Tag: TYTD Reviews

V/H/S (2012)

Ugh…Dont make me promote this film more than I already have done! it’s just terrible! (In my opinion) The only thing I can really add is that while I knew there was a sequel (and I have already had offers from people willing to supply me with a copy of V/H/S 2 purely for the sake of doing another one of these) I didnt realise there were another 2 sequels (well…1 sequel and 1 spin offf) out there now also.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go back to these movies. I described it in the comments section to one viewer as “Needing to work up the volition for it” Im not an angry reviewer. I dont do things like the Cinema Snob or the AVGN or the Nostalgia critic. And I dont enjoy putting myself through movies I know Im very likely to dislike. I’m always open to giving fresh movies I think i’ll dislike  a chance because there is reasonable odds that It might change my mind (At which point im happy to sing it’s praise from the rafters) but movies like V/H/S have already established themselves in my mind as spineless and cheap. So why would I want to see more of that?.

I know in my heart of hearts I will talk about V/H/S 2 at some point…I just hope it’s as long a time as physically possible.

 

(I will say this though. Had the film been any good it’s poster would have been terrifically complimentary.)
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Mission for the Dragon (Maegwon) (1979)

Once again I decide to cover a martial arts movie. Once again I am dissapointed and baffled by exactly what the hell im watching. seriously I’ve very quickly learnt with the martial arts genre that the fight scenes rarely live up to the expectations of awesomness that the box art offers. but at the same time total randomness and bizarre asides always keep me hooked as I wonder what on earth is going on.

This films no different. Though the themes of Giallo cinema that run through this are very welcome and a refreshing change to the norm. It’s just a shame it isnt more widely utilised.

The only other thing I have to say is that since this episode was recorded and edited I’ve since found some more evidence to suggest that it’s the IMDB listing that is incorrect and that this film IS in fact a Godfrey Ho movie…Though as I said in the review Im not entirely surprised by that. Still Im always one who will admit a correction when needed!

 

(The VHS cover for this film is MUCH too good for this movie. this movie doesnt deserve it.)

 

Equally once again we have a film where finding decent posters or covers for them is remarkably slim. So here’s a copy of the UK VHS cover scanned in at 3k. hope you like it!:

 

Mission for the Dragon

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The Mad Monster (1942)

What we have here is a knock off movie with a heart. Honestly I don’t have much to say about this one that wasn’t already mentioned in my review. I feel what I said was pretty definitive of my opinion on it. It’s alright; Not great…typical 40’s B movie fodder…

What I can say however is that this episode of TYTD Reviews was the first one ever to be edited entirely within Da vinci Resolve. As someone who’s background is predominantly in video editing I take this as a bit of a milestone. to be honest I hadn’t been left with much of a choice really.

I first started by splicing and dubbing video tapes in the early 2000’s, it was fairly short lived and my cuts were terrible but I got the idea in principle. then I moved onto Windows Movie maker (Back when it was actually a functional NLE tool) which was where I learnt the absolute basics of digital editing, then I jumped up to Sony Vegas which I used from about 2008 till about 2012. That software was where I really cut my teeth on video editing. I learnt about multi track video editing, green screening, overlays, masking, the works. It was a real eye opener.

From 2012 until the present day I’ve been editing on Premiere Pro CS6. It was a smooth jump over aided by the fact that I was at that time studying media and film production at university which really let me get to grips with the software in an educational environment. however quite recently CS6 has been quietly nixed. Which means I’m in the market for a new NLE. I don’t get on with Final cut pro X (Snapping can go suck a fuck) Avid is alright if you literally have money to pour into a big fire. Premiere pro has now gone “Live service” meaning at minimum it’s £20 a month for the privilege (Which I wont be taking them up on) and Sony Vegas is Windows exclusive…And so through process of elimination I ended up with Da Vinci Resolve. and y’know what? It’s alright! it does everything I need it to do in a day to day capacity. I don’t know how it’ll fair with more complex video editing but for your bog standard cutting job it’s really pretty solid. And it’s the best price an editing tool can be. Free. it’s a bit fiddly at first but once you know where everything is it’s quite a decent piece of kit. I’m hoping to upgrade my setup in the next 12 months or so and when I do Davinci will probably be where I go. So theres a hot tip for yer!

 

…Anyway. Here’s the mad monster.

 

(There were no decent quality posters for the mad monster (And what there was was only available in landscape) So this ones fan made…I found it on Deviantart…but it looks legit enough)
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Emmanuelle (1974)

It’s been ages since I’ve covered an “Adult” film on here…I think in part it’s because reviewing erotic cinema can be a bit of a challenge. The line can be so fine between erotic cinema and just flat out porn that it can be really quite debatable as to whether im making an accurate critical assessment of it. Well that and Youtube has a barmy everytime so much as a nipple flies past the screen (This weeks review has been age restricted out of common decency)

There are several erotic films that I personally hold in very high regard that others consider really quite tacky or just porn. I mention in the video that im a massive Tinto Brass fan. but whereas most critics site his earlier works (Movies such as: The Howl, Salon Kitty or The Key) as prime examples of explorations of relationships and eroticism I personally much prefer his output in the 90’s which is much more bubblegum but with a distinct tinge of nastiness behind it. Not malice for the acts. but malice from misunderstood characters who slowly over the course of the films either learn better and become accepting of the situations in this film. Or get punished for continuing to not accept the scenarios. Movies like “All Ladies Do it“, “Cheeky” and “P.O Box Tinto Brass” are all quite comic in places but equally do have some slightly uncomfortable moments within them that make them challenging and engaging movies.

Emmanuelle was a film that very much put me in mind of Tinto Brass. it kind of feels like the missing link between his more serious 80’s art films and his more “Puff piece” light hearted 90’s films. I really genuinely quite enjoyed this one. the ending was deeply unplesent and the mysoginy sprinkled throughout I could quite happily do without but sans those elements this is quite a reasonable exploration of sexuality. I really do want to get my hands on the sequel just to see what the series did next and I really hope they didnt just go “Full porn” too quickly. Having seen the Emmanuelle TV series (both “2000” and “In Space”) I can confirm that at least by the 1990’s it had gone full softcore porn…Dont get me wrong there were some interesting ideas in there from a science fiction perspective…but a few interesting ideas sprinkled into porn is still porn ultimately. Honestly? I’d be interested in finding this films tipping point. though I feel it may be a while before I get my hands on another one of these.

https://www.breach.tv/embed/de94a383cd258cea331b

[Due to several copyright takedowns by the melts over at “Studiocanal” this episode is now being hosted uncut on Breach.tv – Please click the above link!]

(There are 3-4 posters for this film, but they’re all either in terrible quality or explicit. This one was the only one I could find that was neither of these things…and even then I had to crop it…It’s not my favourite poster i’ve seen though…)
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The Intruder Within (1981)

Im on Vacation! it’s only for a few days mind…but i’ve popped my flippers on, donned my factor 5000 sun tan lotion and Im striding out to enjoy the benefits of the british summertime!

With this in mind Im going to leave you with this stinker of a movie till I return! This was one of the first “Big Box” Tapes I picked up when I first started re-collecting VHS tapes. I saw the cover and just knew it would be a film that I’d need to watch/cover on this show. I was looking for tat. and I absolutely found tat here! it stinks!

It never had a cinema release and this movie basically was shown on US television once or twice before it was dumped onto tape and swiftly forgotten for a couple of decades…I wanted to like this one, I really did…but it’s so drab and such a clear knockoff of the Alien and Predator franchise that I just couldnt get anywhere near liking it as much as I could have.

Still that’s just my opinion…watch this weeks review and let me know what you think! In the meantime im off to fill a coconut with rum and to put my feet up in a shady glade! have a great week guys and gals!

(I can see teeth…and a mound of flesh…I still cant exactly decide where this things eyes are…never a good sign when it comes to a poster…It also looks a bit too close to “The Deadly Spawn”…)
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Finishing the Complete Second Season (2017)

Thus brings to a close the second season of this show that I worked on. and quite honestly?; I think i’d consider this one my most progressive season that I’ve done to date. Not only did this season really let me hone my pacing skills a bit better (Something I really struggled with in the first season) but it let me experiment a bit more in being more creatively minded with my editing techniques and it was a real crash course in sound mixing.

While I can only apologise for some of the sound balances through this season (In particular my “Dawn” and “Day” reviews are pretty inaudible in places due to peaks in the music track I used that I didnt spot until the video had already gone live) By the time of the seasons close I feel I’d more or less got the balances right and at some point in the future I may well revisit a few of these season 2 episodes and address some of the issues I’ve spotted going through them.

But im very proud of this season because for the first time I felt like I had something tangible in the making that I could share with friends, or show to strangers without being worried of being attacked for the quality of the material. I mean, Im always learning (Even today I learnt something very interesting about VHS transcoding which will come in very handy when I finally get onto Season 5) but this season was largely guided as well by the advice and suggestions of you, the audience reading this.

It was during this seasons run that I started to set in motion some radical changes that would appear in season 3, and between the movie suggestions from some of my long time viewers (A serious thanks to you guys. you’ve really helped me keep going through the highs and lows) and the help of fellow youtuber and expert on all things SEO “Alan Spicer” I really feel like I’ve been able to put my reviews out there confidently.

This season built on the last one and set the frame work for what was to come. my first livestreams happened in this season, as did my first use of “Holiday branding” and my first forray into message boards and reddit (Something I’d never dared to do before) it really helped build up my confidence and I think this was a valuable learning season.

 

(Personal favourites included my halloween specials, my puppet master review and “Christmas Evil”)
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Finishing The complete First Season (2017)

With Love Camp 7 being uploaded to this site that brings a close to my first Season of reviews on youtube. I originally intended each season of my show to be 12 episodes long with a week break at the end of each season acting as a stop gap to allow me to gain a weeks worth of time with which to either write or edit more episodes without fear of having to upload 1 or 2 in that week. However when I did the maths on this it quickly became apparent that if I had settled on 12 episodes a season I’d very quickly run into silly amounts of seasons in a very short period of time. Not to mention that at 12 episodes a season there wouldnt be enough to fully fill out a 52 week run properly.

It was because of this that I decided from Season 2 onwards to make it an 18(ish) episode run meaning there’d be longer seasons and more scope to distribute the episodes in such a way to make them run through the year.

I like to consider my first season a kind of “Testing the waters” time for my format really. I wasnt really sure how I was going to tackle my style, delivery or how these should be precisely edited. With bigger more professional productions I’d usually plan that side of things out merticulously but with this first season I decided to just play around and see which bits worked and which bits didnt (Something I hadnt done since my days as an experimental film maker nearly 4 years ago)

This was a really fun season to make and while I dont specifically touch on very many (If any) mainstream titles I do feel like I cut my teeth here. Season 2 would bring in some quite drastic changes to the format but at this point we say goodbye to the original opening titles and a total refinement of both my scriptwriting and editing processes. By the end of this season I’d gone from writing notes on my hand an hour before I went to record, to making notes, formally scripting and actually refining my dialogue in my audio editor rather than just cutting the lot together and hoping for the best.

So here is the playlist link to the entire of Season 1; It may not be the best but it was definately a fun journey!

(The Journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step)
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The Last Man on Earth – (1964)

Y’know…I have a tremendous soft spot for Vincent price. I always struggle as to whether I prefer him or Christopher lee…on the one hand Vincents been in some of my all time favourite horror films…but Lee has a presence on screen thats quite like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But I digress…

This! is the last man on earth! one of Vincent Prices finer and also more underrated performances! based on the Novel “I am Legend” he gives an absolutely wonderful turn here as Dr. Robert Morgan. Personally I always preferred his later work in the 70’s but I have a real fondness for this film. Its a shame its only available in the UK in such poor quality…

(My favourite bit in this movie is the one I choose to showcase in the clips. Its so strangely powerful)
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