Moviecritic1990's Movie Commentary

 Day of the Dead was originally the final installment in George A. Romero's Living Dead series. But that wasn't the case as 3 other films soon followed years later. Where Day of the Dead succeeds is in Tom Savini's makeup effects. As a teenager watching it for the first time, I couldn't help but laugh at the effects only to appreciate it years later. The story itself while cheesy along with it's script, is decent. The acting is hammy on some of the actors playing the soldiers is also a laugh riot. I know that Romero had to trim his original script down due to budget and I have read his original script and I don't doubt it would have been nearly as fun as what we got today. Day of the Dead isn't as bad as the previous 2 films in the series and I feel that upping the ante on it's gore effects may have slightly brought the film down but not too much. 3/5

Having been a fan of zombies for years and years thanks to repeated viewings of Night of the Living Dead & The Return of the Living Dead, George Romero's zombie flicks are among the best I believe in horror film history. Dawn of the Dead in my opinion is one of the greatest zombie flicks of Romero's filmography. I will always say that the original Night of the Living Dead is a classic which it is, but Dawn of the Dead is easily the best flick out of the 6-7 he made. The script is strong, pacing is strong and the acting is really good. There are multiple cuts that I own of Dawn of the Dead and each version has it's own charm to it. For those who are getting into horror or love zombie flicks like I do, then you need to watch Romero's zombie films. Trust me it's worth it. 5/5  

 When I was a kid, I was a heavy video gamer playing a lot of Resident Evil. But there was one other game series I played that I'm really surprised Capcom never got around to doing a movie adaptation was Dino Crisis. The game was basically Resident Evil, just reskinned into dinosaurs. I loved that game and played it hours on end even though I never could beat it because of those damn puzzles. That's a conversation for another time. Primitive War was a movie I heard about on Bloody-Disgusting and after seeing the trailer, I was really excited because it was a horror film about soldiers fighting for their lives against dinosaurs in 60's Vietnam. How can that not be great? I hadn't seen a horror film with dinosaurs since Carnosaur and that movie while bad, it's still cheesy fun thanks to the genius that is Roger Corman. Will Primitive War be the same thing you ask? Well, I'll start by saying that after the opening sequence in Primitive War, I was very disappointed ...

After the success of Hostel, it didn't take long for a sequel to be in development and released just 2 years later. My stance on sequels is if the film warrants it, then sure I'm open. But not everything needs a sequel, prequel, requel, etc. Less is more is what I say. Hostel: Part 2 is a decent follow up to the first film. It ups the ante on the torture sequences but in terms of story, it's all the same, nothing has changed. It doesn't shock me that's for sure. Why? Because it's been done before. To me, Hostel: Part 2 is just, who cares about story? How can we shock the audience more? I've lost count on how many Saw knock-offs came after the success of it's franchise. The script for Hostel: Part 2 is okay and the acting again, like the first film is not going to win Oscars. Decent, but not great. 2 1/2/5  

 Being a budding horror fan in the 2000's was a crazy time for me. You had foreign horror also known as J-Horror entering the mainstream market with films like The Grudge, The Ring and One Missed Call. Then we had remakes invade Hollywood and let me tell you, I remember the IMDB message boards where people went ballistic as they didn't want their favorite movies remade and their nightmares of a cast they thought would ruin should it happen. I remember the shock when there was fake news about Ashton Kutcher doing a remake of Evil Dead. Those were the days. I've done enough reminiscing here. With the release of the first Saw in 2004, it started a new genre called Torture Porn where instead of scares it was all about torturing people. I personally wasn't invested in the genre back then as I was all about the scares and if I was in the mood, gore. Hostel attempted to cash in on Saw's success at the time and you could definitely see it when watching the movie itself. I...

 Sawblade... A film I remember hearing about years ago starring the one and only Ice Cream Man of the Phantasm series, Reggie Bannister. I personally think that any B flick with Reggie, good or bad, he always stands out as the best. In the case of Sawblade, it's a very very cheap flick with wooden acting and downright bad. Don't get me wrong I love low budget films as they always find ways to do their best to entertain. The kills are laughable and the story itself while it's okay, it's just the script is not good.  1/5

 You've one slasher flick, you've pretty much seen them all and that's the case with Scarecrow. Scarecrow is a typical 2010's teen slasher flick that does it's job, nothing more, nothing less. The script is full of your slasher cliches and no one in a slasher film will get an award for best actor or actress as the acting in these types of films are simply always terrible. I enjoy these slasher flicks for what they are, turn your brain off and have fun. There's not much I can say about this movie other than it's a Canadian production and I support Canadian horror. 2/5

 When watching Thesis, I could relate to the one nerdy movie collector character who was showing off his bootleg vhs collection and I thought to myself, that would have been me in the 90's. Showing off my vhs to people. But enough about me.  Thesis was a movie like Mute Witness that was recommended to me and when watching Thesis, I pretty much enjoyed the film and even though it kinda reminded me of 8mm. Like Hard Boiled, Thesis has gotten me into watching more foreign movies. The story itself was interesting for it's time, acting was okay even though I don't speak a word of Spanish and it's pacing wasn't bad. Hollywood can learn a thing or too about how not to dumb down it's audience and write more original content. 3/5

Mute Witness was probably one of the best recommendations I've gotten on a movie site. Having never heard of it before reading the article, I was intrigued after reading the plot, that a big movie studio invested in this. I've always assumed back in the day that a lot of film studios look down on horror films (Paramount and the Friday the 13th franchise), but yet they didn't care about the money they made the studios. I say that because the plot of Mute Witness where a make-up artist who gets accidentally locked in a warehouse where she's filming a horror movie after hours witnesses a murder and she has to survive the night. That seems better suited for a direct to video release instead of theatrical. When watching Mute Witness, I found it to be really good. The script is strong, acting isn't bad and it's pace is good. The funniest thing I've read about this film is Star Wars actor Alec Guinness is in this film and yet his scene was shot in 1985 and yet Mute...

Night of the Reaper is a Canadian horror film which is a tribute to the 80's slasher genre with the movie being set in the 1980's. You got the rotary phones, video stores, movie posters, etc.  I find that a lot of movies and I'm not just counting horror don't seem to get the time period right. Perhaps they could do a little more research. As I watching I couldn't help but feel a wave of nostalgia come over me. A part of me wishes I was around in that era as I feel I would have fit in better there than my generation. Night of the Reaper is a decent little film with enough twists and turns to generate your interest. The acting is not bad from the cast who do there best with the script given, but it does have one little issue and that's pacing. There are few moments in Night of the Reaper where the pacing drops a little which took me out a bit. Once the "twists" came in, the film came back to life. I love a good film by Shudder once in awhile, they seem h...

Superhero films don't interest me one bit. People can talk about who's better at the superhero game, Marvel, D.C. etc. It doesn't interest me. But I do like dark superhero flicks that don't spawn movie sequel after sequel and I have to watch this film or that film to understand what I just watched a moment ago. Hellboy is a fun dark flick that I've seen before and watching it again, it's just as fun as it was before. What makes Hellboy stand out for me is not just it's story, it's the world created by Guillermo Del Toro. The man is a genius and has a knack for making good creature effects and is a strong writer and combining it with Ron Perlman as the hero, it's just so good. 3/5

When it comes to books, my wife is more of book lover than myself. I'm not sure if she's read any Stephen King novels but me personally, I love the films based on his books and I've seen many over the years. The wife & I went into The Long Walk with low expectations not knowing what to expect. I've read everything about it online and even seen the trailer. When we went to see the movie, I found the plot intriguing, decently paced and okay acting with the exception of Mark Hamill hamming it up as the villain. I'm not sure if she liked the film or not. The Long Walk is more of a drama thriller that's more talky than action which I didn't mind for this type of film. Pacing wise, it's okay. But if you're the kind of person that expects action in this type of film you might not like it. You do get little spurts of action here and there but in it's 108 minute run time, it's all about walking and talking.  Fun watch, but not great. 2 1/2 /5  

If there's one thing I love about these obscure 80's slasher flicks is the search for them. I still frequent the horror boards reading people's posts about obscure horror or slasher flicks that need to be seen. Heck, even at my old age, I own many horror films from my years of collecting but it doesn't mean I've stopped looking or retired from collecting. I may have a lot, but I'm always searching for ones that I may have missed out on. Slasher films to the casual moviegoer may be cheesy, corny and bad which is to be expected. But I am a casual moviegoer and I do watch anything or everything that may interest me and horror is never an exception. There's something fun about searching for a flick that people talk about and The Mutilator was one of those films I remember tracking down back in my 20's especially when I was told about the uncut version. Once, I did find a copy of The Mutilator, it was everything I described above. It's cheesy, it's co...

 Despite making a profit of $2 billion for Warner Bros, it's clear that audiences love The Conjuring franchise and it's many spin-offs. I've seen every film over the years and while I do enjoy the films for what they are. I feel that Ed & Lorraine Warren were swindlers, out to take advantage of people trying to profit from their problems. It's been an ongoing debate in the horror community from were Ed & Lorraine Wilson were truly paranormal investigators or were they con artists looking for a fast buck. I'm leaning towards the con. It's hard for me to take them seriously with all the fabrication that happens in this franchise. That being said, The Conjuring: Last Rites is not a bad film but it suffers from pacing issues which took me out of it which is a shame because I really went into this with low expectations and I did have a good time watching it. I just think the story itself is a little weak resulting in it's pacing. The acting was spot on fr...

 Having seen Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. & Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo, they were my introduction to Troma despite having never seen any of their catalog growing up. While I thought both films were decent but not great, I decided to give Troma another shot with Monster in the Closet and how did it fare you ask? Well, Monster in the Closet is slightly better than the first two films I've seen and that's saying alot. Do you think it's the script that made it better than the other films? You'd be wrong as the script was the stupidest thing I ever heard of in my life. Do you think it's the pacing? You'd be wrong again as it was fine. Could it be the acting that got my attention? No, the acting is terrible. The answer to why the film is slightly better is because of the monster. I swear every time it appeared on screen, I couldn't help but laugh at the effect itself. So cheesy and so dumb that it would make Fluffy the crate monster in Creepshow blush. I gues...

After watching Jackie Brown, I'm convinced that Quentin Tarantino a big cinephile like myself, made this movie for me. Everything about Jackie Brown is beautiful from the opening scene to the last shot of the film. The acting, the cast, the story, the music, and the typical Tarantino dialogue where characters discuss something as random stuff as what they have at McDonald's in Paris is all here. I look at Jackie Brown as a movie where despite it's 2 hour run time, it moves at a fast pace and you really connect with the characters and their motivations. What I love about Tarantino's films is that he never really goes for the A-list celebrity of the time. He gets actors who excelled in movies from the 60's-70's and gives them the comebacks they deserve. John Travolta was box office poison in the 80's until Tarantino casted him in Pulp Fiction and he exploded back in the A-list category soon after. I look at an actor like Robert De Niro who as of recently, hasn...

 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is slightly better than the second film in the series. Script is okay, could have been better in some spots, but overall it is decent along with it's acting. But the only issue I have with the film is it's pacing. I've come to the conclusion that people who write a fantasy film like this, have trouble with script & pacing. It shouldn't be that difficult to write a fantasy film. Do I regret not seeing all 3 films back in the day? Yes & no. I'm more of an action/horror guy so a film like this would not be on my radar so I have my wife to thank me for introducing me to these. The first Chronicles of Narnia is in my opinion a good film with better pacing and a strong script, but the next two, they're okay but I just feel that the 2 films were let down by shoddy writing and pacing. I've touched a bit on acting, so I will say that despite the issues with the script, the actors do a great job. Though...

When I'm not doing commentary on movies, I work the night shift at a grocery store. Not a day goes by where I think of this film and yet, not a lot of people I've talked to have heard of this one. Intruder... What an original concept for a horror movie. A killer stalking the night crew at a grocery store... Man, that sounds fun. In my 20's, I probably seen every slasher flick with the same plot, killer at a summer camp (Friday the 13th, The Burning), killer invades Valentine's day in a small town (My Bloody Valentine), etc. But when I read the plot for Intruder, I knew I had to check this one out. In my younger days, I grabbed pretty much whatever I could find and it was quite the adventure and when my eyes laid on this film, it was a no brainer that I had to get it. Sure, the plot has been done before like I said, but it was kind of different and interesting. Script is full of cheese and the pacing not bad. Acting is what you would expect in these type of films. Highly...

Scott Spiegel, one of the friends of Bruce Campbell & Sam Raimi had recently passed away and in honor of that, I would like to look back at Within the Woods & Intruder. A couple of films I grabbed in my horror collecting days. Now, as far back as I can remember, I was and still am a huge huge fan of the Evil Dead series. I've played the games, seen all the films but when I was in my 20's I came across the short film "Within the Woods" that was made in order to get funding for The Evil Dead. The film will never get a legitimate release which is a shame because I feel that Evil Dead fans like myself, would buy this in a heartbeat. The short film itself is pretty good with it's script and pacing. Seeing a 20 year old Bruce Campbell playing a nerd is definitely amusing in itself. To my understanding, Scott had this and a bunch of Sam's short films on VHS back in the day and that's how it started spreading on the internet which is where I got my copy of...

Back in the 70's, we had a genre of movies called Blaxploitation. It was always about the man fighting against the establishment, mainly Joe Bobb-Briggs. In my early days of movie collecting, I collected a crap ton of obscure action flicks. Many of them were B-movies made in Italy and The Black Cobra was one I remember seeing on various forums but never got until most recently. Now, I say I'm a sucker for action flicks but what I found most amusing is how the Italians make these kind of flicks. They shoot them in Rome, Spain, LA, New York, etc. But yet they get actors who don't speak a word of English and yet their dubbed voice is more amusing than the actual film itself. Black Cobra is a bad movie, yes and they say that it's remake of Stallone's Cobra, I disagree. I think it's just a random action flick and someone involved with the production decided to spread the word that it's Italy's answer to a remake of Cobra. The script is terrible, the acting is...

 The second installment in Disney's live-action franchise of The Chronicles Of Narnia is a decent, but not great sequel. One thing I will say about The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is that it ups the action factor from the previous film which to me is entertaining as I like my action and everyone in the cast does a great job with the script they were given, but that doesn't mean the film isn't good. In terms of script, I think it needed a little more work as at times I felt the pacing was off. I think it didn't help with the fact that back in 2008, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was up against the first Iron Man movie & Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which resulted in a disappointing box office for Narnia. Perhaps, they should have released it in July or August instead of May as that's when the hyped up films come to shine and films like this are pushed off to the side. All in all, a decent sequel, but it definitely needed impro...