Leprechaun Returns!

That's right, a new Leprechaun movie, directed by Steve Kostanski of Astron-6 fame, and director of The Void. Forget about that piece of shit Leprechaun: Origins, this is the true return of the series. Unfortunately, Warwick Davis chose not to return, but honestly, the new actor is as good of a replacement as they possibly could have had. While this is no spectacular achievement, it's great fun, and a return to form for the Leprechaun series. If you like the first three movies, then I see no reason why you wouldn't enjoy this one.

Secretariat (2010) 8/10

The story of the greatest race horse of all time, whose records at the Belmont Stakes will probably never even get sniffed.
When most people think of race horses, the ones that come to mind are Man 'on War, Citation, Seattle Slew, and Barbaro (who never got to prove his greatness).
But at the top of the heap is Secretariat. He won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by an astounding thirty-one lengths, and also has the twelve furlong track record by an equally astounding ten seconds. Neither will fall, EVER.
When he died at the age of 19, he had sired over 600 colts. And at his autopsy, it was discovered that his heart was almost double the size of a comparably sized horse.
Really good movie if you are into biographies and/or sports movies.

Midnight (1982)

Based on a novel by writer/director John Russo, Midnight is a grainy forgotten nightmare about a runaway who gets herself in deep with a family of satanists. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it isn't that great, but it has enough charm to keep me satisfied.

The prologue establishes our villainous family with a young girl caught in a bear trap. They claim her to be a demon taking the appearance of an innocent girl, much in the vein of Bill Paxton's "Frailty", but they don't keep this theme going very long. They're really just a bunch of assholes, and we'll see that soon enough.

Cut to the "present" with our teenage heroine Nancy on her way to have some fun, only her drunken fool of a stepfather starts making advances on her. This asshole is played by Lawrence Tierney, so he's automatically fun to watch. His build and mannerisms remind me of my grandpa. It also helps that they were both drunken buffoons, but that's besides the point. Ol' stepdad demands hugs and kisses from Nancy, forcing her onto the bed where she gives him a very light tap on the head with a tiny little radio and he's out like disco. Thus begins Nancy's adventure into hell.

Before anything gets too hairy, she hitches a ride with a couple of dudes for some light-hearted fun. One of them likes her, but the other is mad that she's impeding on their bro time, so he's reluctant to keep her around. Part of this is because he's black, and the group faces some racism along the way, so he's only looking out for his best interests, considering she's a minor and all.

After stealing some groceries for the road, the police are after them. Yup, the police are in pursuit of a trio of kids for stealing some food. Kind of weird if you ask me, but whatev.

What's funny about this is they play such an upbeat song throughout the whole movie about midnight and runaways. "You're on your own! You're all alone! You can't go home anymore!"

Well, eventually, the trio runs into a family of psychos and that's where the movie really begins. I was initially drawn to this movie because it features John Amplas from Romero's "Martin". This movie is a product of that Pittsburgh crew, featuring effects by Tom Savini. Normally, that would sound like a great thing, but there aren't many effects in this movie. Savini was in autopilot mode, but it's still better than nothing.

The movie draws inspiration from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though a lot of this is due to the grainy VHS look. This movie is oft considered a video nasty, even though it's pretty tame, but I really love that ugly aesthetic.

There's not a whole hell of a lot to say about this movie, but I've always thought it was a decent effort, and I wouldn't mind seeing more from John Russo.

Apparently, there's a sequel AND a recent remake, so I'll keep my eyes out for those.

Fun trivia from IMDb:

Was released in some theaters as "Backwoods Massacre".

Despite some similarities to Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), director/writer John A. Russo said he had never seen the film at the time he wrote and shot Midnight. According to him, Chainsaw was not an influence.

Tom Savini turned down an offer to do the special effects for Friday the 13th Part 2 (1982) and worked on this movie instead. (what a fool!)

The budget of the film was so low it was shot with only a crew of three, including director Russo himself.

Shot years before its eventual release in 1982.

#Review

Brian De Palma movies 

I'm watching The Untouchables and it's great. There's that whole bit with the baby carriage falling down the stairs, the camera angles, the pacing, etc. He always has that one long tense scene in his movies and nobody does that anymore. Where's our new Hitchcock? Where are our masters of suspense?

Of course, I'm referring to a select output of his filmography. I think I quit after Carlito's Way, his last great movie, cuz Mission Impossible and Black Dalia sucked. I still think he's essential to any aspiring film snob.

What's your fave?

Stepfather III (1992)

Oh my... this one was laughably bad. My buddy was ecstatic to show me just about any VHS he had on his 6" TV/VCR combo, so we went with this. The first two movies were all right on account of Terry O'Quinn playing the titular psycho character, but this one doesn't have him. Instead, this one has some other guy who gets plastic surgery to justify the recasting, and that's the only good/gross part of this movie. The rest had me turn into one of those rifftrax assholes who makes fun of the movie the entire time, and I'm not proud of it.

Priscilla Barnes is the new lady of interest, and she has a wheelchair bound son (who's cause of being in a wheelchair made me lol). For some reason, this kid is always hanging out with a priest and he's always trying to solve mysteries with a shitty old 90s computer that he insists on letting his pet turtle walk all over. I wanted to smack this kid senseless.

The movie plays out as you expect, with our antagonist/hero gradually going crazy and killing people that threaten his stupid family existence until the kid, having not used his legs for years, ignores muscle atrophy and musters up the courage to walk and fight back against this subpar stepfather who isn't conscientious at all. He'll kill people basically in public, get blood all over himself, and in the very next scene have no blood on him at all. This neighborhood is oblivious, just like the screenwriters. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have a scar on his chest from when he got stabbed in the fucking heart at the end of the previous movie. Also, when he bangs women, there's no nudity. It's super gay, just like everything else about this movie.

#Review

September looks like it's going to be a good month for new releases

Alone in the Dark (1982) and Drop Dead Fred (1990) both coming out on Blu-ray.

Unknown TV episode or movie from the late 70s

This is something I've been trying to figure out for many years. I think I posted this on the old Horror board on IMDb once too, but never got an answer. Back in 1978 or possibly earlier (No later as I know it was before The Dain Curse and Salem's Lot), I saw part of a TV movie or possibly an episode of some show where a woman was groping around inside a dark house at night, presumably where she was not supposed to be because she had to get out fast when a car pulled into the driveway. She dropped an object into the drain of the kitchen sink that resembled the headdresses worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace (only much smaller and on a stick like a popsicle). She dropped it fast because it was either hot or smelled bad, and it fell into the drain in the sink and sat there with the end of the stick sticking up. On one of the walls of the house was a poster like the one seen in every episode of Three's Company of the swallowtail butterfly with the human female body with the word Life on the top, but in this one it was a Cecropia moth with a skeletal body and the word Death instead.

Does anyone remember seeing this and know what it was? For a while I thought it could've been an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but I have seen all those since. It could've been some made for TV horror movie, or maybe an episode of some detective series.

DVD Special Features

Interactive Menus!
Digitally Mastered!
1.0 Mono Soundtrack!
2.0 Stereo Soundtrack!
English AND Bulgarian Subtitles!
Scene Selection!

The Ramones Movie

Roger Corman gives us this high school comedy about students just trying to rock when the new principal is a tight ass who hates anything with a beat. Naturally, she has to hate The Ramones!

If you didn't already know it, The Ramones are great. Apparently, they weren't the first choice for the band in this movie though. They wanted Todd Rundgren, Cheap Trick, Devo, Van Halen.. fuck it. Let's just use The Ramones!

So our main character is P.J. Soles and she's pretty hot in this movie. She's a Ramones super fan (apparently not before starring in this movie though) and strives to give her new song to the band, "Rock and Roll High School". There are some other side plots in the movie, including one where Clint Howard gives a guy dating advice. That's pretty laughable when you think about it.

During the 21-day shoot, Dee Dee Ramone got arrested for fighting with a roadie, overdosed in jail, and wound up in Cedars Sinai Hospital with a $3,000 medical bill.

Despite playing a high school student, P.J. Soles was 28 when the movie was filmed, and was actually older than three of the four members of the Ramones.

The Ramones are actually kinda ugly, too. Fortunately, this movie doesn't care, much like the attitudes of The Ramones themselves. There's no glue-sniffing in this PG movie, but there is cocaine!

When all is said and done, the movie is entertaining enough, but I feel like I'm going to forget most of it by tomorrow, and that's not because I've been drinking all day.

#Review

Face the Music

Since everyone has been waiting for this movie for so long... and I say that with some sarcasm and some legitimacy... I just watched it. Alex and Keanu have been trying to make a sequel for years, and for some reason, it took 'em a quarter of a century, but it somehow ended up alright.

So Bill and Ted have fallen flat and aren't the bigshots they hope to be. They're still married to their former princesses, but their relationships are somewhat stagnant. They also have daughters who are super hot music slackers who decide to help them on this new bogus journey.

The premise is given away in the trailer in which they haven't written the song yet, but they decide to steal it from themselves. This involves multiple hilarious run-ins with themselves and various other callbacks that are very welcome. I thought this shit was pretty hilarious at times. Lots of laughs.