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Reviews
I contrabbandieri di Santa Lucia (1979)
kudos to Amazon prime so we can watch these
The new godfathers isn't a great polizia/gangster movie nor is it a terrible one either. if like me you spend your time tracking down every giallo and eurocrime from the 70's and early 80's you will have also seen far far worse and while not blown away its a decent 90 min fix. Set mostly in Naples its no Contraband (Fulchi's not the recent Marky Mark guff) but uses it and its other locations well, always cool to see how places looked in the 70's .The relationship between the Don and custom officer works pretty well the inclusion of the smuggler kids also adds to the character development seldom seen in these types of movies. It has its compulsory car chases and shootouts which are ok, its certainly no where near a Lenzi or Di Leo but if you have already done the best that this genre has to offer then this won't be a waste of your time. As in the title I came across this on Amazon prime with a whole host of other italian gangster, polizias , giallos and post apocalyptic movies, so fair play.
Halloween II (2009)
Better than the first but still a bit rubbish
Was it just me or did Zombie remake Halloween or Leather face , by the end of this film I thought grandpa was gonna turn up and hand leather eh sorry Michael his chainsaw back and he was gonna do that crazy dance. Zombies style was always closer to chainsaw than any Carpenter vibe. So no surprise this looks washed out 70's and has its main heroine doing a Marilyn Chambers . its violent and delivers on the shape being an unstoppable killing machine, but again lazy writing (dream sequences and visions, come on) and poor use of good actors, Loomis is now just a complete A hole but glad to see his eyes have grown back and Dourif gets more screentime but doesn't get to go full Brad, both characters and actors deserve better than this script. While not 1 star, its not good, see it once, then go back to watching the original Texas or the devils rejects.
Halloween (2007)
The Expendables of Horror
The people who say this is the worst film ever, have either a) not seen a film with Marky Mark Walhberg in or B) any of zomies other films apart from the devils rejects. To be fair I never cared much for the originals apart from Donald Pleasence. Carpenter has made far superior films and Zombie shot his bolt with TDR but still thought this might rise above the usual horror fair. Unfortunatly it doesn't. Its to long, I have no problem with Zombie going into Michaels childhood, it just 15 mins to long, its not we need to talk about kevin , we get it. Plus the script is pretty clunky and the overall writing lazy. The Michael escape of 'let's rape a women in the cell of the 7 foot madman who wears a mask and doesn't speak' made me swear at the TV, (tho I believe theres another version where this doesn't happen, good, its terrible and granted could be one of the worst scenes ever) . There are good bits, Michael is supremely violent, the bits where he knocks the roof down and smashes Ken Foree through the toilet cubicles are cool, the music and look of the film are good also. Unfortunately the cameos become a distraction, its more like the expendables rather than a well thought out cast, do they make up for the lack of Pleasence or Curtis? No, McDowell does his best but lacks Donalds Pathos, he just comes across as arrogant, if Zombie did want to go for something different he should have given it to Dourif who is always brilliant and though underused here is still a welcome addition. So worth a look if you've not seen, but that's it.