Moviecritic1990's Movie Commentary

By 1988, the slasher genre was slowly dying down and with Friday the 13th going into it's 7th film and A Nightmare on Elm Street going into it's 4th film, it's clear there's still an audience for the slasher despite it slowly going away. A lot of independent B movies were being released to video, hoping to grab some of that Friday the 13th movie. I've been a B movie guy for years and in my search for films, I've come across a lot of obscure gems that sadly a lot of people tend to forget. But I still own many of to the obscure slashers today. Scarecrows was a movie I remember watching on Scream TV as a teenager and in my 20's, I started searching for a copy of the film and I ended up finding it. It's a fun B flick from the tail end of the 80's slasher genre. The script is hokey, the acting is subpar, and  there's so much cheese that it would make Bruce Campbell blush. But you got to ask yourself, where else are you going to see a killer scarecrow ...

Clive Barker has gone on record saying that he doesn't like Rawhead Rex due to it's acting and creature design. I'll agree with him that the acting is subpar but the creature effects look cool in my opinion. Rawhead Rex was another film that I came across on my dad's homemade vhs and I've watched it a few times over the years  and despite all that, Rawhead Rex is a decent slasher. Not good, but not great.  2/5  

 After the smashing success of Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis starred in a bunch of horror films which she got the label of scream queen. I've always wondered why she stopped doing horror after 1983? One will never know. Anyways, Prom Night was a film that I fondly remember as a kid at my local video store. The VHS cover had Jamie Lee Curtis holding flowers and a bloody axe. I didn't know what to make of it then. It wasn't until years later I finally watched the film and thought it was a fun slasher. What stood out for me when watching Prom Night was that it's a Canadian film, so it was amusing to see what Toronto looked like in 1979 when the film was being made. With the exception of Jamie Lee Curtis & Leslie Nielsen, the acting is hammy in some parts. But it didn't stop me from enjoying Prom Night. A few years later, sequels were made but they don't hold a candle to the original film. I may rewatch all 4 movies at some point just to see how they hold up. Unti...

By 1981, it was clear the slasher film was dominating the theatrical market. Friday the 13th just came out with part 2 and soon after, loads of imitations started to follow, some went on to became cult favorites while others faded in obscurity. Hell Night isn't a well known slasher but it's one of my favorites. I grew up with this film after seeing it for the first time off of my dad's home recorded vhs. What I love about Hell Night is how it wastes no time in getting to the meat of the story. The acting may be hokey in parts, but that's what makes Hell Night fun. When I started collecting horror movies as a teenager, Hell Night was one of the first films I got and still rewatch it today.  3/5  

 When I was a teenager, I used to get excited for Syfy channel's Saturday night Monster movie of the week. The films were usually bad, but they had a unique charm to them that made them entertaining to watch. The biggest sin of Frankenfish isn't it's horrible CGI, or shoddy script, it's the pacing. There are sections where the pacing trails off and I found myself a little bored at times. As terrible as the 2000's CGI is, it's hilariously bad watching the giant Frankenfish kill people. Despite all that, it's still a fun bad B movie from the early days of the Syfy channel.  2/5

Despite the horror community claiming that Peninsula is a sequel to Train to Busan, it is not. It's according to what I read, a stand-alone film in the same universe as Train but yet set 4 years later. Peninsula in my opinion is a sequel but a not very good sequel. After the success of Busan, a sequel was quickly rushed into production and the results of that are not good. The film's boring, the script's lousy and the acting while good, it's just a complete let down of what made Train to Busan a great film and once again, we have more running zombies. I've said it once and I'll say it again. Just because a film does well, does not necessarily mean you need a sequel. Not everything needs a sequel, prequel or franchise. Just a one and done film. 2/5  

When it comes to zombie films, they all try to be the next or better than Night of the Living Dead. There will never a be a zombie film that comes close to being the better film. Even though I'm a fan of Return of the Living Dead, I don't consider it a horror film, more of a comedy than horror. After meeting some of the cast members & the co-writer of Night of the Living Dead back in 2011, it made me appreciate the film more. Having seen many zombie films in my time, I'm not a fan of running zombies. They're dead, they have no motor functions so to me, it's stupid. In the case of Train To Busan, I like the film as it's an original story and it being a foreign film, it's got some good acting and the gore effects are awesome. But once again, my criticism of the film is running zombies. I'm not nor will I ever be a fan of that. Growing up watching the original Night of the Living Dead & playing hours of Resident Evil on the original PlayStation made...

In the 2000's, there was a surge of film genres that were dominating the market. J-Horror, torture porn, and remakes. Remakes were everywhere in the 2000's. You couldn't go anywhere on the IMDB message boards and hear about the latest remake or someone suggesting they should remake this film. It would result in a lashing from the trolls which I found quite amusing.  Horror films like Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine and Texas Chainsaw Massacre were remade for the modern audience. Now in 2005, John Carpenter had two movies that were remade and released in the same year, Assault on Precinct 13 & The Fog. Now, this version of Assault on Precinct 13 is quite different than the original film. Obviously when remaking a film, you keep the same story but add a few different things to make it your own. Does it work here? Yes & no. My stance on remakes will never change that you can never improve the original. Here, the movie changes it up a notch for the current audience...

 If there's one thing I didn't appreciate enough about Assault on Precinct 13 when I originally watched it for the first time back in the day was the music. John Carpenter who I think is a terrific director, does a hell of a job with the music. It knows when to scare you and it knows when to calm you down. For a low budget flick, the acting isn't bad. Sure, it's a little hammy in some spots, but it doesn't distract. Assault on Precinct 13 has a shocking moment where a little girl is shot after getting ice cream. Something like that wouldn't fly today in our current climate of Hollywood. But man, at the time I saw it, I couldn't believe they got away with that. It's a violent film, yes. but it's a damn good one. 3/5

Growing up, I was a huge video gamer. Played a bunch of action and horror based games. Max Payne was one of those games I played constantly as I was a fan of the series. When a movie was announced back in 2007 and the casting of Mark Wahlberg as the title character of Max Payne, I recall reading the IMDB message boards and the outrage surrounding it. Usually, I would never agree to the outrage as to me it's all laughable. But I had to agree after watching the film. Max Payne is not a good film by a long shot. The casting is terrible, the story is terrible and everything about it is terrible. Even at 18 years old, watching this for the first time, I was not impressed with it. This was at a time when movies based on popular video games were getting lambasted by the audience for not following the story or just changing the stuff to appease the Hollywood executives. I watched it again recently, now a little older to see if my opinion back then still stands today and it does. Mark Wahlb...

 After watching 7 Nights of Darkness, I discovered there was a sequel and I immediately had to check it out. The Devil's Toybox is an okay sequel to 7 Nights. Acting was so-so, you'd expect that with these type of films, pacing was off a little especially near the end when it didn't make any sense. Overall The Devil's Toybox isn't a great film or sequel but it's not a complete waste of time. 2/5

 Don't you love it when you put on a found footage film and the opening text talks about what happened to our characters and how their footage was uncovered documenting what happened? That's pretty much the standard in every one of these type of films. I've seen my fair share of good and bad found footage films. 7 Nights of Darkness is not good, but not bad either. It's your standard typical found footage film with the usual bad acting and dumb plot. What I think continues to draw me to these films is the terrible acting. A rare exception of good acting in a found footage film is Grave Encounters which I put it at #2 in Best Found Footage films and the #1 spot is The Blair Witch Project. Putting everything aside, if you're in a mood for a laugh then check out 7 Nights of Darkness. It's not the best film, but it's great for a laugh. 2/5

Leading up to the film's release, I would see posters upon posters of The Monkey referencing classic movies and I've come to the conclusion that the posters were better then the movie itself. The Monkey isn't very good and I'll do my best to explain why. Osgood Perkins made an interesting film last year titled "Longlegs" which had quite the marketing ploy of trailers & posters. The Monkey's marketing campaign consisted of posters referencing classic movies. I'm sure Osgood has a good movie in him, he just needs to focus on pacing. Longlegs had poor pacing but without the wild performance of Nicolas Cage as the villain, the film itself wouldn't have been that great. The Monkey's pacing is so sluggish that me and the wife found ourselves getting bored despite the cool opening. The Monkey was way way overhyped and it was nothing short of disappointment.   1/5  

 The second installment in Steven Seagal's Environmental disaster, Fire Down Below. As bad as On Deadly Ground is, I consider it to be better than Fire Down Below. It's a cheesy film, but it's bad... bad... bad... and again, there's not a lot of action in Fire Down Below  but when there is, it's just boring. Another reason the film is terrible is the pacing and terrible script. I know with action films that scripts don't matter just bang bang, insert cheesy dialogue, etc. I had that philosophy when I was a teenager but as I'm getting older, I want to see more story. I'm glad that Steven didn't write the script because I would have tuned out after 30 minutes. Fire Down Below is the last film that Steven made for Warner's after they cancelled his contract. But Warner's called him back for Exit Wounds (2001) and that was his last theatrically released film. Starting with the last film in this Environmental series, The Patriot (1998), everything ...

Above the Law (1988), Marked for Death (1990), Hard to Kill (1990), Out for Justice (1991), & Under Siege (1992) are classic Seagal flicks from his early days as a rising action star. I call them classics as I grew up with them in my teenage years collecting every action film I could find. But, they're also bad films mainly because of Steven's lack of emotion, playing the same character, and his bad acting. Fast forward to 1994, when Steven decided to direct a movie of his own which became On Deadly Ground. This was the beginning of Steven Seagal's dismal box office and what I call Steven Seagal's environmental disaster. There isn't much action in On Deadly Ground and that's a little disappointing as I went into this film expecting a lot of action. What I got instead was Seagal preaching about the environment. Knowing the script was bad, Michael Caine did his absolute best as the villain of the film. When one watches On Deadly Ground, just be prepared to wat...

A few years ago, I checked out Dirty Work and it found out to be one of the most stupidest funniest comedies I have ever seen. A few days ago, I checked out the new dirtier cut that was released and while of some of the deleted footage was funny. I'm glad it was cut from the theatrical print as it ruined the pacing a little bit. Some jokes land while others don't. Love or hate Norm McDonald, the man can make you laugh with not just his facial expressions, but the stupid things he says. I have yet to check out the newly discovered 2 hour assembly workprint of the film which will either be good or bad. Either way, I can't wait to check it out.  Dirty work is dirty, but my kind of comedy. 3/5  

 For three weeks in 2021, Netflix released 3 Fear Street movies based on the novels of R.L. Stine. Me and the wife were originally going to watch them in those 3 weeks but at the last minute we waited until they all premiered and watched them one by one. They were pretty good. Typical teen horror flicks. Fast forward to May, 2025 and Netflix releases Fear Street: Prom Queen and it's okay. Fear Street: Prom Queen does a great job with it's slasher scenes. I laughed at some of the gags as did the wife. But, the biggest drawback for me is that it tries way way to hard to be an 80's movie and the story itself could have been better. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the 80's references and stuff. I don't know what it is, but teen dialogue just makes me cringe. I guess it's my old age or something. I just can't stand listening teens sprout out asinine dialogue that's enough to make you roll your eyes. They say it's a sequel to the first 3 Fear Street movie...

With the upcoming release of Megan 2.0 sequel to Megan coming out at the end of the month, you can sure bet a knock-off movie will appear and it looks like my favorite studio, The Asylum has already done it. Anytime Hollywood churns out a new movie, The Asylum comes in with a mockbuster. I enjoy them from time to time and they do have the occasional stinker as well and Morgan: Killer Doll is indeed a stinker of a movie. The script is terrible, the pacing is lousy, the acting is wooden and the dialogue is even worse. It begs the question, how & why did Michael Pare the star of Streets of Fire & The Philadelphia Experiment wind up in this. In fact, Michael has shown up in quite a few of The Asylum's films and while I have again enjoyed some of their films, at least he put some effort in those, here he seems bored. Morgan: Killer Doll is a dud in my books. 1/5

 Wow, hard to believe I'm at 250 posts. Not bad for a blog I started late last year. I do this for fun, showing off my recent watches and hopefully people who read my posts, check the films out. A man is tied to a tree and is trying to figure out how to survive the situation he's in, in Bark. Now as I mentioned in my review for 4x4 (2019), I'm a fan of survival films. People trapped in unique situations, trying to survive and figure a way out. Now, if the script is good and makes sense then I'm invested. If the script is lousy then I'm tuned out. In the case of Bark, the film itself is an interesting idea, you really feel for the main character tied up in the tree trying to survive. The pacing was a little off, but not to the point where I got lost trying to figure out what's happening. I consider it to be one of the good ones. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say, it got to me pretty good.  This "Bark" has some bite. 3/5

 In 1985, John Carpenter, Debra Winger & Kurt Russell were keen on bringing Snake Plissken back with sequel, but at the time they couldn't come up with a good story. Flash forward to 1995, a script was commissioned and so began filming from Escape From L.A. Now, Escape From L.A. is an entertaining cheesy follow-up to Escape From New York. Kurt Russell is back doing what he does best. The cheesy one-liners, the ridiculous plot, everything about Escape From L.A. is perfect. I could never get tired of both films as they are very action flicks. I only wish they did a third movie but alas it will never happen. 3/5

Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, Tommy Lee Jones, Nick Nolte, Kris Kristofferson were among the few that were suggested by Avco Embassy for the role of Snake Plissken. But John Carpenter rejected them all and suggested Kurt Russell. The studio was reluctant to use him because of his Disney status. The gamble paid off. I hadn't seen Escape From New York in so long that it was long overdue for a rewatch. Everything about the film is perfect. The music, the acting, the background setting. Everything about it is really really good. Any of the actors that I mentioned above, had they taken on the role, wouldn't have worked at all and probably wouldn't have retained it's cult status like it has today.  After watching it yesterday for the first time in years, Escape From New York is one of my favorite films. 4/5  

AIP (American International Pictures) I grew up with in my 20's as they made a lot of low budget independent action flicks of the 80's. Their most famous according to bad movie lovers is Deadly Prey.  Those films were lots of fun despite the bad acting, and scripts. Now, before all that, they dabbled into the monster film genre and How to Make a Monster is a decent little film from them. Trying to cash in on the monster movie craze of the time, How to Make a Monster wastes no time in getting to the meat of the story. The acting is great and the story while it's been done before numerous times is decent. As I mentioned in my previous post of Them!, it's great to go back into a time and witness what life was like in the 1950's. I don't know what it is, I think I just how life was just simple as compared to the rat race of today where social media is dominating everything.  Upon watching this film yesterday, I discovered there's a remake of the movie and I plan...

Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Blob, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms are just a few examples of  when the monster movie dominated the 50's. What I love about these films is how clean cut they are, no coarse language, no sexual situations, just a straight up clean horror flick that's only meant to do it's job and that it's to scare people. Of course, Them!, may be considered corny and laughable by today's standards, but I do enjoy watching these from time to time. It's great going back to a time when life was simple and movies were fun and didn't bash you over the head with it's politics. 4/5  

 It wasn't long until Hollywood was desperate for films to remake that they ended up having to remake 4x4 and change it up a bit to fit Hollywood's criteria of dumbing it's audience down. I should mention that this is the third remake of 4x4 and at the time of this writing, I haven't checked out the other remakes yet. In 2022, Brazil & India, released their own versions of 4x4. I'll eventually watch them at some point. I'm here to talk about Locked. Locked is your typical Hollywood remake, has all the cliches and yet, while not a bad film, it does have some pacing issues. Our main character is trapped in a car, being taunted by the owner while trying to figure out how to escape. Overall, Locked is not bad, but the remake was not needed. 2/5

While Hollywood continues to make sequels and films to start a franchise, countries like Argentina make original films like 4x4. I consider myself a fan of stories where people are trapped in an area or an object and have to find their way out. 4x4 takes it up a notch and has our main character stuck in a car and have to figure out a way to get out. 4x4 is an interesting little film that keeps your attention throughout. The main character is a robber trying to survive the streets and by the end of the film, you end up feeling for the person and understand why he did what he did. It won't be long until Hollywood remakes this film.... Oh wait, they already did with Locked. 3/5 

I'm going to start this review off by saying I'm not into Anime. Never been interested, so this was what I consider a reluctant watch on my part. The animation in this looked it was from an early 2000's video game and the look of the predator was a little disappointing to me. Now, I love the early Predator films as they are classics in my book. The rest of the films in the series are hit or miss. Now, if you remember at the end of Predator 2, one of the Predators gives the main character a pistol from 1710 which indicates that the Predator has traveled to multiple time lines and I've said on multiple occasions that I would like to see a Predator film in a different time period whether it be the middle ages, Feudal Japan, or the old west. Predator: Killer of Killers is a short anthology animated film that takes place in multiple time lines, Scandinavia 841, a Viking warrior and her son along with her unit go up against the predator, 1609 Feudal Japan, two brothers of a s...

 We end Final Destination week with the release of the sixth installment in the series, Final Destination: Bloodlines and as usual with the series, the kills are gory, laughable and even put you in a state of shock which is what you come to expect with these films. Final Destination: Bloodlines has that in it's opening scene. But once you get into the meat of the film itself, it doesn't have a good enough story. I'm a horror fan, plain & simple. Along with my wife, we laugh, we cringe, at the gore or kills in this series or any horror films we check out. At the same time, we do expect a good story in place and Final Destination: Bloodlines' story isn't all that great. Moments in the film the pacing goes off  and I found myself a little bored at times. I'm not expecting any groundbreaking or oscar nominated moments. Just a good story followed by the carnage. The film's emotional moment is seeing Tony Todd in his final performance as William Bludworth. The...

 Final Destination 5 is an improvement over the last film in the series. But it doesn't mean it has it's faults. The film's pacing is a little slow in some parts and I also found the 3D gimmick to be tiring. Around this time, 3D was being overused in every horror movie possible and I'm quite thankful that I didn't jump on that bandwagon.  The good in this is the creative ways Death comes up with killing people. Without spoiling the ending, I feel that they're shouldn't have been another sequel after this one. Just leave it and call it a day. No reason to ruin it with another one, but alas we have another sequel that came out this year and I repeat what I said again, just because it was a huge success at the box office, doesn't mean we need a sequel. Final Destination 5 is in my personal opinion a good conclusion to the series. 3/5

 By 1988, the Friday the 13th film series had just released the seventh installment, Nightmare on Elm Street was on movie #4, and Halloween had made a comeback in the slasher genre after the box office bomb of part 3 6 years prior had also released movie #4 in their series and there was still an abundance of direct to video slashers being released on VHS. It's clear people were still watching them by the dozen on either format as I've mentioned but it was showing signs of waning down. Some retained cult status and are still talked about today via the horror community and others sat collecting dust, forgotten. Before I continue with my mini review of Memorial Valley Massacre, I just want to say how grateful I am for companies like Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, and Arrow Video for remastering these gems to 4K. Without them, a lot of this stuff would be lost to time. I've seen Memorial Valley Massacre before way back in my 20's on a faded vhs and I remember enjoying it...

I'm not sure how long this phase of turning children's cartoon characters into slasher villains will last but in the case of Screamboat, I hope not long but I'm not holding my breath. David Howard Thorton known as the Art the Clown in the Terrifier films plays Mickey Mouse and I can appreciate the effort he puts into both characters, despite Screamboat's script being absolute crap. I'm reluctant to see what they cast David into next. He did play a horror version of The Grinch titled "The Mean Ones" which I haven't seen at the time of this writing but hopefully in the fall, I'll check it out. Now, if you plan on watching this film, don't go into it expecting a full on horror movie because you'll be disappointed.  You need to expect the following: atrocious acting, annoying New York accents which caused my brain to go numb, and comedy. A lot of the kills our Mickey Mouse character does goes straight for laughs then scares. I'll be honest,...

  Have you ever been to a video store & looked at a poster or VHS cover of a horror movie and after reading the blurb on the back of the tape, you think to yourself, this film sounds interesting. I'll rent it. Well, after 30 minutes, I can say The Supernaturals is super boring. After an interesting start, the film peters out by 20 minutes and I suddenly found myself losing interest. The Supernaturals is a clear cut example of being duped by a poster and thinking that the film itself would be good.  It is not... 1/5  

Final Destination 4 aka The Final Destination is a decent sequel in the series. It's also the only sequel I'm aware of (not sure of 5) that cashed in on the 3D craze of the time. Remakes like Friday the 13th & My Bloody Valentine were all in just to make the kills in those films more shocking and funny. The kills in Final Destination lean a little more towards the comedy then the horror itself of the past 3 films. All in all, a decent sequel but nowhere near the greatness of the first film. 2 1/2/5