Moviecritic1990's Movie Commentary

 When I was a kid, I love walking on sewers. I would always find a stone and throw it down to see it hit the water. Yet, my family were always nervous thinking I would fall in one of them. This is exactly what happens to our main character in #Manhole. A film full of twists and turns that it really keeps you guessing until the shocking final act. I really like the genre of people stuck in confined places trying to find a way out. In fact, I'm thinking of doing a theme for this blog on that subject but I'll save that for another time. #Manhole was a film that was recommended to me by the horror community but technically a thriller which really got me invested. The pacing was on point and showed no sign of slowing down. Lately, I've really been getting into foreign films whether it's action or horror and to my discovery, I find that a lot of them have original ideas and are 10x better then what Hollywood churns out each week. #Manhole is a decent film which I hope doesn...

 Final Destination 3 is in my opinion a very 2000's type of movie. Almost all the stereotypes from my high school days are in this movie from the emo teen to the social media type girls. But other than all that, it's upped the ante in terms of the kills and splatterfest. The only downside of the film is no Tony Todd as he really stood out in the first two movies of the series so his presence is missed greatly. Final Destination 3 is a worthy installment to the series and it gets points for bringing back memories of my high school days. 3/5

We're still in Final Destination week and Final Destination 2 is a worthy follow-up to the original film. Plenty of crazy deaths and outrageous moments show that in the sequel that Death isn't screwing around, it's back with a vengeance. Sequels rarely ever match up to the original film but there are ones that make an exception. Often the times they try to one up the original film and say to the audience "we're better than the original". That's not always the case. Do I think Final Destination 2 is better then the original, no. What it makes work is the outlandish moments of people getting killed off one by one. Final Destination 2 is a fun sequel but at times is corny. 3/5

Desperado, the second installment in Robert Rodriguez's Mexico trilogy is quite honestly an improvement over his first film. My issue with the first flick wasn't so much the action but the story itself which to me I found was all over the place. Desperado on the other hand is the better film in the series. It's got the same amount of action as El Mariachi and some good acting from everyone else especially in the opening scene with Steve Buscemi telling the story to a group of bar patrons. It's been said that a lot of the violence was cut out of the film mostly near the end which resulted in a weird fade out. Overall, Desperado is the better film and on I go with the last flick in the series. 3/5   

 El Mariachi is considered a cult film by many people and is the first installment of Robert Rodriguez's Mexican trilogy which I've begun as of this week. While I think the film really showcases Robert's talent as a director, the film itself, I just couldn't get into as much. People who know me, know I love action films but my issue with the film itself is I just couldn't get into the story itself. Maybe it was because I was expecting a little more. But it didn't work for me. 2/5

 With the release of the sixth installment in the Final Destination franchise, I thought that my wife & I would sit back this week and check out all 5 movies before watching the new film. Throughout the 90's, slasher films were dominating the theatrical & home video market thanks to films like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, & Urban Legend. But by 1999, it was clear there was horror fatigue on the rise and people were getting tired of the slasher genre which would churn the same plots, same characters that there was a need for change. Suddenly a script for a horror movie that was originally written as an episode of The X-Files became a theatrical film and was called Final Destination. What makes Final Destination stand out is the killer in the film is not a masked murderer but a supernatural being and it was clear from the get go that Final Destination was the beginning of something special, something really scary. The movie moves at a fast paced that I was enj...

 I've seen a lot of indie horror flicks in my time but Big Freaking Rat is probably the most New Yorkiest horror movie I've ever seen. I probably just made up a word that doesn't even exist, "New Yorkiest". I say that because a lot of the acting especially from the actors playing the mafia members look like they just stepped out of New York acting school and are discovering how to act in a movie. Then we have the Andrew Dice Clay like exterminator who made me laugh just as much as the mafia members I just mentioned. Now, the acting, if you could call it acting, is extremely amateurish that I couldn't even wait for the Big Freaking Rat to show up and kill. Big Freaking Rat is nothing more then Freaking bad. 1/5

Roger Corman is without a doubt, the king of the B movie. I've seen a bunch of his films and despite their low budgets, they're really good and it goes to show that you don't need a big budget or big stars to tell a story. In 1993, Roger Corman came back to his low budget roots with Carnosaur and he had hoped to release it the same day as Jurassic Park which never happened as Carnosaur came out in May of 1993 and Jurassic Park came out the following month. A lot of people would consider Carnosaur a gory rip-off of Jurassic Park and I don't believe it is. Like Jurassic, Carnosaur is based on a novel and despite it's low budget nature, Carnosaur is a fun horror film. Sure, the effects are hokey and the story is dumb, but that's what makes it fun. I have seen the Carnosaur trilogy way back in my 20's and I decided after so many years that it was time to give the 3 film series a rewatch and after watching part 1, it made me wonder why there are not many horror f...

 Neighborhood Watch was a surprise for me.  It reminded of the 80's vampire classic, Fright Night. Only this time we're in a thriller with no horror elements around. I wasn't initially interested in this film until after I saw the trailer and was really taken aback by how good the film was. Great performances by Jack Quaid & Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  4/5

It's becoming clear to me that the UK loves doing slasher films based on children's childhood cartoon characters and now they're doing knock-offs of Hollywood films... When I think of Hollywood knock-offs, I think of The Asylum. It was only a matter of time until a Megan spin-off was on the horizon and it looks like the UK has done it again. I have a feeling that Rob1n won't be spawning a franchise anytime soon. But Rob1N is an interesting little low budget film. Despite the shoddy script and bad acting, what saves it is the humorous kills done by Rob1n. What is it with the UK showing off the country side in it's horror films. I swear it feels like I'm watching a travelogue video instead of a horror film. I've always said that the British are very Shakespearian when they act and even if the script is terrible like Rob1n, they do their best. Rob1n is best watched over the weekend or an afternoon matinee. You'll probably enjoy it more than I did. 2/5  

1989 became the year of the sea monster as in that year, 4 horror movies came out with the plot concerning a creature living in the sea and kills anyone who trespasses it's territory. There was Deepstar Six, Leviathan, The Abyss, & Lords of the Deep. I do plan on checking the other 3 at a later time but out of those 4, The Abyss & Leviathan are well known whereas Deepstar Six & Lords of the Deep are pretty much forgotten which is a shame because I think Deepstar needs to be seen by more. As I was watching the film, there were certain sections that had the music from the Friday the 13th movies where I then realized that the film was scored by the same man who composed the Friday films, Harry Manfredini. Also I noticed it pulled something out of Jaws where you don't see the monster towards the end of the film which I liked as well because it's all about the mystery of who or what this thing is. If you're in the mood for a campy horror flick with Friday the 13t...

 It has been said that the 1994 film Speed was inspired by The Bullet Train and I can see the similarities when watching The Bullet Train. The film itself is really good. The 70's had the disaster films and I think that Japan tried to follow suit with this. Recommended for those who like action and or foreign films. 3/5

Whenever Nicolas Cage does a direct to streaming flick, I get excited because I know what to expect with the Cageman. In the case of The Surfer, I expected it to be a typical action flick with Cage hamming it up as usual, taking out bad guys one by one. Instead, I got nothing but disappointment. The poster says 99 minutes of sun beaten terror... What terror? All I got was Cage freaking out and losing his shit over a house deal and not being able to surf. This is nothing but 99 minutes of overacting and no action. I guess I expected more out of this but was not happy with the results. Let's see what Cage pops up next and hopefully it'll be better than this 2/5  

In 1993, Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee was killed on the set of The Crow due to a firearm mishap and because of the incident, firearm safety increased dramatically on film sets. In 2021 on the set of Rust, Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins which resulted in the film shutting down for awhile. This was a huge story in the news where the armor of the flick failed to do her job as a firearms safety expert. How did a live round make it's way to the set is the bigger question. I assumed because of the incident that the film would be shelved and never be released. To my surprise, the movie was released this past Friday and despite the controversy surrounding the film, it's a neat little film. Alec Baldwin & the rest of the cast do a great job with the script. I love the background setting as I'm always a sucker for films set in the 1800's or less. For those who watch the film, try to find where they started shooting again after t...