Saturn 3
(★★★½)
I wasn’t sure about this but I’ve been intrigued by the poster for it since it came out, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
First off, kudos to it for being a 1980 sci-fi movie that doesn’t seem to be an attempt to cash in on Star Wars or Alien. It’s got it’s own thing going on here, reminding me more of the early 70’s Sci-fi like Silent Running rather than the far too oft copied classics of the later 70’s.
And for as low budget as it is (sometimes looking shockingly so), it ends up having some thoughtful sets and shots that make it more interesting than expected. The base is actually pretty cool. Dark but also colorful and it looks like a lot of work went into the sets (at least once you get to Saturn 3, the sets on earth are pretty bad).
A mysterious pilot murders another pilot and takes a canister and then rushes off to the other pilot’s ship, being readied for take-off! Clearly he wanted to be picked to go to Saturn 3! But we don’t get to see who this mysterious malefactor is! Until the Captain arrives at Saturn 3 with his canister, he is met by the two staff of the station and they head in…
going in…
Once they dis-helm, what three people do we have in front of us? Why, none other than Kirk Douglas, Farah Fawcett, and Harvey Keitel?? Wtf? How did this happen? But a nice surprise as Keitel, in his short pony tale and leather pants, looks like a sexy, young, euro-vampire (and has a technocrat attitude to match).
The captain claims here’s there to help out the station, but in addition to his mysterious canister that he won’t let them touch or talk about, he has also brought along a new robot (the the Demigod series… Uh oh)! And then he gets the hots for Farah! And utters some classy lines: “Your body is very beautiful, I’d like to use it”.
Anyway, this was much much better and entertaining than I was expecting!
Madman
(★★★)
From Mark comes one of those “telling scary stories to campers around the campfire, as a warning” movies. But this seems to have a bit more going for it. This story is of course about Madman Marz, who lived in the abandoned farmhouse near the camp. The farmhouse in which he killed his family years ago. He was strung up for it, but his body was gone when they came through cut him down. Supposedly, if you say his name above a whisper, he’ll come for you!
you were supposed to watch out!
A pretty standard concept, but it has a different feel than many of these.
The score isn’t bad though there are some pretty bad songs that turn up (turns out that the actor who plays the unfortunately nicknamed “TP” is the same person who sings in these songs) and just about the cheesiest hot tub romance scene imaginable. Not a good movie, but I found it rather likeable due to it having a different feel to it than many of these old “campground slashers”.
Prey
(★★★★)
Wanted to see this since I first saw a poster for it, as I have long been fond of this franchise (for better or worse) and this looked like an interesting take. And, well, it was quite good. I’ve been a fan of Predator and Predator 2 since they each came out (I’ve seen Predators and AvP 1&2, but… yeah…) this might be my favorite one yet! It’s not sillyishly macho and unintentionally campy like 1 and not as cheesy as 2.
Prey is the story of when a Predator descends near a Comanche settlement on the plains in 1719. It’s more serious, lacks the “over the top”-ness of the first two, and the shtick of Predators.
Featuring lots of beautiful outdoors footage, indigenous American characters and culture that we don’t often see portrayed this thoroughly in movies, and some french trappers who were a nice 3rd party addition.
It’s feels like a more serious movie than the others in the franchise, and less contrived.
They only thing that bothered me is that the dialog spoken by the Comanche is like 95% English and 5% in Comanche. It they are going to use Comanche in the movie, which I appreciate, why not have all of their dialog spoken in Comanche with Subtitles?
Inseminoid
(★★)
This gem from Mark is far too clearly inspired by Alien, but, as is implied by its name, has a more squeamish element to it…
Astronauts on an alien world find an ancient “tomb complex” inside of which they find a bunch of “crystals” and some weird transparent parts of the wall which explode. One of them gets something exploded on his helmet and he gets rushed back to the base.
Sound familiar? In fact, soon after they get back to the ship and the people seem to have recovered, the crew gather in the lunchroom or whatever and you can’t help but think, something surprising and burstingly sick is about to happen! Well, okay so it isn’t that derivative of Alien…
technically, he’s still alive…
But yes, something gets implanted in one of them in a very unpleasant scene, and then that person goes a bit off in the head, like murderously off.
Sadly, even once the crew has a clear enemy, their strategy seems to be:
1. Head out into the tunnels by yourself and run flailingly down the passageway so the enemy will hear you coming and you won’t see her until you run right into her.
2. Get a tool or something that you could hit her with and then throw it in her direction instead so she can pick it up (or, similarly, get her by leaving a bunch of bombs in the tunnels, but with no clear plan on what to do with them, that she can just pick up and use them on you).
Europa Report
(★★★½)
I don’t recall much about the first time I watched this, except for I felt like it might have been okay? But re-watching it now, I liked it quite a lot. A pleasant and serious sci-fi movie.
Kind of a found footage thing where the first manned mission beyond the moon is launched, heading to Europa looking for some signs of life. Problems ensue and they are cut off from contact with earth. So, while most of it is the crew going through their missions, some of it is interviews after the fact with mission crew on earth. It has a nice slow pacing, some nice space effects (especially the surface of Europa), and definitely has some tense parts of “what the heck do we do now?!” as the astronauts try to solve one issue after another.
The Being
(★★)
Driving with your head pulled off…
Pottsville Idaho has a big problem, and one bigger than the bad acting, terrible effects, and terrible quality, rather the big issue now is the Being from the nuclear waste site!
Anyway, green goop starts turning up in cars, even at the drive-in (which coincidentally is playing a movie where a lady gets attacked by some lame monster).
And such a weird cast: Jose Ferrer, Ruth Buzzi, and Martin Landau! Martin Landau is not the star and at many time it feels like his scenes are supposed to be in a different movie. As with My Bloody Valentine yesterday, once people start getting offed, the mayor wants to keep it all quiet, with the help of Landau who is frequently being interviewed to say that dumping nuclear waste in the water has no ill effects.
The Being is terribly edited (at times it feels like the scenes aren’t from the same movie, not just the landau scenes) and it’s just really badly structured and badly done all the way around.
(another from the MarkList)
Humane
(★★★½)
I also watched Humane again, which I liked but didn’t find as interesting as the first time around.
And on this busy day, I watched four movies!
First up, from the Mark list, The Burning (★★★). It was a fairly standard, circa 1981, slasher/revenge film about kids at a summer camp across the lake from a “tragedy camp” (where the caretaker was accidentally set on fire years ago by some camp-goers).
But this one features: a wormy skull, an old mine, Jason Alexander, and Ratner from Fast Times! It was actually more enjoyable than most, and I didn’t find myself getting bored as I usually do by these old slashers… Not really sure why, as it seemed the same as most, naive kids picking on each other, swimming, canoeing, rafting, some good kills, etc. Maybe it was just the magic charm of Jason Alexander?
Then Nosferatu (★★★½)! Now with even more rats!
Definitely, along with Alien Romulus, the top of my list of most anticipated movies of 2024. With Dracula being my favorite movie theme, and Eggers as my favorite modern director, I was very curious how this would come out. That said, I can’t really look at it just on its own merits, as comparisons to the 1922 and 1979 Nosferatu’s are pretty much a necessity. It felt more like a remake of the 1922 version than it did the 1979, but maybe that’s due to Kinski’s incomparable performance in 1979’s.
The most noticeable difference right away was the vastly more expansive coverage of the characters. Ellen, the lady lead, has a much bigger role and her situation is much more fleshed out, maybe too much so. Same goes with Knock, many more background scenes to explain his situation. But also the other characters as well get more story, especially the shipowner and his family, giving the movie much more basis, even before the journey to Transylvania. All this exposition seems to alter the background feeling of the story a bit too much. Of course, this also makes for a noticeably longer movie. Maybe a bit too long.
Beyond that, this felt much more like a horror movie than the others. Orlok is presented as more monstrous here, rather than creepy or weird as in the earlier ones, coming across not much at all like an ancient and cursed human. He seems more a demonic villain in the background, instead of a major character. We see him doing very little aside from appearing and disappearing and being menacing (with a voice that is almost too much). I miss the “vampire as a one man show” scenes like in Herzog’s where we see him loading his boxes of dirt on his wagon by himself. In that film, he really comes across like a lonely old vampire, desperately traveling for love. The Herzog one is so focused on Kinski’s brilliant sad/romantic vampire character that the absence of that made this vampire a less interesting character.
But it’s a great film, if my least favorite Eggers so far, and it’s nice for Nosferatu to get a more modern rendering.
Came home and watched Thelma and Louise (★★★★½), for a nice change in gears… Pretty much perfect.
Louise is a great character, has her head on straight and knows what’s what. Thelma, on the other hand, makes me nervous throughout as she is a bit too much of an impulsive wild card. But, you know, it’s a movie about growth and change and finding your freedom, and they are a great couple of characters. It’s really just one of the best inspirational movies! Even though it’s filled with all sorts of mistakes and criminal happenings, it is still really a positive and inspiring thing. And very entertaining!
Then rounded the day off with After Midnight (★★★½). This was quite pleasant and quiet, especially for what seems to be a break-up and monster movie. Hank’s girlfriend leaves him suddenly and he becomes beset upon by some violent creature every night, trying to break through his front door. Of course, no one believes him so he sits inside his front door every night, lamenting the loss of his girlfriend, and waiting for the monster to come clawing at the door so he can shoot at it.
Maniac (★★)
was pretty high up on the list of notorious movies that I’ve never bothered to watch, but Mark sent me a picture, so I finally watched it.
And it really left with with the feeling that these sorts of things just aren’t for me. Maybe if I’d seen it 40 years ago when I was a teenager? But now? I found it to be not scary, not creepy, not shocking, and not interesting. Joe Spinell, of course, does a good and energetic job. And it was unexpected to see Savini in it (his death scene was probably the highlight of the movie).
But I gotta say “creepy “crazy” guy who talks to himself and gets off by wandering around and killing random women” just isn’t a storyline for me. And, hate to say it, but I’m so old and boring now that I just can’t help but think, “Who would come up with this idea, and why would they think it would make a movie worth making?”. I know, that may seem like an irrational statement coming from someone who likes the amount of pointless schlock I do. But I thought that this movie was just mean-spirited for the sake of being mean, and basically boring.
On the bright side, I can cross it off the list of “classic films I should get around to watching one of these days”.
Smile 2 (★★★).
After an exciting start, this movie lost me a lot. Too much time spent watching a pop star doing pop star things led my interest to wander.
It got more exciting the last third or so, but I find that with these Smile movies, not knowing if the scene you are watching is actually supposed to be happening or is a hallucination causes me to lose interest in the scene.
Between the pop star focus and the excessive amount of hallucination scenes (more so, I think, than the first movie) I just couldn’t really keep an interest in what was going on, and the scenes that were supposed to be creepy, weren’t creepy. The first movie felt much creepier.
The strength of a million souls…
The Dungeonmaster (★★★) certainly gets off to a good start, with a hokey dreamlike chase though a foggy industrial set that leads to an attempted tryst on a conveniently placed mattress on the floor. Until the monsters show up and steal the girl…
I know, you’re “thinking what do I care, it’s got Richard Moll, gimme my Bull!”. But then it says story by and produced by Charles Band and you know it’s bound to be “good”… But then it lists seven “sequences” each of which is directed by a different person and it’s like… Hmmm… I don’t know.
But all in all it was surprisingly entertaining for such a hokey thing and good lord, one of the sequences has W.A.S.P. in it? Wherein the evil dungeonmaster sends our hero to a wasp concert where his ladylove is being menaced on stage by Blackie Lawless! Well, that won me over right there. Another classic for the Mark List.
And I also watched The Oddity again! Nice and creepy even the second time around…