Marked For Justice: Creepshow 2

As the father of a nine year old, I’m forced to watch and listen to a lot of garbage. Kids of this generation listen to some of the worst music in the history of recorded sound. It’s hard to believe but the television shows are worse. The ratio for movies fares a bit better. For every Batman Vs. Superman, at least there is usually a palate cleanser like a Rogue One or Guardians of the Galaxy available that you can watch and reaffirm your faith in film. Whenever we have to see something like Tomorrowland I quietly wonder to myself, “Dear God. Did I enjoy trash like this when I was her age?” As I pondered what I would skewer when writing this piece I realised that yes, childlike naievete can actually make a steaming pile of dog shit seem like a good movie. 

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Thirty Five Years* of Lycanthrope Love – An American Werewolf in London

“A naked American man stole my balloons”

Backpacking and travelling around the world with nothing but the clothes on your back and the stuff in your rucksack used to be all the rage. This is almost certainly why Jack and David, two clean cut all American youths and the main players in John Landis’ tale of hirsute supernatural monstrosities find themselves rambling through the wind-blasted moors of the North of England in the middle of winter. I don’t know which tourist guide told them that this was the hip and happening pace to be in the early eighties, but whichever one it was should be ripped into pieces, set on fire and buried in a deep hole.  Anyway, it starts to rain so they seek shelter in a local pub called The Slaughtered Lamb, which is a proper local watering hole for locals only and Landis makes this abundantly clear when the strangers walk in by ensuring that everyone in the crowded establishment shuts the fuck up as soon as they walk in and then stare at the poor innocents abroad as though they were a posh red wine from somewhere like Tuscany. Which, anywhere north of Watford in the early eighties, was a big no-no and in some places was enough to get you run out of town.

Soon enough though, it’s all laughs and banter as the teacher from Kes, Rick from The Young Ones and a whole host of other bit players accept their new comrades into their drinking club and all is going swimmingly until our clueless heroes start asking questions about the Pentagram on the wall, at which point they’re kicked to the curb, thrown out in the rain and warned in no uncertain terms to stay off the moors. As they walk out of the pub and the locals’ lives, there’s a lot of hand wringing and chatter in the pub about how they shouldn’t have let the lads leave while in the background there’s a Lon Chaney style howl, which despite being louder than an old lady’s telly, isn’t heard by that bloke from Kes who obviously needs a hearing aid. Cut back to the young Americans chatting about girls and what not, who being young and out in the world for the first time, venture off the path and onto the moors. The opposite of they were told to do by the more local than local locals in the Slaughtered Lamb.

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Scream: LIVER ALONE, she’s pregnant

October 1996. Scream isn’t here yet, but it’s on it’s way. And as a slash hungry 12 year old, I have never been more hungry for anything. No video shop for this one. I forwent the sweet and sour chicken balls and the comfort of my own home, such was the level of importance. Written by the executive producer of Dawson’s Creek, and directed by the man responsible for everyone’s favourite melted kiddie fiddler Freddie Kruger, Just 17 favourite Skeet Ulrich, California Man’s Rose McGowan, and Matthew Lillard off Serial Mom were going to be in a high school horror film with blood, guts, gore, and a killer in a ridiculous mask. You’ll notice I didn’t mention Neve Campbell, well that’s because she’s terrible and Party of Five was a very difficult watch, thank you. I know you all have a soft spot for her since she snogged up Denise Richards in the swimming pool in whatever that film was you all found your dick on, but she’s rubbish. Regardless, hi, you looking for your demographic? Well you found her. Even though she’s 6 years away from being allowed to watch your film…

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Jet Li’s Meltdown (AKA High Risk AKA drink in moderation)

Torrevieja is a place in Spain. I know this because I spent a week there in 2013. Apparently.

I can remember part of the flight, I can remember my mate’s wedding, I can remember waking up outside a police station and crying all the way back to the rented accommodation as I’d had a message from my cousin saying my Great Aunt had died (and I was still very, very pissed).

I can also remember the stack of DVDs that was next to the modest TV in our temporary living room. The first Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and a fucking HORRIBLE “Torture Porn” starring an elephantine Michael Madsen.

One film stood out. Meltdown. It had Jet Li on the front cover and nothing else. That was enough for me.

The blokes I was in Spain with were out climbing rocks or diving or something, not the life for me.  I put on my plimsolls, trotted down to the local shop and bought two crates of lager. Continue reading

Fright Night: You’re not cool at all, Brewster

Sometimes, actually oftentimes, things don’t have to be good to be good. We know this. Hell, a few weeks back you had to read 2000 words on why I like Demolition Man more than most modern cinema. I feel like you’re all with me on this, whether you keep your guilty pleasures on an external hard drive, or write about them for the amusement of internet strangers. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how shonky it is, what colour the fake blood is, the jarring dialogue, the crap soundtrack, or how many times you’ve watched it. Sometimes it’s a time and a place that makes a fucking terrible film your cinematic comfort blanket.

With that in mind, and with Halloween just around the corner – WELCOME TO FRIGHT NIGHT.

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Street Fighter: Too Many Man, and Mike.

In 1994, I had no time for you. My whole life revolved solely around Point Horror novels and our Sega Megadrive. Had they only found some way to combine the two, there’s no guarantee I’d even be talking to you now, more likely living in a cave plastered with the pages of Call Waiting and The Lifeguard whilst engrossed in some 12 bit pixelated teenage murder mystery. To be clear; that is still something I’d be interested in if anyone has the capabilities. Teenage me has A LOT of ideas. Anyway, the Megadrive.

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Anaconda: I don’t want none unless…actually I just don’t want none.

1997 was the year of sequels. Speed 2, Jurassic Park The Lost World, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (don’t worry, I will eventually get to that one for you), Alien Resurrection, Batman and Robin. As we know, all these films were shite. Sure, we got Con Air, we got Face/Off, The Fifth Element, Spawn (shuuuut up), and Starship Troopers. But there were no creepy crawlies worth mentioning whatsoever. Somehow, at the end of my 13th year, I had gotten a touch bored of watching people shoot each other, and I needed something else. I needed monsters. I needed blood and guts and inhuman terror. I also needed Ice Cube (I always need Ice Cube), and when we made our regular Friday night trip to the video shop, both of those things were staring back at me from the top row of the horror section.

Now, we told you this is an action movie blog, about action movies. We’re only two weeks in, and I’m going off on a tangent. But you know what? I’m not ignoring monsters, because when you ignore the monsters, you also ignore the opportunity to revisit 90s CGI and tear it to fucking shreds, and I don’t think you want me to do that, do you? I think you need to know precisely every awful thing about this film that a revisit in 2017 makes painfully obvious, don’t you? Of course you do – it’s JLo and Ice Cube and Jon Voight and a massive rubber snake. And you do now anyway because I watched it and I refuse to suffer alone. Continue reading

Samurai Cop + Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance

 

Any film that starts with Bob Z’dar with a beard and ponytail stabbing someone was always going to be a belter.

Samurai Cop is one of those films, alongside Miami Connection and Deadly Prey, that basically personifies the term “Cult Classic”.  Rarely seen outside of VHS rental shops until the late 00s as avid fans digitised them and put them on torrent sites before receiving legitimate BluRay releases  by whoever was lucky enough to own the rights. Finally the world can see Matt Hannon’s luxurious hair in High Def as the good Lord intended.
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Demolition Man: Simon Phoenix, A Love Story

I was never legally old enough to watch pretty much any of the films that I’ll end up talking about at the time I first watched them, but I’m certain I’m not alone in that. Watching from behind newspapers and through banisters after we were supposed to be in bed was the business in the Francois household. “No I’m not looking, Mum. No I haven’t ripped holes in this magazine, Mum.” Exposure to horror, action, and any combination of the two was drunk hungrily down into our emotional lexicon pretty early on, which is probably why my brother and I spent the first 18 years of our lives trying to murder each other with household appliances and wondering why it hurt our own hand and didn’t make a cool noise when we punched each other in the mouth.
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Doing The Resurrection Shuffle……

Hello darling, it’s been a while hasn’t it? You look nice though. New hair and…have you been working out? Thought so. Look, I know what you’re thinking, here he is cap in hand, crawling back to us from his latest failure. A man who thought himself bigger, better, brighter than the humble blog that spawned him. I know how you people think. You can smell the guilt oscillating off me in great stinking waves. So here’s my confession. Continue reading