Talk about just about anything else that is non-gaming here, but keep it clean
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REPO Man
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by REPO Man Wed Sep 21, 2022 11:47 pm

Not a film, but I just finished Heathers: The Musical on The Roku Channel. It's a pro-shot of the musical adaptation of the cult classic of the same name. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by Michi Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:39 pm

Next round of catch-ups:

Cameron's Closet

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A kid gets psychic powers and accidentally summons an ancient demon who...lives in his closet.

Yeah. Overall though, it's not a bad horror movie. Just kind of a mediocre one. It's based on a book written by the same guy who wrote The Howling, so that should give you a hint about the story right there. But it's also got a lot of strong talent behind the scenes. It's just that they don't seem to have brought their "A" game to this project. Though there are a couple of impressive highlights that manages to shine through the rest of the mediocrity, but it's just not enough to bring it above the "it's okay" level of horror films.

The Brain

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An alien brain infiltrates Earth and evil scientist David Gale is intent on helping him. Assuming, of course, that he can keep that one delinquent kid from ruining all their world domination plans.

The movie has some fun practical effects, and the story probably sounds good on paper, but after the first twenty minutes the plot basically boils down to nothing more than a series of chase scenes. And we're talking, like, an hours worth of nothing by chase scenes. They may vary in length and come in various forms (on foot, through a school, in cars...), but they're still just chase scenes. After a while, that shit gets annoying.

The Flying Serpent

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A scientist finds a hidden treasure trove of gold guarded by an ancient beast, and figures out a way to control the beast in order to keep others away from his horde of gold.

The plot of this film is basically just a re-tread of The Bat from 6 years earlier, but with an even crappier monster and plot adjustments that don't hold up to scrutiny. You're telling me that some old dude found all this gold five years ago, and decided the best use of his time was to spend those five years training a giant lizard to do his bidding? Dude, WTF? Cash TF in and move the tropics like a normal person, you ignoramus.

Shopo Danob

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A guy is having nightmares and his doctor suggests confronting his in order to see what's really troubling him. Big mistake.

This is a 4-minute long short that's kinda Nightmare on Elmstreet-ish, but with a demon. It's very short, and very experimental, and very low budget and...yeah. But still, only 4 minutes, so not bad for what they were trying for.

Dreamaniac

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A heavy-metal wannabe musician summons a succubus who promises to make all his rock-n-roll dreams come true...as long as he lets her eat all the party-goers downstairs.

The only thing of note in this rather inept and sluggishly paced, low-budget horror film, is that most of the actresses hired for the production found their self-respect before filming started, and rejected the nudity requirement in their contracts. But the guys didn't. So expect a lot of male skin and dudes walking around in their undies. Oh, and the ending is awful. Like, insultingly awful.

Uncle Sam

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Soldier dies. Soldier then comes back from the dead during the 4th of July to punish those he deems unpatriotic...and a few other people who get in his way, because he's just as much as a garbage human being in death as he was in life, and now Isaac Hayes has to blow him up with a cannon.

This is a horror/comedy that knows it's dumb and just goes with it. So expect a lot of puns and sight gags. But it also actually has some good slasher elements worked in there too, so it ends up being pretty fun if you can tolerate the sluggish first half and some glaring plot inconsistencies.

The Unholy

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Father Michael is unknowingly sent off to do battle with a demon who's killing off other priests, and also has to contend with a kink club down the street that has nothing to do with the overall plot.

This poor film is a plodding mess. The opening starts out strong, and the ending, though weird, at least manages to be entertaining. But the entire middle of the film is not only sluggish, but also around 90% of it ends up being completely useless to the overall plot, making it's inclusion completely pointless. You think they might be going somewhere with it, but no. It's just a giant 'red herring' that wastes an hour of everyone's time. You'd think they could have at least used some of that time to close off some of the story's lingering plot threads, but no. They just leave those story elements dangling in mid-air with no answers. Boo.
Last edited by Michi on Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by prfsnl_gmr Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:46 pm

Michi wrote:But the guys didn't. So expect a lot of male skin and dudes walking around in their undies.


Of course they didn’t! The low-budget, mid-1980s male form is a thing of deep beauty. They would t deny us that! :lol:

Michi, you review only the best movies, and I’m excited to see what you have in store for us next month!
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REPO Man
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by REPO Man Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:14 pm

Ahhh, bad 80s movies with hot guys in crop tops and short shorts.

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Michi
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by Michi Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:25 pm

Don't get your hopes up too much, Repo. Most of the guys look like this:

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REPO Man
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by REPO Man Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:27 pm

I've seen Dreamaniac but don't remember much of it. Are they at least endearingly awkward and adorkable?
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by Michi Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:45 pm

Nope, not in the slightest. Unless you consider annoying preppies and devil worshipers endearing.
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by Michi Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:43 pm

On to the next crop of movies:

Pool Party Massacre

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A pool party goes awry when each party member ends up getting picked off by a ruthless killer and his assortment of gardening equipment.

This is a horror comedy and I often don't like horror comedies because I rarely find them all that funny. And while this one didn't break the mold, it's also an homage to 80's slashers, so at least the bloody bits were entertaining. The characters not so much, though. They're all annoying as hell except for the one chick who you can immediately peg as the Final Girl. So yeah, to sum up: cringe-y dialogue and characters, but fun death scenes.


Bloody, Bloody Bible Camp

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Another horror comedy, this time a summer camp slasher brought to you in part by Mr. Reggie Bannister. This one fared a bit better. The humor is more broad, instead of simply relying on lewd jokes and making fun of the stupid characters. And it parodies both 70's grindhouse flicks and 80's slashers, so there's a broader range of influences. A lot of the humor is still pretty cringe-y though, so, boo. But the blood and the violence were pretty stellar, and the film moves at a good clip, so the awkward parts aren't too bad and don't overstay their welcome. Oh, and Ron Jeremy shows up to play God at some point. Feel free to make of that what you will.


The Initiation

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A college "Hell Week" related slasher where a girl with amnesia has to wait before finding out the meaning of her strange dreams until after she and her fellow pledge sisters break into her father's department store, all while trying to avoid a very proficient killer.

The film feels like a strange mish-mash of a slasher and a soap opera. The slasher bits are good (once the film finally gets to them), but all the drama is so melodramatic that you almost feel like your watching daytime television, and that at any moment now a character is going to say something SHOCKING, and a dramatic music cue is going to start while the camera slowly zooms in on their face. The second "slasher" half of the film is pretty fun though, even though the ending pulls out soap opera-level like TWIST! at the end.


Pledge Night

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This is a movie suffering from a horrible identity crisis. The first half focuses on all the horrible initiation rituals a certain frat house makes all their new pledges go through (This was apparently based on extensive and accurate research). Then at the second half hits and the film seems to realize, "Oh, yeah, we were supposed to be a horror movie," and the ghost of some guy that the film only briefly brought up for about 10 seconds suddenly crawls out of a toilet and starts killing frat boys and dropping lame puns Freddy Krueger style. Except he's a dead hippie, so the puns are even worse. Talk about your weird tonal differences. Oi.


http://randommoviemusings.com/2022/08/17/fatal-exam-1990/Fatal%20Exam

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An independent horror film where a bunch of college student go to a house to do some paranormal investigations and get more than they bargained for.

I actually kind of like this one, but not so much because the movie is any good. It's basically the passion project of one guy who spent years trying to get his little vision completed. The plot is familiar, the acting isn't any good and the effects are cheap, but it's still impressive to see what they were able to put together, considering they probably only had like $50 to work with. But what really brings it down is that, unfortunately, the director couldn't edit for shit, and the movie ends up being way, WAY too long. There are scenes that aren't necessary, there are scenes that get unnecessarily repeated, and just about every single scene needs to have been cut about 5 seconds sooner (Seriously, all that dead space is really awkward). I still like it, and I still think there's a good little Indy, supernatural horror buried deep within it's depths, but I admit you'd need to cut out around 40 minutes of footage in order to find the damn thing.


Hell Night

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Another supernatural slasher, this time with Lynda Blair where the plot is very trope-y and thus very familiar. But the movie also moves at a good clip, has likable characters, and doesn't do anything egregiously bad, so beyond some rather glaring plot inconsistencies I can't find anything to hate on too much. The worst thing about it is that it just ends up being pretty predictable. But it still manages to be fairly fun too, so I dig it.
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REPO Man
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by REPO Man Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:51 pm

Had myself a bit of a double feature this morning:

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Hocus Pocus 1 is still one of my favorite films to watch around Halloween and Hocus Pocus 2 just amps up much of what made the first one great. The humor of 17th century witches reacting to a modern world is still there, and I just cracked up at Mary Sanderson riding a pair of Roombas like roller skates in lieu of a broomstick. And I just loved the ending, which here hits all the right notes.

Definitely a family friendly double feature I'd recommend to folks with kids.
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Re: What was the last movie you've seen?

by Michi Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:42 pm

Last batch before October rolls around:

Buried Alive

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The title says "Edgar Allan Poe's", but that's only because "Lightly inspired by the works and themes of Edgar Allan Poe" would have been way too long. It's just a mish-mash of ideas that Poe had, shoved together into a slasher story. In fact, they seem to have used the "kitchen sink" method with much of the plot, too. You've got a mystery, a creepy school, secretive teachers, hallucinations, bugs, teenagers that are clearly no longer teens, and Donald Pleasence in a wig that looks suspiciously like the scruffy end of an old mop. It's a mess of ideas and nothing is really unique, except for maybe the death by kitchen hand-mixer. Gotta admit that I haven't seen that one before.


The Rift

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Also known as Endless Decent, this is another one of the six ocean themed horror films that was released in the same year. Sadly, this one isn't one of the better ones. It's just too derivative and predictable. You can pretty much see every plot twist coming long before it gets there. It does have R. Lee Ermy in it, and some nice monster effects at the end, but the good stuff feels way too short to be worth it.


Dolls

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It's Charles Band working with living dolls/puppets years before Puppet Master came about, but it's directed by Stuart Gordon, so it doesn't suck. I actually really like this one. It's got some plotting issues, and it ends too abruptly to feel fully satisfying, but the great atmosphere, all the neat animated dolls and the kid protagonist make it feel like a (very) dark fairytale. I dig it.


Out of the Dark

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This is a slasher that looks great, has a lot of good characters/actors, and also has some increasingly bloody and dramatic deaths, but unfortunately the plot starts to fall apart in the second act. The mystery starts to falter, the editing gets wonky, characters and plotlines get abruptly forgotten and abandoned... It kinda feels like maybe the filmmakers either bit off more than they could chew, or the second half needed a few more edits. It still ends up entertaining enough, but the second half really drags it down from the greatness it could have achieved.


The Nun

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Oh look, another Conjuring movie (which I didn't realize when I started it). This one is an origin story for the Nun demon from the second Conjuring film. The movie is beautiful, with some stunning vistas, excellent use of color/composition, and even some impressive camera work (and I rarely take note of the camera work.) But good gravy is the plot of this thing a hot mess. The beginning is gripping and the end is fun, but everything in between is a logical conundrum, filled with gaping plot holes and historical inaccuracies so bad that history buffs will want to tear their hair out. Thanks goodness for the visuals, but this is really something you'll probably HAVE to turn your brain off to enjoy.
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