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Critters (1986)
The not Gremlins rip-off, that's also the king of Gremlins rip-offs.
Eight prisoners escape a space prison and steal a ship. They, along with the Bounty Hunters sent after then, head to Earth and end up on a small Kansas family farm. Those fugitives are 1 foot tall critters who eat everything in sight and cause mayhem.
I can go on and on about how much I love this film. I can't believe this is my first time watching it in over 20 years. I used to watch it and the first sequel a lot on cable or from VHS rentals when I was in elementary school. It's a really good early horror flick for kids, there's a lot of humor but still some actual tension and suspense. With a limited amount of human gore and deaths, the worst is reserved for the monsters. And you have a great child actor as the hero.
Even though it's absolutely not a Gremlins rip-off, it's also the king of all the Gremlins rip-offs. The script was written before and meant to be made as a super low budget indy flick. After the phenomenal success of Gremlins a bigger studio grabbed it up and had it toned down to a PG-13 level to go after that huge market. Stephen Herek's very first feature film and the first in a line of bangers he made in the 80s and 90s.
Scott Grimes did an amazing job as Billy, he's as believable as any kid I've ever seen in any movie and outshined most of his co-stars here. Dee Wallace is the ultimate 80s Mom and had great chemistry with the kids here. You've also have some great character actors with smaller parts including M. Emmet Walsh, Billy Zane, Ethan Phillips and Lin Shaye.
The Chiodo Brothers effects work is as good, if not better, than you can get for this kind of budget. There's only a couple of minutes in space with the really weird alien makeup and sets. They used the limited time to set up all the sci-fi world building then everything takes place on a farm and in a small town. The critters themselves are held back and not seen in full until a little before the halfway mark. They can look kind of cute until they open their mouths and you can see the horror show of teeth on display.
Scream Factory did an amazing job on the blu ray release. The scan looks better than it probably ever has. There's a new full length making of feature with a lot of new interviews with some of the cast and crew. And several other things including a bit of behind the scenes look at the critter effect work.
Cannonball! (1976)
Amazing stunts and a thin plot are perfect for this drive in classic.
Several eccentric teams partake in an underground anything-goes cross country race from the Santa Monica Pier to NYC for a $100k prize.
Paul Bartel directed this between 2 of his best films, Death Race 2000 and Eating Raoul. It's absolutely the lesser of those 3 but still an enjoyable drive-in flick. This was released the same year as The Gumball Rally kicking off the cross country race genre.
David Carradine stars as the title character driving a Trans Am. He's the best actor here but there are some talented character actors backing him up. Dick Miller, Mary Woronov, Gerrit Graham, Bill McKinney, Robert Carradine, and Paul Bartel are all fantastic even if they've got small roles.
There's not much of a plot but the action scenes and gags carry the movie. The car stunts are both great and numerous. Carradine had a couple of good fight scenes. You get some absurd comedy and a giant multi-car pileup that had to have killed dozens.
It's a Roger Corman production so you know the budget was tiny but they made it feel a lot bigger. If you don't have an appreciation for low budget 70s grindhouse fodder then this isn't for you. If you do then this is a must watch.
Evil in the Woods (1986)
Nonsense with a schizophrenic pace and tone.
A little turd checks a book out of the library in a poor attempt to Neverending Story himself, I think. He starts reading a book about a low budget horror film production in a small Georgia town called Mildew that's been evil for 3300 years.
I'm still not sure what I just watched. The plot was nonsense, the editing was seemingly random, the acting and dialogue were both awful and the tone was jumping all over the place. It seemed to be going for campy horror comedy for about the first 3/4ths then took a hard turn into straight gory horror.
My notes from watching this look like a schizophrenic's attempt at an outline for a horror story. You start with the little kid checking out the book with the movie's title and heading home to read it. He spends the rest of the movie in his bedroom with an awesome Star Wars bed set reading said book and breaking the 4th wall by talking to the narrator.
The story begins with a family arriving in Mildew and heading out for a camping trip. There are silent film style black screens with text and a goofy narrator to bridge transitions to the other group. We see a scene being shot by the film crew then jump back to the family setting up camp and the son (Billy) wanders off into the woods finding a little girl jump roping who leads him to her weirdo family. Those weirdos then take Billy to an old witch who lives in a shack in the woods. We cut to Billy's parents driving to the sheriff's office and his father trying to claim everything will be okay and the sheriff is already on it.
When they arrive the sheriff had been napping but wakes up just before they arrive. He informs them of the old witch but says he is busy until the next day so they should just hold off on the search until the morning. Not accepting that they get the witch's address from him and head there themselves. They meet and have tea with her. She assures them that Billy will be fine and they should come back in the morning to her and they'll search together. They seem to think that's perfectly reasonable and head back to get some sleep.
That only gets us about 20 minutes into the plot and I'm not doing that for the rest. You've got 3 plots going on at once but the main one doesn't really get going until all that crap happens. The film crew are picked off or go disappearing one by one and that old witch uses her spells to turn the weirdos into monsters. The kid reading the book disappears for the back half of the movie but shows back up at the very end.
This was ultra low budget but still shot on film. It has the feel of an early 90s shot on video production. The monster makeup is surprisingly good at times but that's the only positive I can give this. William J. Oats wrote, directed and produced this turd but he was wise enough to not star in it and just had an extended cameo and was killed off early. Not surprisingly, those are his only credits listed online.
Don't watch this, it tries to be funny but the only thing I laughed at was the nonsensical editing. It tries to be atmospheric and creepy while the editing and terrible sound mixing ruin that at every turn. I wasted 90 minutes of my life watching and another 30 writing this about this, don't be like me. Shame on you MassacreVideo, this could have decayed on magnetic tape and film stock but now it's digitized forever.
Wrong Side of Town (2010)
Misleading cover and a terrible vehicle for RVD
Family man RVD goes to the club with his nerdy new neighbor and their wives. The, mob boss, owner's brother tries to rape RVDs wife and kills himself trying to stab RVD. The mob boss then irrationally sets out to murder RVD.
What an unbelievably crusty turd. One that's been out in the sun all day and every bit of moisture is gone. RVD looks like he's a halfway decent actor in every scene only because everyone else around him is so incredibly awful. Then you get to see Bautista deliver a handful of lines and realize he's in another league altogether even at his worst. I don't fault RVD, he's obviously comfortable on camera but had very little non-wrestling acting experience here and nothing to work with in the script.
There's a couple of fights with good choreography but they're shot and edited horribly. The cover is super misleading, Bautista is in this for maybe 7 minutes total, RVD is the star. The plot is about as cliché as a revenge action flick gets. Nothing at all original and the "twist" at the end is pointless. Ja Rule shows up to deliver a couple lines and get his brains blown out. The music is all over the map and mostly just bad.
Glad I found this at a thrift store or whatever for a buck or less. I still feel cheated but just a bit. I don't see any reason why you'd watch this unless you're a diehard RVD fan or just have to see everything Bautista has done.