Because nobody likes spending an hour reading a movie review, I bring you Quick Horror Movie Reviews, a site offering to the point reviews of horror films from a guy who has seen thousands of them. From the classics to the hidden gems, the slashers to the creatures, the multi-million dollar blockbusters to the direct to video awfulness, it's all here! Read, enjoy, and for the best experience, go old school and view the desktop version!
Gamera, the beloved turtle-monster and protector of all mankind, battles aliens trying to conquer Earth. This one was originally Gamera vs. Viras, but in an attempt to capitalize on the success of Godzilla's Destroy All Monsters, it was released in the United States as Destroy All Planets in 1969. So now that we have that confusion tackled, let's move on.
Gamera's ready to move on too
Gamera becomes trapped temporarily by the alien invaders, who read his memories to find his weaknesses--we see the results in flashback form, getting a solid 15 minutes of fight scenes from previous movies Gamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gaos, Even though there is a striking difference in the quality of the main film and the flashback scenes, I was very okay with this because 1) the black and white of the other films looked better than the poor picture quality of this film, 2) the fight scenes from those movies are cool and 3) it was fifteen minutes we didn't have to hear annoying child-dubbed voices--Annoying children is one thing I can never stomach in these Gamera films, and my goodness, are they ever irritating in this outing. A couple of the kids end up on the spaceship, and Gamera must obey the destructive orders of the aliens, or else risk the lives of the brats.
Here's the spaceship
The inside of the ship is filled with the "future of technology" gadgets we always find in these old-school films, so that's fun. The voice we hear communicating with the Earthlings is horrible, but some of the aliens looks rather sinister, in particular the ones with the glowing, Jesus from Carrie eyes that scared me half to death as a child...okay, they still might scare me a bit to this day.
This guy's not THAT scary
Gamera eventually puts an end to the whole taking orders from aliens thing, leading to the much-anticipated final battle with Viras, who is a squid-looking fella with some sharp ends to his tentacles.
Don't look, Sani
The battle is actually a brutal one, and includes stuff you wouldn't necessarily expect in what is essentially a kids movie, including Viras completely impaling Gamera--I actually felt really bad for our hero for a moment and thought this might be how he goes! Fear not, friends--Gamera not only survives this movie, but he comes back to fight on in future films. Destroy All Planets is very entertaining during the fight scenes, but is largely dreadful between them.
June (Kennedy Brice) is a nine-year-old foster child with a bad temper and imaginary friend; the rub is the temper isn't really hers, and her "imaginary friend", Aer, isn't imaginary at all--she's a demon waiting to be unleashed on the world so she can destroy mankind. We know immediately this isn't going to be the most original movie we've ever seen, so we have to push past that and let it attempt to stand on its own legs without much comparison to similar films. Coming out of the gates, we get the occult folks standing in the circle, the ritual, blah blah blah, and we see the visuals of this movie are going to leave a lot to be desired.
Blinded by the light...
Mercifully, these scenes are minimal, with the focus being more on character development (I was surprised too). Brice does a decent job as the title character/creepy kid--her unusual natural look helps a lot. Victoria Pratt is solid as Lily, June's foster mother, but Casper Van Dien (Sleepy Hollow) is nothing short of awful as Dave, the father. To the film's credit, there are some pretty intense moments, and you may find yourself on the edge of your seat at times. The movie builds up some steam leading into the final 15 minutes, but the wheels absolutely fall off when we are bombarded by horror cliches and, worse, horrendous directing and editing--the scenes of Van Dien in his car, hurrying home, are so amateurish they'll make you laugh, and the slow-motion peeling out in the leaf pile is beyond bad. These missteps take away any tension they had managed to achieve, and takes you completely out of the movie. Possession movies are a dime a dozen it seems, so the real challenges with these films are two-fold: make it really scary and/or make it really memorable--June attempts both, but accomplishes neither.
A photographer and a writer end up in a castle which backs up to a mountain--this doesn't sound like much, but would you be more interested if I told you this mountain was home to coven of witches (not an oven full of witches!)? Don't get any more excited upon hearing this, because this 1970's Spanish horror film is boring stacked on top of dull and topped with mind-numbing. We start off with a scene that is so different from the rest of the movie you wonder if it was actually meant for another movie and was accidentally put into this one. Our "hero" is some guy who yells...and yells...and yells, for seemingly no reason at all. Practically nothing at all happens in this movie until the very end, and even that is fairly uneventful. This movie really only has three things going for it...
This chick
This dude
...and some nice music. Are these reasons enough to watch The Witches' Mountain? No...no they're not.
Police Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) investigates the disappearance of several people, including his wife, in New York City, but what he finds is nothing he could have imagined. Along the way he gets help from a photographer (John Heard, Big), a freelance reporter (J.C. Quinn, Maximum Overdrive), and a self-proclaimed Reverend (Daniel Stern, The Wonder Years).
"I smoke pot for the Lord!"
This 1984 film is one that I had watched, and enjoyed, years ago, but it had somehow found its way out of my memory bank--I'm glad I went back to it! Movies from the 1970's and 1980's with that gritty New York City look and feel hold a weird, special place in my heart, and this flick certainly delivers in that department. Much of the film takes place in and below the Chambers Street subway station in Lower Manhattan (hey, I've been there!)--a group of homeless people live well under the station, and so do those responsible the many disappearances--the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.
"Just call us Chuds, everyone does"
Our monsters are impressive in that 1950's monsters throwback kind of way. We don't get a ton of gore with the death scenes, but the shots of the carnage left behind make up for that. What will likely surprise you most about this movie is the level of acting, which is really good considering this is a low-budget 1980's horror film. As weird as it was seeing Heard play a good guy (I can't see him in anything without picturing him saying "I don't get it, I don't get it!), he actually pulls it off nicely. Less surprising is a young Daniel Stern absolutely stealing the show and giving us hints at the goofiness he would be known for years later in movie such as City Slickers and Home Alone--and as hard as it is for me to picture John Heard as anybody other than Paul from Big, it's just as difficult for me to hear Stern's voice and not wonder how Kevin and Winnie are doing--I'm still bitter with the end of that series--don't get me started. The familiar faces don't stop there--Patricia Richardson (Quantum Leap) has a brief appearance, Sam McMurray (Raising Arizona) plays a cop, and, in the same scene, at the time unknowns Jay Thomas (Cheers) and John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane, Kong: Skull Island) show up for a moment or two.
They won't be laughing long
There are some political statements made in this movie, from the 1980's New York City homeless problems to government ineptness, that resonate even today, and I could go on and on about that, but nobody is here to read about that (at least I hope that's not why you're here, as you will be sadly disappointed), so I won't touch on that too much except to say it is obviously here, but not shoved down our throats as such messages are in other horror flicks...don't get me started on that either. Instead, go out and check out C.H.U.D--it's a fun eighties film that has a lot going for it, and leaves us with an ending that seems to tell us that although the monsters we know may not be dead, the real villain is.
Seven years after they accidentally kill one of their pledges, five sorority girls accept a mysterious invitation to a party. They all arrive to a seemingly empty house surrounded by an electric fence, but decide to party on anyway. They soon discover the father of the woman they killed sent the invitation, and he's out for revenge! My first thought was "who on earth would accept an invitation without knowing the sender, not being familiar with the house, and knowing the only other attendees will be every other girl that was there when the accidental homicide took place? Furthermore, seeing the house is surrounded by an electrical fence, they continue on on?", but then I remembered they were sorority chicks and it all made sense.
"We're TOTALLY ready to party!"
This movie was shot in 1972, not released until 1977, and almost has a made-for-television film that was a little ahead of its time feel, which is to say it is a little bloody for a 1970's TV movie, but is very tame compared to many similar movies of that decade. Most of the deaths take place off camera, and we see the results of some, reactions of others, and a couple in particular are just left to our imagination. What is probably most interesting about the method of revenge from the father is that he doesn't stalk his victims over the course of one night like we are used to; instead, he allows the captives (there are also two guys along for the ride, but their roles in the story are minimal) to roam freely about the mansion and outside it, taking his time with them. This also plays out as a mystery, as we find one of the girls is a mole...
Not THIS mole
...so part of the fun of watching this one is trying to figure out who is working with the father--I thought it was pretty easy to pick her out, but it was a nice touch to the story. The final showdown is actually fairly intense as well, and may have you questioning what you think you know about what has happened so far, and the final scene is a little shocking--I thought to myself if this happens, it would be a good way to end the movie, and sure enough, that's the direction they went in! So this one does have some twists and turns, but the rest of it is rather brutal. The acting is bad, the sound rough, and the directing and camera work are atrocious, though the ever-popular boom mike does drop in for a while to provide an unintentional laugh. The stupidity of many of the characters is inexplicable, and the movie really takes a while to regain traction after the first scene. That's a lot to sit through, but the ending kind of makes it worth it. Sisters of Death is not a movie you will want to spend hours trying to track down, but if you're on the couch with nothing better to do and you come across it, give it a shot.
The movie starts in 1958, where we see a deformed boy named Tommy, the son of the famed legend Pumpkinhead, killed by a group of teens. We fast-forward to modern day (the early 1990's in this case) and Pumpkinhead has returned for revenge. This straight-to-video followup to 1988's Pumpkinheadkind of strays away from the story we know and builds its own story--more baffling, it seems to ignore its own story near the end, leaving a convoluted mess. Pumpkinhead himself looks different (there may be a reason for that), but is still impressive.
But is it Pumpkinhead?
Lance Henriksen, the star of the original film, doesn't return here--our lead in this one is Andrew Robinson (Hellraiser) as Sean Braddock, and my goodness, is he ever awful. If you ever hear the term "overacting" and wonder what that means, check out Robinson's performance in this movie. Aside from Robinson, there are a few other performers we recognize in this movie--Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster) has a supporting role, Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th movies) and Linnea Quigley (Night of the Demons) both have brief appearances, Ami Dolenz (Ticks, Ferris Bueller, a TV show based on Ferris Bueller's Day Off that I, somehow, remember fairly vividly) plays Sean's daughter Jenny, and J. Trevor Edmond (Return of the Living Dead 3) plays Danny, Jenny's boyfriend.
Our cool couple
This movie was shot in just 3 weeks, and it shows, as the entire feel of the film is very rushed. Edmond and Dolenz, who, incidentally, is the daughter of the drummer and singer for The Monkees, Micky Dolenz (Halloween), both turn in decent performances considering how one-dimensional their character are. The movie just sort of plods along, made interesting by the occasional Pumpkinhead appearance, until the very end. It is here that we find out Pumpkinhead IS Tommy, even though it is already established Tommy was Pumpkinhead's son--I have no explanation for this other than to assume we never actually saw Pumpkinhead at all in this movie, and there are now two of them out there (I know how the original film ends, but did anybody believe he was actually killed?). Pumpkinhead II isn't a terrible movie, but it certainly falls well short of the original.
After his son is accidentally killed, Ed Harley (horror legend Lance Henriksen) summons Pumpkinhead, a demonic creature from the pumpkin patch, to extract revenge. What Ed didn't expect, however, is to be able to see visions in his mind of Pumpkinhead killing the "city folk" he feels are responsible for his boy's death. This 1988 film has long been a favorite of mine, but it had been a while since I watched it before today. Did it hold up to the awesomeness I remember?
"Choose your words wisely"
With any creature feature, the viewer will likely be most interested in how the monster looks, and Pumpkinhead is visually impressive. Forget CGI--Pumpkinhead is done the right way, and for a movie that was shot on a relatively low budget (about three million), the costume doesn't look the least bit cheap. The acting leaves a lot to be desired--Henriksen just seems completely out of his element with this character, though he does the best he can with what he's given. Joel Hoffman (Slumber Party Massacre II) is wonderfully awful as Steve, and John D'Aquino is almost as bad as his brother, Joel (he would make up for this when he starred as Frank in a couple episodes of Quantum Leap). There are a couple others you will recognize here--Buck Flower (The Fog, the bum in Back to the Future) is here, and Mayim Bialik of The Big Bang Theory makes her big screen debut (extra credit if you actually recognize her when she appears). We also have Devon Odessa from The Wonder Years and the cult favorite My So Called Life in this one--a certain somebody who shall remained unnamed had bit of a crush on Odessa during the early 90's.
"Dream on"
The story of revenge in this movie is solid, and the death scenes are well done. The film moves along at a wonderful pace, never leaving the viewer bored. The characters, unfortunately, are paper thin, and boil over with cliche after cliche. If you can get past this, however, you will find Pumpkinhead is a very enjoyable horror flick that stands out as one of the better monster movies from a decade most known for their slashers.
Just as I did when I reviewed Season Twoof Stranger Things, I'm going to start my Season Three review with a WARNING: this WILL contain spoilers from all three seasons of the show. Proceed with caution.
Take your time. We'll wait
Hey, you're still here, so let us continue. Having closed the gate on the Mind Flayer and enjoyed a lovely school dance at the end of Season Two, we fast-forward through the rest of the school year and catch up with our heroes at the end of June, 1985. All the rage in Hawkins is the new mall, which has devastated the small businesses in the downtown area.
Rad
Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are now a couple, which is annoying Hopper (David Harbour) to no end. Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) are dating and interning at the local newspaper. Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max (Sadie Sink) are still a couple. Joyce (Winona Ryder) is trying to get over the death of Bob (Sean Astin). Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is just back in town after spending some time at a camp--he doesn't have teeth again, and allegedly has a girlfriend named Suzie, who he proclaims to be "hotter than Phoebe Cates".
In case you have no idea who Phoebe Cates is (I'm looking at you, Sani)
Steve (Joe Keery) has put off going to college to work in the mall--at Scoops Ahoy, to be exact--and realizes that now that he's just a guy scooping ice cream and not the most popular boy in school, he's no longer the chick magnet he once was--his co-worker Robin (Maya Hawke, the real-life daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) is there to remind him of this constantly. Will (Noah Schnapp) is getting somewhat back to normal. Finally, Billy (Dacre Montgomery) is now a lifeguard, and the subject of a lot of gawking from middle-aged women who apparently have nothing better to do with their days than hang out at the pool and creep on a teenage boy.
He still has the hood hair
All seems well, but as we saw during the final scene of the second season, there's still an ominous creature in the Upside Down hanging over Hawkins--if that's not bad enough, the opening scene in Season Three shows us the Russians have developed a technology they are using to attempt to force open a portal into the Upside Down.
It could use some tweaking
Honestly, it kind of takes Season Three a while to get going. Most of the first three episodes are spent laying the groundwork for what is to come--this is to be expected, of course, but what may catch you off guard in these three episodes is the sheer amount of comedy and lack of thrills. Midway through the third episode I was wondering to myself if they switched gears to make this show strictly a comedy--I know there is a lot of funny stuff in the first two seasons, which I do love, but there was always a strong balance between the comedy, tragedy, and scares--this balance is missing in the first three episodes this season. That said, when things do come together, the season really takes off. Joyce, Hopper, and a Russian they capture are trying to figure out what exactly the Russians are doing and how to stop them. Steve, Robin, and Dustin (later joined by Erica, Lucas' little sister) have cracked the Russian code and discover their lab. Meanwhile, Jonathan, Nancy, and the remaining kids are busy trying to fight off a now-possessed Billy, who was dragged into the Upside-Down and put under a spell by the Mind Flayer (or Shadow Monster, whatever you prefer). Billy is not just coming after Eleven, however--he is helping possess other people as the Mind Flayer seemingly is building an army to make itself more powerful--and the way this is done is rather gross and awesome.
He won't be easy to stop
It is somewhat weird seeing the main characters split up like this--for the second straight season, Dustin is taken away from the rest of his friends and put with Steve, so we seldom see the four best friends together--that said, the focus was taken off Dustin a little more than it was in Season Two, so that's a welcomed change. On the flip side, we see a lot more of Murray (Brett Gelman) than we did in Season Two, and his pairing with Russian Dr. Alexei (Alec Utgoff) is very...bizarre. Both characters are decent side comedic characters, best used in the background and for a short period, but they are front and center far too much here. All the fun stuff we loved about the first two seasons of Stranger Things is still here, from the character development and interactions to the monsters to the 1980's references--when the opening showed us this takes place in the summer of 1985, I told my girlfriend that is when Back to the Future was released--I wondered if that would be incorporated, and boy, was it ever! I was thrilled when Season Two had a bit involving Ghostbusters, my all-time favorite movie, and I was equally as excited when Season Three showcased my second favorite movie of all-time, Back to the Future. Also featured prominently in this season is one of the biggest flop or greatest marketing strategies (depending on how you look at it) the country has ever seen--New Coke. In a hilarious exchange, two of the characters go back and forth on if New Coke is better than Coke.
These guys both seem to like it
We get the eighties music here, of course, but that takes a drastic drop on the coolness scale--we've gone from Joy Division and The Clash in Season One to a lot of Journey songs this season--okay, they may not all be Journey songs, but during the early to mid 1980's there was about a dozen or so bands that all sounded the same, and I hate all of it--Journey is one of those bands, so if I don't know who the actual band is, I just assume it's Journey and don't waste any more time thinking about it. Anyway, we get a whole lot of that music this season. Eleven seemingly sways with the music--she goes from her dark wave outfit of Season Two to sporting the mall chick look in Season Three.
Complete with glamour shots
TONS of credit has to go to the authentic feel of this show. If you were alive then and remember the 1980's, you can easily watch this show and believe it could have actually come directly from that decade. The introduction of the mall in the small town was a wonderful touch this season, and whoever was in charge of wardrobe nailed it. The small town feel is also captured nicely here. Season Two made me miss living in a small town during Fall, and Season Three did the same with summer, particularly during the 4th of July celebration. What made this even cooler was the fact this season was released on July fourth, and as we were watching the scenes of the 4th of July festival unfolding on our television, we could see and hear actual fireworks going off outside our place.
Gravitron is in there somewhere
After the third episode, the pace of this season is spectacular, but there are some shortcomings. Cary Elwes (Saw) is brought on as crooked mayor Larry Kline, but is seldom seen, and Jake Busey (The Stoned Age) is grossly misused. Busey is the kind of actor who can really steal the show, but he's cast here as an uninteresting, one-dimensional character that is, when all is said and done, barely a blip on the Stranger Things radar. Erica is an irritating character that is not likable in the least. I told my girlfriend the next time I watch this season, I will likely just fast forward through every scene she's involved in--she's really that bad, which is in stark contrast to her brother, Lucas, who is my favorite of the four boys. There are a few eye-rolling scenes, the worst of which is the Neverending Story bit with Dustin that was painfully bad and seemed to be, in fact, never ending. The teasing of the seemingly inevitable relationship between Hopper and Joyce gets to be a bit much too, though the conclusion of that story is rather shocking.
We were all surprised
This all leads to a conclusion that is exceptionally well done. The final showdown with the Mind Flayer is intense and scary at times, and the sacrifices it took to overcome the evil will leave many jaws dropped. FINAL WARNING: I'm about to go full-blown end of the season spoiler here, so if you have not seen this season yet and don't want it spoiled, check out now.
Or stay, and have a cookie
Eleven digs way down to find some good in Billy to bring him back from the spell he is under, and he pays her back by sacrificing himself to save her--we also learn that Max did care a lot more for her step-brother than she let us know. Hopper, in the meantime, gives his life to save the day, leaving Eleven to be raised by Joyce, who sells her house and moves her family out of Hawkins at the end. I don't know for certain Season Three was the final one for Stranger Things, but it at least felt like it was. When I reviewed Season Two, I speculated that the end scene of the boys dancing with girls may indicate they are about to grow apart, and this is confirmed to an extent during this season--Will doesn't want to let the days of spending all day in the basement playing Dungeons and Dragons go, but Lucas and Mike let him know girls are more important now--Will responds by destroying the castle he and his brother built, and, in the end, giving away his Dungeons & Dragons game. We also get an emotional scene of Eleven reading a speech Hopper wrote but never gave her, acknowledging she was growing up and he didn't know how to handle it. So in our (sort of) final scene, we have the Byers family and El saying goodbye to the rest of the group and moving on--this reminded me a lot of the friends in Stand By Me saying so long before we hear about how they grew apart, and this all felt like a fitting end to this series.
The final goodbye?
I really, really do not want them to keep this show going until it gets bad. As the central characters--the kids--age, the dynamic of the group weakens--do we really want to see Eleven as prom queen, or Jonathan and Nancy have children, or Steve becoming the manager at Scoops Ahoy while developing a receding hairline?
Don't panic Steve
So we've wrapped up this season perfectly, right? Well, not quite. A bit into the final credits, we get a bonus scene of a prisoner in Russia coming face to face with a Demogorgon, implying the battle with the evils from the Upside Down are not over. I don't know if this is leading to a fourth season, a spin-off, or possibly nothing at all, but for as cool as the scene was, I kind of wish it wasn't there--still, it will keep us guessing for a while, so that's fun. I will say this about a potential fourth season--if it does happen, with Bob and Hopper now out of the picture, I would be absolutely besides myself with happiness if Christian Slater was brought in to play Joyce's newest love interest.
Who WOULDN'T want to see this couple again?
The third season of Stranger Things was very impressive--it may have been a small step down from the second season, but ultimately it is an extremely entertaining season that is a lot of fun to watch, and one that continues the awesomeness of the first two seasons wonderfully.
Aliens capture a couple humans, and more humans are sent to outer space to bring them back. What the rescue team finds, however, is the real victims may not be the humans after all. This is another of the growing number of dubbed Italian flicks from my 50 Chilling Classics horror collection, but this one is obviously much different from the "Gothic castle in the 1800's" films we are used to from this country. This one is more "somebody watched Star Wars and an awful lot of Star Trek and decided to make a movie that combines elements of the two, but turned out to be not nearly as good as either"—and that comes from somebody who can’t stand Star Trek.
She seems to not agree
The dialogue is mind-numbing. The characters look ridiculous, including a bunch of dudes with identical wigs hair styles, putting me in mind of Adam from the Masters of the Universe cartoon from the 80's. Speaking of things to come along after this movie, the special effects and sounds in this film seem a precursor to many arcade games that would come out years later—if you watch this and smile, thinking about the hours you spent in the arcade as a child, trying to beat the high score in Asteroids, you’re not alone. Watch The War of the Robots for that and for...well, there's really no other reason to watch this.
Watch If You Dare is a horror anthology film. Unlike many of the classics (such as Creepshow and Twilight Zone: The Movie), this one does not have a wraparound story, and the individual entries are not linked in anyway--this movie just jumps right in with the first story, so let's do the same thing here.
The Stylist
A hair stylist named Claire has one final client for the day, and she decides to drug and scalp her. Does she do this because she's jealous of the woman? Does it have to do with the scar on her neck? Has she been in the service business too long and is just sick of people? Who knows. We do find out, however, this is not the first time Claire has done this, as she has a small collection of scalp wigs at home. There is some blood during the scalping scene, but what will probably stick in your mind after watching this segment is the horrible bald cap they used on the victim.
Ink
Some crackhead looking dude kills people to cut off their tattoos, which he then sews onto himself after cutting his own skin away to make room for them. Why does he do this instead of just getting a tattoo? Your guess is as good as mine, as this is never answered. In fact, there's barely any dialogue at all in this one. This segment only serves to up the gross out factor as we see the killer cutting his own skin off, and noticing the weird discharges coming from his sewn-up new skin. As for the kills, forget it--we don't actually see them.
Foodies
The anthology takes a more comedic turn with this segment--the problem is, it's not funny in the least. The story is a guy gets invited to an exclusive dinner, where he becomes the main course. This is presented as a twist, but you know it's coming long before it's revealed. Foodies looks a lot like one of those poorly made workplace videos you have to sit through at your job, and this drags on just as long. Once we finally get to the end of the story, we get the second twist--another one you will sniff out if you're paying even a little bit of attention. This is the worst of the segments, and believe me when I tell you that's really saying something.
Knob Goblin
A guy is told to go into a house to face the reality that the monster he has always feared isn't real. It is, and the monster bites off his genitals. That's literally all that happens in this segment, which also goes for comedy but fails miserably. At least this outing is mercifully short.
Watch If You Dare, the worst horror anthology I have ever watched (that's also saying a lot). The stories are all poor, the acting is terrible in all three, and there is nothing even remotely interesting about anything we see. This movie was advertised as the most disturbing film of 2018--the only thing disturbing about this movie is that is was actually made.
