zwolf Reviews

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Triggers in Leash (1955) Season 1, Episode 3

Possible influence on Sergio Leone?

[9/10 · 21 November 2022]

Watching this episode, I got a strong feeling that Sergio Leone must have seen it sometime and it made an impression on him. Almost the entire episode is guys waiting to draw on each other while tension builds, just like the ending of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. There are some similar shots -- a low shot from behind a hand over a holster, and close-ups of the men's eyes (something very rarely done in film before Sergio started doing it).

Also, since the men were supposed to draw when a cuckoo clock chimed, I was reminded of For A Few Dollars More, when a gunfight was supposed to start when a musical watch stopped its song.

Anyway, I can't know for sure, but I feel almost certain that the maestro must have caught this episode and liked it, and found things he wanted to use. Watch the climactic duel from The Good The Bad and the Ugly, and then watch this episode. I think you'll see what I mean.

Trafficked: A Parent's Worst Nightmare (2021)

Hard to make a film on this topic boring, but somehow they managed

[2/10 · 20 December 2021]

Yeesh. This is one of the kind of movies you pick up at The Dollar Tree on a set with 14 others... and STILL want your money back. I don't know why people keep putting money into projects and then not hiring even basic talent to cover it... it's a waste. When the closest you have to a "name" star is Kristy Swanson, and she gets out-acted by people who've never been in anything else, it's just sad. She's never been good, but now she seems to be having some kind of personal problem and is even worse. Anyway, your time is more valuable than this. The topic is important, but this shabby trash does nothing but try to exploit it for a few sleazy bucks. It feels like it wants to be a Lifetime movie, but couldn't make the cut.

The Conners (2018–2025)

Roseanne was dead weight

[10/10 · 13 October 2020]

Wow, what a lightning rod for whiny p.o.s.'s this show became when they justifiably fired Roseanne. It'd be nice if they rated the show on its actual merits, rather than their sour-grapes agendas. I don't think most of them have even WATCHED it before they rated. They're just here because Hannity or someone gave them orders, and they don't think, they just obey.

Let's get one thing straight: this show was resurrected because of Sarah Gilbert. NOT Roseanne. Roseanne has been a headcase for years and hasn't been able to put together a successful project of her own because it's not in her to do it anymore. She lost it in the last seasons of the show's original run. Then, because of Sarah's initiative and hard work, she got a second chance... and she blew it for herself, and almost blew it for everyone else in the show in the bargain, all because of her own bigotry and selfishness.

Luckily the show was saved and is now one of the best comedies (and dramas) on TV... and it turns out it was vastly improved by killing off the Roseanne character. Roseanne simply did not have the talent or timing to pull off comedy anymore. It's not all her fault -- she's a sick woman and has been for years -- but she was dragging the show down. Her scenes in the first season were painful to watch, and her character had become overbearingly abrasive and bullying. Without her presence, everyone else has had a chance to shine. And adding Katey Sagal to the cast is an excellent move.

So ignore the critics, very few of whom have actually watched the show and just have an axe to grind. Watch it for yourself, and I think you'll find that it's worthy of the early seasons of the original.

Death Kiss (2018)

A gimmick, not a movie

[2/10 · 14 January 2019]

No major spoilers, but I will address specific things about the film because it's unfair (and unhelpful) to criticize it as much as I'm going to without explaining why.

The only reason you're likely to want to watch this is for the same reason I did -- the gimmick of seeing a guy who looks exactly like Charles Bronson. And in that way - and ONLY that way - the movie works. Robert Kovacs looks so much like vintage Bronson it's eerie. They probably have the same fingerprints. I've seen a lot of look-alikes in movies, but never has one nailed it like this one. So, as far as the gimmick goes, it's successful and it's pretty amazing just marveling at the resemblance whenever he's on screen.

Other than that, though, you've really got nothin'. The script is incompetent, the direction is awful and the soundtrack is some of the worst garbage I've ever heard in my life. I get that they were probably trying to sound like cheesy 80's Cannon Film type music, but, yeesh... this music's so bad it actually removes production values from the visuals; the film already looks like they didn't spend more than $39.95 on it, and the soundtrack makes it feel like now they owe us money.

Low budgets aren't always a bad thing, but it looks like even the blanks and squibs are mostly CGI added in post. They look like they're effects lifted from a Doom game. That takes a lot of the fun out of it. The direction is about as skilled as your average home movie, with every shot held two or three seconds too long because the guy doesn't understand pacing, has no feel for it. I guess it's better than flash-cut editing that plagues a lot of films now, but, still, nope... I'm sorry, this director just doesn't hear the music. I'm not expecting Sergio Leone or anything, but this direction is bad enough to make itself noticed and be a distraction. If you're as big a Cannon fan as I am, you want to help it along and give it as much credit as you can, but, sorry, it just doesn't let you.

Story-wise, it's all dead-end meandering. There are subplots, but they never really amount to anything and seem clumsily wedged in there so the movie won't just look like a videogame of a dude shooting folks who conveniently are doing horrible crimes whenever he passes by. There's a young mother Bronson's sending money to because he feels guilty about something that happened in the past... and then she's just kind of addressed and dropped out of the storyline, like, "Well, glad we dispensed with that." And I'm not sure why Daniel Baldwin's here at all, other than to add a "name" (well, sort of) to the cast. He pads the screen time with completely rants about vigilantism, which are SO Spam-chunk-headed idiotic they're probably intended as a satire of right-wing views. There's not much other way to take 'em, because even Rush Limbaugh doesn't say things this dumb... hell, Archie Bunker doesn't say things this dumb. Baldwin's character takes an either-or "logic" to problems, like, "Why are we stopping wife-beaters and racists when child molesters and drug dealers exist?" Um... I'm pretty sure we should address ALL those problems? I hate child molesters, most definitely, but wife-beaters aren't a whole lot better. And yet he mocks the cops for stopping them. He comes across as pretty much defending everything BUT drug-dealing and rape, which is an odd view. Dunno about y'all, but I've got room to hate all kinds of criminals, I don't have to pick just two. Whoever wrote his dialogue seems to have a particular grudge against women that he wants us to share in, even bringing up "why are we protecting women from revenge porn?" That's pretty specific and sounds kinda personal there. In any case, all the Baldwin scenes are add nothing and feel tacked on just to drag this thing to a marketable 90 minutes. Edit them out and you'd do nothing but speed up the storyline and help Daniel Baldwin's reputation.

The action scenes are basically people running around and missing each other (even with full-auto fire) until enough time's gone by so that "Bronson" can go ahead and shoot the bad guy. No real tension is built, and some scenes are outright silly, such as when "Bronson" uses an old car door as a shield against a machine gun. I don't think whoever wrote that has ever actually fired one of those puppies. Don't ever try that, kids, those bullets will go through about five of those things. A lot of the action is "Bronson" shooting unarmed people, including a guy who's tied up and unconscious. The guy was a scumbag, I don't weep for him, but letting 'em fight back would have at least added some action.

The acting is... eh. It's not painful, for the most part. The young mother and her daughter are probably the best in the cast. Kovacs sounds dubbed, but, I don't know. He doesn't sound like Bronson at all.

But he does look exactly like him, and that's really the only reason you might watch this film; for the gimmick. As far as that goes, it's eerie. Hopefully some directors and writers with some actual talent will put Kovacs to better use. There's nothing else here to salvage.

The Conners: Keep on Truckin' (2018) Season 1, Episode 1

Cutting out the dead wood

[10/10 · 17 October 2018]

I see a lot of butthurt about politics... but the truth is, a lot of those people complaining weren't watching anyway. The last episode of last season was only pulling 2.7 million viewers; some loyalty. Last night had 10.5 million. If they'd watched, they wouldn't be surprised by the opiod angle, because that had started in the last season. Also, they're raging at the rest of the cast for being "traitors," but last season only came back because of the efforts of Sarah Gilbert. She got John Goodman on board, and got everything rolling. Without her, you wouldn't have had last season's Roseanne, either, so the fury against the rest of the cast is misplaced and misinformed.

Truth is, controversy aside, Roseanne Barr just doesn't have her comic timing anymore, and she wasn't even doing a good job delivering lines anymore. it was painful to watch. This isn't a recent thing; she'd lost it around season 7 or 8 of the original run.

Without her overbearing character using up all the oxygen and overshadowing the rest of the cast, they're getting a chance to shine. Laurie Metcalf, Sarah Gilbert, and John Goodman are more than enough to compensate for anyone. The show managed to get great laughs AND strong drama. And losing a TV friend like Roseanne Connor might wake some people up to the opioid crisis.

If politics was all that was motivating you to watch, you weren't really a viewer, anyway... just an "activist" trying to use TV ratings to stick it to your enemies. Watch the show for what it is and you might enjoy your life more.

The Walking Dead: Last Day on Earth (2016) Season 6, Episode 16

Five minutes longer and it would have been good

[1/10 · 4 April 2016]

Usually I'm a defender of the writers for The Walking Dead. Yes, they come up with some implausibilities, and yes, sometimes they cheat for the sake of winding up the audience (Glenn's dumpster adventure, for instance), and I'm okay with that for the sake of the show.

But this... this was just a textbook case in how NOT to end a season.

I don't mind cliffhangers. But this isn't how you do a cliffhanger. What's frustrating is, the writers KNEW that when they were writing the comic book. The scene that this episodes ends in the middle of happened halfway through issue 100 of the comic. And that scene was the most powerful moment of the entire comics run, because of the timing. You weren't expecting it, and it hit you hard because of that.

Instead of giving the viewers that powerful moment, the writers cheated us by hitting pause right in the middle and making us wait six months to find out who got it. They traded what would have been the most impactful, iconic moment of the series for a couple of day's worth of water-cooler talk. By the time we get the answer, we'll have gotten bored and worn out with thinking about every possibility, and, come October, we really won't give a damn what the answer is anymore. It was an idiotic writing choice. It was cheap and dishonest and it breaks a covenant between the writer and the viewer. We've been treated badly for our loyalty and devotion, and I don't trust the judgment of the writers anymore. Whatever they come up with, at this point, will be an anticlimax because we've had half a year to prepare for it.

Far better would have been to let the scene play out as it happened, then to have Negan step up to Rick and ask, "Are you ready to make a deal now?" and have Rick trembling and then cut to credits before he gives his answer. That way we'd've still had a suspense-inducing, discussion-worthy cliffhanger without being cheated of the impact of a major event in the storyline... and we wouldn't have felt cheated.

This was so unnecessary and anger-inducing, and exactly the wrong thing to do. And it's a shame because otherwise the Negan scene was very powerful. But the way they left it inconclusive cheapened it.

The rest of the episode was okay but spent a lot of time chasing around and, in retrospect after the ending, now feels largely pointless.

Due to the way it ended, this was the worst writing job I've ever seen on a TV program. And yeah, I saw the series finale of the Sopranos.

Road Wars (2015)

I expected little and I got it

[6/10 · 3 August 2015]

Obvious attempt to cash in on Fury Road, and it's from Asylum, so you know to go in with low expectations. But, I'm a fiend for post-apocalypse road war stuff, so I had to give it a chance. And... it was okay. It benefited from low expectations.

The cars are at least good enough to have maybe passed for extras in some of Fury Road's crowd scenes, so there's that. Unfortunately, they don't really get to do much. There's only one real chase scene and it's brief and doesn't entail much except driving around, with no real stunt work. The cover shows lots of vehicles and explosions. You get about five or six cars, and no explosions. As for the driving scenes, director's never going to be confused with George Miller.

Plot-wise it's Mad Max cross-pollinated with I Am Legend. Society's broken down and the few survivors and scavenging for everything. Gasoline seems to be more plentiful than water, though, since petrol's the one thing they don't seem to fret about much. A lot of people have become victims of a "vampire virus" and, since they luckily have a biochemist on their team, they're trying to work on a cure. One guy who may be immune shows up; the filmmakers are so desperate to make him seem like Mad Max that he has an Aussie accent, and they even have him wearing a black leather jacket with one shoulderpad.

Their big problem is they're running out of ammunition to fight off the nightly attacks from vampires, and to look for more they'd have to leave the only known source of water. Mostly they sit around talking about this, when you'd rather they were driving. It's not really that difficult to make one of these movies more satisfying -- just get decent-looking cars (which they did) and show them driving around a lot (which they didn't).

So, it's not very good, but it's still better than most of the Italian Road Warrior ripoffs that swarmed the video stores back in the days of VHS, so, I cut it some slack. Production values aren't bad, the survivors looked suitably skangy, and the acting's not great but isn't painful, either. And the plot's not compelling, but there is one and it's not overly clumsy. It's an okay way to kill 90 minutes as long as you're not expecting too much. Better than most Asylum films, but that's damning with faint praise.

The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm (2011)

This was the most incompetent film I've ever seen.

[1/10 · 29 September 2014]

I don't say that lightly, and I've watched thousands and thousands of movies, good and bad. I'm a frequent buyer of those 20-movies-for-$5 packs and actually like a lot of them, so I grade them pretty easy -- I'm not expecting Kurosawa out of a film like this, so I'm very lenient.

But, damn, dude.

This was so badly made I don't see how anyone did it without *applying* themselves to screwing it up. The editing is completely and utterly incompetent. I cannot think of any editing that's worse. It is, literally, like watching a TV whose remote is in the hands of a cranked-up channel surfer with a half-second attention span. And it's frustrating because the material itself was interesting... it's just completely ruined by the editing technique. All the flow of the narrative is destroyed. Stories are joined and left mid-sentence to go to part of a line from another story. Half the time we aren't given a clue as to who the person talking is or what they're referring to. Segments -- most of them irrelevant in the first place -- are repeated over and over like sampling in a rap song. Information about the serial killer is intercut with ghost-hunting stuff, wrecking the narrative flow of both.

It's like trying to read a book while someone constantly yanks it out of your hands.

After watching the whole thing I still have very little idea about what this serial killer actually did, or what "haunting" events led these ghost hunters to investigate the place (other than one sighting of a "guy in a red shirt with no legs" - that's looped a few times). The viewer is simply not given sufficient information on anything.

And the ghost-hunters are goofy, trying to scare themselves with a lot of "did you hear that?" b.s., jumping at every shadow and trying to pretend there are words in the EVP nonsense. (I've gone on Halloween expeditions with "real" ghost-hunters before, and they're hilarious about trying to make something out of EVP static, so this is not unique just to this film). Nothing really happens, and it's not "spooky" at all. A narrator comes in with some clumsy poetry to try to make it seem profound, but... nothing freaking happened, dude. NOTHING.

I was more than willing to play along in hopes of some scares. I watch A Haunting, which covers similar stories (and for a similar budget - man, that's a cheap show), and it's hokey but it's entertaining. It's not the budget's fault. I'm not sure about the source material -- maybe there's not much to the Fox Hollow story to begin with -- but I wanted to be interested in it. Unfortunately, this film gives the situation no reason to be spooky, because it hasn't provided the viewer with any real background info or solid story to follow, just half-snippets that may have been leading somewhere before, oops, we cut away from them again because that person was talking for more than two seconds and Mr. Hall just couldn't stand it. There'll suddenly be stuff about "we found the body on the beach..." and then, zap, we're off to something else before we find out what body, who they were, how they were killed, ANYTHING.

The editing makes me wonder if Dan T. Hall has ever actually SEEN a movie or even heard a story. It's like someone took him off a desert island where he was born, gave him a basic description of what editing is - i.e. "putting segments of video together" -- and he just said, "Oh, yeah, I can do that!" and then went at it with all the fury of attention-deficit-disorder driving him. You literally could toss film into a blender, chop it up, then tape it back together in the dark and have a better chance at creating something coherent. It's like watching a toddler play with a light switch for an hour.

I'm bewildered by this thing. I wasn't exactly bored (fortunately it's only a little over an hour), but was amazed by how poorly it was made. There are no filmmaking instincts on display here at all, I mean, not even rudimentary. I have to wonder if it's not some prank on us, some "you people are idiots, so here, I bet you'll even sit through this" act of spite.

If you're ever going to make a documentary, please watch this one first, and then don't do *anything* the way it's done here.

The Forgotten (1973)

Excellent low-budget madness

[10/10 · 21 December 2000]

There's not much I can add to the positive reviews of the film, other than I agree completely - this weird little movie has a unique atmosphere all its own. Brownrigg creates a very effective atmosphere of obsessive madness; the movie breathes down your neck! It's amazing that a film so well-lit and full of bright colors can be so unsettling. As someone mentioned, the film looks like a retitle because there's a strange title card inserted, but I have seen a televised version of the film that had the original titles superimposed on-screen - they were orange and read "Don't Look In The Basement" - with quote marks around them, just like that. Why they were taken out and replaced by that garish title card is a mystery to me, but the originals did exist. Another interesting note: I read in an old horror magazine that during the climactic massacre, Brownrigg wanted to make things ultra-gory and so he used a lot of slaughterhouse entrails (sheep, I think), and they were kept in a bag with fake blood. Well, when it came time to film that scene, it was hot in the room, and the entrails had begun to rot, so when the actors tore the bag open, they all nearly vomited at the stench! If you look really closely around the edges of the frame, you can get little glimpses of some entrail... but, to my knowledge, they aren't graphically shown in any prints. In any case, check this movie out... it proves that a low budget can be made up for with a lot of imagination. There's no other film like this... I also recommend Brownrigg's other movies.

Another State of Mind (1984)

THE Greatest rock 'n' roll documentary ever made

[10/10 · 28 June 2000]

This documentary follows members of the bands Social Distortion and Youth Brigade on an ill-fated tour across the U.S. and Canada. They fix up an old school bus that has seen better days, pack up all the band members and roadies, and set out on a tight budget. The farther they go, the more strained things get - Social Distorion almost breaks up because the going got to rough for 'em ('cept for Mike Ness, bless 'im) and the bus breaks down and they just can't go on, so they stay with Minor Threat for a couple of days and then pack it in. Lots of interviews with real punks, lots of concert footage with some *excellent* music (all three bands are great) and shows that even though the tour was a failure overall, people can still do things on their own with limited funds if their hearts are really in it and they can maintain unity. Some scenes are funny, some are kind of scary (those Canadian punks were kinda feral), and a sense of desperation builds... but it's always real and always true. Don't miss a chance to see this one - I've watched it probably a hundred times and don't mind if I see it a hundred more.

The Whip and the Body (1963)

Bava at his most Gothic

[28 June 2000]

This unrelentingly-creepy tale of obsession and perversion plays like a more-horrific version of _Wuthering Heights_: cobwebbed crypts, dark castles with secret passages, rotting bodies, muddy footprints, pale faces scowling through windows, love-hate relationships that continue beyond the grave, sea cliffs, turbulent ocean, sunsets, and a very haunting music score. The sets are rich and the direction is moody, with lots of brilliantly-composed photography and a convincingly-cruel performance by Christopher Lee. This one does require some patience, but it's one of Bava's greatest masterpieces and deserves to be saved from obscurity.

Dragon Against Vampire (1985)

Live-action cartoon-fu!

[5 April 2000]

Three goofy, unsuccessful thieves wander around robbing graves, eating dogs, getting attacked by hands that burst from the ground, and acting unconscionably stupid. They come to an old inn and find out that a vampire has been preying on virginal young girls in the area. Two of the thieves and the innkeeper are killed, so the remaining thief tries to protect the innkeeper's beautiful daughter and avenge his friends. The vampire can control the daughter's mind, and he makes her drink chicken blood. The thief goes to an old hermit who teaches him Shaolin sorcery and gives him an amulet that looks like a backwards swastika but works like a crucifix. Not much fighting, but plenty of comedy, and a little mild gore. Enjoyable enough Chinese kung fu/comedy/horror, but seeing the name "Elton Chong" in the credits is always a sign that this isn't going to be the best kung fu movie you've ever seen...

Zhong lie Jing wu men (1977)

Amiable kung fu cheapie

[5 April 2000]

Bruce Le is traveling through Manilla and befriends an orphan, then saves a girl from some hoods. He finds out the hoods are catching girls to sell as sex slaves. Being an all-American... er, all-Chinese, rather... good-guy, Bruce can't let them get away with something like that. Accompanied by music stolen from Enter The Dragon, The Sting, Barry Manilow, and god knows who else, he and his policeman cousin beat up on the gangsters. One of the gangsters is a sissified guy who probably weighs 70 pounds. Everybody wears bell-bottom pants. Pretty good kung-fu flick, and probably Bruce's most likeable character. Some nudity and several scenes inspired by the real Bruce Lee.

Black Magic 2 (1976)

Extreme Chinese gore-horror sickness!

[5 April 2000]

Incredible Chinese horror sickie about an evil warlock who casts nasty spells and creates an army of living dead by driving magic nails into dead people's skulls. If the nails are removed, the zombies rot into viscous messes. All kinds of ultra-vileness, such as worms slithering from wounds, eyeball-eating, a man pushing a spike through his face, the caesarean birth of a lump of putrescent tissue, pulsating sores, and more pretty good barf-inducing scenes. Weird and great, along the lines of The Devil. Stars Ti Lung and Lo Lieh, so you know there's a little martial arts action, such as a fight on a skylift. Rarely seen, so take any chance to see it you can - kill if you have to!

Surreal Estate (1976)

Obscure, artsy, and strange...

[22 March 2000]

I saw this film under a retitle - _The Deception_ - and I caught it on an old (now defunct) satellite channel, The Caribbean SuperStation, which showed lots of obscure movies. This film is about a novelist who's out looking at real estate and finds a huge, decaying old mansion in the woods. A somewhat-demented girl named Arianne gives him a tour of the place, but halfway through she runs away and hides from him. He decides that the situation has potential for a novel, so he goes back to the house. This time there's a maid, and a different girl named Agathe, who says no one named Arianne lives there. So, she shows him the house, and some things in it have changed. He thinks they're trying to trick him, so he comes back later and Arianne is there again, acting even crazier, showing him pictures on the walls which aren't there. Then she seduces him. The maid tells him that there are two girls, and he figures out they were playing a game to try to get him interested enough to buy the house, using Arianne as a "phantom." Even though he knows it's a trick, he buys the house anyway, thinking he can have both girls with it. But they have plans for him, too... Very odd, artsy, rather creepy film, half in English, half in subtitled French, and contains some nudity. Bizarre and very obscure.