Review: They Live (1988)

Stars: Roddy Piper, Meg Foster

Budget: $3million

Directed By: John Carpenter

Based on a VERY short novel by Ray Nelson called Eight O'Clock in the Morning. This awesome 80's film has come almost full circle in meaning since it's original release.
I was never a big wrestling fan but the days I did watch it was back in the Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior days who were both my favourites.

You know I watched this film a long time ago like ten years old give or take a year. I didn't like it then, the fight was stupidly long and I didn't get it either.
Of course I like it now and I get it's an allegory for when people just want to bury their head in the sand and not see whats truly before them just to live an easy life.

This means SO SO much these days, I don't want to get political or drop some of my beliefs or truth bombs on you but I do believe we as a people go to far to extremes these days. I'm pretty much a centrist so extremes both sides really alienate me.

Anyway on with the film, we join a drifter played by Roddy, he doesn't really have a name He's just credited as Nada, which i'm sure is just like nothing, you know nada, nowt, zero etc. America is in a massive economic crash and finding work is hard. The every man is hitting rock bottom but the rich are getting richer and more powerful.
But it there's an insidious reason for this, a reason no one can see. After befriending Frank a fellow worker he's taken to a shanty town where he get a bite to eat and rest so long as he helps out there. While watching TV that night the broadcast is interrupted by some hackers.
They warn that people are being controlled by them! and we need to see it, when the interruption is fixed, people complain about a headache. Nada later see's the leader of the shanty town sneaking off to a church and follows him. He watches them moving boxes around and is then discovered by the blind preacher who oddly feels his face all over.

Police come later on, they destroy the shanty town and burn out the church. Nada sneaks into the church later on the next day to see what the resistance were hiding. He retrieves a box and runs to an alleyway to check it's contents. Finding nothing but sunglasses he takes a pair and hides the rest away in a trash can.
Sticking them on the world turns black and white, a second time Nada actually starts looking around seeing where billboards are there's hiding messages in them like OBEY, CONSUME etc. Not only that he notices that some normal looking humans are actually gross metallic eyed skinned aliens.
Apparently they were meant to look like decayed humans, like the decay of society. He starts to point things like this out to normal people, they of course think he's bananas.

Some of the aliens cotton on that he can see them though and start to report him, that he 'can see' them which gets him stopped by cops. He kills the cops takes their weapons then strides into a bank where he utters one of the most memorable lines in movie history.
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and to kick ass, and I am all out of gum"
Killing only aliens Nada escapes by taking a channel employee Holly as hostage, at her home he tries to make her believe in the aliens. She thinks he's nuts and ends up pushing him through her patio window to the floor below.

He meets back up with Frank, Frank doesn't turn him in but tells him to get out of there after murdering a bunch of folk. Frank follows Nada to give him a last paycheck to go hide, Nada had recently retrieved the sunglasses that got thrown onto a trash truck. He explains to Frank, who doesn't want to know any of it or have any part. A big fight breaks out between them that you can see the two men still like each other and appreciate each other but each trying to push home their reasoning. He does force them eventually and they both end up joining the resistance.

I'll leave it there as there's still a few twists and turns I don't want to spoil ending either. They Live is another John Carpenter masterpiece whether you appreciate it for the time it was filmed in or that the themes the film has seem to be coming full circle again. THN awards They Live 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: 2067 (2020)

Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ryan Kwanten

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Seth Larney

Well first up this film came under the heading of horror, no idea why. There certain some tense and dire themes in this movie but nothing scary or jump worthy.

Secondly it was made in Australia I also can't find any budgets anywhere. Also seen this listed as Chronicle 2067 in some places too.

So we have some actors i've never seen before in anything else, Kodi (Ethan) who seems to do watery eyed whining pretty well. Then there's Ryan (Jude) who seems like a cut price Christian Bale with about half the acting skill.

In fact Ryan is pretty much the stand out actor in this piece with more facial expression than anyone put together.

The plot is pretty nonsensical Time travel rubbish that DOES come together but only at the VERY end of the film which you are forced to sit through despite pretty much having worked out whats going on as soon as Ethan is sent to the future. It very terminator dialogue heavy with fate this and fate that being thrown in every time they talk about changing something.

So the actual film plot, in 2067 all plants have died out the earth is low on oxygen and pretty much everywhere is dark/dead. Except an Australian city with an underground nuclear generator. There's 'fake' air being doled out to people but some people's lungs can't seem to process it well and people are just dying off.

Ethan who initially seems like a nobody is in fact the son of a scientist who disappeared years back He gets called in to be shown an experiment his dad was working on, like a time tunnel affair. Ethans father also rammed some kind of techy bracelet on his son on his 8th birthday.

Anyway thing conspire that Ethan needs to sent to the future because someone there asked for him to be sent. Like a total idiot in a world he's not used to Ethan blunders about. He discovers, somehow, his own skeleton hundreds of years dead shot in the head.

Anyway after eating some poisonous hallucinogenic berries, Ethan is dying when cut price Bale also fazzams out of the past to save him with an anti-poison jab. A little later on Jude pulls a gun and it's pretty obvious that this is where dead Ethan gets his extra air vent from if you know ANYTHING about foreshadowing in movies.

Anyway they have to fix the nuclear generator in 24xx because it'll nuke them if they don't. The plot descends timey wimey wibbly wobbly guff from here on even more than had before. 0% of it is Ethan screaming all teary eyed that he's already dead so what does it matter and Jude spouting about fate every 5 five minutes.

Something happens to Jude near the end which is like WHY did that need to happen?

The plot is the weakest part of this film with a lot of nonsensical things thrown in too, a guff plot with Ethan's wife that they use to move the story along at points too that coupled with the ending is almost totally pointless.

It's not bad but it's not good either, it's a little overlong too at 114 minutes long i'm no editor but I could cut 20 minutes of this and still get the point across. THN awards 2067 (2020) 2 out of 5 stars.

Review: Phantasm (1979)

Stars: Micheal Baldwin, Bill Thornbury

Budget: $300,000

Directed By: Don Coscarelli

One of those proper gems you come across from time to time. Though today this series definitely has it's own cult following.

Made for a minuscule $300k which even back in that time wasn't a lot of money. mainly due to practical effects still costing a pretty penny then.

wouldn't exactly call it a micro budget film but it is definitely bordering on that.

On the subject of effects this film does spectacular amounts on the budget it has. One of the most iconic being the flying ball with drills and blades.

this film also does what a lot of franchise films did back then too. have a recurring character, that being Reggie, played by Reggie Bannister who would show up as his character in nearly every chapter of the franchise. Despite seemingly being killed in some of the previous films.

Also iconic film monster the Tall Man is of course introduced as the films series main bad guy.

so we see in the beginning of this film a young lad having sex with a good looking woman, who subsequently kills him. Though to most the mind scarring knowledge that the woman is the Tall Man.

At his funeral people think Tommy has committed suicide, so obviously it's been set up to look like that. Even his two friends Reggie and Jody think he has.

Later on Jody's younger brother (Mike) see's the tall man easily lift the coffin with one arm, which kind of freaks him out. So much so he tries to keep tabs on him.

This eventually leads to Mike being chased by one of the films 'short guys'. stumbling on and catching his older brother Jody about to have sex with the tall man in woman form, in the cemetery. His brother (thinking he's been cock blocked) is annoyed and doesn't believe Mike.

Mike keeps looking but is caught by a caretaker, who is then killed by the steel sphere, Mike then just about escapes the Tall Man cutting off some of his fingers in a door.

Mike uses one the fingers to convince his brother of the Tall Mans doings, Reggie also joins after seeing the finger transform. In an action scene with the short men they find one of them is a shrunken Tommy. This reveals some of the Tall Mans plans.

The rest of the film is pretty much a push and pull between the heroes and the Tall Man, which is pretty funny as the gang find out the rest of the Tall Mans plans.

This film took an amazing $12 on its tiny budget, which screamed sequel, we didn't actually get one until 1988, just over 8 years later. Part 3 was 1994, part 4 was 1998 and then we didn't get another one until 2016, each to varying degrees of success. I may well get around to reviewing them at some point too. As for this film It's a fun romp, not one of my favorite franchises but a franchise none the less which as you all know hold a space in my dead heart.

THN awards Phantasm (1979) a strong 3 out of 5 stars with a recommendation to watch.