regularly scheduled “thing” which will allow me more time to work on and refine our reviews, and it means we wont be oversaturating the channel too.

What it ALSO means is that we can do other fun things like monthly game night streams (we’ve done 3 so far and a pilot) AND it’s meant I can start an official Discord from which we’ll be hosting various watchalongs, games nights and other good stuff, alongside chats on everything from good and bad movies to music and weird youtube oddities, so do please tag along for that!

Season 11 marked a change in the wind for the channel, and with Season 12 currently rolling out weekly, I hope your enjoying the direction we’re taking the channel in, I had an absolute blast working on this season, I think it’s one of my favourites i’ve worked on alongside Season 10 and the chance to work and hang out with so many interesting people in collaboration has been an absolute delight. I couldnt have asked for a better 5th year on the platform.

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Dont Go In The House (1979)

Well! it’s summertime once again and honestly, im beyond thrilled to be back in the driving seat for our (now annual) summer special! Honestly, not having my usual friday hang out with people as I share that weeks strange flick is always an usual experience, but! needs must while I work away on new episodes for you guys to stretch from September to the end of the year!

I always feel like its a bit of a special occasion when the summer specials come up, it’s a chance to push the boat out, do something a bit off the beat and path and just have a bit of fun with some fantastic creators.

And this years no exception as we have Mike from Rotted Reviews on board to talk about 1979’s Dont go in the house! Mike was an absolute sweetheart through all of this, and I genuinely enjoyed working with him on this slice of fried gold! We talk about it in the video itself, but while this is a VERY fun little movie, it isnt exactly a gold star MUST SEE flick, it’s just quite good fun, and I always enjoy working with collaborators on movies like this as I find it very interesting to see what people make of just “decent” movies. it allows for a much more interesting conversation.

This special also see’s a few changes to “The Red Triangle” it’s our first epiosde in ultra sharp 4k resolution! it’s our first video to feature our brandspanking new “Red Triangle” intro! Our first shakeup of that intro since 2018! (not including our holiday rebrands which were basically just the exact same intos but with either stock snow inserted or coloured with an orange tint!)

Its the first time we’ve used sub bumpers (controversial, I know…but im curious to see if they do work) and we’ve revamped our outro slide, finally retiring our previous slide after 2 years service AND retiring the “Sliding” black and white text motif thats been a part of our outro banners since 2018 as well!

Thats not to mention upgrades in terms of our editing software (whereas “Night of the demon” will hold the title of “First episode we edited on our newly upgraded editing machine”, This episode gets the honour of being the first one we edited using a 4k workflow on a fully paid up version of Da Vinci resolve where we really tested the metal of our new machine!) we also upgraded our mic, retiring our trusty red Focusrite condenser mic (used on and off between 2017 and 2019 before becoming our main mic from 2020 right up to “Night of the Demon”) for a lovely RODE NT1-A Condenser mic, we’ve upgraded our lighting kit for better packing shots AND we’ve upgraded our workflow efficiency with some new tools to help make my life a lot easier in terms of production process and to hopefully take time off rendering and processing.

This is just a brief glimpse into the future of how our reviews will be growing and evolving over the coming weeks/months and hopefully years. and so far, the feedback we’ve recieved has been VERY positive, which honestly, I couldnt be happier about (and thank you so much to everyone who has commented on our refresh, it’s genuinely made me feel so happy!)

So! this was our Summer Special 2022! we’ll be back with a full season starting on September 9th 2022 and I cant wait for you guys to check it out!

Again; super special thanks to Mike for making this review possible, if you enjoyed him here, he has a patreon full of awesome goodies that I highly recomment you check out here!

The original poster is literally a charred cadaver…I couldnt get that past youtubes censorship guidelines…so heres the arrow video art which is just…stunning, Love it!
by tytdreviews

The Dragon Lives Again 2022 Redux (1977)

Look…I had to okay? I just had to. My first review on the channel WAY back in 2017 was “The Dragon Lives Again” a film I chose mainly because it was (at the time) my all time favourite good/bad movie. and while I’ve grown and diversified in all the time i’ve been doing this, my love for this film has honestly not deminished one iota. I LOVE this movie, for its big, stupid, bizarre, copyright infringing heart and soul it manifests and everything it stands for.

Obviously with it being my first review on the channel and the 2nd ever review I wrote for this thing! (the first being a pilot episode I wrote and partially edited that…didnt feel right so I scrapped it.) after 5 years it waaaas beginning to look a little creaky. at the time I wrote the review I wasnt as honed on research as I am now, I didnt have nice lighting kits or a studio grade mic or a decent machine to edit on, I didnt structure my scripts, my work around pacing and my channel branding was frankly atrocious, I put ZERO passion into my delivery on the mic… (the things you learn as you grow)

I worked with what I could at the time, but generally I kind of treat my work at this point as two “eras” the first being Seasons 1-5 Basically everything from the first review up to “Jack Frost” which was a learning curve and as such things are very much a “Work in progress” and then from Seasons 6 to the this review I kind of feel like I had chance to stop, recharge, rework my content, improve my methodology and develop into something that today im beyond happy with. it feels like my work from Season 6 has led to now and my revisiting this video.

So much has been discovered about “The Dragon Lives Again” in the 5 years since my initial review went live, better quality copies of the film have surfaced, theres more information around how it was distributed, not to mention that theres generally just…a TON to talk about in this film that in my original review I absolutely failed to do. I didnt want to do a 2.5D remake of my original review like I did with “The American Ninja 2” because I felt more needed to be said. So this is a from the ground up redo. taking on what i’ve learned and putting it into one of the most comprehensive reviews of this movie that I could possibly aim for. we’ve come full circle and this era of TYTD is now coming to something of an end. I feel a lot happier about things with this movie now having proper representation on the channel, and I hope you enjoy it.

As for the future? well; in the time that this review was completed and uploaded i’ve upgraded my mic, my computer, my editing software and much much more. it’s a new beginning, and I hope you enjoy where we take the show going forward (Dont worry, we arnt shaking things up THAT much…consider it a polish and shine rather than a ‘ripping the heart out’ moment)

So! To ‘The Dragon Lives Again’ the film that launched the channel and forever may it sail!

The poster is SO badass, I just wish there was more high quality promotional material from this film available because as it stands ALL my editing work for promotional materials for this movie had to revolve around this poster and low res screengrabs…poo poo.
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Night of the Demon (1980)

Welp! for the penultimate episode of this season, the penultimate episode of our 5th anniversairy celebrations AND the last ‘Red Triangle’ of the season to boot! I figured i’d have to go all out and honestly, I dont think I could be happier with this one, Tony from the Video Nasty Project agreed to join us on this one and im BEYOND grateful he dropped by for this one!

Over on his channel he’d previously reviewed this one and mused that he felt the film was poorly represented and thats why it got such a bad rep, at the time it was only available as a VERY ropey transfer dumped on tape in the 80s and disc in the early 2000’s.

Well, when Severin and 88 films announced a ground up remaster from the original elements. I got in touch with Tony in a heartbeat and asked if he’d be interested in re-evaluating and man. he really bought his all to this one.

A genuinely great way to tie things off, a fun exciting movie and a reminder to myself of exactly why I do these things. with only 1 more review to go before we round the season off. we’re hitting the highs now!

I always felt the original artwork was a bit muted, this is much MUCH better.
by tytdreviews

Cyborg Cop 2 (1994)

As part of our 5th Anniversairy celebrations, we once again took a dip into the old archive and boy howdy did I land on a winner with this one.

I loved ‘Cyborg Cop 2’ its a daft, weird, stupid, goofy movie and I SINCERELY hope it gets a proper bluray release in future because…my GOD this films wild. the original is positively stationary compared to this things utter crazy. and I love it, love it, LOVE it for that.

What are you even reading this for!? go watch Cyborg cop 2…right now!

OH! and this ones blocked in several places across the globe (bloody rubbish bloody copyright theiving bastards.) But it’s okay, I’ve uploaded a universally watchable copy to Odysee which you can watch by clicking here

Poor Poster…FUN movie!
by tytdreviews

She Freak (1967)

In many ways, I wish I could have been kinder to She Freak, it’s not a BAD movie by any stretch, I just feel like it’s a difficult film to market really, how do you sell a movie thats basically a 60’s remake of Todd brownings “Freaks” but with all the wonderful pathos and artiness that is the chiascuro 1920’s black and white drenched goodness removed?

“Oh, it’s basically “Freaks” but toned down because the MPAA didnt like the original and less interesting” is a HELL of a tagline. Not helped AT ALL, by the fact they hang their hat on the titular “She Freak” who doesnt ACTUALLY materialise ‘freaked up’ until the end, and even then only for 60 seconds max. I know the whole idea is that SHES THE REAL FREAK FOR BEING A JERK YEH? YEH!. But the reality is, it just fell short of really truely winning me over, and in many ways I felt quite let down by it for that.

That being said AGFA have done a BLINDER of a job on this thing, it looks incredible and if you were lucky enough to get the limited edition slip (as seen below) then you were doubly blessed! honestly while the film may not be *THAT* great, the release really cant be faulted.

That slipcover…god DAMN.
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Doc Shock 2: Electric Boogaloo (Documentary Reviews 2) (2022)

Well; we’re back on the documentaries again, and honestly, it’s been WAY too long. EVERY season since the original “Doc Shock” I’ve sworn BLIND that i’d do another doc shock that season. EVERY. SINGLE SEASON. I’ve sworn id do it, and every time for one reason or another it’s completely fallen through. WELL! for my 5th anniversairy i’d be DAMNED if I was going to let one of the oddities of “The Red Triangle” go unloved! So here we are!

the big downer with this one was unfortunately the copyright aspect of the whole thing, at least 3 out of the 5 documentaries I covered in this video were almost ENTIRELY made up of archive footage. basically narratives built using news stories, old interviews, stock footage. a patchwork of history woven together to tell a story. and the problem with documentaries that are built like that from a critical standpoint is two fold.

First, it makes it difficult to convey exactly WHY the documentary is so good, because the footage isnt strictly indicative of the quality. me showing you news footage of Frank Sidebottom riding on a riverboat or Obama giving an interview wont tell you DIDDLY about what the documentary is like…it just tells you Frank Sidebottom and Obama are in those respective documentaries. and in the case of “The Silent Minority” the footage is SO harrowing, that even though it IS on youtube and available to view in full, I wouldnt feel comfortable showing it for the purpose of recommendation (seriously it’s that hardcore) So this is one of the rare cases where really, for the most part, I felt that including footage was kind of pointless…not that that matters really because…

Secondly; including all this archive footage is basically like trying to will youtubes copyright system to nuke the video. Seriously; it’s bad enough when I cover ONE movie in terms of getting worldwide blocks, takedown notices and other such bunkum. So IMAGINE trying to upload a review of a documentary that uses HUNDREDS of clips from various TV channels, films, internet uploads etc…it’d be a massacre. and one im not entirely interested in trying to clear.

So in the end this ended up being “Audio Only” a little underwhelming…true. But! this isnt a standard review…this is really more a list of recommendations. and I really hope you find a documentary thats right for you!

Out of all of these, I probably enjoyed “Thats Sexploitation” the most, though “Being Frank” is a close second!
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Alien Species (1996)

So back in the mists of time, I found a movie called “Alien Species” from 1995, at the time I couldnt find ANY trivia for it really other than Troma being the distributor (but not creator) of the film AND the fact that less than 12 months after this movie got put out, in a COMPLETELY different part of the country ANOTHER film would come out ALSO called “Alien Species” At the time the idea that two movies could hit the market so close together with SUCH a small budget (the combined budgets of both of these films wouldnt even pay for the catering on a mid sized budget production) AND given they were both, kind of from the same stable…well it fascinated me to say the least. For a time I debated whether to cover them both back to back for comedic effect, indeed. what better way to follow up “Alien Species”, than with “Alien Species”? but I had trouble finding the ’96 version of Alien species and ultimately, while I had at least ONE version of the two films in my hands, it just made sense to cover the one I had and if I found the other one, then more power to me.

Anyway skip forward a year or two and I picked up Mill Creeks “Nightmare Worlds” set, and LO and behold! THIS movie was on it. I knew as soon as I saw it listed I needed to get it covered and originally this WAS going to be in my 10th Season of reviews in November, but given i’d already covered so many low budget SOV films at that point, It didnt feel like a fluid and natural situation and crowbar this into the season as well, it would have made the season lopsided and a bit too heavy on low budget, SOV sci fi and horror films. SO! I wrote the script and then shelved it (Swamp Women took the place of this in the November Schedules) and it sat on my dock ready to be implemented for the best part of 5 months until FINALLY it fit in in a comfy little spot in Season 11!

I think the review more than speaks for itself, I cant say I was a huge fan of this one, but; with it sort of being the “Part 1” of what was supposed to be a much bigger franchise, I feel maybe with a bit more development and a sequel or two, this could have been something a bit better. as it stands it feels like someones handed me a third of a rubicks cube and told me to “solve it” and im kind of just staring at it wondering what on earth that would involve

This poster looks like something “Ab-So-Lutely” productions would come up with. WAY to busy and just plain odd.
by tytdreviews

Ozone (1993)

I honestly relished the opportunity to cover more J.R Bookwalter, really genuinely relished it. after spending damn near a month covering his early works and the infamous “SOV Six Pack” I felt like this was very much the “Spiderman Far From Home” to the six packs “Avengers Endgame” And honestly? I absolutely was NOT dissapointed.

It really felt like, after the six pack, Bookwalter had burnt out and REALLY wanted to recenter, refocus, reprioritise and give his absolute ALL to whatever he made next. and when I tell you that I think this is arguably one of (if not THE) best film J.R has made, and I would be MORE than happy to say its one of (if not THE) best SOV film ever produced. I am not saying that lightly. this films exceptional in its field, really honestly exceptional. And each day your not sat in front of this for the first time is a sadder day my friend. so hop to it!

There are more Bookwalter films out there to cover, and believe me; when they get a bluray release, you better believe i’ll be right there DAY ONE to buy and cover them. I dont know if he’s going to re-release all his films, but i’ll cover as many as I can get my hands on!

I also have to seriously commend the rebranding and remastering of the official bluray for this set, given the materials wernt exactly grade A1, JR’s weaved nothing short of witchcraft into this release to get it looking as good as it does. im seriously impressed.
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