What a putrid mess. In truth, the only reason I watched xXx at all is because I noticed that there were no films under ‘X’ in the Empty Balcony database. Every other letter in the English alphabet is represented, but in the many years I’ve been pounding out these reviews I’ve never once reviewed a film whose title began with the letter X. Now that I’ve seen xXx, I never have to watch it again. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: xXx”
I enjoy seeing movies from the early days of a star’s career. Not all stars were fortunate enough to burst onto the scene out of nowhere, but rather had to put in the low level, unglamorous grunt work that us normal people must endure when starting out. That’s how we got such historic performances from George Clooney in Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th, and Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun. Watching these films, there is no indication at all that these were future stars. I can now add another film to the Shitty Movie Sundays athenaeum featuring a then-unknown star. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Mazes and Monsters”
This flick is some real bottom feeding trash. From Italian writer/director Vanio Amici (as Bob Collins), The Bronx Executioner is one of those bad movies that has zero redeeming qualities. It’s kin to innumerable 1980s Italian sci-fi disasters, but lacks just about all of the charm. In addition, over half of the footage used in the film, including that of some main characters, is lifted from another Italian b-movie from a few years earlier titled The Final Executioner. I’ve never seen that movie, but if I do, I’ll be sure to review it and copy/paste my thoughts into this post. As it is, the only reason I’m bothering with this review at all is because I dedicated time to watching this dog, and I have to get something out of it. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Bronx Executioner, aka Il giustiziere del Bronx, or, Frankenstein’s Movie”
It is a film like Exeter that makes me question this little film criticism hobby of mine. This movie is a bottom-feeding piece of shit, and no one should need any Johnny Come Lately critic to tell them so. It was released direct-to-video and has a Rotten Tomatoes rating below 30%. What more can I add? Not much, to be frank. But this film has done something meaningful when it comes to the Horrorshow. This will be the last low-budget shitfest that I found on Netflix that I will be reviewing. Netflix is a fine service...for television. But when it comes to film, Netflix is a showcase for the worst films Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer. It’s in Netflix’s interest to keep licensing fees for the movies it carries as low as possible. Producers of top-grossing films, which are still making money in direct sales, have no incentive to move their films onto something like Netflix or Amazon Prime until the money stream slows. That means that quality is subjugated to affordability, and we viewers get shit like Exeter. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Exeter”
There’s nothing quite like a 1970s exploitation horror flick. That’s not a compliment. Often such films can be entertaining if there’s a sick spot a viewer needs to scratch, but just as often it can leave a viewer feeling a little filthy by the time the credits roll. Such is the case with today’s film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Toolbox Murders”
Woe be to the viewer when a film series becomes tired. At first there was innovation, followed by repetition. Afterwards comes mediocrity, before, finally, the series descends into total and utter garbage. Such is the case with the last film in this year’s Horrorshow, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. From the opening scene through denouement, the sixth entry in the Halloween franchise is a tedious affair. So tedious, in fact, that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay enough attention to this movie to write about it. It was a close call. More than once while I was watching a text message would come in or I would want to look up a member of the cast or crew on the internet, and any deviation in my focus threatened to derail my comprehension of on screen events. How could I possibly write a review of this dog if I couldn’t remember what I just saw? I’ve stopped watching films after fifteen or twenty minutes and still written reviews, but the difference between those films and this one is that, although I only spent a short time with those films, I was able to keep my focus. Halloween 6 was a struggle from beginning to end. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”
This film is a horror cult classic. It’s one of those flicks a person’s friends tell them about in high school. The teller’s eyes get big and mature elocution disappears. “Oh, man! You have got to see this movie. The ending is crazy!” No further details are given. The line has been drawn. Those that have seen the movie are in an exclusive club, while those who have not are on the outside, looking in with envy. Then the moment comes when a person finally sits down and sees the slasher flick with the shocking twist ending...and it’s a piece of shit. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Sleepaway Camp”
Way back during the first Horrorshow I posted reviews for the first four movies in the Friday the 13th franchise, plus a review for Freddy vs. Jason. I had planned to do a review of the fifth Friday the 13th film, as well, but it was so awful I tuned out for most of the time I was watching. I can’t write about a movie I didn’t pay attention to. This franchise is iconic in the horror genre, but the truth is, these movies suck. Writing about them means I have to watch them, and I didn’t think I could do that anymore, until last night. I should have stayed away. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood”
What a putrid mess. Films this bad don’t seem to come along all that often. Sure, bad movies get produced all the time. The film landscape is littered with poorly made schlock-fests. But this...this is an endeavor worthy of mockery, a movie that makes no pretense of clinging to anything of value. This movie, in other words, is typical of the quality of film that one gets streaming from Netflix. As Felix Salmon of Reuters pointed out this past January, no model exists whereby Netflix can afford the streaming rights on more than a handful of good movies at a time, so everyone out in the tubes with a subscription gets treated to movies as bad as Dracula 3000. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dracula 3000″
What a putrid mess. The trailer for Pompeii, Paul W.S. Anderson’s CGI shit-fest from earlier this year, promised viewers an exploding mountain. It never promised to be a faithful retelling of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 that destroyed the city of the title. But that’s all well and good. Paul W.S. Anderson does not do anything but spectacle. In the trailer, Vesuvius blows up and that’s what I paid to see. What I didn’t pay to see was a low-rent Titanic rip-off that made me wait 66 whole minutes for the good stuff. And that wait is a problem. Pompeii only runs about an hour and a half. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for the disaster portion of this disaster movie. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Pompeii”