Krampus (2015)

Ready to get an early start on Christmas horror? This is a good place to start!

A boy is depressed, losing his Christmas spirit, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Well, not right away, but after his grandma tells him a spooky tale.

It's the slow-burn type, so the 1st half is all talk, but the second half is quite special. It surprisingly worked, despite some offbeat casting, such as that manager guy from Waiting. In any case, stay tuned for that ending! 7/10

Crawlspace 1986

Klaus Kinski plays a psycho landlord who spies on his female tenants through the air vents. Then he abducts them to put them through his torture devices. He's a Nazi, so that should explain enough about this doctor's anatomical curiosities.

Naturally, Klaus makes for a great villain because he was obviously a bit psychotic in real life. He reminds me of an old co-worker of mine. Not because my co-worker was a psycho Nazi, but because they're both old gray-haired men. Pretty loose logic there, but I can't help what I'm reminded of.

It's not a very long movie, and it's not very graphic, but there are some cool deaths in there. It's also interesting that most if not all of this movie takes place inside the building. It's a very confined movie, maybe not as claustrophobic as they were intending, but he does keep a prisoner in a pretty dinky sized cage, so it's confined in that sense too.

Decent flick. Gotta love those actors who can slip into psychotic roles so easily. Look at how much of an asshole he was via these IMDb trivia tidbits:

According to Schmoeller, Kinski started six fistfights during the first three days of filming.

During filming, as Klaus Kinski became more and more difficult to deal with, director David Schmoeller noticed Kinski had a crush on one of the young female actresses (Tane McClure, daughter of Doug McClure) and would always be polite and on his best behavior while she was on the set. Towards the end of filming, Schmoeller asked McClure to remain on the set as often as possible so Kinski would be more cooperative and the film could wrap sooner.

Director David Schmoeller and producer Roberto Bessi wanted to fire Kinski, due to his impossible behavior on set, but were stopped from doing so by Empire Pictures, since Kinski's name would attract viewers.

Kinski was apparently very unhappy with the wardrobe that had been selected for his character, buying a whole new set of clothes and charging the costs to the film production. Afterwards, he kept the clothes for himself.

and unrelated...

Sets are reused from Troll (1986).

#Review

Wedding Slashers (2006)

I know what you're thinking. "What a dumb title!" I thought so, too, the first time I saw it at a dollar store. But these days, a lot of horror films have dumb titles. Compelling horror titles are a thing of the past.

So, I kept putting it off, and I eventually caved in. I was really surprised! Not only did it have great suspense, it also had great performances from all the main characters (which I wasn't expecting).

Yeah, as the plotline says, it's about a dame who keeps trying to marry, only to wind up with a dead groom. It's not random, the killers have a good reason for doing this. Give it a shot if you like trash, especially trash that's an 80's throwback, or seems to be. 7/10

Anyone else coming back from a long layoff?

This is my first post since 2019, I believe.

I almost forgot how to make a thread. I used to be Soapbox_Qustodian. Anyway, glad to be back. Not sure about those monthly challenges, though, not really my thing. Just glad to be back.

Beyond the Edge 2016

It may be a turkey, but this tale of space madness is actually kind of interesting. Two men are on a mission to reach the end of the universe. That can't end well, can it? Pretty early into the movie, Casper Van Dien dies in a freak accident, so it's only one guy left to carry on, and what happens next gets pretty confusing.

The story is non-linear, so Casper is still in a lot of it (thank God). It chronicles the beginning of their mission, as overseen by a scientist played by Adrienne Barbeau, leading up to the days of the accident, and then somewhat beyond that. But not really beyond it. Perhaps parallel to it?

It's a bit of a mind fuck, but it's also kind of funny. It reminds me of Carpenter's Dark Star in ways, only with higher production values and no beach-ball alien. The ending is a bit cerebral, so I had to look up the interpretations of it, but whatever. Probably ought to be rated a bit higher than it is.

#Review

How long can you hold your breath?

I've been reading headlines about Avatar 2 and how the actors have reportedly held their breath for a long time. The claims are that Zoe Saldana held her breath for 5 minutes. Kate Winslet for 6 minutes. Sigourney Weaver for 6.5 minutes. WTF? I can hold my breath for like... 30 seconds. 😄 Of course, my lungs ain't what they used to be on account of my smoking habits, but they were never great to begin with.

So I looked up the record and they claim some dude "held his breath" for 24 minutes. I'm calling bullshit on that one. The brain needs oxygen to function. Are we supposed to believe there are fish-men out there? Really?



Also, James Cameron says his plans for the Avatar sequels can change depending on the box office success of the new movie. If it does well, there could be like 3 more sequels, otherwise just one. I hope it bombs, because Avatar is fucking stupid. I hate it.

Alpha Wolf 2018

Not to be confused with Alpha Dog (2006), this movie actually has canines in it. A couple's retreat turns sour after a werewolf bites Casper Van Dien, turning him into an asshole. Well, a bigger asshole than he was before.

Right off the bat, he's established as a jerk because he has a hot girlfriend, but a trip to a general store has him eying some other woman. Dude doesn't know a good thing when he has it. He seems disinterested in his woman most of the time, gradually turning into a moody carnivorous son of a bitch.

The movie reminds me of Bad Moon in some ways, only shittier. BM featured a cool dog character named Thor, whereas our dog hero in this movie is named... Larry. Not a very cool name, but at least the twist here is... also not very well done. See, the dog becomes a were-person, transforming into a human in the full moon. A mostly feral human protective of his hot female owner.

There's a missed opportunity here, though: the dog-turned-human never fucks the lady, which would have elevated the movie to (trash) epic levels. Instead, he just uses his wonderful opposable thumbs to fend off the shitty looking guy-in-a-furry-suit werewolf antagonist that is our irritable lead actor, and the brawl is underwhelming.

Not the worst werewolf movie, even as mediocre as it winds up being. Go watch Bad Moon instead. That's the alpha movie.

#Review

Black Adam 2022

It's amazing how much DC and Marvel rip each other off. If you didn't already know, DC is in shambles due to the WB/Discovery mess, and Marvel is an over-bloated powerhouse making some very questionable choices lately, but still... DC strives to emulate their success with some super cliche output. Dwayne Johnson promised that his Black Adam movie would be a game changer. Is it?

Black Panther^Adam is about a fictional African country that needs a hero with "Black" in the title, just to make sure that audiences know this is a movie about black power. The Rock has always been more tan than black, so he wouldn't fit in with the classical tribal African crowd, so it's more about Egypt and the middle east. He needs to reclaim the kingdom from some assholes who want to use CGI to destroy everything or whatever, but he's also an asshole. How can assholes be heroes?

This movie comes complete with your strong women archetype, the annoying child sidekick, some unfunny comic relief side character, and of course... the superhero teamup. Falcon^Hawkman, Storm^Cyclone, Ant-Man^{Atom Smasher}, and Doctor Strange^{Doctor Fate} are the good guys, here to stop the other protagonist Black Adam from killing assholes because they want "justice" and whatnot. Yeah, it's another one of those good-guys versus good-guys movies, until they unite against a common threat at the end.

God, this movie is so formulaic. The stupid kid is even trying to make things more so by telling Black Shazam how to use catchphrases and whatnot. The plots of these movies are all the same. You could put any superhero in someone's place and have the same turnout. And the villains are so one-dimensional too. Everything about this movie is a cliche.


It wasn't all bad, though. The Rock needed to put on a cape eventually, and he's pretty jacked. Plus, you have Pierce Brosnan as the sorcerer with the silly helmet, but all the other characters are generic and completely forgettable.

I hear they put a LOT of money into this movie and likely wont be seeing much if any profit. If you make the same movie over and over again, people will lose interest in the brand. It makes perfect sense why WB is going bankrupt when they output this shit.

Also, Henry Cavill shows up in the post-credits scene. Not that anyone really cares about more of that invincible asshole...

#Review

Fire Twister 2015

Remember when tornado movies were all the rage? Yeah, neither do I. But for some reason, regular tornados weren't cutting it anymore. That's why they needed to utilize some elemental nonsense, hence... Fire Twister!

Featuring the greatest actor in the world, Casper Van Dien, Fire Twister is a movie about a somehow manmade fire tornado that a fire fighter (Casper) and a group of something-or-others must put a stop to. But wait, there's more! There are also mercenaries in this movie trying to put an end to the heroes, only after framing them for the weird unnatural disaster. Some corporate conspiracy bullshit, but whatever. Somehow, it ends up being pretty entertaining.

I wont say this movie is good. No no no, it's pretty fucking stupid, but quite enjoyable. There's a scene where they have to help a woman get her baby out of a tree. Casper starts climbing, reassuring her everything is okay, then begins tugging on the stroller until it falls down and all he's left with is... some baby doll? The mother gets relieved, "Oh, that's just my kid's doll," like everything is okay. We never find out where the baby actually went, but fuck it. We need to get back to stopping that tornado, whilst running from mercenaries!

When people get sucked into the fire twister, it's pretty hilarious. Apparently, the only way to stop a tornado in these movies is to blow something up in the center of it. That's what they do in the Sharknado movies, so it must be science. Sheer science!

Eventually, they fill a fire truck up with gasoline so they can make it into a literal fire truck, because the fire tornado is attracted to heat. Kinda like how those Sharknados are only attracted to Ian Zerring, but we'll forgive this bogus movie logic, because it's funny. I give this movie some rating out of a number.

#Review

October Challenge 2022 - The Results



Another October done and dusted. Firstly a big congrats to all of those who managed to complete the challenge and hit that magic 31 (and waaaayyyy beyond for many). I for one literally left it to the last minute 😦. But well done 1. Ballz and 2. Vince for trouncing everyone again and also to Troma for the most FTVs. Here are the results in full:

SMASHED IT!
Ballz - 114 (53)
Vince - 109 (27)
Troma - 80 (58)
Nicko - 62 (36)
Box - 57 (50)
jimb - 56 (55)
conditioned - 44 (18)
Brett - 43 (22)
Deferenz - 40 (26)

PASSED THE TEST!
Zombie - 35 (31)
Shroud - 34 (21)
Baseball - 32 (16)
zed - 31 (31)
Trigger - 31 (27)
markus - 31 (19)

FELL AT THE HURDLE!
Onyx - 17 (9)

So what was your favourite FTV? And your least favourite?

Favourites:
Pearl (2022) - Probably one of the best performances you will ever see in any horror movie. Ever.
Barbarian (2022) - Wasn't a huge fan of the "third act" but still one of the best horror movies of the year without question.
Terrifier 2 (2022) and The Sadness (2021) - Both contain some of the most brilliant (and downright disturbing) practical gore you will ever see.

Least favourite: Halloween Ends (2022) - Michael hires an apprentice!