Review: The Omega Man (1973)

Stars: Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash

Budget: ?

Directed By: Boris Sagal

Very apt for today's situation too, if your reading this some time in the future, in 2020 we had a global pandemic from a virus named covid 19, or corona virus.
In this movie (an adaptation of the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson) a disease has turned people into freakish white, scared very single minded monsters.

Nothing like the book that turned people into very basic minded vampires. The second in adaptations of the book the first being 1964's last man on earth, which i'll do at some point. the third being Will Smiths I Am Legend in 2007. None of them bar the older version follow the book very closely.
I can't find concrete release dates for this some places say 71' others 73', also no budget for it either?

There is another version, an asylum flick, starring the one the only Mark Dacascos. I might, might do it one day too i've seen it and it does not follow the book very closely either.

The book follows one Robert Neville who is seemingly immune to the disease and they also don't know where it originates from 100% either. though throughout the book he starts to learn all he can from books on the subject. The same with the infected, they are not vampires, nor like in the book do they suffer from the same weaknesses as vampires either (like crosses, garlic, mirrors etc). They are also very susceptible to being killed by conventional means.
That's some of the main things changed in the film from the book, It's now military scientist Richard Neville, the virus was known and he's not naturally immune. He inoculates himself with an experimental serum only moments of not being infected left. It works and he becomes immune to the virus.

Months later we join Neville as he tries to occupy his mind, like the book he has succumbed to being alone for a long time. He goes around like the book killing members of the infected who now call themselves 'the family' they are very anti science and see it as the reason for the downfall of humanity now. Neville being 'normal' is the embodiment of all of this too so they naturally hate him.
the film deals with the isolation and loneliness one would face by being the last person alive, going through phases of madness, alcoholism even suicidal. practically being a prisoner of your own mind/devices it's a scary place and one i'm sure people are feeling a lot today.

One day Neville thinks he see's someone else while he's raiding a store chasing the person he loses them, coming to the conclusion that he was just seeing things. Neville is eventually captured by the family and almost burned alive for his technological sins. He is saved by the person he seen, one Lisa and her friend Dutch. In a massive departure he is taken to a place where children are, they are infected but do not totally succumb to the virus until they hit adulthood.
He decides to try and use his blood to synthesis a working serum to help the children, saving the rest of the world would take forever though. throughout the rest of film Neville falls for Lisa, continues his work on the serum and occasionally gets attacked by the family from time to time.

They all come to conclusion that if he does manage to make a cure they will leave the city and make a new home out in the wilderness somewhere. Lisa succumbs to the virus later on helping the rest of the family infiltrate his home. Here we leave off telling you the end of the film like we do in THN as The Omega Man is definitely a classic piece of cinema to be watched.
We award this film a strong 3 out of 5 stars as some of the political messages haven't aged well, the situation however is to real at the moment.

Review: Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

Stars: Jim Varney, Austin Nagler 

Budget: 9.6 million

Directed By: John R. Cherry III

I know this isn't what you'd call a horror film but it is a spooky addition to the Ernest series of films. Now I live in the UK and these films weren't as well known over here as the US. In fact this was the only one I knew about for a little while, hey I was 9 in 91' lol.

I do have to say after seeing a few more Ernest films that this one was my favourite, though I don't outright hate any of the others I've seen. Ernest goes to Jail at this time is the only one I remember almost as well as Scared Stupid.

So the premise, our lovable fool Ernest accidentally frees a troll demon from a cursed tree. That was trapped in the 19th century this troll kidnaps kids and turns them into little wooden figures. See the Worrols were cursed to be the only ones who could free it.

Ernest breaks the cursed looking tree it was trapped in. That's how it escapes.

The rest of the film is played out with him trying to find out how to retrap the troll and convincing some of the other people in town. The one thing that sticks in my memory and I don't know why is looking for a weakness Ernest sees something called Mi_k and instantly thinks it's a rare bulgarian chutney or something called miak. The troll actually grossed me out as a kid too.

I liked this film quite a lot and THN awards Ernest Scared Stupid a good 4 out of 5 stars.

THN News: Everything We Know About Halloween Ends

Okay so October is quickly descending upon us. With it a whole slew of new horror movies, including a lot of sequels and remakes. Though thanks to it actually getting a theatrical release evil dead rise has been pushed back to April next year. Something I'm both loving and hating.

Then we have the hellraiser remake/reboot which I'm quietly looking forward to. Jamie Clayton is by far the best looking and most unique pinhead since Doug Bradley gave up. The new mask cenobite looks spooky as hell too.

Our main news is one of the biggest things though is the new Halloween Ends film. The last chapter in the franchises newest timeline. It'll be going on peacock which I don't think we have here in the UK. As well as in the cinemas.

There's a 4yr time jump where Laurie is living with her granddaughter. She's wrote a memoir and trying to live as normal as possible. Supposedly a kid dies in the care of a babysitter and boom everything kicks off from there.

Touting that this is the definite end for one of them, that we'll have to wait and see. Theres also rumours that the cinema and peacock version will have different endings too, hope we don't get a Army of Darkness type deal with that lol.

Well that's all we know so far Halloween (the holiday) is looking very good for 2022.

Review: Wes Cravens Shocker (1989)

Stars: Mitch Pileggi, Camille Cooper

Budget: $10m

Directed By: Wes Craven

So Shocker, yeah Wes Craven. Sorry and i know this is going to get me some ire from horror fans especially the die hard fans of this film, of which i know there's a dedicated following.
I did not like this its a mixed up jumbled mess of a film to me. Released at a time where quite a few films had electric chair based horror bad guys.
House 3 (or the horror show), this and The chair a few months earlier.

Like i said this film doesn't know whether it's coming or going in the plot with fake outs, dream sequences and other ways to confuse you.
Now i would expect Wes to pull this out of the hat, the guy was a amazing writer, with Nightmare on elm Street but this was just no where near that level.
As you can tell by the lack of franchise. It does have some performances especially from Mitch Pileggi as the titular bad guy. I'm just happy that this little hiccup led to Wes doing things like new nightmare and the whole slasher revival phase in the 90's.

right just to really summarize this film, after a few fake out dream sequences of varying people being killed. The main cops son (Jonathan) somehow gets linked mentally, psychically?
To Mitch's killer Pinker, this leads them to apprehend him as he's a serial killer anyway.
Pinker reveals he's electrocuted that he's Jonathan's dad.

Pinker has somehow made a deal with the devil that allows him to come back as electricity?
Somehow this allows him to possess others, double ??
I don't get it either, he starts killing others while possessing these people. One person possessed Lt Parker manages to fight off Pinker's control. Now they know Jonathan and some others concoct a plan to try and fight back now.
As with a lot of these films the beating of the bad guy involves making back into a physical form again so they can kill him properly. But that's not actually how they beat him in the very end.
Despite not being overly fond the film it's not bad enough to spoil the ending for you, you might like it after all.
THN awards Shocker 2 stars out of 5.