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.

Review: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Travis Stevens

Wow what can I say, I short Jakob's Wife is about marital problems exacerbated by vampiric infection.

Star long time scream queen Barbara Crampton, who like a vampire never seems to age. If there's one thing I can still say about her in this film is that the woman is still smoking hot with everything still able to back that up too!

But there's a lot more to her and the film than that.

The acting from nearly everyone is brilliantly on par with anything these veteran actors have been in before. Both Babs and Larry knock it out of the park with performances their performances.

Larry a slightly overbearing pastor husband Jakob to Babs slightly downtrodden wife Anne.

When Anne is bitten and transformed into a half vampire she starts to lose all the tendencies that made her subservient to Jakob.

We then get some amusing scenes later where they are trying to work things out between them as Anne starts to feel more empowered by the change.

Jakob soon learns that Anne is infected and seeks to cure it, Anne on the other hand, along with whispers of 'the master' (the vampire who turned her) is unsure if she wants to go back to being normal her. She does however seem to really love Jakob as she saves him and resists feeding on him a few times out of her feeling for him.

The ending was a little weak who it kind of boils down to a bit of misogyny on the master vampires part. True if she's really old then yes her times would have indeed been bad for her and Babs former life was as I stated quite downtrodden. But that's the thing these days and something the movie does show at points too, it's all about sitting down and talking. Though judging by the ending I don't know how well that went!

Some other good points the soundtrack is awesome, really reminded me of older horror films with the plinky plonky of pianos to the dun dun dun dun of something like the beginning of The Thing. The effects were great, realistic blood no CGI shit, as far as I could tell. The masters effects were very nosferatu vampiresque again a nice throwback.

Some minus points, the film can be slow in certain acts, seeming a little over stuffed with nothing going on or just things that weren't really needed. The pacing and theme were also a little off, with somethings moving at bullet speed to others just taking it's time. The theme was horror and the musical score solidified that mostly, but there was strange moments of comedy and satire that didn't gell well with the rest of the movie, they just stood out more due to this.

Overall though I really did enjoy this and most things the Babs is in gets high praise, Jakob's wife is no different, though not just for her but also some stellar supporting cast. THN awards Jakob's Wife (2021)

A solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)

Stars: Micheal Ironside, Lisa Schrage

Budget: $2.5 million CA

Directed By: Bruce Pittman

Wow this film was totally out of the blue, it is a bizarre sequel to the original Prom Night film. It very little to do with it in sequel terms though.
Taking cues from later additions to slasher flicks such as magical or other worldly forces, Prom Night 2 is straight up supernatural horror.
Taking cues from everything in that genre, from Evil Dead camera rushes and even sound effects in the score too. Too almost dream like killings and an end sequence that is ripped almost from Carrie.

The film Stars a slightly younger looking Micheal Ironside, though i'm sure the guys had the same amount of hair and scar tissue face since an infant. He puts in a great performance in here as a man with secrets (from everyone else not the viewer)
The films not rocket science and is cratered with plotholes the size of the moon. With said plot being about as thin on the ground as you could possibly get.

Having said that theres a weird kind of charm and all of the rest of the cast seem to be having a great time acting out their part. Nearly everyone is a dick in some way or another though and you don't really route for anyone other than may be feel a bit sorry for the main protagonist and her boyfriend, oh and possibly her bewildered father. There's some very graphical frontal nudity in a locker room scene too, my does Vicki have a banging body.

So we join Mary Lou after she mocks a priest in a confessional stand. Yeah she's a doozy this girl about as likable as triple bypass surgery. It's 1957 and she's had one guy take her to the prom but she cheats on him with another guy. She of course very pretty which nets her the prom queen status. Jealous the spurned boyfriend uses a prank smell bomb to get her back.
It goes wrong however and Mary Lou goes up like a dry xmas tree. Everyone just kind of watches screaming or crying rather than trying to help her. So Crispy Lou dies there ablaze on the stage.

Cut to the same school now in 1987, that's right its a roaring 80's baby. Vicki a student living with a over repressive god bod mother asks for some money to get a prom dress. Her nice father asks how much but her mother refuses as that's what holier than thou mothers do in these films.
So she looks in the school cellar? below ground storage room?
Whatever she somehow finds Mary Lou's shawl and bang that starts with her slowly getting taken over by a now demonic miss Lou. Her attitude slowly begins to change from sweet innocent girl to slutty killer. Slowly all her friends and acquaintances start falling prey to her evil side.
Somewhere in between she goes to see the new priest at the church, twist it was the boy who Mary Lou cheated with. Another twist! Is that Vicki's Boyfriends dad was the spurned lover, somehow friends the priest comes to warn him that he think's Mary Lou's soul has possessed someone and will try to kill them.

That's the main premise it plays out as predictable as expected but I liked it, it wasn't great and stole a lot from other things. It was ultimately fun though. There is a 3rd movie seems hard to get hold of though, will review it once I can!

THN awards HML: Prom Night 2 a strong 3 stars, watch it if you have the spare 95 or so minutes

Review: A Quiet Place - Part II (2021)

Stars: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt

Budget: $55 million

Directed By: John Krasinski

a follow up that no one really wanted or expected after the pretty much flat ending of the second film.

Now if that makes me sound negative please trust me when I say that's not what I trying to convey with this film at all.

It again stars and is directed by John Krasinski as the father of the family.

How I hear you all cry in your multitudes, in flashback. We get a usual second movie in a series trope of going back to the past to explain how everything happened.

But it works, it tells us how the death angels got here, now there's a few things there that are a bit eeerm? But if you forget some of those thing's (which I will go over) it is a good prelude.

It flicks back to exactly where the first film stopped, the wife, daughter and son along with the new baby are standing in the charred ruins of their destroyed house.

with new baby they have to be creative, Evelyn makes a soundproof baby box with its own air supply. Regan lights a fire to signal to others who respond with their own fires. The three family members set off towards a designated meeting point.

Along the way they come to the end of the sand path and have to traverse on more noisier ground. On the way there Marcus gets caught in a deliberate bear trap, he screams which does attract the D angels. There are all then saved by Emmett played by the always great Cillian Murphy.

He's reluctant to help but when Regan heads off on her own to broadcast the signal he goes to help. While away Evelyn has to go get supplies and leaves the baby with the still debilitated Marcus. The story turns into a three way for a bit as the three groups each get into different scuffles and danger along the way.

They do come to a pleasing head at the end but this time please just leave it there, leave whatever this ending is to the imagination as a third film I'm sure can go only one way. So yes these super tough aliens came to earth after floating about in space for god knows how long on a meteor.

This was the one thing I found a little far fetched, also the fact something so invincible, yet with a glaring sonic weakness could survive like that in the vacuum of space, or even in the cold/heat of things. Like I said this sequal wasn't needed but is a welcome addition to the mythos now.

THN awards A Quiet Place PT2 4 out of 5 stars

THN's Top 5 Haunted Places: France

Time to start looking further abroad, where else other than our closest ex-european neighbours France. As with all places in europe this land is steeped in history with some things dating over a thousand years old. I'm excited to dig into this countries history and find some of the most haunted places in all of their lands.

Top 5 places in France:

1. Paris Catacombs, Paris

Okay probably one of the most famous creepy haunted places on the entire bloody earth. Been in film, book cinema for years such as as above so below. The place is stacked floor to ceiling with bones, skulls and other assorted freaky shit.

Now you know I'm not a believer of ghosts etc but I think just being here would even freak the hell out of me. Now the main reason for it, is not that spooky at all, it was just a place to stick remains when space ran out. Though certainly from some stories some of the residents didn't like being moved to their new resting place as often moans and other creepy noises are heard.

As I mentioned As Above So Below, the supposed or at least one of the inspirations for this movie was when a group of regulars to the catacombs found a camera, on there the footage of a man clearly lost is going mad, he drops the camera and wonders off. No one knows if the man ever made out of the catacombs and if he did, if he's okay.

2. Palace Gardens, Versailles

Okay so the lovely garden of Versailles are a beautiful place to visit but wow do they hold a great story. From ghosts and spooks to possible time travel?

Listen to this, In 1911 two writers wrote of their times in the gardens. In it they felt that they had traveled back to the 18th century and the gardens as they were then. They also claimed to have seen the ghosts of Marie Antoinette, though their story was at the time ridiculed and mocked.

Though other people since have also made claims to have seen Marie doing things like mundanely walking around or even sitting and sketching the gardens.

3. Chateau De Brissac, Angers

This amazing looking disney-esque castle or Chateau is just south of a city called Angers, it was originally built in the 11th century as a small castle. Then in the 15th century the Duke of Brissac built it into pretty much what it is today.

A double murder in this time gave birth to one of the more popular ghost type haunting's. A green lady! the terrifying thing about this one however is the people who have seen her say that looking at her face it looks like her eyes and nose were cut away. Not only that her moans are often said to be heard echoing through the halls of the Chateau in the night.

4. Foret De Broceliande, Brittany

This forest as you can see from the picture has damn freaky shaped trees, that is literally just one type there. For some unknown reason, to me at least, i'm sure I could go check why, a lot of the tree just grow oddly.

Now here's the multitude of bizarre things about this forest. It's said to be haunted by none other than Morgana Le Faye of Arthurian legend, bewitched and home to many creature of the elven variety. It has an amazing castle in it's grounds and some spectular, yet mysterious fountains also.

If you don't go for the spooky/fantasy stuff this place is great to visit just for how it looks.

5. The Bleeding House, Aisne

Also known as just the haunted house of Saint-Quentin, this is like the catacombs is one of the most famous haunted places in the whole world not just France. Subject of a few films and documentaries it's walls are supposed to exude blood.

The owners obviously didn't like this and decided to move, the house was later demolished and the bodies of 50, count em 50 german soldiers were found inside it's walls. The house has since been rebuilt but there is no longer any bleeding walls, still though some ghostly sounds and sightings have still been reported about the site!

Okay there we have it folks, another 5 haunted places, this time slightly further abroad than the UK, next up should be Germany, though depends what order I post these in...