Another Horror DVD Haul (27 DVDs)

This time from a local swap meet. They were priced at $1.00 each, but he sold the lot for $20 total.

The Evil Cat (2008) - not listed on IMDB
Vampire Clan (2002)
Trailer Park Shark (2017)
The School (2018)
Shark Swarm (2008)
Scarecrow (2002)
Sands of Oblivion (2007)
Killers Within (2018)
Devil's Mile (2014)
The Executioners (2018)
The Black Torment (1964)
Here Comes the Devil (2012)
Leatherface (2017)
Knock Knock (2017)
Honeymoon (2014)
5ive Girls (2006)
Apartment 143 (2011)
Zombie Nation (2005)


Multi-Packs
The Midnight Horror Collection: Serial Killers
1) White Angel (1994)
2) The Flying Dutchman (2001)
3) In the Dead of Winter (1993)
4) Disturbed (2009)

The Midnight Horror Collection: Killer Curses
1) Venom (2005)
2) Dust Devil (1992)
3) Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)
4) Beneath the Mississippi (2008)
5) The Dead One (2007)
6) The Final Patient (2005)

Where Evil Lies: 6 Movie Collection
1) Population 436 (2006)
2) Devour (2005)
3) Candy Stripers (2006)
4) Incubus (2006)
5) Wind Chill (2007)
6) The Cottage (2008)

Gritty Horror Tales
1) Harm's Way (2008)
2) Hack! (2007)
3) Baby Blues (2008)

Horror Collection Extravaganza
1) Embryo (1976)
2) Shadow Play (1986)
3) Intimate Stranger (1991)
4) Night of the Demon (1989)
5) The Pyx (1973)
6) Sister, Sister (1987)

The Midnight Horror Collection: Bloody Slashers
1) Hoboken Hollow (2006)
2) Secrets of the Clown (2007)
3) Room 33 (2009)
4) Curtains (1983)

Horror Collection: 6 Movie Pack
1) Blood Diner (1987)
2) Parents (1989)
3) Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) (huh??)
4) Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989)
5) Fido (2006)
6) Boy Eats Girl (2005)

Freak Fest: 5 Movies
1) Killers from Space (1954)
2) Monster from a Prehistoric Planet (1967)
3) Gamera vs. Viras (1968)
4) Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)
5) Sound of Horror (1964)

When a Stranger Calls (2006) 6/10

A high school girl takes a babysitting job at a remote house, but she starts getting disturbing and threatening calls.
Remake of the 1979 classic. Sometimes it's difficult to remake a film, especially a well-known one. I thought they did a pretty good job. Not sure if the original ended the same way (been at least 30 years since seeing it), but the ending of this version was pretty telegraphed.
I was expecting Jill's love of running to play a more significant part. The killer, when we get to see him, looks appropriately scary.

Sci-Fighters (1996)

Amazon Prime knows me well. For a DTV looking turkey, this wasn't too bad. It has a Blade Runner atmosphere and various sci-fi tropes. You have to with a title like that, right?

Roddy Piper plays the lead, a detective trying to find some escaped/dead prisoner he used to know (Billy Drago) who's been infected by some weird alien parasite. This is probably the only time I've seen Drago in a prominent role, and Roddy Piper definitely cashes in his cool points for this. He's still basically a rip-off of Richard Dekker, but with a wrestler's physique. He doesn't always come out on top though, but nobody's perfect.

Another sci-fi subplot is the polluted atmosphere. A cloud of dust makes it a perpetual night. I think it was mostly a stylistic choice, because nobody wants to see the daylight in Blade Runner type of movie. Daylight is for pussies.

This movie might be recognized if it had a bigger budget.

Interesting Fact About "The Exorcist"

Heard this on the radio this afternoon.
Apparently, one of the actors in the movie turned out to be a serial killer. He played a surgical assistant, and he was convicted of killing six people.

One Week Challenge Idea: "Don't, Accept this Challenge"

The gist is this: watch movies or TV episodes with the word "Don't" in the title.
Points are as follows:
FTV: 1 point
Movie: 2 points
TV episode: 1 point

Any genre accepted. Only exclusion is tv series with "Don't" in the title of the series, but episodes OF the series with "Dont" will count.

Whatcha think?

10 to Midnight (1983)

Last night at about 10 to midnight, I decided to put this movie on. It's a fairly decent early 80s detective story about the one and only Charles Bronson as he hunts a fit young asshole who hates women. Now this dude clearly has issues, stripping naked before he pursues his young attractive victims. There has to be something sexual about what and why he does these things, but he doesn't try anything dirty on them. He just wants to kill him. What a weirdo.

As the pieces connect, you begin to notice this guy has his alibis and defense strategies all planned out, advised by his low-moral lawyer played by the great Geoffrey Lewis. It becomes less about who did it and more about how do we stop this guy when we don't have the evidence to convict him?

Bronson is the older and more jaded detective here, willing to break the rules to catch the bad guy, whereas his partner is new and virtuous. Fortunately for us, this isn't that guy's movie. This is Bronson's movie.

Oddly enough, there isn't a lot of Bronson action in this one. He's mostly there in the background trying to piece things together while we follow the main villain, who seems like a valid inspiration for Patrick Bateman in ways. This dude is trying to steal the show, but in the end, Bronson reminds us whose movie this really is.

I also love the abruptness of the ending. As soon as the climax is over, the credits roll. We know what we just watched, so there's no need to wrap it up with some boring epilogue of characters trying to explain things. When it's over, it's over.

#Review

The First Purge (2018)

Wow... the only Purge movie I've been avoiding turns out to be the only one I liked. I figured it would be a politically motivated movie, but... of course it is. It also happens to be the only way in hell that this series' ridiculous premise could ever get off the ground. Government subsidized rioting with undercover mercenaries to take out the lower class.

I actually liked the characters. The buff hero was pretty bad-ass, and the progression was decent too. People are unsure how to react, starting off as a rather slow night until killing becomes commonplace. Participation is incentivized with more government money, so the poor black people of Staten Island are the first, which naturally paves the way for psycho junkies, nazis, KKK, and weirdos.

Making the original film set in the future allowed this movie to be slightly more contemporary, which coincides with (even predating the Floyd stuff) all this racial tension these days. The timing of this in regards to the BLM and Hollywood's own 'purge' seem oddly connected somehow, but throw all that shit out of your mind and this movie is entertaining.

#Review

Starcrash (1985) 4/10

The bad guy wants to take over the universe, and the good guys are out to stop him.
This is one of those films that has so many bad elements mixed in, it comes across more enjoyable than it should. Wise-cracking robots, hot women in skimpy costumes, cheesy special effects and bad writing/editing. Oh, and toss in David Hasselhoff for good measure. On the plus side, it starred Caroline Munro, one of the more well-known B movie actresses.
People who can shoot lasers out of their eyes, Amazons on another planet,, badly done stop motion, extreme overacting, a weapon that can freeze time, but they forget about it in the very next battle.
But like I said, it was more fun than it had any right to be.

Three Came Home (1950) 7/10

This film is based on the real-life story of Agnes Newton Keith, an American author who was at Sandakan when the Japanese army invaded. The white residents were all sent to prison camps; men in one, women and children in another. It details the hardships that the prisoners went through, including murder, forced labor, and rape.
I'm a WWII junkie, so I found the film extremely interesting. When most people think of WWII prisoner camps, they think of the German concentration camps. But the Japanese counterparts were just as bad, if not worse.

The Dead Don't Die

So, this lowkey zombie movie is supposedly a comedy, but I didn't really see anything to laugh at. It was really quirky, but that's not the same thing as funny. But there was one single guy in the theater who kept laughing, so I guess some people must find it humorous. I just thought it was weird. It seemed like the sort of thing Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Wrong, Wrong Cops) would have made. Adam Driver's and Bill Murray's characters made it clear in a few parts that they were well aware that they were in a movie, a gag that I always find to be pretty stupid. And with lots of zombie head chopping, they had the perfect opportunity for plenty of gore, but black dust would come out of them instead of blood. All in all, it wasn't a terrible movie, but pretty disappointing nonetheless.