Sci-fi/Fantasy Marathon

Just checking if this is happening for September? If no one is officially doing it I will just put my list here and anyone else can too.

So looks like we are just doing it here. For anyone who doesn't know you can watch anything Sci-fi or fantasy related and you just add up the minutes whether a movie or TV show.

Trancers and Terminator

Here's a slew of similarities between the two.

Both films are tech noirs that came out in 1984 within a couple weeks of each other and are set in Los Angeles. They feature rugged male protagonists from dystopian futures who go back in time from the month of July to stop a bizarre threat from altering the future. While in the past, they go to punk clubs and fall in love with women who will affect their own lineage and existence. In the end, neither of these men return to their respective futures.

Then both franchises got a quasi continuation in 1988 with the Trancer's City of Lost Angels short and Terminator's emergence in Top Comics.

Big deal, right? Well, the sequels to each film both came out in 1991 within a month of each other and feature a returning lead actress who is essentially written out of the franchise after the second entry. Both sequels have our protagonists break a woman out of a mental institution run by a guy trying to further his own career.

In Trancers 3, Jack Deth is sent to 2005. In Terminator 3, the T-850 is sent to 2004. Both films feature military compounds in the process of creating the very threat each series is about.

By the third entries and beyond, the directors of the first two entries of each respective franchise left and had very little if any involvement in the franchise thereafter.The tone of each franchise changed a bit and important plot elements of each were no longer relevant. The part 3's were both okay, while the part 4's and 5's were kinda shitty.

Both 4th entries in each franchise were raped by producers. The original Terminator 4 script suffered from a zillion rewrites, while a trivia bit of Trancers 4 is: "Several budgetary problems occurred during filming, to which director David Nutter went on to say that they were resolved by simply tearing out various pages in the script." Neither film was made as originally intended.

The 5th entry of each (and 4th of Trancers) deal with deviations in the timeline and introduce the concept of alternate dimensions.

The 6th entry in each franchise is set in the 2020s and is all about girl power. As of now, there are no plans for any follow-ups to either franchise. I'd say these franchises are somewhat similar. 😐

Shot-On-Shiteo: The Gift That Keeps On Giving



There was this noticeably generic slasher I saw on TV a long time ago called Bloody Murder. A while back, I was thinking about it. Mainly trying to remember what it was called, and whether I even liked it or not. Like I said, It had been a while. I just remembered watching some slasher (and its sequel) on TV back in the early 2000's, and for some reason, I got curious enough to try and seek it out. My search eventually led me to a movie on Youtube called Camp Blood. As it would turn out, Camp Blood is NOT Bloody Murder, but for some reason, I thought that was the one I had found. Bloody Murder is a bad Friday The 13th ripoff, and Well... I guess Camp Blood kinda is too. As I sat down and watched this unfamiliar SOV movie, it didn't take long to realize that this wasn't it. And it didn't take long after that to not give a shit. Who needs Bloody Murder when you have Camp Blood in your life?

My first clue that this wasn't the movie I thought it was the fact that this didn't at all seem like something that would ever get played on TV. Being more amateur and shot-on-video, Camp Blood looks and feels like something out of the old Sub Rosa (now SRS) catalog. It all feels a little thrown together, and includes a story we've heard too many times already, but ultimately, this isn't a hard one to sit through compared to many. In Camp Blood, we have four young people headed out to the woods for a weekend of camping. The obvious final girl and main character, Tricia, has reservations about this already, and expresses such to her boyfriend, Steve, before they even leave the house. Too late I guess, because their slightly obnoxious friends are on the way to pick them up. Jay is a preppy little dickwad, and Nicole is his blonde bimbo girlfriend who looks like Hayley Duff. Neither of these two come off like they'd ever be caught dead out in a place like Camp Blackwood, but here they go.

The preppy little dickwad hired a guide as this is a place one could easily get lost. Jay is displeased when Harris the guide turns out to be a chick because there is just no way a girl is going to know her way around this place. Harris quickly proves Jay wrong and proves herself to be his equal as a dickwad pretty early on, with obnoxiousness not far off from that red-headed, wildling bitch from Game Of Thrones. Yeah, I said it! While somewhat physically abusive, the lesbian makes herself useful as she does seem to know her way around these parts pretty well. As the journey gets going, we're spared anything remotely interesting for a while. We watch the five walking to their desired destination with some light bickering between confrontational Harris and insecure Jay. We watch them collect firewood and complete other dull tasks while setting up camp. Harris watches the preppy little dickwad make out with his blonde bimbo and get called out on it. She doesn't care. She must have a thing for Hayley Duff.

Later that night, Harris tells the story of why locals refer to this area as "camp blood". Years earlier, Stanley Cunningham caught his girlfriend getting it on with someone else, and as revenge, took them both out to these woods and brutally murdered them. Doing so in a clown mask. Stanley Cunningham was never seen again, but some claim to have seen a guy in a clown mask wandering the woods over the years. Not to mention all the unexplained disappearances. Of course we the viewer know the fucker in the clown mask is near by because we saw a scene earlier where he killed a couple of people. Everyone calls it a night and goes to their tents to get it on, but of course Harris likes to sleep under the stars because she's hardcore like that.

The next morning, we have a bit of a problem as someone has gone and set Harris on fire, burning her alive, somehow without waking anyone up. Everyone's pretty traumatized by this, especially Jay's main squeeze who goes catatonic for a while. Nobody really cared much for Harris, but everyone is in agreement that this is fucked up. It soon dawns on everyone that the only person who knew how to find their way out of here is now beyond well done. This is around the point where the clown makes his presence known. And finally, something happens!

It is beyond me how I went as long as I did without hearing about this one, especially considering the unusual amount of sequels it has spawned. Brad Sykes made Camp Blood in 1999, and soon thereafter made a sequel, which very much feels like the same movie. A few years later, Sykes would make a movie called Into The Woods, which apparently is an unofficial sequel for some reason. And a few more years later, the floodgates would open. In 2014, Mark Polonia of the Polonia brothers came out with Camp Blood: First Slaughter, the real (?) part 3. After this, someone got the idea that way more people love these movies than actually do because at least one Camp Blood sequel has been released for every year since. This includes a compilation movie including all the sweetest kills, entitled "Camp Blood Kills". Most of these sequels have been from the surviving Polonia twin, which is probably for the best. Some of these movies are pretty bad, but some more watchable than others. I wouldn't say the original is THAT much more superior, but being a bit older, there is a noticeable old school tone to it for anyone who is into that. If none of that is good enough, there's always Bloody Murder, I guess. 4/10



#Review

Dollman (1991)

Tim Thomerson stars as Brick Bardo, a police officer from another planet who finds himself in a quarrel with his robotic head of a nemesis that flings the both of them to New York City. When he gets there, he quickly learns that like most Full Moon features, this one involves doll-sized characters... and he's the dollman!

New York City is a funny place. The Bronx here looks a lot like the gang lands in Los Angeles, doesn't it? And it doesn't help that so many of the gang members are latino, but NY? LA? Who cares? Those are both places that are only good to escape from anyway.

This one is surprisingly watchable due to Thomerson's tough guy approach and Jackie Earle Haley as the gang leader who wants to blow up the east side with a space bomb he gets ahold of. Despite that guy being in some shitty movies, he's not a bad actor.

Dollman isn't the only short thing about this movie. The runtime is only 81 minutes. Surprisingly with our protagonist being so damn short, there are very little effects to cash in on this. A lot of it is suggestive, but it isn't necessarily bad effects. Fortunately, I just found out that there's a sequel, where he goes up against... more small Full Moon characters... the demonic toys!

#Review

Vigilante (1982)

Robert Forster plays an honest family man until some hoodlums molest his wife and blow his son's head off with a shotgun. Yikes!

What's even worse is that Forster is sent to prison for contempt in court after venting his frustrations to the judge who clearly doesn't give a shit so long as he's paid off. Obviously, something has to be done, and if not by the law, then it must be some good ol' fashioned street justice!

With the help of his buddy played by Fred Williamson, we're taken on a field trip through the grimy places of New York City, since director William Lustig wouldn't have it any other way.

Pretty decent stuff with a few surprise moments. You even have Joe Spinell in a minor role as yet another sleazeball. This was made in the era of Death Wish II and various other gang movies, so if you like any of those, you can't go wrong here.

#Review

What Have you Read 2021?

Here's the updated thread for 2021! @bambi awesome job with reading last year!


I plan to read 10 chapters a day. Reading used to be a huge part of my life and I want to get back to it! So here's to 2021, and the year of discovering new books!

Home Media Cases

One day, I got bored and thought of designing my own custom DVD and VHS cases.

https://trashepics.com/app/home_media_case/

Now, they're not that good, but what I'm going for is consistency. Sometimes, even releases from the same company can be all over the place, and that's why I built these on somewhat of a template.

These are not solid images, but a mashup of images, fonts, and CSS. Either way, they theoretically can be printed and used as replacement sleeves or slip cases.

Users can create their own CSS-based cases or play around with the browser's dev tools to modify the ones available.

What Mediums Do You Use to Watch Movies?

Aside from the obvious ones (VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, network, theater).
I currently use the streaming services Hulu, Peacock and Tubi, Youtube.

Looking for vampires/werewolves movies

I would like some recommendations for the october challenge. There is a few subgenres I haven't dug in that deep yet. So I'm thinking in the direction of vampires and werewolves (preferably pre the Underworld era). Frankenstein like movies or other body horror flicks would be fine too.

Horror Challenge Assistance 

Some of you may be aware of the Excel spreadsheet I've been keeping on October Horror Challenges. It has all the movies watched from IMDB from 2012-2016 and here from 2017 to present. Last two years I've also been including DVD Talk to give a larger sampling. Has all kinds of info: title, year, IMDB rating, length, MPAA rating, IMDB genre listing, plot synopsis. Also totals for each year, as well as spaces to track what films you have seen.
To the point, I'm looking for a better site to use as as a second, preferably a horror site. Any recommendations? Also, if anyone wants a copy, I can send it to you. It's a 3 Meg file as of 2020.