my brief thoughts on.... 'The Stuff'

Horror films from the 80's are a different breed of film making. Dare I say, they're a different creature? (all puns intended) It seemed like back then, creature features were all the rage and that was even using the limited FX they had available. Now, it seems almost taboo to venture into creature features, even with all of the CGI and FX leaps and bounds we've made. Yet, you can't deny the charm of the old days and ways. Funny thing is, you can't always go back. What I mean is that we tend to romanticize things from our past. What seemed like the be all end all of horror movie making, doesn't always hold up. For example, I loved the movie 'House' when I was a kid. William Katt fighting evil in a big spooky house.... who couldn't love that? Then I recently watched it again, it didn't hold up as well as I hoped it would. This is one of the reasons that I kind of stay away from going back to the "classics". I tried to watch 'Ghoulies' recently to and I had to turn it off. It was just so bad.

That brings us to this review of 'The Stuff'. This isn't really a creature feature, but there are plenty of special effects and they're not that great. However, it's not just the FX in question here. It's the story, the acting and the general film making. I know this is kind of considered a 'cult' classic and a lot of people love it to this day, but I just don't get why. Maybe I'm missing the boat of something, but I have seen plenty of films from this same time period that are as good today as they were back then. I know it's possible to retain quality. This movie just lacks so much and I found myself really losing interest about halfway through. The premise was interesting, all though far-fetched, and it had potential.... it just didn't seem to have the payoff.The silly plot goes like this: (taken from IMDB.com) "A delicious mysterious goo that oozes from the Earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation. But the sugary treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers begin infesting the world." That's actually the storyline! A hobo (for some reason) eats stuff bubbling up from the ground and finds it delicious. He shares it with a buddy and soon it's EVERYWHERE! A big corporation markets The Stuff as a taste treat and never thinks to test it to see if it's safe for human consumption. It turns out to be something people can't stop eating once they've tried it. Whole families have refridgerators full of nothing but The Stuff. Soon, a little boy figures out what's going on and begins a crusade to try and stop people from eating it. He's joined by an investigator who is also trying to dig up dirt on The Stuff. They find out the truth behind it all and are soon being chased down by hordes of "zombie" like consumers un the mind control of The Stuff. It's like some kind of alien parasite mind control thingy. People die, things explode, Stuff oozes out of people, it's a big mess. (SPOILER!) In the end, The Stuff is kind of stopped and justice is served.... or is it? The company that marketed The Stuff has redisgned it, with less 'Stuff' in it and are going to start selling it again.... or are they? Ugh.

That is WAY more involved then I wanted to get in this review. The movie just isn't very good and that's all there is to it. It really reaminds me of 'Halloween III: Season of the Witch', only that was way better than this. It has a similar concept of a big corporation out to do what's best for the bottom line or to flat out kill people. You have a couple of people who know the truth and are trying to stop the bad guys. You have bad 80's effects and all that comes with it. They feel like cousins. I kind of like watching 'Halloween III' every once in a while.... I don't think I ever need to watch 'The Stuff' again. Ever. Seriously.

At the end of the day, I'd give this movie 2 out of 5 stars. The only reason it got 2 instead of 1, is that it has a certain nostalgia and charm to it. Despite the garbage factor of it all, I still found myself enjoying a trip back to 1985. If you can stomach 'The Stuff', you've got a stronger stomach then me.

Other movies like this: 'Halloween III: Season of the Witch' and I can't think of anything else right now.

my very brief thoughts on.... 'Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill'

I love watching bad movies. I especially love watching them with friends. Sometimes that's not an option, so I get stuck watching them alone.... like with this movie. And kids, this is NOT a good movie. I had no allusions that this was going to be a masterpiece of modern horror, I knew exactly what I was getting into. What I didn't realize was exactly how crummy this would be. The thing is, this could have had the potential to be kind of epic. When I first started watching it, I didn't realize that it had zombies in it. I thought it was just a lame ghost story about a confederate soldier from the past who has come back as a ghost to kill folks. The zombies were such a welcome surprise! The first, like, 20 minutes or so were pretty keen.... I was tied into the story and ready to enjoy, then things started going south. It just got worse and worse until I just didn't care about it anymore. I am not even sure I could spoil the ending for you, even if I wanted to, as I don't remember what in the heck happened! (And I'm not watching it again to find out.) If you really want to know what happened at the end, you're welcome to watch it on your own.... it's OnDemand from Netflix right now. Go ahead, I'll wait. Moving on....

Here is the plot according to http://wwww.Netflix.com: "While traveling to a competition, a college debate team is abducted by a drug dealer who takes them to an abandoned town, which they quickly discover is the grave site of Bloody Bill Andersen, a Confederate soldier from the Civil War. Soon, the students are cornered by the town's locals -- all of whom are zombies led by the undead Bloody Bill himself. Can the students stop their infighting long enough to band together and escape the town alive?" That sums it up and yes, I didn't read this before I watched it. I just saw the cover art for the DVD and the star ratings and jumped right in without thinking. Ah well....

One of the neat things about this movie that I learned as soon as I started watching it was that the writers of it are Matt and John Yuan. You may remember them as two of the mall cops, Matt and John Yuen, in 'Observe and Report' with Seth Rogen. Because of this, I felt inclined to cut the movie a bit of slack in the end. So, strong opening plus cool writers equals 1 out of 5 stars. I am betting dollars to doughnuts that if I watched this with the right people and the right snacks, I would probably own it tomorrow. Other than that, it really doesn't have that much more going for it. I'm guessing that we haven't seen the end of the movies being written by these guys. If this was just an early attempt by them, I'm actually kind of excited to see what comes next!

Isn't it strange that a movie that you disliked so much can get backhanded compliments about it as much as straitforward criticism? That is what makes watching movies so much fun. This is one reason why I recommend that you always consider watching something no matter how good or bad it looks, you just never know. Granted, you may have to submit yourselves to some horrific crap at times.... but then again, you may find a little diamond in the rough. Someone out there spent a lot of time and money to put together any movie that you see. They didn't just appear out of nowhere. Because of that logic, I always assume that there must be some grain of goodness in just about any movie. If people were prejudice about movies than whose to say if 'Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn' would have ever become the cult icon that it is today? So the next time you're browsing Netflix or the aisles at your local DVD or Blu-ray retailer, consider the underdog.... you may just find a new favorite movie to watch or a new DVD to shove under that one annoying wobbly leg of your desk. Am I right or am I right?

NOTE TO READER: This movie has gone under several different titles, at the time of this trailer it was not yet finalized.

my very brief thoughts on.... 'The Bounty Hunter' (2010)

Gerard Butler kind of snuck onto the scene and has since made himself into a household name.... Jennifer Aniston, of course, has been a big name for years.... the idea of putting them together seemed good at the time.... but if you're going to cash in on the success of two big name stars, you'd better have a good script and a good director.... i just don't know that this one quite hit the mark.... there are the occasional moments where i giggled or smiled, but it never was laugh out loud funny.... i was generous in my 3 out of 5 star rating.... i can say some of that goes back to my long term enjoyment of Jennifer Aniston's previous work.... i also have a bit of a man-crush on Gerard Butler and that doesn't hurt.... so that makes me a bit biased.... in my rating of the movie itself, if they were replaced with different actors, i think it might have been more like a 2 star rating.... i don't think i'll ever watch it again.... i don't feel like i wasted my time either.... it's one of those movies where you are home sick on the couch and you check out what's on cable and this movie pops up.... you don't have anything else to do and nothing else is on, so you end up watching this movie.... you feel no better or worse at the ending, you just feel like an hour and a half has gone by and you got to watch two pretty people be silly.... it's OnDemand right now, so if you're at home sick and have some time on your hands, check it out.... just don't expect too much and you'll probably feel satisfied at the end.... i did.

if you want some movies starring Jennifer or Gerard, check out: 'Leprechaun', '300', 'Office Space, and 'Reign of Fire'

my brief thoughts on.... 'City of the Living Dead'

Lucio Fulci made the movie 'Zombi aka Zombi 2'.... one of the best known foreign zombie movies ever made.... it's one that i own and it holds a soft spot in my heart.... not too mention, it was was a love note to George A. Romero.... it was Fulci's direct response to 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978) and was the unofficial sequel according to Fulci.... all that being said.... it made perfect sense that 'City of the Living Dead aka The Gates of Hell' would be another classic.... it even has really good write ups according to zombie lovers.... so when i saw it was available OnDemand, i had to see it.... now, i had seen parts of this once before when i was a youth.... and it freaked me out.... and i vividly remembered the scene in question where a woman vomits all of her insides.... everything.... well, last night i watched it.... but before i give you my thoughts.... let's get to the interesting plot....

a psychic and a newspaper reporter get wrapped up in an end of the world scenario.... what happened to set off this chain of events is the fact that a priest hangs himself in a graveyard and ends up opening the gates of hell.... to where the dead will begin rising from the dead.... the two leads go off on a hunt to stop this from happening by destroying the priests corpse and thus closing the gates again.... and saving the world.... some zombies appear, some people get killed, a lot of worms and maggots abound.... and then you'll have to watch this movie to find out the rest.... sorry, kids.
right about now, you're saying "Joel, you must have LOVED this movie!".... well, you couldn't be farther from the freaking truth.... Fulci will always have a sweet spot in my heart, but this is so far on the other end of the spectrum from 'Zombi' that it was almost unrecognizable.... he literally used the exact same music from 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978).... the pacing was god awfully slow.... the characters weren't all that interesting.... the zombies were few and far between.... as a matter of fact.... in the end of the film you'll find the most number of zombies, but they last all of about 5 minutes and die with a mere stab wound.... yup, no shots to the head.... the zombies also seem to have some kind of magic powers, because they can appear, disappear and re-appear anywhere.... they shamble, but why bother when you can teleport yourself....?!?! the zombies are covered with goo and worms and gunk no matter how long they'd been in the ground.... there's a weird mix of satanism, ghosts and zombies that just doesn't work.... and the priest that hung himself plays a major role as the primary killer of people in the movie.... mostly by a mere stare.... this was a 1 out of 5 star movie at best.... i lost faith early on in the movie.... but when the ending occured, i nearly threw my shoe at the television.... it made no sense and was lame....

stay away.

instead of wasting your time with this, watch: 'Zombi aka Zombi 2', 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978) and/or just about any other zombie movie

my thoughts on.... 'The Last Winter'

Ron Perlman and Kevin Corrigan.... how can you go wrong....? well, they did. this movie had me bored for the first 45 mins, intrigued for the next 15 mins and then feeling extremely let down and sad for the last 41 mins or so.... this movie is a waste of time and energy....

some oil drillers and some eco-activists are in Alaska's untapped wilderness possibly about to start drilling.... some weird stuff happens and some people die.... then some bad special effects occur and a big confusing ending.... sounds good, right....?
1 out of 5 stars.... a complete waste of my time.... and don't let it be a waste of yours.... please, listen to Uncle Joel.

if you submit yourself to this.... perhaps you should try: well, anything else.

my thoughts on.... 'The Tooth Fairy' (2006)

every once in a while you need to watch a crap little horror movie to cleanse your brain so you can enjoy the good horror movies.... this was my night to do that.... and granted, i was a bit curious about the storyline.... i wondered how they'd handle it.... in reality it wasn't all bad.... it had a few good moments.... and i don't regret watching it.... however, i don't know that i need to watch it again to find the little details i may have missed the first time around....

okay.... the plot: a man buys a bed and breakfast and finds out that it used to be owned by a woman who killed kids and stole their teeth.... there's also a subplot about the two local mechanics who hate the new owner and want him out of the house.... which i think was just added to give the Tooth Fairy more people to kill and to pad the script.... anyway.... he has a guest come to stay early, a man who does the upkeep on the grounds, his musician friend and his girl roadie and finally his fiance and her daughter. (who is the one who looses the tooth that brings the Tooth Fairy back for vengence).... it's not a very complicated story and i suppose it doesn't really need to be.... it's straight to DVD fodder.... that's all.
there's a lot of stuff that's just not needed and confusing.... like weird slow motion shots that make no sense in the storyline.... it's almost like it's another way to extend the movie.... there's also a CLASSIC bit where one woman is killed in an extremely grousome way and another girl killed on the front porch by a nail gun.... but when the main characters leave to go look for the missing little girl, the musician and the boarder decide it's a good time to have sex.... WTF....? it makes no sense in the storyline and is just a plot device to show boobies.... it honestly bothered me to think that there are two VERY dead people in the house and they don't care enough not to knock boots in the same house.... it's silly and pointless.... but i guess it's worth it just for that....

the kills are mediocre.... the villian is decent.... the characters are cardboard cut outs just there for the Tooth Fairy to kill.... i'd give it 2 out of 5 stars.... it's not the worst thing i've ever seen, but it's also far from the best.... it's on Netflix OnDemand and a rainy nights viewing with beer and a few other people with you.... other than that.... stay away and watch something worthwhile.... or perhaps use it like i did.... to cleanse your brain for the next good horror movie that comes along....

if you liked this, check out: 'Darkness Falls', 'The Boogeyman' and 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'