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A bad video game adaptation is nothing surprising, but this one is impressive because of how many levels of wrong-headed it is.

I don't know how you play the Borderlands games and think, "You know what this needs? Lots of tragic backstory."

The cast all do their best, honestly, but most of them are miscast or poorly served by the script. For example, casting Cate Blanchett as Lilith is a little weird, but she's Cate fucking Blanchett. If they hadn't insisted on reminding us of how old she is throughout, it really would not have been such a big issue. Gina Gershon is pitch perfect casting for Mad Moxxi, but they rein her performance in and give her nothing to do!

It's all just such a poorly written mess, and such a generic story. It's not like the original game isn't bordering on generic, but it makes it work. This feels like it is checking off all the boxes. And, hilariously, even manages to pull a "Surf Dracula" by making it a surprise that Lilith is a siren so she doesn't use her powers until almost the end.

I it, I chuckled a few times in places the movie wanted me to, but this is still pretty damn bad.

I was inclined to like this one, anyway, since I dug Prey and an anthology film of the Predators hunting humans throughout history is an amazing premise. But thankfully it was also just exactly as awesome as I hoped it would be.

All the stories are strong, which is obviously not always the case with anthologies, though the standout is the samurai story--ittedly, though, I am slightly biased because it uses one of my favorite chanbara tropes in a wonderful way. And, of course, the framing story is pretty awesome, too, and builds to a satisfying cliffhanger. (I don't consider that a spoiler because it's pretty obvious they can't totally wrap this one up in 90 minutes once you get to the final story)

I can only assume this is a proof of concept film and if it does well we'll get a show out of it, but I would be happy with another sequel film.

For the less great stuff: I'm not crazy about the animation style as a whole. It's mostly good, but kind of bland and the jerky motion can be off-putting--but the way the fire effects and smoke were done rules so hard. The Predator designs are hit or miss, with the Shield Predator being a mix of cool and somehow too huge at the same time, the Sword Predator being an actually amazing design (especially unmasked), and the Bullet Predator being kind of bad. It doesn't help that Bullet's story is kind of the weakest, not because it's bad--because it isn't--so much as hunting planes in a spaceship kinda feels out of character for the Yautja as a whole.

And yes, a quote at the opening establishes they are using "Yautja" as the name of the species. As someone with barely any exposure to the comics, that doesn't really affect me either way, but it sounds good.

The Grendel King, though, is one of those designs that is both really awesome and kind of silly because of trying so hard to be badass--but at the same time I am not immune to the allure of a hulking Yautja in bone armor. So I dug his design. I also enjoyed another alien monster we see, even if it was a bit on the generic side.

So this is not without its flaws, but damn I enjoyed it and hope to see more of it. And I am even more eager for Predator: Badlands now.

Finally watched the Criterion 4K disc and, to me, it looks great. While I wish the dub was still included, both for completeness' sake and because I think it makes the awkward English-speaking sections go down a lot easier, it's not enough to ruin the film experience.

And this is still one of my absolute favorite entries in the series. It sits comfortably in the third spot of my "top 3." And Biollante is definitely high on my list of favorite kaiju, as well.

If you can just simply look past the fact that this film takes only a few shreds of elements from the game, you're definitely more likely to get some enjoyment out of this.

To be fair right off the bat, the game's story was really nothing special without the "choose your own adventure" horror movie aspect, so what would be the point of it as a movie? Changing it to a time loop story provides a lot more potential and allows the film to come a lot closer to delivering on the appeal of the game. Plus, time loop stories are always fun.

Still, this is...kind of a scattered movie. The idea of a constantly changing scenario and the people trapped within it slowly changing into Wendigos is only just getting explored when suddenly the movie skips ahead several nights and gives us a highlight reel of what we missed. A highlight reel that completely whiffs the point of such a montage, in my opinion, since it could have been a chance to really let loose with the crazy monsters and instead it...doesn't. We really only see a couple monsters we don't see elsewhere, which is a massively wasted potential, and the film fails to use this chance to deliver on the promise of a hinted werewolf--a criminal oversight if there ever was one.

And the film already introduced the threat of "water that makes you explode if you drink it," so there isn't much else that can top that for unique deaths--and we already saw a giant troll prevent the heroes from driving off, so I would have greatly preferred seeing more of that.

The Wendigos are also clearly an attempt to pay homage to the source video game, but they might as well have not bothered. These aren't the Wendigos of the game who can't see you if you don't move, and are completely twisted and inhuman. Nope, these are just zombies with sharp teeth that can run. They would have been better off just leaving the name Wendigo in the credits rather than drawing attention to it with dialog.

The other main carryover from the game is the slasher villain, who is honestly handled much better than the Wendigos. The scene where the survivors all gang up to take him down for a change was honestly delightful.

And to be sure, this movie has a lot of delights. The exploding water, for one thing. The movie doesn't seem to know what to do with Peter Stormare here, but at least he is having fun. The cast in general is pretty likeable, even the designated selfish coward, which goes a long way towards helping us to care even a little if they make it out alive.

Also, if you are getting a little sick of modern horror movies where the real monster is trauma, you will either love or hate the reveal that this time loop is basically a Galaxy of Terror or Event Horizon scenario where the primary heroine's trauma is what's powering and inspiring whatever force that is tasked with creating all these monsters.

Is this a good movie? I mean, it's pretty solid and I had a good enough time with it. Is it a good adaptation? Fuck no. Is it worth watching whether you were a fan of the game or not? Eh, it is worth watching, but not worth going out of your way to watch it. Sometimes that's OK for a horror movie, and it's damning with faint praise for a video game adaptation, but at least you'll get to watch people explode like gore-filled water balloons multiple times.

Look, I'm not made of stone. You put Stitch giving his "This is my family" speech in front of my eyeballs and I'm gonna bawl like a baby. Hell, there were even a few emotional highpoints that got me independent of what happens in the original film.

Of course, you have to take the good with the bad in something like this and there is a lot of bad. If you have seen any recent Disney live-action remake, you know what to expect. This film is mostly a condensed highlight reel of your favorite parts of the original film intercut with often questionable new story beats that mostly serve to pad the runtime for the stuff that is too expensive to bring to life outside of animation.

The first sign of trouble, frankly, is the studio logo. The original film altered the current Disney logo to be "spacey," but Disney is too focused on the brand now to ever do something that fun so instead you get the full, unaltered studio logo. The opening is basically the prologue of the original film, but condensed so much that it almost gave me whiplash--in essence that sequence gets cut down while the studio logo gets drawn out.

The tone of the film as a whole kind of demonstrates that consideration even further. The original film was a cartoon for children so it feels strange to say this, but it feels like most of the edges of it were sanded off for this film. There's no "My dog found the chainsaw" here, no Lilo asking Cobra if he ever killed someone, and Lilo just gently shoves her bully off a stage instead of punching her in the face. Hell, as nice as it was to see Tia Carerre get a big role as the sympathetic social worker, her role removes a lot of the tension of Nani's attempts to please the stern Bubbles.

I'm sure budget was the main reason, but the film also cuts out so much of the original film in favor of less interesting options every time. Did you like Captain Gantu? I hope not, since here he is played by Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. Gantu's role is basically combined into Cobra Bubbles and Jumba, and both characters suffer as a result. Did you think it was interesting that Jumba actually became a sympathetic character, despite seeming to be an obvious villain? Too bad, here he is just a straight-up villain and never becomes anything else.

I it was absolutely delighted by the scene of Jumba and Pleakley heavily wrapped up in coats and scarves to sneak past humans--but the film immediately does away with that charming angle by having them put on holographic human disguises. Hilariously, Pleakley seems to be reading as very queer in most of the film, but of course in 2025 we can't dare have an alien dress in drag so his role feels way more retrograde than the original did in 2002.

The cast certainly does their best, but I feel like the movie lets them down. Newcomer Maia Kealoha is pretty great as Lilo, and it is nice to have Chris Sanders back as Stitch, but poor Sydney Agudong is given serious short shrift as Nani.

For one thing, the film adds a sympathetic older neighbor played by always excellent character actor Amy Hill, who ends up taking over a lot of the scenes that Nani was originally part of the original. As a result, Nani ends up much less developed as a character, and despite the film's attempts to make us understand her struggles it somehow makes her less sympathetic than the original. This is extra baffling because the film decides to show us what Nani's ambitions are outside of caring for Lilo, yet I feel like I had less of an idea of who she was!

Poor Courtney B. Vance feels like he doesn't even know why he's here as Cobra Bubbles, and I don't blame him for being confused. The character as written never feels like an ally or a threat, he's just there because he was in the original and they already ditched Gantu so they had to keep someone.

It's not all bad, of course. This actually is a live-action remake filmed in Hawaii, so unlike most of these remakes it actually looks good. One of the new additions to the film is an alien axolotl that is hilariously eager to blow up Earth. The "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" scene is as great as it could be when recreated in real life, and features a French bulldog surfing. The animal shelter scene features multiple adorable dogs, like two different cute pit bulls, so that's a nice bonus.

And, despite the film feeling much too soft in many ways, the scene where Jumba makes Lilo come back (with Stitch in tow) because he starts deliberately destroying the objects she holds sacred from her deceased parents was a much more brutal moment than I expected. So it's even more disappointing that Jumba doesn't actually get to redeem himself this time around.

If you love the original, you will probably sort of like this one, at least. You'd be better off just watching the original film, of course, but there's ay least enough of the bones of the original film that you probably won't outright hate it. That's about the most I can say in its favor, though.

Goddamn. Not only do I have a clear choice for "Movie of the Year," but this will likely be my movie of the decade. Hell, this is definitely one of my new Favorite Movies Of All Time.

I don't know what I can say about this that hasn't already been said, but if I was worried that it was going to be too overhyped by the time I saw it then I had absolutely nothing to worry about. I could have seen this movie a year from now and still been blown away.

In my review of The Evil, I mentioned that the invisible menace there used the same sound effects as this film's monster. So naturally that put me in the mood to spin this up on Tubi.

When I say this is a movie about Soledad Miranda and Ingrid Pitt being menaced by an invisible dinosaur, you probably get a very different idea than the actual kind of film this is. This film was very earlier in both their careers, and in fact was Pitt's film debut, so the erotic horror features from both would still be a couple of years away.

Which is hilarious, because in many ways this film feels like it hails from much, much earlier than 1966--but less than five years later Soledad Miranda would be working with Jess Franco.

As a movie this is...pretty stock stuff. Treasure hunters that we're supposed to care about, despite being kind of inconsiderate greedy assholes, decide to blow up a cave and manage to find a fossil egg and a mummy. (They say the mummy is a Neanderthal in one scene, then later say it dates back to the Trojan War, so they're not very good at this) Unfortunately for them, there were actually two fossil eggs and the thing that hatches from the one they didn't notice immediately turns invisible.

In true horror movie fashion, barely a day later the thing that hatched is man-sized and sets about brutally killing them off. And I do mean brutally. Sure, the dinosaur never eats anybody--with a hand-waved explanation about it supposedly draining its victims of blood--but it slashes them up in a very graphic manner for a film like this. Clearly the director understood that an invisible assailant would require the violence to be visible and embraced it.

And, man, I swear no gore hits quite as hard as black and white gore.

As you would expect of a movie where the monster is invisible the entire time, there is not a lot of thought put into its appearance. The baby creatures look like slugs with glowing eyes, and when we see very brief glimpses of the Big Chap it is clearly played by a static Allosaurus-like dinosaur model, until its demise when it is either a suit or puppet that resembles nothing so much as Denver The Last Dinosaur.

There is, as always, a novel thrill to seeing a movie about characters trapped in a house by a monster outside that was made before Night of The Living Dead really set the formula. Hell, this could even be classified as a "spam in a cabin" flick. However, how much that novelty will keep you invested really depends on if you can accept that even the presence of Miranda and Pitt are not going to be enough to make you care about our dinosaur bait.

It also will depend on if you, like me, have watched a lot of dubbed kaiju movies from the 1960s--because I immediately started recognizing some voices in this film's dub because, like Godzilla vs. The Thing and many others, it was dubbed by Titra Studios.

I'm the father of a 10-year-old, so I knew I would someday be forced to watch this movie. I only hoped it would not be painful.

I did not expect that it would actually be...kinda fun.

I definitely winced when I saw five writers credited, and since I most definitely did not get the appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, I assumed this would fall just as flat for me. Instead the parts that were closest to that film actually got some genuine laughs out of me.

Once we get to the Overworld it became pretty exactly the dumb video game movie I expected, but even there I was surprised by a few bits that were funny or entertaining instead of rote. And also I did not anticipate how hilariously homoerotic the scenes with Jack Black and Jason Momoa would be.

In one scene Jason Momoa yells that they have to make a "man sandwich" and then they 69. So that was a thing.

Is this a good film? Absolutely not. Do I recommend watching it? Not unless you are a parent being forced to, or enough of a fan of the game to understand why it is significant that the end credits scene shows us the back of a red-haired woman's head and she introduces herself as Alex.

Still, I have watched way worse things by choice, so...

Well...it doesn't make a damn lick of sense to me, but I just kind of let the images wash over me and I feel like that is the best way to approach this.

It's a beautiful film full of hypnotic images, and it is focused on Edwige Fenech who is also beautiful and hypnotic.

If you don't expect any of the explanations to make sense, and don't bother trying to figure out what's real and what's a dream/hallucination, it's a pretty easy watch.

Watched on Criterion Channel, which uses the Giant Devilfish ending. (Which oddly makes more sense than the theatrical ending, in my opinion)

Still a damn fun flick, with a crackerjack premise and some really good effects from Eiji Tsubaraya and crew--and yes, I am including the puppet horse.

The only real downside to me is still that Baragon is just too damn cute to be the villain! It's no wonder the character maintained such popularity despite only appearing in two films (or 1.5, given how brief his appearance is in Destroy All Monsters) until his return in 2001.

But, like Frankenstein, I would also wrestle a dinosaur for Kumi Mizuno.

Been a while since I watched this and since my son is excited for the live-action remake, he asked to watch it tonight. It's easy to forget, after all the spin-offs and sequels that were just kind of OK, that this first film is excellent.

It's hilarious and heart-felt, and even though some of the animation has begun to look a bit rougher over the years, the movie is still gorgeous. Also, Toothless is still such an amazingly well-realized character.

The soundtrack is also incredible stuff, and the theme soaring as Hiccup and Toothless first zoom through the rocky shore of the island just gets you right here.

If it's been a while for you, too, I highly recommend watching it again.

It's hard to know what to rate this, exactly, because holy hell. I thought I had a basic idea going in of what this movie was going to be, knowing that it was one of the more notorious tentacle hentai films and having read about a few plot beats here and there.

But I still was not truly prepared for the reality. This movie is grim and apocalyptic, and genuinely horrifying at almost every turn. There's also some genuinely interesting story beats, exploration of what prophecy and blind faith in it really means, and some surprisingly well fleshed out characters.

Did I always understand what was going on? Of course not. But I was riveted all the same, and I had no clue where this was going to end up.

This is definitely not a movie that I can easily recommend, of course, but if you think you can handle it then I would say it is absolutely worth a watch.

The good thing about this film is that the titular Big Freaking Rat is entirely done with practical effects, even if (and especially because) said effects consist of a prop head, prop paws, and a prop tail that are clearly not connected to an actual body.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers were clearly not very confident with their effects because most of the attack scenes are rapid cuts that don't allow you to get any kind of sense of what's happening most of the time--but are also not quick enough to disguise the fact that the kills are mostly just the rat chomping on its victims, who just end up covered in stage blood but still totally intact. There are some occasional severed limb props, but very rarely.

The worst part of the movie, though, is that it's a horror comedy. Occasionally this is approaches being funny, like when some mobsters think the rat exterminator is the hit man they summoned to deal with a snitch they are planning to kill. I mean, it's an obvious joke, but it made me chuckle a couple times. However, most of the comedy is jokes about "those darn Millennials" in reference to a teenager, who would have been a Zoomer even in 2019 when this was actually filmed.

So, unfortunately, this means we are left with a series of scenes with bad jokes strung together and occasionally interrupted by other scenes of a giant rat killing people, until the main characters and the rat finally meet up. I will give the movie credit in that I did not expect who the final survivors would be (for the most part), and that it did not go for an obvious "it's not over" ending. Unfortunately, that means the film just kind of abruptly putters out after the rat gets killed in a pretty desultory manner.

Also, I have to note that this film follows a maddening recent trend of horror movies that tease you with the prospect of sex scenes or nudity, but never deliver. It's fine if a movie does not want to include those things, obviously, but then I do not understand why the film would include a shower scene and two lovers in a tent being attacked by the rat when those scenes would seem to serve no other purpose and are filmed in an oddly leering manner.

It almost feels like they filmed those scenes just to put them in the trailer and trick people into thinking the movie was sleazier than it actually is.

In the end, I am afraid this movie was not good at all, and as much as I loved the rat effects I can't recommend a movie based on that alone.

Hadn't watched this original Japanese version in a bit and felt like revisiting it. It's still such a great flick, and it features one of the absolute greatest Godzilla suits ever. (Even if the Kong suit is charmingly horrendous)

The original Japanese version is a genuinely hilarious comedy, especially viewed from the future where these kinds of pop culture match-ups have become way more commonplace. The way this film approaches this big showdown is to constantly make fun of how silly it is, and have people arguing constantly over which monster is stronger--to the point of almost getting into physical fights over it.

And yet, this never crosses the line into annoying or condescending to the audience--because when it comes time to have the monsters battle, it sets aside the "we know this is ridiculous" angle and just gives us a great kaiju wrestling match.

My opinion is mostly unchanged after my latest viewing: the Japanese version of this film being superior in almost every way, except a few story/editing choices that I actually think the US cut handles better. For instance, the US cut having the doomed submarine and Godzilla's escape from the iceberg be one uninterrupted sequence is way better than cutting away and coming back to it.

Sadly, the only "new" takeaway from this latest viewing is being reminded that the quality of the transfer for the film on the Criterion Collection set is appalling. Even the scenes that don't look murky and bootleg-like are clearly darker than they should be. I know this is mostly Toho's fault, like most such things, but it really is a shame when you compare it to how comparatively gorgeous the US cut looks.

OK, now this movie is what I was hoping for. It gives us much more of the heroine, her powers get increasingly ridiculous, and a lot of the jokes are actually funny.

I mean, I sure was not expecting Jiro Dan, the actor who plays the human alter ego of Ultraman Jack, to appear as one of the villainous teachers. To my delight, after Kekko Kamen kills Dan with her thighs, he is resurrected as "Violence Chuck" who has a color timer on his chest.

The budget is also clearly a bit higher this time around, and with an 80 minute runtime this movie actually makes good use of that extra 20 minutes.

At any rate, I had a fun time with this and that is all I wanted from it.

Considering the little I have seen of Japanese sex comedies before, this was surprisingly well-done. It's definitely very cheap and often uncomfortable and upsetting, but at least it seems to understand that it is being upsetting. And I actually laughed at some of the jokes.

However, even at 60 minutes it takes a while to get going and then once you start getting invested, it's already over.

Still, I can think of worse ways to spend 60 minutes than watching a naked superhero constantly failing to keep her obvious merkin covered.

Solid enough little thriller about a handful of survivors of a nuclear war coming together, and the squabbles that result even before the radioactive mutants show up to really stress them out.

The infamous Paul Blaisdell provided the monster suit for this one, and I have honestly always enjoyed his monsters even if they usually more "memorable" than "good." However, this one is by far his worst in my opinion--which is probably not helped by the fact that the monster doesn't really get to do anything.

Whether it was intentional or not, the survivors are in far more danger from each other than they ever are from the monster. That's all well and good, but this is a movie with a poster that proclaims itself to be, "The screen's new high in NAKED SHRIEKING TERROR!" (The all caps are original to the tagline) If that's what you're selling me, I kinda expect the monster to do something more than strangle one half-mutated guy, carry the heroine around a little, be afraid of a lake, get mildly perturbed at the hero shooting it, and then get killed by the rain.

There is, at least, the amusing implication that the monster used to be the heroine's boyfriend who didn't escape the nuclear holocaust--though oddly this is not made explicitly clear by the film as you might expect it to be. This is amusing because the heroine's boyfriend is shown in a framed picture she has, and he is Roger Corman himself.

Still, there's other fun to be had here. Adele Jergens is great as a former striptease artist and current moll, who ends up competing with the heroine for her scummy boyfriend's attention. Not only is she fun, but the scene where she shows everyone what her routine was like and then breaks down in tears is the most genuinely emotional scene in the film.

Alas, she exits the film way too early and we are not left with anyone as compelling for the rest of the film, unless you count the monster. So this is not one of Roger Corman's best, but it has its moments just the same.

I had seen this one once before, I know, but like many movies I ed the reviews I had read of it better than I recalled the film itself. Sometimes that's a trick of getting old, sometimes that's because the movie isn't terribly memorable.

I feel like this falls firmly into the latter category.

Oh, it has its moments, like Victor Buono's delightful turn as the extraordinarily jovial personification of the titular Evil at the climax of the film. But for the most part this is a pretty standard haunted house horror flick, with a heavy application of cast thinner.

The most memorable parts aside from its charming Devil, are definitely the heavy reliance on stock sound effects that makes everything far more amusing than menacing. You like "Castle Thunder"? Good, because you'll be hearing it a lot during the stormy events of the film. At one point, a possessed dog chases someone down while letting loose with the Tie Fighter sound effect from Star Wars. The evil force also does most of its attacks on the cast whilst invisible and growling, and since the growling is identical to the menace from Sound of Horror, it is impossible for me not to wish the cast were being attacked by an invisible dinosaur instead.

Unshockingly for 1978, the film's treatment of its sole black character is pretty bleak. Lynne Moody plays Felicia, who we find out is a recovering drug addict--and I think she is the only one of the cast to be identified as such, despite the characters all working for a drug rehabilitation program in some way. Naturally, we know she won't make it to the end credits, though she does ittedly get closer than you would expect. However, don't give the film too much credit for that--she's also the only character in the cast to be the victim of what seems to be a sexual assault by the spirit, when it slaps her around and then tears off all of her clothes, except for her underwear.

I'm just saying--and I know I am not the first to make this observation because, again I recalled the reviews better than the movie--that ain't great optics, guys.

At any rate, though, you could certainly do worse than this and if for some reason you want a horror film that is pretty light on actual scares and gore--aside from one scene where a character cuts his hand open with a circular saw under the evil's influence--then this will do pretty nicely. But really, it's mostly worth it for the fun Devil at the end, and apparently there used to be some cuts that removed his scene entirely!

That's a wild decision by whoever did that, since it's the only part of the film that makes it unique!

I have never seen the original musical and have very little familiarity with it, aside from knowing a couple of the songs, but I really enjoyed this.

I was not expecting Ariana Grande to be able to pull off a role that Kristen Chenoweth originated, but she did great. Cynthia Erivo was also amazing as Elphaba, but she seemed more likely to be from what I had seen going in.

The whole cast is great, it's worth noting, but the whole thing requires our two main leads to carry the film for it to work.

I was not expecting this movie to be so relevant to current events. The whole fascist plot cuts way too close to home these days. We can never have too many allegories for why authoritarianism is bad, though.

My only complaint is that it is still kind of ridiculous that they couldn't just make this one movie, but I am actually looking forward to the second half now.

Finally got around to watching this, and much like almost everyone else, I thought it was great.

It was a risky choice to take one of the most iconic vampire looks and change it to be the most novel-accurate Dracula I have maybe ever seen, but it definitely works. Count Orlock here is haunting and compelling, but never ceases to be horrifying and revolting.

There's also something great about how pathetic this Orlock/Dracula is. He doesn't have any brides, even if he does have wolves at his beck and call. He is, as he says, nothing but an appetite.

I'll be curious to see what the differences are with the extended cut, but I enjoyed this very much.

How is it that I can barely things I watched a week ago, but I ed almost every part of this piece of shit a good 30 years later?

A lot less of the jokes went over my head as an adult, but that doesn't mean they were funny this time. The funniest joke by far is simply that the film is directed by the editor of Gremlins.

The plot, such as it is, is that an archeologist played by Harvey Korman and his wannabe stand-up comic "teenage" son find a little alien in Peru. (Well, actually it later turns out to be a statue that was magically animated, but somehow aliens were still involved) They bring it back home and the son's girlfriend, who you may have previously seen as the teen daughter menaced by small carnivorous aliens in Critters, nicknames it a "Munchie" because it loves eating snack food. The comedian also names it Arnold, for some reason.

The archeologist then leaves the movie, but Harvey Korman sticks around because he also plays the evil capitalist twin brother that serves as our human villain for the rest of the film. Seeing profit in the creature he knows his brother brought home, he makes his Deadhead stepson help him steal it, and then leaves the stepson to guard it while he goes to get his wife.

The stepson manages to piss off Arnold, and in the process of fighting the creature off he cuts it into pieces. Turns out that is the way you make multiple Munchies in this film and the stepson gets killed by them...off screen, I guess? We last see the Munchies turning his music up too loud, but the stepson is found dead later and we are given no indication as to how he was actually killed.

The comedian and the girlfriend quickly discover Arnold has become a gang of little monsters, and worse they are horny little monsters. This is apparently because the comedian decided to give Arnold a Playboy to look at, but don't try to wrap your head around why these tiny little reptile things with Troll doll hair are horny for human women. The answer seems to be that it was the 1980s and even female directors in the decade thought that attempted sexual assault was hilarious.

And yes, if you have followed me for any length of time you know I normally have no issue with horny monsters, whether they are meant to be horrifying or titillating. But somehow these little beasts leering at women's panties and tearing off their bathing suits, in a PG-rated movie, does bother me. It just feels all wrong here, and I don't mean in an intentionally disturbing way, either.

So, anyways, the main storyline is that the Munchies steal a car and proceed to cause zany mayhem, but also occasionally maul and kill people, while the heroes, villains, and bumbling cops try to stop them. Why are the Munchies suddenly evil when the first one was perfectly gentle until it was provoked? You got me.

The villain's motive is slightly more understandable, in that he wants to stop the Munchies because he fears they will ruin him. However, he fears that they will ruin him not because they will be traced back to him in some way, but because they will somehow bring attention to all the toxic waste he has stored under the town and has been using to make snack foods. How will the Munchies cause him to be exposed for this? Beats the fuck out of me, but he will of course turn out to be mostly correct in his fear.

This movie's incredibly uneven tone shows just how good someone like Joe Dante is at balancing horror with comedy. However, the most shocking thing about this movie, watching it now, is that the sound editing is appalling. Even in the same scene, the dialog will be perfectly fine and then suddenly is being drowned out by environmental noise. It's like they forgot which audio track was the ADR'd one and which one is the version where there was too much wind. I have rarely seen anything like it, especially in a film that is mostly competent on the technical side.

I don't know if I would say the movie is totally worthless. The absolutely awful monster puppets are occasionally charming, and the statues they turn into when the heroes finally figure out how to stop them are genuinely cool-looking. And it's always fun seeing Robert Picardo and Paul Bartel show up in minor roles, but their brief scenes are not really worth withstanding the rest of the film.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

I was warned. Oh, God, was I warned. I was told this was a low-rent Jean Rollin knock-off that makes you truly appreciate how great Jean Rollin is. I was told it was a dreadfully dull affair.

I didn't listen because I am a glutton for punishment.

This movie is the worst thing any movie can be, but especially a Eurosmut supernatural lesbian erotic horror film: it is boring. We're talking a film that makes immortal lesbian orgies look about as enjoyable as the process of being selected for jury duty. Which makes the already baffling ending doubly baffling, because the film suggests someone who escaped from Morgana's clutches would regret that decision and decide to go back to that life.

The premise is perfectly solid. Two beautiful young women, Francoise and Anna, are traveling through the countryside and somehow find themselves driving in circles until they run out of fuel. When they head into the woods on foot, they eventually get separated--after spending the night in a barn and engaging in the worst lesbian sex scene I think I have ever seen--but unbeknownst to each other, they both find their way to a mysterious castle across a lake that is only accessible via a boat that seems to move on its own.

The castle belongs to, obviously, Morgana Le Fay, who has the obligatory hunchback dwarf henchman named Gurth, who is in love with her, and a castle full of nubile young women. Morgana keeps trying to half-heartedly seduce Francoise, but she only wants to find the missing Anna. Anna, for her part, is being kept in the dungeon with the crones.

Oh yeah, the crones. I'm not sure what their deal is. I think the film suggests they are the followers who rejected Morgana's generous offer, but the film also suggests the girls who turn Morgana down are given to the crones to, I dunno, be eaten by them, I guess. So, yeah, I got no fucking clue there.

Anna, for some reason, is forced to Morgana's harem or else. Francoise, however, is slowly being seduced into it via hookah, watching other people play chess, and listening to mediocre poetry recitation. Occasionally some unenthusiastic lesbian groping happens, too, but that seems to be less a focus than a side attraction.

Somehow, the fact that she will never grow old and live forever engaging in incredibly boring orgies is meant to appeal to her, but I can't say I blame her when she decides to steal the various magical artifacts that will allow her to escape back to the real world. Gurth even gives his life to help her escape.

I mean, sure, kinda shitty to just leave Anna behind, but them's the breaks.

However, once in the real world, Francoise sees an old woman and that's all it takes for her to decide to go back to Morgana. (Up yours, Gurth, you poor dead bastard) Of course, because this movie can't risk getting interesting, Morgana stops her from taking off the tunic that makes her invisible to Morgana, and then shows her to the barn where Francoise looks in at--Anna and herself still sleeping in the hay.

The film's credits roll on a freeze frame of Anna smiling through the windows at her past self, and I literally just said, "Fuck you, movie," out loud in response.

This movie is so dull, that it took me all day to finish it--and it only runs what would normally be considered a reasonable 87 minutes! But it was so fucking dull, I kept getting distracted by other things and would have to pause and go do something else for a while.

This film wants to badly to be a Jean Rollin film, but even at his most scattershot and incomprehensible Rollin's films (that I have seen thus far, anyway) still manage to be engaging. They have arresting imagery, memorable setpieces, fun performances, or at the very least copious nudity to keep you entertained.

This film's very first shot is of a naked woman, and yet the film that follows seems reluctant to engage in the kind of titillation you would expect of this kind of film. Hell, the poster shows Anna tied up naked in the dungeon, but in the film she is clothed.

I'm not suggesting that nudity is the only way to make a film interesting, of course, but if a film is called The Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (or even its original French title, Morgana and Her Nymphs) then it's not unreasonable to expect some lesbian hedonism beyond a couple fade to black makeouts and a couple brief bits of nude groping.

I would certainly expect more risque material than two women in flimsy nightgowns complaining about which one of them always wins at chess, until Morgana decides the solution is to just knock the pieces off the board.

Seriously, don't bother watching this one unless, like me, you have the inexplicable urge to see any of these kinds of movies when the opportunity arises.

Finally got around to seeing this legendary film and it definitely lives up to its reputation.

I was probably not supposed to be rooting for Tura Satana the whole time, but I definitely was.

Definitely one of my favorite Alien rip-offs, both in the theatrical cut and the director's cut, titled just Mutant, which I watched today.

It's fun, it's sleazy, there's a fun robot sidekick, and the slimy alien monster at the center of it is pretty adorable. It also breezes by at a nice pace.

Only thing I don't really care for are some strobe-like quick cuts and the inexplicable decision to start the film with a rapid-cut flash forward and end with the same style of flashback. But those are minor quibbles.

You'll know if you're the audience got this movie based on how you react to the film's opening death. If you find yourself equal parts wincing and cackling with perverse glee, then you are going to enjoy the rest of this movie.

Honestly, this unfolds a lot like an even more cartoonish version of a Final Destination sequel. This is a movie full of brutal, gory deaths--but some of them are things like a person diving into an electrified swimming pool and EXPLODING into gory chunks. So it's impossible to take it as anything but an absurd dark comedy.

Maybe that's why the audience score is apparently 57% on RottenTomatoes: people probably expected a straight-up horror movie and were shocked to get a horror comedy. And one so blatant about being a comedy at that. I can only imagine the confusion a more "normal" audience member would feel when the cheerleaders show up, for example.

I would say the more emotional beats it tries for are much less successful than when it's focused on being a Looney Tunes splatter flick, though. I appreciate that it tries at all, honestly, as it would have been easy to just let this be a parade of comical death set pieces with no emotional investment; I just think the intended investment doesn't land as well as it should.

It's also a minor thing, but it is rather distracting that the opening says it takes place in 1999 but it feels more like the 1980s at the point when it was still shaking off the 1970s. The sunglasses Aunt Ida wears were definitely not something I saw in my teenage years, for example. The modern day also feels very much like 20 or more years ago, with the exception of small things like vaping jokes.

All in all, though, this is a delight.

I had a great time with this, especially with the wonderful Creepers. Some excellent commentary on capitalism, why ethics matter in technological advancement, why rich people suck, and the fallacy of the colonial mindset.

The cast are excellent, especially Pattinson who imbues Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 with an abundance of individual personality so that you can somehow always tell who is who. Naomi Ackie is also excellent and, unlike her potentially great but ultimately wasted role in The Rise of Skywalker she is actually given something to do here.

The only real qualms I have are that the film does go on a bit longer than it needs to, including a sequence at the end that adds almost nothing. But those are minor quibbles and I liked this one a lot.

Watched on Sunday April 6, 2025.

Unshockingly, an Ed Wood movie is hilariously incompetent and bad at what it sets out to do.

This is, nominally, a series of burlesque routines. However, none of the performers actually do stripteases--they just show up in a costume and then are suddenly topless. Several of them wave their bare breasts around in a way that suggests they were trying to do tassle twirls without tassles.

The dances are also lifeless and boring, which is compounded by the hero and heroine tied up and forced to watch--and they look bored instead of terrified or titillated.

But, of course, there's something compelling about the awfulness on display here. I mean, watching Criswell fail to disguise the fact he is reading cue cards is hilarious every time. I mean, why didn't they do the poor guy a favor and put the cards closer to the eyeline he was supposed to have?

And, as Santo of 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting points out, this film is basically just the setup for Cats! It makes it even funnier.

This is extremely My Shit. You've got a horde of fucked up monsters, the reveal that these same monsters killed off the dinosaurs, a talking grasshopper sidekick that isn't annoying comic relief, a score that repeatedly breaks out some very James Horner-esque riffs, and the first henchman monster that Kamen Rider J fights is a lizard-cobra-crocodile man.

All that and an awesome evil space fortress, some epic miniature destruction, and even an unexpected kaiju battle of sorts.

Plus, this one gets right down to business and doesn't bother with any characters who aren't directly related to main plot, so if Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue felt as dragged out to you as it did to me, you'll appreciate this one, too.

Pretty much the perfect movie to just pop on a streaming service when you want to watch a light-hearted comedy focused on two gorgeous women having a hilariously bad day.

Amusingly, this movie feels like what Shin Kamen Rider would be if it had taken after Shin Godzilla.

Our titular Kamen Rider, whose human name is Shin, ends up taking way more of a body horror direction than Kamen Rider ZO did. The highlight is definitely the first transformation, which feels like a combination of An American Werewolf In London and a speedrun of David Cronenberg's The Fly.

I found this film a lot more inexplicable than Kamen Rider ZO as well, between struggling to track who was serving which shady organization and an ending involving a glowing, floating cyborg baby. And, unfortunately, this film is both longer and feels longer since it takes quite a while to get its plot going.

Still, I had a good time with this one, even if it does have a rather downbeat tone.

Pretty much exactly what I hoped for from a Kamen Rider movie directed by Keita Amemiya. I was rather surprised by how traditional the Rider himself was, but the horrifying monsters he faces were exactly what I was expecting and wanting.

I mean, the horrifying stop-motion spider woman is worth watching the whole movie for and the main villain, a twisted and evil version of Rider called the Neonoid, is just as awesome.

The only real drawback to this movie is that, at 48 minutes or so, it breezes by really fast. I mean, it packs A LOT into those 40-odd minutes, make no mistake, but you are rather left wanting more.

Still, this movie rules.

Finally caught up with this one. Just like Josh Ruben's earlier Werewolves Within and Scare Me, I had a great time with this one.

This definitely does a great job of balancing the horror and romantic comedy elements, which is crucial for a film like this to work. I appreciated that it didn't go too easy on the bloodletting to soften the blow, either. Much like Shaun of the Dead this movie is not afraid to bust out some brutal gore--most of which seems to be practical--and deliver a high body count.

I also appreciated that it didn't feel the need to have an "It's not over" ending. Sure, that is something you expect in a slasher movie and especially in a spoof of one, but it would have felt forced here. The movie is content to end where it's story needs it to, and I appreciate that.

Also gotta love Chekov's metal straw.

There's so many highlights of this one, but that "WAP" performance is still an all-time great.

And I always get a kick out of my half-Korean wife laughing uproariously at comedy that seems made especially for her.

My wife and I took my son to see this to celebrate the fact that we have now moved within easy walking distance of our local theater. It was a good choice to take advantage of that privilege, for sure.

It would be very easy for this film to have devolved into simple reference humor, especially given the premise, but it actually does more with its various homages to classic alien invasion cinema than just asking nerds in the audience to make the connection.

It's also always nice to see an animated comedy that actually incorporates its animation into the comedy. The way the character of Farmer Jim is rendered, in particular, was one of the funniest visual gags that I've seen in a long while.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Always loved this sleazy little flick.

A movie about an island where the women are being sacrificed to a were-mutant rapist who looks like Grimace is kind of a hard sell for most folks, unsurprisingly, but if you can stomach that premise this is a great time.

I also feel a lot of sympathy for Beverly Hills as Carla, who is clearly condemned from frame one for being a promiscuous woman with big tits who hates her husband. (Never mind that the one time we see her cheat on him unquestionably counts as her being sexually assaulted) However, the movie actually gives Carla moments to shine through as a sympathetic character who still cares for her husband in spite of everything.

This review may contain spoilers.

I had heard a lot about this one before seeing it now, finally, and it is pretty much just as hilarious as I imagined it would be.

Two dopes in charge of a private space agency (which mostly seems to consist of them and one secretary, who is not-so-secretly in love with the younger of the two dopes) manage to launch their rocket after getting an unexpected financial windfall. Their destination is, of course, the moon--but right after leaving the atmosphere they out.

They wake up having somehow safely landed on the moon. To their shock, the moon looks just like Florida and they quickly find a community of female (and a couple token male) aliens wearing nothing but shiny hot pants and headbands with pipecleaner antennae in them. The dopes are quickly captured, but the Moon Queen (played by the same actress as the secretary on Earth) telepathically assures her compatriots that the astronauts are harmless.

Does anything come of the fact that one nudist alien is very opposed to this decision? Does anything come of the older astronaut's eager greed upon finding gold? How about the fact that the younger astronaut follows the Moon Queen through a secret door?

Would you believe the answer to all of these questions is "absolutely not"? Because absolutely none of those plot beats pays off.

The closest the movie gets to a dramatic conflict is that the young dope falls in love with the Moon Queen and wants to stay, despite the fact their oxygen is running out. (Never mind that their space helmets have had their visors up and faces totally exposed the whole time) In the process of getting him home, these dopes manage to leave behind all evidence of their discovery on the moon.

The implication at the end, hilariously, is that they never even landed on the moon at all and just hallucinated the whole thing.

However, we need a happy ending so the hero realizes the secretary looks just like the Moon Queen and confesses his love to her--while making it very clear he thinks she is the Moon Queen.

Seriously, this one is a sheer delight of goofiness. Not much happens for a lot of it, since this is no different from any of Doris Wishman's other nudist films, but what does happen is hilariously silly. And, in one case, actually funny on purpose.

Also, the attempts to disguise looped dialog here are extra funny because you know good and well that is the entire reason the aliens communicate only via telepathy and exaggerated body language.

Definitely not as enjoyable as Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, but like that film it manages to show that nudist colonies are really boring without the film itself also being dull.

In this film, the editor of a newspaper manages to stumble onto the grounds of a nudist colony because they apparently only bothered to put fences on one side of their property. Incensed at the existence of this colony, he strongarms his best reporter into infiltrating the colony to expose it from the inside.

Hilariously, her objection to this is that his decision to send her is not sexist. "I'm tired of being seen as a reporter first and a woman second," she shouts as she storms out of the office. No, really.

I guess this is the film's one attempt to lay groundwork for their sudden romance at the very end of the film, but it does not work.

Naturally, once she gets comfortable at the colony the reporter realizes she loves the lifestyle and can't write a hit-piece on them. Soon she must find a way to keep her boss from doing it instead.

One of the highlights of this film is how it is even more obvious that Doris Wishman is using ridiculous tricks to get around the shortcomings of her filming choices.

For example, the dialog is all looped in later, so characters almost never have conversations facing the camera. If she does a shot / reverse shot set up, the camera will always be facing the person who is not currently talking. Characters will also look away when speaking to each other.

But my personal favorite is the way our heroine holds a phone receiver to her ear in order to cover up her mouth. It looks like she is aiming the microphone end towards her nostrils.

The only real downside of this one is that this time the nudist colony is a family establishment, so in amongst the naked women we are clearly being invited to leer at are...naked children. These children are clearly just meant to be having fun, being kids, and there was no sinister intent behind their inclusion--but their nudity in this context sure makes those scenes extremely uncomfortable.

You don't watch a movie like this for the plot, which is unfortunate because you are going to get plot and you are going to sit there and take it.

Blaze Starr stars as, well, Blaze Starr. In this film's reality, however, she is a famous mainstream (?) actress who is getting frustrated with her life, rather than a burlesque performer. This version of Starr is engaged to her talent agent, as well, which understandably compounds her problem.

One day she manages to unknowingly go to a theatrical showing of a movie about a nudist colony. Side note, this film is shown in a hilariously well-lit theater full of old men who will not stop staring at Starr. You might assume this is due to her fame, on of the plot so far, but the film never indicates it is for any reason other than her huge tits.

Anyway, the nudist colony turns out to be a short drive away and since Starr can't stop thinking about the place, she goes there. Given how enamored she is with the place you might think she quickly s in the naked fun, but you would be wrong. It is several more scenes of plot and teases before the film just abruptly shows her strolling around naked.

Now, I love the naked human form as much as anybody, probably more than most in fact. But naked people doing mundane activities are not significantly more interesting than clothed people doing the same. And the activities that the nudists get up to are as mundane as they come: chess, floating in a pool, listening to some dude play accordion, sitting on hilariously uncomfortable furniture (what man outfitted this place with wicker chairs?!), and also awkwardly standing around like they're having a conversation but clearly not speaking at all.

Also, these nudists drink a lot of bottles of Coca-Cola and I know this movie was before product placement truly became a going concern, but I am dying to know how Coke felt about the many scenes where their label is plainly visible.

At any rate, the plot wraps itself up very quickly at the end in a hilarious way. Starr dumps her controlling fiancé, finds out the producer of her big movie has been a member of the nudist colony all along, and then she starts an abrupt sorta romance with the guy who has been helping her get settled into the colony all along.

I guess when she asked why he always wears shorts, she really did want to see what was underneath them.

I had a fun time with this one, to be sure. However, like the various Bettie Page burlesque films, my enjoyment was largely as a fascinating cultural artifact on many levels. First, as a time capsule of some of the ugliest 60s interior decor choices I have ever seen. (Wood ing! Hideous curtains! A terrifying skinny Santa doll!) Secondly, as a visual treat because somehow Doris Wishman really achieved some gorgeous colors with this one. (Blaze Starr's red hair really does blaze off the screen at several points) Thirdly, as a relic of a time when porn as we think of it was not yet a thing, but people really wanted a way to see some T&A on a theater screen.

But not any genitalia, of course. No matter how awkwardly they had to have their "actors" move, or how weirdly they have to position lounge chairs ("What, you mean you don't always face your chair away from the pool and towards a random tree?"), by God they were going to keep the truly naughty bits hidden from view!

Also, let's just be honest: I enjoyed this one because Blaze Starr is a smokeshow, and I enjoyed getting to watch her parade around in the nude. Even if it usually involved her awkwardly standing around with 2 other women by a clothesline, looking for all the world like none of them could think of how to start a conversation and Doris Wishman just kept the cameras rolling anyway.

This review may contain spoilers.

A lot of the success of this one relies on the inherent charm of Chow Yun Fat, since his character would be a totally unsympathetic asshole if played by anyone else. I mean, the way he just forgets about his girlfriend to pursue a romantic & sexual relationship with the titular witch, only to then ditch her to try and win back his girlfriend? Total douchebag behavior, but Chow makes you like him all the same.

It's also good we have a charismatic lead, because not a lot happens in the middle section of the film aside from Chow Yun Fat learning he has stop-motion telekinetic powers that he uses to accidentally splash cream in his own face, him seeing the witch can generate what looks like the Electric Gremlin out of cigarette smoke (?) and cartoon lightning, and then it's just a bunch of relationship montages and sex explosions. (I don't know how else to succinctly describe the first love scene with the witch) Then suddenly the movie re it has a villainous sorcerer who only speaks in jungle cat sound effects, and he shows up in town to find the hero and heroine--and also casually makes a dog explode with his psychic powers.

Once the villain s the story proper, the film really takes off, though. He sics a graveyard full of zombies on the hero, his girlfriend, and a bunch of kids who are her ballet students--but the witch manages to bail them out of that. However, that means it's time for Chow Yun Fat to face down the villain on his own.

The climactic battle is absolutely deranged and I love it. Chow Yun Fat wallops jungle cat man with a traffic light, an elevator gets launched through the roof of a skyscraper like it belongs to Willy Wonka, cartoon physics take over like a Wile E. Coyote short for a bit, and then we get one of the most insane villain explosions I have ever seen.

Overall, I highly recommend this one, but it does drag a tiny bit in the middle--especially it you have a low tolerance for cheesy romantic montages. The ones in this film are a doozy, but I personally found them hilarious. The villain is also so hilariously sidelined for most of the film that I'm not sure the witch even tells the hero about him when she is trying to explain the whole "you are my tribe's new chief now and you have magic powers" thing. I definitely don't recall him ever getting a name, that's for sure.

Not sure I would have picked this one up on its own, either, so I am very glad it came with The Seventh Curse so I would be able to give it a fair chance.

Well, this destroyed me a little bit emotionally. Absolutely loved it.

Unfortunately, movies about killer crocodilians are a cursed subgenre in that I can never resist them but the majority of them are terrible. By the standards of its peers, this is not that bad. However, it is not good, either.

The premise is solid: a DEA drug bust results in meth being dumped into the titular bayou and then a small plane crashes into said bayou--which is now filled with methed-up mutant gators that just love, love, love killing people.

Of course, in execution it is way dumber than it sounds. The CGI is actually pretty solid, but the puppets used for close-ups are hilariously bad. Most of the story beats are what you would expect, though I was surprised by a couple of the survivors at the end.

Also, I cannot overstate the hilarity of two gator attack scenes: the first when a character literally crawls into a gator's open mouth because it is standing so still, and the second when a gator ninja stalks up on a character on top of a warehouse railing and then leaps to attack him. Apparently meth makes gators into not just ambush predators but full-on ninjas.

It's worth a watch, but it's not even at the level of Crawl much less Alligator.

Oh, this is great. Some excellent moments of dark comedy, commentary on tech-bro misogyny, and excellent performances from the entire cast.

Also gotta love Chekov's electric corkscrew.

Some solid practical creature effects in service of a pretty pedestrian story. I had seen it before and did not recall much of it, and it turns out there is a very good reason for that.

Oh man, this movie is beautiful and charming. It's amazing how much can be told in a story without any human dialog at all.

Decided to revisit this one with my son, and to my surprise I liked it way more this time around than I did back in 2010.

Still a fun flick, and what a cast.

The CGI has actually mostly aged OK, too, considering they clearly had a budget on the lower side.