Jul
01
2009
Recommended by a friend…
PLOT
Jennifer Hills heads to the country where she plans to work on her book. At first things seem fine, but then three men in town start bothering her fairly often. She makes friends with the grocery delivery guy Matthew, who’s partially mentally retarded. One night though the three men grab her and violently rape her. They continue raping her and she finally gets away. She finds her way home, only to find the men waiting for her where they rape her again. This time Matthew joins in and afterwards, they tell him to kill her, but he only fakes it. She then decides to take her revenge against each man in her own unique way.
TRIVIA
Also known as Day of the Woman, The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill and I Hate Your Guts.
I Spit on Your Grave is slated for a 2009 remake.
THOUGHTS
First of all, I didn’t pick this movie on my own. I actually have a hard time watching any movie that shows scenes of rape and knowing the premise of I Spit on Your Grave, I knew it would be a difficult watch. Yet a friend recommended it and I finally watched it…now I feel disturbed on a lot of levels. There are scenes in this movie where I literally had to look away from the screen. There was also an entire scene involving castration in a bathtub and an ultra creepy scene that came later. I can easily see this one sticking with me for awhile.
Mar
08
2009
That’s what happens when you’re a sorority girl!
PLOT
A group of sorority girls on an unnamed campus are preparing for the holiday season with their chaperon/house mother Mrs. Mac. They’re plagued with obscene phone calls by a guy who uses language they probably couldn’t get away with in movies today, at least not rated ones. One of the girls goes missing and the others start to worry. They don’t realize that someone is sneaking around their house, watching over them and getting ready for Christmas.
TRIVIA
When it was first released in the U.S., it went by the title Silent Night, Evil Night. Later television broadcasts sometimes ran it under the title Stranger in the House.
THOUGHTS
I actually liked the remake of Black Christmas, but had never seen the original. The best part about this movie is Barb played by Margot Kidder. Barb mainly drinks too much and says completely random shit throughout the movie like when she interrupts the dinner conversation to tell a story about a species of turtle that can “screw for three days straight”. Trust me, that’s a fact I’m going to whip out at my next party!
Black Christmas is fairly tame compared to the movies made today. A lot of the violence (most of it in fact) takes place off screen and you don’t really get the chance to see much. It also has a pretty ambiguous ending so you can decide for yourself what happened. It wasn’t bad, but certainly not one of my favorites.
Dec
27
2008
Wowza, lots and lots o’ lesbians.
PLOT
Paul is an author, writing for an S&M magazine (wow, how do I get that job?) when he stumbles across a prostitute and invites her back to his place. He learns that she’s been to several black masses with her johns and decides to let her know that he’s a former priest. Apparently he was kicked out when he wouldn’t shut up about black masses. He decides to hunt down the people performing those rituals and make them pay.
TRIVIA
There’s also a very graphic all sex version of this movie out there. Considering the amount of sex in this version, I wonder how much they really changed!
THOUGHTS
I really wish I could say something smart or witty about this movie, but I really don’t think I “got” it. There was a lot of sex, I mean a lot of sex, even for a 1970s movie. I think I saw more completely naked women in 90 minutes here than I have in my entire life…and I watch a lot of horror movies. My momma always told me to be polite so I’ll just say that I didn’t like this movie and I couldn’t get into it.
Dec
07
2008
Not exactly the best title…
THE PLOT
Jenny and her best friend are on their way to visit Jenny’s aunt for the summer. Jenny’s kind of a wild child or free spirit who convinces the other girl to visit town instead of sitting inside. She also convinces her to take a ride with two bikers. Unknown to them the bikers are being paid to find two teenage girls for a rich man. They’re taken back to a house where they’re tossed in a closet in a closet and forced to smoke pot and strip for the bikers.
THOUGHTS/OPINIONS
I did get a kick out of the scene where the goody-goody of the two girls smokes her first bit of pot ever and suddenly gets into the whole idea. There’s also a hilarious scene where the two women are forced to strip in front of the bikers and the camera zooms in on a close up of Jenny in tears. The look on her face is priceless.
I grabbed this movie without really paying attention and even though it’s categorized as a horror movie or thriller, it really isn’t; it’s more of a sexploitation movie from the 70s. I got a kick out of it, especially since the main guy looks so much like Cooter from “The Dukes of Hazard”. The best I can say is that it isn’t a terrible way to waste 70 minutes and it did actually have a few good scenes. Don’t expect to see any nudity or violence though because there’s really isn’t any.
Nov
18
2008
Not what I remember…
PLOT
Jill goes to baby-sit for the Mandrake family, where she behaves like the typical teenager. She gossips with her friend, studies for a test and ignores the kids who are upstairs with a cold. When she starts to receive threatening calls from someone who tells her to check on the children, she calls the police, but they refuse to help. Eventually they run a trace on her line and discover that *gasp* the calls are coming from inside the house! Of course he kills the kids, gets sent off and Jill disappears. Then we’re treated to a second story where the killer escapes, bothers a new woman and eventually he brings Jill back into the story by stalking her and her children.
TRIVIA
The beginning of this movie was actually a short film called The Sitter. The director realized that he could turn that movie into a full length feature, hence the disjointed feeling to the picture.
THOUGHTS
Have you ever seen a movie that you remembered being so great, but realized it wasn’t years later? That’s kind of how I feel about the original When a Stranger Calls. Even when I reviewed the remake on another website, I pointed out how much I loved the original. Now that it’s sitting in front of me and I’ve seen the whole thing again, it’s actually not so good.
The first 20 minutes or so of the movie is excellent. We get to learn about Jill, feel for her and want her to escape the psycho caller. There’s some nice buildup and great suspense, but then it all just kind of disappears. To invest that much time in a character and have her disappear for most of the movie is just a pain. When she comes back, we’ve lost our little teenage Jill and suddenly have some married with kids Jill and it just doesn’t work. The second half of this movie should have been When a Stranger Calls Back.
When a Stranger Calls isn’t a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. I still like it, I just think the first 20 minutes or so make an excellent movie, while the rest just feels like filler.
Nov
06
2008
Don’t mess with the quiet girls.
PLOT
Lomax, Steele and Billy are three dangerous guy who go on a murderous rampage that seems to take an awful long time considering nothing is really shown. When they go on the run from the police, they find themselves at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The only people living there are the quiet Lisa who barely utters a word and her invalid grandfather who she cares for. Of course they think that makes Lisa easy pickings and force themselves on her. After one man rapes her, he gets an axe to the head but even that won’t stop these criminals from getting what they want…
TRIVIA
Also known as Axe and The California Axe Massacre.
THOUGHTS
This was one of the movies that I ordered from Amazon’s big sale and from the moment it arrived, everything else took a backseat. I wanted to watch it all in one sitting, without any distractions or outside interference. It looked really good and I was definitely excited. Now that I’ve seen it, eh.
Axe or Lisa, Lisa isn’t a horrible movie but it’s not exactly a horror movie. Lisa herself doesn’t appear until 27-30 minutes into the movie. Since my disc includes another movie, I actually thought I messed up and was watching the other one first. The story of the three criminals takes up a large portion of the movie before they even get to the farmhouse. Considering the movie’s supposed to be about a girl who kills a group of guys who rape her, I guess I was expecting a little more. As for the horrifying rape scenes, it was actually like watching a made for TV movie.
The murders in Lisa, Lisa weren’t that spectacular either. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted more from this movie and I didn’t get it.
Nov
01
2008
PLOT
The movie starts out with a disclaimer that it’s based on a true story. Mick comes into a small southern town to see a woman by the name of Geri. She’s all aflutter about his arrival and borrows a truck from a local man who owns a worm farm. Everything’s fine until Mick finds a (gas) earthworm in his egg cream, which the small town waitress didn’t even know how to make. Mick and Geri head off for a little fishing expedition with Geri’s friend Roger and Mick gets attacked by an earthworm. Apparently the town experienced a huge storm that knocked down the power lines. The worms in town were all affected by the surge of electricity and now they have a taste for blood…
TRIVIA
Early actors auditioning for the movie included Kim Basinger and Sylvester Stallone. What a different work that would have been.
THOUGHTS
This movie made me (pardon the pun) squirm big time. Thanks to this movie I’m not only afraid to eat spaghetti, but also afraid to take a shower. Hopefully I’ll fix the later problem soon, less my roommate start to complain. Jeff Liebermann writer and director of Squirm also did Blue Sunshine, which I didn’t realize until after I saw this one. I know a lot of people think this movie is horrible, but I don’t care because I actually dug it.
Squirm has a few scenes that really creeped me out, like when Roger’s attacked by the worms and when the worms start coming out of the showerhead. There were a few scenes that were laughable rather than scary and whenever large amounts of worms were shown, it looked like spaghetti.
I also ended up being pretty confused by the Geri/Mick relationship. He comes to town to shop for antiques, but he also really wants to see her. He seems to know her sister pretty well, but has never met her mother and has no idea about her life. They kiss one time throughout the whole movie and it only makes their relationship more confusing. Plus I have no clue why he’d want to go all that way just for her. Trust me, she’s no dish.
Long story short, I liked Squirm. I forgot I had it in my Netflix queue until it arrived in the mail, but it was a lot better than I expected. If you hate worms, you’ll really despise them after this.
Oct
27
2008
Do I really need to explain?
THE PLOT
In 1974 five friends decide to travel through Texas to visit the grave of one of their grandfather’s. Sally and her brother Franklin who’s in a wheelchair hop in the van along with Jerry, Kirk and Pam. The group picks up a hitchhiker and when that ends badly, they take a short break and find themselves in a small house. The family living there come after the group slowly, with Leatherface leading the pack.
FUN TRIVIA
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned in the UK as well as Australia for several years though it’s since been released in those areas.
The same production company also produced the classic Deep Throat.
THOUGHTS/OPINIONS
How can you not love this movie? Is there something wrong with you? I first saw the movie when I was thirteen and had the unfortunate experience of having an aunt from Texas who conned me into believing that not only was it true, but that she lived near the town. Perhaps if she hadn’t told me that lovely little gem, this movie wouldn’t have scared the hell out of me at the time.
Today the movie isn’t scary in that way, but it’s still one hell of a movie. Directors today think that we need to see absolutely everything and have buckets of blood thrown around set at all times. Guess what? You don’t actually need that and this movie should prove that little fact.
Oct
22
2008
If it’s possible to fall in love with a DVD, I’ve fallen for the Faces of Death 30th Anniversary DVD. Is it really possible that this movie was released that long ago? Apparently so because here’s the special edition DVD.
Like a large number of girls in my age group, I remember watching these movies when I was a pre-teen, usually at a slumber party. We’d scream and get freaked out, absolutely convinced that everything was real. Once I got a little older (and bought the last DVD), I obviously realized how fake some of this stuff looked. It’s funny that so many people still remember this as being so real. Recently I was talking with my ex-boyfriend and he recalled the monkey brain eating scene quite clearly and was convinced still that it was real. Poor, stupid man.
Now this new DVD version of Faces of Death includes a couple of things that the other release didn’t, most notably a commentary as well as interviews with the actors and directors. Listening to the director talk about how someone wanted to use the footage of the electrocution scene in a murder trial was a hoot. As was listening to the producer/editor describe all the different characters he played in the movie.
I know this DVD came out a few weeks ago, but I just had the chance to pick it up today. Granted the movie doesn’t hold up as well as it once did and some of those scenes don’t look so great anymore…hell, I’m still trying to figure out how my twelve year old self thought the monkey brain scene looked so realistic. It’s still pretty great though and the 30th Anniversary DVD of Faces of Death gives you a lot of behind the scenes information you can’t find anywhere else.
Oct
09
2008
See what drugs can do?
PLOT
A group of friends gather together for a party. During some zany 70’s hijinks, one of the guys grabs another one’s head and suddenly his wig falls off. Frannie goes crazy and runs off into the night, leaving everyone scratching their head. They all kind of laugh it off, but Jerry Zipkin decides to stick around and try to find him. He finds Frannie, but not before the other man kills three women. The two men fight, Jerry pushes him in front of a truck and suddenly everyone wants to find him and put him in jail. At the same time the ex-wife of political candidate Ed Flemming is losing her hair and another man who loses his hair goes on a rampage and kills his entire family. Jerry and his girlfriend Alicia are able to put the pieces together and connect everyone back to a LSD type drug called Blue Sunshine that they took as college students.
TRIVIA
Blue Sunshine was almost sold as a television movie. Imagine how different that version would be!
THOUGHTS
I’ve wanted to see Blue Sunshine for awhile, but it’s not exactly the easiest movie to track down. The video stores around here don’t carry it and since I only wish I attended some of these horror conventions, I never managed to find it. Enter Netflix, which I finally joined and suddenly it appeared on my doorstep.
Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say that I really liked this movie though I’m not sure why. The movie itself is a real product of the 1970s: the hair, the clothing, the music, the sets but somehow it all seems to work. Yes I giggled when they went to the “discotheque” and yes I giggled when the people turned into mindless killers, but damn it, I was thoroughly entertained.
I put Blue Sunshine in thinking I’d watch a little bit before I went to bed and ended up watching the whole thing. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t make a lot of sense (why didn’t he shoot the guy when he had 4,000 chances to do so) and I really didn’t mind. It isn’t scary, but it’s entertaining and that’s saying a lot. If you haven’t yet seen Blue Sunshine, give it a shot now.
