What was the last movie you saw?

I, Monster (1971)

Christopher Lee has the title role(s) in this adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella Strange Case of Dr. Marlowe and Mr Blake.

What's that? You haven't heard of that one? Perhaps you know the characters under other names.

In any case, the setting is shifted forward in time a bit to 1906, so that Freud can be mentioned. It seems that Doctor Marlowe has come up with a drug which either destroys the Id (reducing an angry, tough businessman into a fearful, obedient child -- psychologically, not physically, you understand) or destroys the Superego (causing a proper young lady to remove her clothing in front of the good doctor. This mandatory sexing up of the story reveals nothing to the audience, and the movie in general is quite reserved.) Naturally, Marlowe uses the drug on himself and is transformed into the grinning, violent Blake. Blake's crimes produce a physical change in his appearance, although it's a moderate one, with handsome Lee slowly changing into ugly (but hardly monstrous) Lee. Like all film versions of the novella, the audience is in on the big secret from the start, although otherwise this one is closer to the original than most. We hear about (but don't see) the story's opening shocker of Blake stomping a child to death; the plot begins with Marlowe's lawyer (Peter Cushing) trying to figure out why he's giving money to Blake and made him his heir, figuring that the doctor is being blackmailed by the scoundrel.
 
Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964)

Jerry Warren, infamous director of grade Z flicks like Teenage Zombies and The Wild World of Batwoman, chopped up a couple of Mexican movies (La Momia Azteca and La Casa del Terror), added a few minutes of new footage of people sitting around talking, and came up with this incoherent hodgepodge. A psychic has visions of her former life as an Aztec princess or priestess or some such. She leads some science types to a pryamid, they find a mummy, it comes to life, and so on. So far this is ordinary Mexican horror movie stuff, clearly nostalgic for the Universal mummy movies. In order to have some kind of explanation for the other movie eviscerated, we're told that the pyramid also holds a new (!) mummy. Some other science types zap it with electricity, bringing it to life. It's Lon Chaney, Jr., and he's a werewolf! We jump back and forth between the mummy stuff and the werewolf stuff. The mummy stuff ends in a hilariously sudden fashion after the monster makes off with the psychic, in typical mummy movie fashion, and we jump to a newspaper headline that tells us that the psychic was killed and the mummy destroyed. (How?) Meanwhile, back at the werewolf movie, Chaney (or his double under the werewolf makeup) goes on a rampage, eventually being destroyed in a wax museum. The original Mexican werewolf movie was a comedy, although you can't tell it from what's left of it. The footage we have makes both of the original movies seem so-so, instead of terrible, but the combination of random bits of them with the new footage, which is on the level of a home movie, is a real mess.
 
Face of the Screaming Werewolf, there it was and I clicked but it was age-restricted for some reason. Not wanting to bother logging i, I clicked on the next flick - Terror of the Bloodhunters, 1962. * There is no terror. The only blood may happen when an escapee guy is killed by a jungle cat, but the lighting is so bad he may have been wrestling with a dog. The MC is a writer type, the girl wants to see Paris. The bloodhunter natives do dances and jabber a lot, but they only run out once and grab people and put them in a hut, which they escape from. The bad guy has a change of heart, inspiring music plays, they walk off into the jungle sunset. If you have an hour to waste, you could do better'n this - but on the plus side, nice jungle sound fx.
 
The next click brought me to Blood Thirst. Made in 1965, released in 1971, USA/Philippines, black and white. This movie has cool jazzy nightclub music playing through a lot of it. Vampiric activity brings our American expert to the island, where he hangs at the club figuring out who is the maniac in the mask who's draining blood from his victims. Worth watching to see if you can spot the killer. Surprisingly watchable. If a movie was made today called Blood Thirst, they would have to truck in blood to have enough. This movie has none, though it might have if that machete attack had worked out.
 
The Babysitter (2017)

I don't usually care for horror/comedy mixes - The Raven, with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, only pissed me off - but this movie mixed the two quite well!

A 12 year old boy is the last in his class to need a babysitter - and he really does. He is afraid of virtually everything!

His babysitter is a hot chick, who treats him like a cool guy. They really seem to click - until he stays up late one night and discovers what her and her friends are up to. And since it's in the movie description, it isn't a spoiler to tell you the babysitter and her friends are actually a devil-worshipping cult! When the boy discovers what they're up to, the cult members must do everything they can to stop him from revealing their secrets. I originally thought the description gave away too much; but the movie isn't about the cult, it's about how the boy deals with them - and his efforts to survive their murderous intentions.

Great acting from the youngster, Judah Lewis (whom I've just read was one of six boys at the top of the heap for the Spider-Man reboot in 2015).

The movie is a bit gory, but the lightheartedness of the tale overcomes even that (for those of us who don't think gore is necessary in horror films). Eighty minutes well-spent!
 
The Babadook (2014) - Outstanding supernatural monster movie. I'm so glad I stumbled across this out-of-the-ordinary creepy flick. Basically, it's about a widowed mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, while dealing with her son who has a terrible fear of some-thing lurking in the house. Fantastic.

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) - Creepy and gruesome film about two girls left behind at their boarding school over winter break. The movie slowly unravels to the viewer that there is evil afoot. That's all I'm going to say, because it will become horrifyingly clear what is happening. Diabolic, with an awesome soundtrack which reminds me of the early work of Tangerine Dream.
 
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

I should preface this by saying that I hardly ever watch movies or TV. I watched this as it was cited as an inspiration in the Gothic genre by someone who is inspirational to me.

This is a "Hammer" horror film. I had a vague idea of what this meant and I wasn't far wrong. A nubile young woman screams, there's a dramatic blast of music, blood splatters, the woman lies dead. Enter Captain Kronos, who initially struck me as rather a comic-book kind of hero a little out of place with the rest. While all the other characters wear somber period clothing, Kronos (who, incidentally, takes his top off a lot) is bedecked in a brightly-colored cape and massive gold jewelry. He's almost like a costume-superhero stuck in an otherwise grim historical horror setting, as evidenced by the scene in which he single-handedly kills about a dozen swordsmen in a whirl of blades without being touched. The time period is never stated, nor the (presumably British) place (unless I missed it). It could be anywhere from the 17th to 19th century, which gave it a veneer of fantasy. The film culminates in a sword duel of the kind I'd normally associate with earlier Errol Flynn, "swashbuckling"-type films.

Overall, though, I liked it quite a lot. Reading a little about it afterward I wasn't too far off the mark in my thinking: the writer/director wasn't actually a fan of vampire movies and had attempted to introduce a Marvel comics-style hero in the first of an intended (though never made) series chronicling the character's adventures. It makes for an action-packed yet gorily atmospheric experience which seems to be fairly unique among Hammer and other horror films and which has gained a cult following (I see a novelization and a comic-book adaptation were released just in the past few years).

I give it 4/5, and here endeth my movie-reviewing career.
 
Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)

Surprisingly decent low-budget SF/crime flick. It doesn't waste any time getting started, as a shambling fellow with super-strength breaks into a crime lord's home and kills him, by picking him up and breaking his neck and spine. (Seen only as a shadow on the wall, it's still pretty gruesome.) He escapes despite getting shot multiple times. The cops show up, and their resident science guy (our hero) finds out that the killer's fingerprints glow in the dark, and his "blood" is actually an artificial substance, which happens to be highly radioactive. Well, we already know right at the start that a rival crime boss has teamed up with a mad scientist to transform corpses into remote-controlled, atomic-powered zombies. It all moves briskly, ending in a final battle between the cops and the army against the unstoppable zombies. Screenplay by Curt Siodmak, of Donovan's Brain and The Wolf Man fame. Notable for a fair number of domestic scenes with the hero's wife and young daughter, and the thematic importance of the little girl's doll:

Her father's partner is a guy the little girl calls "Uncle Dave." At one point she asks him why he isn't married, and Mommy sarcastically answers "He's already married to your father." Midway through the film Uncle Dave is killed and turned into a Creature With the Atom Brain. Controlled by the bad guys, he goes to the hero's home to try to track him down and kill him. While there he rips up the child's doll. (Apparently just an act of random malice on the part of his controllers.) At the very end of the movie Daddy buys the kid a new doll. Despite the fact that it's a female doll, she decides to name it Dave. All of that made me wonder what I was supposed to think about good old Uncle Dave.
 
Horsemen (2009)

Dennis Quaid did a fine performance. It isn't his fault he had so little to work with.

An extremely predictable movie, with another non-ending ending. Go find something else to do for 90 minutes. Every one of you could write this story during breakfast.
 
Hugo (2011) - Rarely does a film bring the child-like wonderment out of me. And this movie did it. Such a magnificent story that churned my emotions, and made me feel great. I loved it.

Basically it's about a clockwork mechanic orphan named Hugo Cabret. Who lives in 1931, Paris, inside the walls of a train station, and he wants to explore the mystery of his father's death. (that's all I'm going to say - if you haven't seen this fantastic film yet)
 
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - Generally much-praised but I thought it could do with a good edit. BR2049 is extremely good-looking and has some powerful moments, but is a sprawling epic while the original is a tight noir story. It could have done with 45 minutes being cut. Generally well-acted and definitely not pointless like the recent Alien films, but not vital either. If Blade Runner is a well-presented lecture, this is the thoughtful but rambling conversation about it that happens down the pub afterwards.

Paddington (2014) - An adaptation of the children's books about a talking bear that I used to read when I was 9 or so. This was excellent: good cast, spot-on tone, at times pretty funny. The use of special effects to depict thoughts and memories was inspired. It carried off the difficult job of making London look pleasant. Highly recommended.
 
Kwaidan (1965)

Played my Criterion Collection DVD. Four Japanese "ghost" stories. Of the four, "The Woman of the Snow" and "Hoichi the Earless" are the best. The first makes great use of lighting, surrealistic backdrops and subtle makeup for impressive effects. In it a demonic snow dweller descends into human existence but holds her human lover to an impossible pledge. In the Hoichi piece, we delve into history for an account of the battle of Dan-No-Ura.The ghosts of those who perished captivate a blind musician and force him to perform for them. Rescuing him from them is problematic.

Af wonderful atmospheric set of stories.
 
It Came From Outer Space (1953)

I found this at the library on DVD, so naturally I had to check it out. It's basically a good movie with good acting, but it moves slowly and predictably.

Our pipe smoking, mid 30-ish astronomer hero is entertaining a young lass of 22 in his Arizona desert abode - at midnight no doubt. They walk outside and take turns looking through his telescope when a giant fireball streaks across the sky. It crashes nearby and the next thing you know they're hoovering above the impact crater in an open cockpit helicopter. They land on the rim and our hero decides to walk down into the crater and investigate. At the bottom he finds a partially buried alien ship shaped like a large geodesic sphere. Suddenly the ship gets buried in an avalanche while our hero climbs through rock-flying peril and to safety.

By this time, the local sheriff and some Army folks arrive. No one believes our hero's story about the alien ship and they label him a quack. But the aliens have already left the ship and start to hoover around ghost-like with a giant eye for a head. Pretty soon strange things start to happen. Russell Johnson from Gilligan's Island gets doubled and his doppelganger is of course, an alien. This basic scenario goes on, more or less, for the next 40 minutes. Once everyone realizes that it is indeed a spaceship complete with aliens, mob mentality takes over and the locals want to kill the aliens and destroy the ship. Our hero tries to convince them that the alien technology could propel Earth's sciences centuries into the future, but no dice, the locals still want to destroy everything. In the end, he manages to stall long enough for the aliens to flee in their repaired ship.
 
The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

Another DVD that I checked out from the library. Usually dubbed as one of the worst James Bond movies ever made, it's still worth a watch, flying AMC Matadors and all. Roger Moore cracks one-liners throughout, and Britt Ekland prances around in a bikini for no reason other than eye candy. Sheriff J.W. Pepper, plucked straight from Live and Let Die, reprises his already overplayed role. A cameo would have sufficed, but we had to suffer through his bayou slur for most of the final third of the movie.

Fortunately, Christopher Lee saves the day as the elegant villain Scaramanga. It's really a shame that he wasn't in a better Bond movie as he made such a perfect villain - perhaps the best Bond villain of all. And his sidekick is none other than Herve Villechaize, aka Tattoo from Fantasy Island.
 
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Lego Ninjago. I freaking love the Lego films, and I love Jackie Chan so... Yeah, this one was hilarious. Not as good as Lego Batman, but still good. One of the managers at work shares the same name as the MC... I'm gonna be singing the Boo Lloyd song in my head for weeks.
 
I watched Mercy last night. I enjoyed it. Neat to see young "Coral" at work in something other than The Walking Dead. I have not read King's Gramma, so I could not compare the two works.
 
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

If not for one factor, I might be able to call this a Good gore movie.

But frankly, even gore movies can go overboard, and fall into "ridiculousness".

The human body holds approximately 8 pints of blood. That's one gallon. Yet, with a single blow of his mallet (yes, a mallet!) our killer's victim spews forth at least twice that. And still had more to be extracted!

Our protagonist falls into one victim's blood, and is absolutely covered - dripping wet - in blood! It was all too much, and distracted from what I thought to be a rather good storyline for such films.

Bradley Cooper performs with his usual excellence, and the supporting cast does a fine job, as well. Heck, I even thought Brooke Shields was good in her role as an art critique/gallery owner - and I can't stand her!!

So why so much blood? In a gore movie, you expect a lot of gore. What you don't usually expect is a good story. This film tried to mix the two; but the copious amounts of blood and victim mutilation stole from an otherwise frightening, well-told story.
 
Black Butterfly (2017)

Antonio Banderas' best work, yet!

A novelist & would-be screenplay writer has a bad case of writer's block. He's drinking heavily (because that's what we writers do when we suffer from writer's block, I guess), and is running out of money.

In comes a hitchhiker/would-be savior/antagonist. After saving our protagonist/writer from a butt-kicking, this newcomer is invited by the writer to spend the night - and get a hot shower. One night turns into three days, as the hitchhiker insinuates himself into the writer's life by doing odd chores and repairs. It even goes beyond the third day, as the writer begins to realize he's "a prisoner in his own home."

The twists and turns in this one are memorable. The final scene between antagonist and protagonist is a perfect twist! Everyone in the story is involved - right through to the end! And no one is involved but the writer.

A very intelligently written script, well performed by the entire cast. So glad to see they can still make movies like this!
 
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