happyStarry Eyes (2014)
A wannabe starlet has her entire career and life forged by Hollywood supernatural creeps. She uncovers a poisonous legacy of Hollywood Satanism. Or something. There is no justification for this terrible film existing. This is full of grave errors of logic. Her fake friends are useless and this was frustratingly ineffective.
Best Lines:
“Dreams require sacrifice.”
“Become one of us.”
~
The Funhouse (1981)
Is this based on a Dean Koontz novel? Badly dressed teens go to a carnival and this has no raw insistent urgency just sleaze. There is no Chekhovian poignancy as perennially blank untalented actors face psychological turmoil. This was made with unbelievable incompetence. Studiously avoid this. An annoying kid lurks. This does not stand up to scrutiny. There are no considered responses. Teens get into a furore. People are suffused with bitterness and act with viciousness.
~
The Two Faces Of Dr Jekyll (1961)
This Hammer horror is filled with nasty and discreditable conduct. Dr Jekyll plans clumsily wild things as he wears a fake beard and bad old age makeup. He’s slipped out of public life to do odd weird experiments. Jekyll repulsively denigrates people and wants to shatter cultural norms and have freedom from social norms.
Women are denigrated. Jekyll is not decent, kind and public spirited. His pal Paul (Christopher Lee) sleazes. Jekyll’s wife has clear preference for Paul. Jekyll heedlessly causes trouble and is going to cause more. Nobody has integrity. Prostitutes lurk. Mr Hyde emerges and there is bad acting, brothels, opium dens, bare knuckle fights and can can girls.
The transformation from Hyde to Jekyll and back again becomes uncontrollable. There is murder and attempted murder and women die for being sluts. There is horrendous acting, incompetent cops and Hyde executes a terrible revenge and a false narrative. Nobody has creditworthiness. People are maliciously accused. There is a malicious strategy and women are repulsively denigrated. This exists for no good reason.
There are vile lies, horrific falsehoods and no melancholy reflection on the destructive power of lies. People overact to near lunatic proportions. There had to be a degree of calculation in Jekyll. This is an unloved Hammer film for a reason: it’s terrible.
Best Lines:
“How dare you talk to a gentleman like that you drunken lout?”
“Dumb human animals.”
“Locked doors of the mind.”
“Such a useless waster.”
“Situation lacks dignity.”
“Go to hell and take that trollop with you.”
“A solemn warning not to meddle.”
~
Power Of Grayskull: The Definitive History Of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (2017)
This is an okay documentary about the Mattel toyline/cartoon. People mumble. What was the Big Jim toyline? Mattel passed on the ‘Star Wars’ toyline. Ha ha ha ha. To get profits up after that disaster, ‘He-Man’ came into being. This shows how ‘He-Man’ was developed and how Battle-Cat came to be. It was originally called ‘Lords Of Power’ but that was changed. The memorable ‘He-Man’ toyart is discussed.
Teela and She-Ra really looked alike, no comment. Evil witch Evil-Lyn is barely mentioned, the cheap animation is talked up as is the backstory. JMS of ‘Babylon 5’ talks. Moral guardians and naff toys like Stinkor are discussed. Apparently even dinosaurs showed up in ‘He-Man’. The voice actor for He-Man isn’t interviewed, he’s enigmatic apparently. The Skeletor voice actor laughs.
How the ‘She-Ra’ spinoff came to be is discussed. She was going to have a sidekick called Silver Reindeer. Moss-Man is discussed. More and more toys were cranked out but weren’t selling. The irritating Loo Kee is discussed. 80s ads for the cartoons and toys are shown. Dolph Lungren is interviewed. ‘He-Man’ and his elaborate mythology are discussed. Frank Langella is interviewed and he has deep thoughts about playing Skeletor in the unloved live action movie. The failed ‘He-Man’ reboot is discussed as are the comics and the revival of the classic action figures. This is okay nostaglia.
Best Lines:
“The world of male action figures changed.”
“Westerns? Is that popular?”
“Sea-Man.”
“Very very disgusted.”
“Play value.”
“Ran out of tooling dollars.”
“Pro-social.”
“Educational consultant.”
“Female fashion action doll.”
“Burn the books!”
“No, he really doesn’t.”
“Eight-foot sword.”
“Not say silly, foolish things.”
“Choices born of 1987.”
~
Dead Night (2018)
This film has a troubled past. It was originally called ‘Applecart’, then it had a disastrous festival screening and was re-titled and re-edited. It’s still bad. Barbara Crampton and Daniel Roebuck star. This opens on a very well lit night in 1961 where incoherent things happen for no clear reason.
The original trailer for this gave me certain preconceptions. They weren’t met. Ill-mannered things lurk in the woods. 2015 arrives along with bad green-screen and Hollywood darkness. Grim mischief is not afoot in the woods and this was not terrifyingly convincing. Various inflammatory characters show up to the cabin in the woods. One is chronically unable to care about them.
There is no command of plot and pace. The characters are a chronic irritation. Clips from a true crime show give away the plot. This film has that horrible cheap shot on digital look. Who is Leslie? A mysterious woman is found in the show. There are disturbing indications that Leslie is weird. There is clunky dialogue and Crampton can’t act.
This is a perfectly useless film that should be confined to irrelevance. The characters are full of spite, inaccuracy and ill feeling. Murderously reckless mutters with strength of purpose lurk. There is death and a monotonously familiar plot. The characters ghastly lives end due to people with the ferocity of their convictions. There is no unexpected edge or gathering unease.
Leslie is plainly deceitful. There is no mischief or chaos. This was utterly inexplicably terrible. Leslie has sinister motives that make no sense. Nobody behaves particularly well. This is without artistic merit. A woman chops up people with an axe with way too much enthusiasm.
Two characters are indistinguishable Selma Blair look-alikes. The post credits scene makes no sense. Snow disappears and reappears. What became of the missing girl? Why didn’t Casey tell the truth about what happened? The ending and the entire movie make no sense. This was utterly mad.
Best Lines:
“The cabin’s built on a pile of magic rocks.”
“Axe Mom.”
“Sorry about the smell in here.”
“Look for wood in the woods.”
“End the war on values.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Just came to check on you, see how the house is working out.”
“At 23:30!?!”
“I’m going to kill you for this.”
“No you’re not dear.”
~
Thirst (2015)
Teens at a boot camp are in peril from bad vfx creatures. This was beyond crap.
Best Line:
“In case something needs to be shot.”
~
Hellions (2015)
A pregnant teen and an angry cop (Robert Patrick) face malevolent kids in this stupid mess.
Best Line:
“Your ass is grass and I’m the lawnmower!”