Tag: TYTD

The Strangeness (1985)

So this week we’re looking at “The Strangeness” a 1985 indie horror flick thats probably the last recommended film I’ll review for this year. Thats not to say that I dont want requests or recommendations coming through! no no! I love it when people tell me about strange crap I’ve never seen before. But we’re rapidly approaching Autumn and with it a block of specials that pretty much means that as of today (the 2nd of August 2018) I can pretty much tell you the entire schedule of whats to come review wise from next week through to the first week of January. This is because depending on how the Halloween poll goes (that closes in 2 days by the way! just for your information!) I’ll be doing either 5 videos on the theme of general halloween spookiness or 5 films on the history of vampires. but they’ve already been decided…equally all of Decembers films have pretty much been organised and locked in at this point as well…which only leaves 3 weeks in september and 4 weeks in November to fill! And the 3 weeks in september are all but locked down right now as it is! honestly; I have 1 slot unaccounted for at this point and it’s in November… and thats likely to fill up pretty quickly as time pushes on!

So yes, basically if you recommend me a film or make a request between now and the end of the year please dont be diheartned if I dont get round to it dramatically quickly. It will get done I guarentee it! it just may take me a little while…

In the mean time though. please enjoy this strange strange film…I dont really have too much to say about it beyond whats already mentioned in the video. it didnt thrill me…but I wasnt disgusted either!

 

(What I will say is this VHS cover is VASTLY superior to the current DVD cover…I dont know what this VHS covers about but I know I want to see the film BADLY!)
by tytdreviews

Braindead (Dead Alive) (1992)

Im ashamed that I left watching “Braindead” till as late in my life as I have. It’s not really considered a mainstream horror in the same way that the “Nightmare on elm streets”, “Friday the 13ths” and “Halloweens” of the world are…in a sea of slashers where the closest thing to compare it to would be “The Evil Dead 2” Braindead stands out by a country mile as a truely shocking and twisted slice of Dark horror comedy.

It had always been on the outskirts of my film viewing horizons. I’d seen clips from it over the years but for one reason or another i’d just never got round to watching it…I was still trying to get the “Classics” under my belt…missing by a country mile the classic I could have been watching all along with this beauty!

I decided when I finally did down this movie that I had a choice…I could either watch it in pristine bluray quality (Bootleg but definitely enjoyable) or I could watch it for the first time in mangled VHS-vision…I chose the latter and I really dont regret my choices. The general nastiness of this film is enhanced tremendously by the nasty, grainey and semi chewed up fuzz that VHS provides…I actually own the Rental copy of this movie…It came from a video shop in Rhyl (It still has all the stickers from the shop on it and everything!) and watching it back through the murk you really get a feeling for the history that this tapes been through in order to arrive in my collection. I really do treasure it…Until peter jacksons 4K remasters of these movies come out it’s the closest I’ve got to watching this film in it’s intended condition…Though equally if they were to do what they did with the “Nekromantik” Bluray and include a polished up Super clean cut…alongside a trashed “Grindhouse” cut I’d be terrifically grateful…

I’d love to see Jackson return to these kinds of films…controversial, shocking, and brilliantly wicked fun…I know he probably never will but I can dream!

 

(Also this is one of those films that has never quite been able to get it’s promotional marketing quite right…this is the best representation of the film I could find (The rental cover) and it says absolutely bugger all about the film itself…It just looks really cool…)
by tytdreviews

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Okay so this morning I woke up to find that today’s episode (much like last week’s episode) has been blocked worldwide…this is a problem…I’m deciding whether or not to do a blog or a video about this because it may end up becoming a real issue for my channel if this keeps happening…in the mean time I’ve removed the video from this post and once it’s fixed and reuploaded I’ll relink it here…needless to say I’m livid…more to follow…

So! Its been a good few months since my “TMNT: The movie” review and I couldnt in good faith leave you guys with just that movie alone! So here’s the sequel! In all honesty I never saw this movie growing up. and in many ways I think it was probably for the better…I dont have that level of personal nostalgia over the live action films; that level of investment in them that may make me a bit bias towards how good or bad they were…had this been the 80’s cartoon series I may be telling you a different story right now, but the reality is that I always try to approach any film I review with an open mind. I leave any baggage at the door where I can and I try and talk about the film in a way that both gives you my opinion on it while at the same time being objective enough that you can get a feel for the tone yourself.

I’ll be honest, I wasnt the biggest fan of this film (Though the review will tell you more) but I do have to aknowlege that theres good stuff in here. I dont think any film is absolutely irrideamable…well “Almost” any film…but I have a soft spot for the turtles and I like the iterations of it that I like more often than not for the writing and tone. the turtles have gone for every major audience demographic going since there inception in the 80’s so theres something really for everyone out there if you look hard enough (Yes I know theres ninja turtle porno’s…no I wont be talking about them…this year…)

But I digress! for now! here’s Ninja Turtles

(The poster for this one isnt as good as the first turtles movie poster…I mean…it’s not bad…but I think the other one did it better…)
by tytdreviews

Octopus 2: River of Fear (2001)

This is one of those moments where I think I nailed my exact thoughts on this one perfectly through the video review.

Octopus 2 is not a good film. But just writing that really doesn’t do a service to just how craptacularly awful it is…while we’re not exactly in “Let’s ruin dad’s day” territory. We are worryingly close. Which does concern me…

All I can really tell you about this is that they stopped at Octopus 2 and having suffered through this movie so that you can get an idea of why you should avoid this like a plague rat all I can really say is, just don’t do it.

EDIT: So! todays been eventful! I originally wrote this post quite quickly while on a break at work and very shortly after I wrote it I recieved an email from youtube telling me that this video had been blocked worldwide by “Lasso Entertainment” for a 1 minute section that had been clocked as containing there “Visual content”.

Now; Apart from the fact that “Lasso Entertainment” dont even own the rights to “Octopus 2” this video is covered by fair use as I only use a small portion of the overall movie to help justify my opinions on the film. I use non of the audio (Not that that really matters) so I find it very difficult to see why they think it’s okay to hit me with one of these strikes. I naturally contacted Lasso almost immediately to try and get this resolved but they refused to respond to me and as a result i’ve had to reupload this video with approximately 1 minute and 1 second cut out. I can only apologise and hope that fewer of these kind of incidents happen in future.

(I much prefer the UK DVD cover for “Octopus 2” the US poster makes it look way more interesting than it actually is…)
by tytdreviews

She (1984)

Well, We’ve hit another recommended episode this week and this one was brought to my attention by Raymond; A man who’s been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have who’s genuinely been one of the most welcoming guys I’ve met on youtube. his channel really doesnt get a whole lot of love but he deserves to do better than he does. He really does.

I feel like I’ve warmed to “She” a bit more since watching/writing the review for this one…it’s not that I think it’s any better with the distance of time behind it but rather I think i’ve warmed to it’s style a bit more and what it’s aiming to do. I still pretty much stand by what I say in my video review, I just think some of those positive points shine a little bit brighter in hindsight.

Im hoping to work on a collaboration with Raymond sometime soon and he’s been very supportive in helping make it so. So you may not have seen the last of him on my channel just yet.

(I still say the Universal Monsters are the better elements of this film)
by tytdreviews

Gandahar (Light years) (1988)

I first watched Gandahar about 3 months ago and im still about as lost for words about it as I am to this day. Seriously. Where do I even begin to process what I saw in this epic Pure unadulterated slice of sci-fi…and this is pure sci-fi. theres no mistaking that. it’s pumping through this movies veins.

It’s such a wonderful piece of art from a time when Hand drawn animation was just beginning to wind itself down and the “Adult cartoon” genre was fizzling out into hybernation for the better part of 15-20 years when it would inevitably be revitalised by the likes of Adult Swim, Fox and MTV.

My review of this movie will speak more for it than anything I could ever type here. I feel that even typing this basic mop up post above this review is in some way cheapening the effect of this movie. it’s a tremendously powerful picture. So much so that this is the longest single review I’ve done for my channel to date (Clocking in at a whopping 33 minutes and 38 seconds) and the worst part is. I feel I could have said more…as it stands…well, I let me do the talking…

 

(In 1000 years my youtube channel will be deleted and 1000 years ago it will be restored…)
by tytdreviews

Phantom from Space (1953)

I was expecting better from “Phantom from Space” when I first popped it on. One of the joys of having an ongoing review series on youtube is that theres a constant feeling that I need to keep things varied. For example; I dont want to have too many action movies grouped together, or martial arts movies, or horror movies.

Doing that can make things a bit stale and unless I do themed months (Like last years Halloween run or this years “Alternative Doctor who” season) I always try my best to create a bit of distance between similar genre inspired films.

It’s been a good while since I did an old B-movie. Ring of Terror would be my last dip into the world of rubbish public domain 50’s and 60’s cinema and that was over 3 months ago! So I thought it was probably time to dust off the old “Mill Creek entertainment” sets and pick out another classic to spotlight.

“Phantom from space” was a title that immediately jumped out at me. it sounded spooky, ominous even. I was having visions of space based phantasms flying through the skies picking off members of the public and generally being very scary. The reality was much less so (As the review will testify) but I have to admit to having a bit of a “Guy with a sore tooth” fixation on old sci-fi movies like this. I hate them. I absolutely cant abide them unless they’re genuinely groundbreaking (Like “The Day the earth stood still” or many of the Toho movies) but I just keep coming back to them and I really cant shake them.

As it stands I still have about 120 of these movies left to cover so do expect more public domain oddities in future but for now I can only apologise for the boredom im about to unleash.

(NORMAL VIEW!!!!….NORMAL VIEWWW!!!!!!!!)
by tytdreviews

Tunnel Vision (1995)

Im going to be honest here, in hindsight I was very dissapointed with Tunnel Vision. I’d reviewed 1 or 2 Hollywood DVD releases in the past (Like Cyborg Cop 2 and The Bogey man) but this was the moment that I fully realised that Hollywood DVD was not to be trusted. I assume these were the kind of fodder you’d find in service stations or poundlands. They’re the cheapest of the cheap movies, given a slightly glossy box art and shoved out the door at a discount.

Its a clever tactic and there are hundreds of titles to choose from. The problem is all of these films range from “They’re okay” to “My eyes the goggles they do nothing!” Tunnel vision lands in the latter of this catagory and the sheer cynicism on display in putting the Lovely Patsy Kensit (Who’s genuinely lovely) on the box in an attempt to make it look like she’s going to be a major leading force in this (When in reality she plays the sidekick…and even then she doesnt really come into her own till the final act) is pure bull in my opinion. It totally soured my experience of this film (Which could have been probably quite reasonable had they just been honest with me and ran with the main male cop on the front of the box) I cant even really say this was a “HollywoodDVD” thing because the original film poster for this film (Which looks awful) also had Kensit front and center in some vein attempt to make it look like she’s the hero/star.

This isnt the absolute pits. but in all honesty I’ve seen much better. Though based on some of the reviews I have coming up I’ve also seen much much worse from HollywoodDVD.

(Theres something oddly satsfying about this poster…the UK DVD box art is atrocious…)
by tytdreviews

Whoops Apocalypse (1986)

Its not often that I find a film that contains so many faces im familliar with yet at the same time has absolutely failed to bring itself to my attention. And yet Whoops Apocalypse is one of those movies. I literally didnt know it existed until I actively started to look for VHS tapes on Ebay. it was while I was on there that I saw someone was selling a Big box ex-rental of this movie having seen it starred Peter Cook I quite wrongly assumed it was some kind of rare find. I bid nearly £15 for that time and im kind of glad I got outbit because I was able to pick up the DVD copy of this film for about a fiver.

Its a bit of a hodge podge of a movie, about a third of it works really bloody well, about a third of it is okay and about a third of its bloody awful. But the good bits hit quite nicely and while I’ll be the first to say it wont be a film i’ll be revisiting for a while, it does have enough good moments in it that if you’ve never seen it before and you have access to it I’d say check it out.

Its a bit of a strange movie and a real oddity to me. I dont think I’ve seen anything quite like it really. Peter Cook and Rik Mayall are the definite highlights of this picture and are worth the price of admission on there own.

(Of all the promotional materials I’ve seen the VHS carton boxart (Above) is my favourite…what on earth is happening there!)
by tytdreviews

Power to the P.I.F! – Public information films: A Retrospective (2018)

I did it! One year on Youtube and it’s a double celebration because with this article the entire site is now backdated which in turn means I can finally make this site public to the public! So Hello if you’ve seen my nightmare fueled advert and welcome! you’ll find plenty around here to keep you busy so please feel free to leave a comment or say hi!

Public information films have been something that i’ve been interested in for a number of years, as a kid I mainly remember the “Think” campaign but there were many others that happened around this time that really stuck in my mind.

It wasnt really until I met my very good friend Ben that I discovered there was an active following for public information films, and that further more he’d been collecting them for years. we’d swap stories of P.I.F’s from around the world regularly and he’d happily point me to some form of carnage as and when he found it. Ben produced a documentary called “Out of your tiny minds” or something similar (Titled from the pif that shares the same name) So when it came to tackling these films I really couldnt think of anyone better to help me. I really cant thank him enough for giving up his time to help me make this and to do it right.

It was very difficult to decide which public information films would make it into this special and which wouldnt, but after the positive response i’ve recieved from this video i’ll almost certainly do a follow up in future. Though quite when that’ll be I couldnt honestly say.

For now though, im happy. A year might not seem like a long time to be doing youtube but it’s been an eye opening experience and I really hope Im here this time next year telling you just how excited I am to have been here now for 2 years!

Thank you to everyone who’s regularly tuned in and followed me on this Journey it really means a lot and thank you in particular to everyone who’s reached out and offered either video recommendations or collaboration opportunities. you’ve really made me feel very welcome and I hope there are many further good times ahead.

 

(Warning! the rabies P.I.F is in this episode…you know the one…well you’ve been warned now it’s out of my hands…)
by tytdreviews