368. Horns (2013)

October 8, 2014

'Horns' was awesome! Aside from the completely illegible closing credits, this was a fantastic movie. It was also surprisingly predictable for such a weird movie. Anyway, I love that Daniel Radcliffe has been able to shed his Harry Potter identity without resorting to alcoholism or drugs. Instead, he is making competent and successful horror movies! Not that 'Horns' is necessarily a "horror" film, but it has several of the elements (and he did do 'The Woman in Black'). Radcliffe stars as a young man whose life is stripped from him when his girlfriend ends up murdered and everyone thinks he did it. One day he wakes up with horns growing out of his head that everyone can see but nobody seems to mind. The horns cause people to divulge their darkest secrets to Radcliffe and do things they normally wouldn't do (they basically bring out the bad in people). He uses his new powers to get information out of people about any clues that could point him to the real killer. I really enjoyed this movie. I figured out who the real killer was about ten minutes in, but I still had a great time watching it and I hope Radcliffe continues to make more movies like this.

367. Little Monsters (1989)

October 7, 2014

I'm not really sure why 'Little Monsters' isn't considered a classic by more people. It is a really enjoyable movie. Sure, Howie Mandel is exhausting to say the least, but what a great idea for a kid's monster movie! Fred Savage's little brother (his real life brother, Ben Savage) finds a monster (Mandel) living under his bed and convinces Fred to sleep in his room. Fred meets the monster and the two quickly become friends, with Mandel leading Fred to a magical and monstrous land that exists under the beds of all children. Together they wreak havoc on many unsuspecting children, until the reality sets in and Fred figures out that some of the monsters are not so nice. I don't think I really paid much attention to this movie as a kid, but I've grown to love it over time and I definitely recommend it, especially if you're looking for a good, family-friendly monster movie.

366. Daughters of Darkness (1971)

October 5, 2014

'Daughters of Darkness' was a pretty good movie. It was a very atmospheric film. Not a lot really seems to happen, but it is still impossible to look away. A young couple gets married and goes on honeymoon and ends up sharing a hotel with the mysterious Countess Bathory and her assistant. The couple seem supernaturally attracted to Bathory and the other girl and as they get closer together, the couple splits more apart. I would actually really recommend this movie. It was a very beautiful vampire film from the early 70s (and the best vampire films were made in the 70s and 80s).

365. Bad Channels (1992)

October 4, 2014

I'm kicking myself for not having seen 'Bad Channels' before. What a fun movie! A DJ on a local radio station finds himself at the center of an alien invasion when a UFO lands and the alien takes over his station. Using the DJ's voice as a beacon to transmit some kind of signal that could suck young women through the airwaves and into glass jars that it would then presumably take home, the alien was able to collect a bunch of girls that the DJ had to figure out a way to save. It was cheesy, sure, but it was very entertaining. What else would you expect from a Ted Nicolaou film?

364. Sex Tape (2014)

October 4, 2014

This movie started out with a half-way decent idea about a couple (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) who filmed themselves having sex so they could spruce things up in the bedroom a bit until they accidentally shared it over the internet. Then it took that idea and made one of the most unfunny movies in recent memory. Granted, I'm not all that into comedies, but I know what I find funny, and this was far from it. After finding out that their sex tape had gone up into the cloud and was consequently being shared with everyone they had given iPads to (turned out there were several of them out there) they set out to retrieve all of the iPads and remove all the evidence of the tape. In order to get it back, Diaz did cocaine, Segel tried to kill a dog, and they broke into a server room for a porn site with their children. It wasn't funny, don't waste your time.

363. The Duchess (2008)

October 3, 2014

Another Keira Knightley period piece... At least this one wasn't terrible. I actually felt sorry for Knightley's character. She played a young woman wed to the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) in order to birth a son for him to have an heir. She could seemingly only birth daughters, so the Duke was a total jerk to her. He started sleeping with her best friend but when she wanted to sleep with someone else he threatened to take her children away. It wasn't my kind of movie, but as far as these movies go it wasn't entirely intolerable. Watch it if you're in to these types of things, I guess.

362. Redd Inc. (2012) aka Inhuman Resources

October 1, 2014

After seeing Nicholas Hope in 'Bad Boy Bubby', I absolutely had to see more of his work. Turns out he was in a recent Fangoria Presents film called 'Inhuman Resources' aka 'Redd Inc.'. After being accused of murder, sent to a psychiatric hospital for "treatment", and faking his own death, Hope kidnaps several of the people involved in his trial and tortures them while he forces them to search for the real killer. It was actually not bad. Hope was great, as was to be expected, and the rest of the cast did a pretty good job as well. It was unexpectedly gory, with a lot of severed limbs and parts. I'd recommend it, but see 'Bad Boy Bubby' first to gain a respect for Nicholas Hope.

September 2014 Recap

Again, I watched far too few movies this month... here are my top 5 and bottom 5 for September, 2014:

My top 5 (in no particular order):
1. Bad Boy Bubby
2. Edge of Tomorrow
3. The Prowler
4. Tusk
5. Curtains
Runner Up: Night Train Murders, Doctor Gore

The bottom 5 (in no particular order)
1. Blood Creek
2. Anna Karenina
3. Halloween The Curse of Michael Myers The Producer's Cut
4. The Man Who Collected Food
5. The Battery
Runner Up: Graduation Day

361. Doctor Gore (1973) aka The Body Shop

September 30, 2014

This was a fun movie. J.G. Patterson, Jr. wrote, directed, produced, did the makeup and special effects for, and starred in this film (as Don Brandon). Clearly an inspiration for films like 'Frankenhooker', 'Doctor Gore' featured a mad scientist intent on collecting female body parts and building the perfect woman after his wife died. Along with his hunch-backed assistant Greg, the doctor finally succeeded in bringing a body back to life to be his eternally devoted concubine, dedicated to fulfilling his every desire. Of course things went awry, as they tend to do when you kill a bunch of girls and reanimate a corpse. It isn't a benchmark in competent film-making, but it did have some quality special effects (as seen in the clip below). If you're looking for a good time, I'd call 'Doctor Gore' an entertaining place to look.

360. The Man Who Collected Food (2010)

September 30, 2014

I can't remember what I expected from 'The Man Who Collected Food', but I have to say I had at least hoped it would be better. It was about a guy who, as the title suggests, collected food for a hobby. Obsessed with collecting all kinds of food and drinks and keeping the packages pristine, he found himself unable to actually eat real food, leading him to more cannibalistic tendencies. I think I would have preferred the movie to take itself a little more seriously, but it was unabashedly absurd, which made it seem like a joke that it desperately wanted to be in on but wasn't really that funny in the first place. Maybe I read into it more than I should have, but I also got the feeling that it was trying to say something about people who collect things in general. As someone who collects a lot of movies, I don't need anything in my collection pointing out how stupid it is to collect things. Then again, maybe that wasn't what it was trying to say at all. Whatever the case may be, 'The Man Who Collected Food' was not really a movie I would recommend.