The Mangler

 An industrial laundry press starts getting an appetite for low wage workers, but inspectors can't shut it down because the boss of the laundry factory (Robert Englund) is loaded. I mean loaded with money not booze. Luckily local detective Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs is on the case, with his spooky brother in law as a sidekick. When I was a kid watching this I always thought when the machine gets up and chases the characters near the end the CGI was really hokey, but now that it's a quarter century old I can forgive it I guess. The rest of the movie isn't that interesting even though it's directed by Tobe Hooper, though where else are you gonna see a showdown with a laundry press? Well, except for this movie's sequels I mean.

RATING: 54%

The Premature Burial

The first two films in Roger Corman's Poe cycle had been moneymakers for American International Pictures (AIP), but a dispute over the profits prompted Corman to go independent for The Premature Burial. Leaving AIP meant that Corman couldn't use Vincent Price, so Ray Milland was cast in the lead role. As the story goes, the heads of AIP came to set on the first day of shooting to wish Corman well and to let him know that they had bought out his financiers, putting his film back under the AIP umbrella. The Premature Burial is stylistically similar to Corman's previous Poe pictures: lots of fog, a suspenseful score and the expressive use of colors. Ray Milland is quite good in the lead role, it's honestly hard to picture Vincent Price playing the part. The movie has a nice slow build and a great third act.

Rating: 68%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Resident Evil VII: Biohazard

You hear from your long vanished wife that she's being held captive and wants you to rescue her so you head on up to a dilapidated abandoned mansion deep in the Louisiana Bayou. If that wasn't creepy enough, you better believe it's chock full a some Texas Chainsaw family loving crazies who want to kill and or befriend you! It's fun and creepy but I really think there must be more than seven (er, VII) of these Evil Residents at this point in time.

RATING: 74%

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Freddy's Dead is the Scary Movie of the Elm Street series. Everything in the movie is a joke. Each kill sequence is packed with big Looney Tunes gags. There's virtually no atmosphere or suspense in the film. It's pretty much just comedy and violence. And additional back story. We can't forget about that. This time around, it turns out that Freddy was once a family man with a wife and a daughter. And when the parents of Springwood killed Freddy, he was granted his powers by dream demons. Because somebody felt that part of it needed to be explained. The Nineties was a tough time for horror movies.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Shawshank Redemption

In this, everybody who doesn't like horror movies' favorite Stephen King movie, a dude goes to jail for a crime he didn't commit and learns a thing or two about life and love and friendship and whatnot. How come if every single person in the whole country knows prisons are cruel places we never really get any sort of prison reform off the ground? Morgan Freeman obviously steals the show in this one but everyone's great. And sorry this isn't a "horror movie" but it would be horrorble to be sentenced to life in prison for a crime you didn't commit.

RATING: 89%

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Despite being gunned down by cops and falling into a mine shaft, Michael Myers manages to elude death at the end of Halloween 4. In a series of events that no one could have possibly predicted, Michael silently crawls away to the safety of a hobo's shack. There, he receives the best possible health care a hobo could offer. A full year passes before Michael wakes up and gets back to doing what he does best. Only Dr. Loomis and Michael's niece Jamie are willing to believe that Michael has returned, while everyone else in Haddonfield has gone back to doubting them. Two things really stood out to me while watching Halloween 5 this time around: the mask and the music in the movie are terrible. I'm pretty sure that they've used a different mask in every one of the movies so far, but the mask in Halloween 5 is distractingly bad. The movie's score is really weak as well. The iconic Halloween theme is barely used and there are a number of moments where Michael emerges from the shadows in complete silence. Part of what makes these movies work is the way the score is used to ratchet up the tension. I guess nobody bothered to tell Alan Howarth that. Halloween 5 ends with Michael Myers being broken out of jail by a mysterious man in black. Surely we can all agree that this surprising turn of events will lead to another exciting and enjoyable installment in this series.

Rating: 60%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Carrie (The Book)

I figured after watching three adaptations of this, Stephen King's first novel, I oughtta maybe give it a read. You all know the deal - a high school girl who is bullied winds up gearing telekinetic powers and kills everyone RIP. Maybe what you didn't know is in the book she kills like everyone everyone. The whole town of 500 people wind up dead! Also the book is half epistolary which is kinda cool.

RATING: 71%

Critters 4

In the year 2045, the crew of a deep space salvage ship pick up a mysterious, drifting pod. Its contents: a bumbling bounty hunter from Earth and the last two remaining Critter eggs. After the eggs hatch, it's anyone's guess as to what will kill the crew first: the Critters, a decaying nuclear reactor, or the shady mega-corporation that will stop at nothing to acquire the Critters. Filmed back-to-back with Critters 3, Critters 4 definitely has some low budget stink on it. What ultimately saves the movie is the acting talent on hand. The small cast includes a few ringers, like Brad Dourif and Angela Bassett. The sets and production design are also very well done. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough Critter action in the movie. The eggs don't hatch until a third of the way through the movie and there's rarely more than two Critters on the screen at any time.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Pinterest)

Layers of Fear

 

For the past decade or whatever I've mainly been chiming in here to review a movie or 15 at Halloween season. Well there's other scary things out there too like for example video games. In this one you play a maybe alcoholic composer who's going craaaaaaazy. It's one a those walking simulator type video games where you don't really have much to do, but it's real spooky and surreal so give it a shot why not?

RATING: 81%

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss

Prom Night III is essentially a toothless, gender-swapped parody of Prom Night II. In Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, the ghost of Mary Lou Maloney haunts a high school student named Alex. Setting off a string of spooky murders, which put a real damper on Alex's relationship with his milquetoast girlfriend. Whereas, in Prom Night II, the ghost of Mary Lou Maloney haunted a high school student named Vicki. Which set off a string of spooky murders that put a real damper on Vicki's relationship with her milquetoast boyfriend. Of the two, Prom Night II is easily the better film. That's not to suggest that it is in any way a good movie, but at least it has the decency to be batshit-insane. Prom Night III is more like a direct to video American Pie sequel. It's cheap, winking, horndog goofery.

Rating: 49%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Stand

The government fails to stop the spread of a lethal flu virus (uh oh) and soon 99% of everybody is a rotting corpse on the side of the road. The survivors get some dreams transmitted into their heads about a nice old lady in a cornfield and a mean dude who can turn into a crow, so they all start trekking across the country and teaming up. There is a poet who is a real jerk (surprise surprise) and it is funny when he gives the woman he stalks a copy of his latest publication "that only pays in contributor copies." Hey, too real dude! For a six hour network television adaptation of a six zillion page novel it's pretty good, even with the most literal deus ex machina ending you'll ever see. 

RATING: 78%

Leprechaun 2

Leprechaun 2 was the last of the Warwick Davis Leprechaun films to be released in theaters. Not surprising really, as it's a very cheap looking film. It seems ready-made for VHS. Watching the movie at any higher resolution doesn't do it any favors. There's also nothing connecting Leprechaun 2 to the original film, other than the fact that Warwick Davis is essentially playing the same character in both movies. The Leprechaun in Leprechaun 2 doesn't even have the same weakness as the Leprechaun in the original. In the first film, the Leprechaun could only be harmed by a four-leaf clover. In Leprechaun 2, the Leprechaun's only weakness is wrought iron. Even though it's pointless to expect a horror franchise to maintain its continuity over time, it's clear that the people behind Leprechaun 2 didn't make any effort to connect the film to its predecessor.

Rating: 53%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Tremors

The isolated town of Perfection, Nevada is besieged by graboids, deadly underground worm monsters with a taste for human flesh. With help out of reach, a group of scrappy locals must band together to fight off the subterranean terrors. Tremors takes an old timey B-movie premise, amps up the action and throws in some top-notch practical effects. It's a well shot, well paced and especially well cast movie. It's also a lot of fun. Did it need to be followed by six sequels? No, probably not.

Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Android Invasion

The TARDIS arrives in the woods, just outside of a small town in the English countryside. At first, Sarah is excited to be back on Earth in her own time, but all is not as it seems. What she and the Doctor first thought was the town of Devesham turns out to be a training ground for... dun dun duuun... The Android Invasion. Now, when it comes to watching Doctor Who, I'm not one to get too hung up on plot holes. That said, I can understand why fans seem to have conflicted feelings about this serial. It doesn't really hold up to scrutiny when you stop and think about it. The ending is a little too hasty, leaving at least one major plot line unresolved. However, I personally enjoyed watching this story. The first half of the serial is a good slow burn and even when the writing isn't up to par, any pairing of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith is still worth watching.

Rating: I feel disorientated%

Pyramids of Mars

There's a great scene between Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor at the beginning of Pyramids of Mars. Sarah is excited to be returning home, while the Doctor is in a melancholy mood. "The Earth isn't my home, Sarah. I'm a Time Lord," he tells her. Tom Baker has said in interviews that one of the key aspects of his portrayal of the Doctor was embracing the Doctor's alien side. It gave him a lot of freedom. And by this point in his run on the show, the character has never seemed more alien. The Doctor goes on to complain that he's fed up running "around after the Brigadier." But before Sarah can offer a retort, there's an explosion in the TARDIS. When the smoke clears, Sarah and the Doctor find themselves in a priory that once stood on the grounds where the UNIT HQ would eventually be built. The year is 1911 and a powerful being known as Sutekh is using zombies and robot mummies to build a rocket to free himself from a pyramid on the planet Mars. Sutekh, who looks a bit like Omega from The Three Doctors, isn't in the story very much but definitely makes the most of his limited screen time. The serial moves at a brisk pace and has a fun, gothic tone. Pyramids of Mars is easily one of the best of the early Fourth Doctor stories.

Rating: Time is my business%

Planet of Evil

A distress call brings the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith to Zeta Minor, a planet on the edge of the known universe. A scientific expedition on the planet has suffered several casualties at the hands of unseen forces. When a military ship arrives to retrieve the scientists, the Doctor is blamed for the killings. Meanwhile, after prolonged exposure to anti-matter, the expedition's lead scientist has begun to change in unpredictable ways. Planet of Evil is, unfortunately, a real mixed bag. While I love the design of the planet itself, everything else in the serial is pretty bad. The creature design, which cribs a bit from Forbidden Planet, leaves a little to be desired. The military ship looks like a cross between an upside down Enterprise and a dust buster. And the costumes in this serial are terrible across the board. I'm accustomed to forgiving the show for its cheapness, but this serial proved to be a bit of a slog.

Rating: Not guilty%

Piranha

Piranha isn't trying to hide the fact that it's a Jaws rip-off. Just one look at the poster and it's undeniable. Having said that, other than the poster and the basic premise of killer fish, Piranha doesn't really take all that much from Jaws. It doesn't feature any sharks, stock footage or bootleg John Williams sound cues. Piranha follows its own Cormanesque B-movie path. It's loaded with practical makeup effects, car stunts, boat stunts, underwater sequences and tons of screaming extras. With genre vets like Kevin McCarthy and Barbara Steele bringing some gravitas to the proceedings and Corman regulars Dick Miller and Paul Bartel rounding out the cast, Piranha stands head and shoulders above your average Jaws rip-off.

Rating: 78%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Terror of the Zygons

The Doctor is summoned to Scotland, where UNIT is investigating the destruction of some oil rigs in the North Sea. The evidence suggests that the platforms were destroyed by a gigantic sea creature, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Harry gets captured by shape-shifting aliens, the Brigadier gets gassed and Sarah is nearly suffocated. The Zygons have begun their conquest of Earth and only the Doctor stands in their way. Terror of the Zygons definitely shares some DNA with serials like Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Sea Devils but it still manages to be an entertaining adventure. The Zygons are well designed and their use of organic technology is both clever and gross. At the end of the serial, Sarah and the Doctor leave Scotland in the TARDIS while Harry chooses to stay behind on Earth, ending his time as one of the Doctor's companions.

 

Rating: Sounds like the Brigadier%

Revenge of the Cybermen

Using a time ring, the Doctor and his companions leave the war-torn planet Skaro and return to the Space Station Nerva, where they've left the TARDIS. They arrive thousands of years too early, only to find the station's crew almost completely wiped out by a mysterious plague. After Sarah is attacked by a Cybermat, the Doctor discovers that someone on the station is in cahoots with the Cybermen. Might it have something to do with the drifting planetoid that the station is orbiting? Find out in Revenge of the Cybermen. Coming soon to a Blu-ray player or streaming service near you. No, but seriously folks, Revenge of the Cybermen isn't a bad serial, it's just a bit of a dud. Putting it back-to-back with Genesis of the Daleks doesn't help it either. The Cybermen need to be menacing to be an effective adversary, here they're just chatty robots with a new plot-based weakness. It's not all bad though, the Doctor has some great dialogue, the serial is well paced and the use of multiple locations keeps it from being just another "base under siege" story.

Rating: Everything's of interest to me%

Needful Things

 

A New England town actually has a lot of real bad people in it (in a Stephen King story? Nooooo!) so a Max Von Sydow demon shows up to give them little treasures in exchange for them all pranking each other into a murderous rage. It's pretty bland in general, but it has an amazing building explosion from back when they'd actually for real blow up a whole dang building for a B movie. 

RATING: 56%

Genesis of the Daleks

The Time Lords transport the Doctor and his companions to the planet Skaro. There, the war between the Kaleds and the Thals rages on, as it has for centuries. At the same time, deep in an underground bunker, the Kaled scientist Davros unveils his newest creation, the Daleks. The Doctor is tasked with stopping the Daleks at this early stage of their development. With enemies on all sides, it will prove to be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Genesis of the Daleks is an excellent serial. Great story, great characters, great stunts, great sets, and on and on. Davros is both a highlight of the story and a great addition to the Daleks mythos.

Rating: Harry, I'm standing on a land mine%

The Tommyknockers

 

A quiet New Zealand, erm, New England town gets turned all fliparoo whenever a lady digs up an ancient crashed spaceship, hypnotizing everyone into building inventions like laser lipsticks. It may be the worst Stephen King movie I've watched so far, but at least there's an alcoholic poet who tries to save the day.

RATING: 17%

The Dark Half

Sleepwalkers

 

A mother and son vampire monster duo arrive in a small town to suck the life force out of a local virgin, only they don't count on some heroes - a buncha domestic cats, the soul vampires' one and only weakness! It's majorly silly, but like why not watch it?

RATING: 68%

The Sontaran Experiment

The Doctor and his companions beam down to Earth from the Nerva space station. It's not long before they encounter the crew of a crashed ship and the Sontaran warrior who's been hunting them. At only two episodes in length, The Sontaran Experiment is one of the shorter serials in Doctor Who's classic run. The fact that it was shot entirely on location also sets it apart from other stories. The plot is pretty thin, it was apparently supposed to be part of The Ark in Space originally. Also, the choice to bring back the Sontarans was due to the fact that they could save money on the production by reusing the Linx's costume from The Time Warrior. Tom Baker broke his collarbone during filming and there are some scenes in the second episode where he is clearly attempting to hide that his arm is in a sling.

Rating: This is extremely interesting%

The Ark in Space

A quick trip to the moon goes awry and the Doctor and his companions soon find themselves on a space station orbiting Earth in the distant future. At first, the station appears to be abandoned but it's not long before the time traveling trio discover that the station actually houses hundreds of people in suspended animation. The station also seems to have been sabotaged by some unknown force. As the Doctor begins to revive the station's crew and put the pieces of the mystery together, the dangerous presence lurking in the station's shadows begins to make itself known. The Ark in Space has a great tone, balancing the suspense and horror elements of the story nicely. It also makes for a great departure from Robot and the Third Doctor story style.

Rating: I might have been saying something important%

Ice Sharks

A group of research scientists in Antarctica are menaced by an evolved breed of killer sharks, Ice Sharks. Right off the bat, I will give the movie credit for using an unusual breed of shark, the Greenland shark, for its purposes. But that's about all the credit I can give. The plot is dumb, no surprise there. The acting is second-rate, also to be expected. But the CGI in the movie is a special kind of awful. It's laughably bad. It's the kind of bad CGI you might have seen in something from the 90s. But then again, it's a lot like what the comedian Richard Jeni once said about Jaws: The Revenge, the only people dumber than the people who made the movie are the people who watched it.

Rating: 39%

(Image from IMDB)

Monsters - "The Moving Finger"

 

In this episode of the cheapass follow-up to the great 80s show "Tales from the Darkside," a super long finger pops out of a bathroom sink to irritate a nice tall guy. I don't remember the Stephen King story exactly but I guess this is fine?

RATING: 41%

Robot

Someone or something has been stealing top secret scientific plans and parts. With UNIT and Sarah Jane Smith investigating, it soon becomes clear that a group of scientists and an advanced robot are behind it all. Their plan: blackmail the world's superpowers using some stolen nuclear missile launch codes. Robot comes across as a typical Third Doctor story and yet it's clear right away that things have changed. Having traded his frilly shirts and Venusian aikido for an absurdly long scarf and a Cheshire Cat grin, the Fourth Doctor's chaotic whimsy lends the proceedings a burst of energy. And, at the end of the serial, as the Doctor, Sarah Jane and the newest companion Harry Sullivan board the TARDIS, Doctor Who effectively ends the UNIT era and the Doctor's Earthly exile.

Rating: You may be a Doctor, but I am the Doctor%

Golden Years

 

A janitor working at that same company (The Company) that turned the little girl from Firestarter into a fire starter gets zapped by an explosion and starts getting younger. Apparently Stephen King saw Twin Peaks and wanted to make something similar, but with a little less fever dream. Well buddy I gotta say that I think the fever dream aspect is a real big part of what makes Twin Peaks so good! 

RATING: 34%

Sometimes They Come Back

 

An English teacher with an embattled past (like, of course - he's an English teacher) comes back to his home town to teach high school, only the ghosts of some 1950s jerks who murdered his brother start showing up and murdering his students. It's pretty well done for a TV movie, and fairly faithful to the short story, though they changed the story's great ending with sympathetic magic in the classroom to a more action packed finale. I "get it" but it's still a real shame!

RATING: 67%

Misery

 

A famous author of schlocky romance novels gets in a snowstorm accident where he almost dies but he is luckily rescued by his number one fan, how sweet! Except, uh, maybe she's a little less than stable, and upset that he killed off her favorite character (named Misery) in his newest novel? Kathy Bates steals the show obviously but I wonder if Stephen King regrets that he never got success in the world of so-called "high literature." He's got several novels where the main character is a writer who laments their commercial success over critical success, and there's a ton of asides in IT about creative writing workshops. Like, sorry for all your international acclaim as perhaps the best known writer of our time? You'd rather have like a National Book Critics Circle award sticker on the cover of your unread books in a bargain bin?

RATING: 78%