Tag Archives: VHS

The Abyss – James and The Giant Nah Cheers

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Hi, hello, happy new year! We made it. Nothing exploded or melted at midnight on the 31st (unfortunately?), and we’re seemingly all here for another year of Tr*mp, vaping, beard oil, and all manner of other horror that makes it difficult for me to look at the internet in the morning. On the bright side, the Emoji Movie came out last year, so that’s at least one thing we don’t need to fear. Hopefully you used your time wisely over the festive season. By wisely I mean that you used it to consume meats, cheeses, any fake version of the aforementioned, and enjoyed repeated viewings of Die Hard, as well as ITV showings of teen movies such as the Maze Runner series, facsimile Shrek Kung Fu Panda, twee garbage The Princess Diaries, and Battleship. Despite what you’ve come to know of me, I don’t enjoy any of those things, but I definitely sat and watched them, and a load more cinematic compost, with a baked Camembert, some part baked rolls, and a posh pear M&S chutney. In fact I enjoyed Battleship so little I’m almost sad it’s out of our time frame for a review. The film was 2 and a half hours long and seemed to involve mostly the plot from Independence Day, but written by teenage drama students and located on a boat. Also Rihanna wearing a Hoods tshirt – the hardcore scandal everyone forgot because no one listens to Hoods really anymore, not even in the gym. All this is just proof of what you can get me to shut up and sit through if you offer me a nice cheese. Anyway.

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Mortal Kombat & Mortal Kombat: Annihilation – The Old Switcheroo

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After the abominable trip down memory lane led by the Street Fighter review, and a lot of time spent recently cranking up old consoles and listening to the Streets of Rage soundtrack whilst running on a treadmill (as well as the Kid Chameleon soundtrack, which was hard to find and is shit, but also now haunts my dreams), I thought it might be time to tackle another Blockbuster special based on a video game.

Mortal Kombat, if you know me, seems like a very obvious choice, so in the interest of repressed memories and enjoying something I couldn’t recite back to you as a one woman show, I thought I’d have a look at some other options. You can guess how that worked out for us all, since you are sitting here reading a Mortal Kombat review…

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Bad Boys: And some Skittles

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Join me, if you will, in 1995. I’m 11. Our household is quite heavily into basketball, Fresh Prince (even though we don’t understand half the sexy jokes), and beating each other up. Still.

So what do you think happened when we found out that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence were gonna be in an action movie, with guns, bad guys, guns, swearing, fast cars, and guns? You guessed it. Meet me on the corner by the video shop, guys. Friday, 6pm, bring your Skeleton warriors glow in the dark pyjamas (so we can match, natch) and your special fried rice.

In a bizarre ritual of which I never understood the licensing loopholes, before you were able to purchase the videos for real, wrapped in cellophane, with a bunch of leaflets inside beckoning you to purchase a crappy tshirt (“IF YOU SEE THE POLICE – WARNER BROTHER!”) or some orthopaedic shoes, you were able to procur the VHS tapes as ex-rentals. Not much difference in quality, I’m not sure how many other people who lived in Abington, Northampton were renting the Ewoks cartoon, but they came in a different box. The massive, weird, heavy, and, as we discovered exercising some of our bottomless sibling-based rage, quite dangerous rental box. The questions surrounding this were endless. Where are the real boxes? Whose job is it to swap the covers out? What are they made of that doesn’t break when you throw them off the roof at your brother? None of this was ever answered, but it didn’t matter. I loved Bad Boys so much, that once again, to save herself money, my long suffering mother purchased this movie for us ex-rental, such was the cost of keeping us in bubblicious Friday nights. And once again, I watched it every Monday before school until the next big favourite came along/the tape was worn down to a macroscopically thin band, probably snapping in the machine.

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Too Much Horror Business: Overdosing on the macabre at the age of 4

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Not one to blow my own trumpet, but I’ve seen pretty much 95% of all Horror films ever made.

Where did I get that percentage from? My arse. I’ve absolutely no idea how many I’ve seen, but it’s a fucking lot I can assure you.

Earlier in the year my Mum told me that my fucking dickhead Dad showed me The Hills Have Eyes on VHS when I was four years old. A ridiculous thing to do and I wish he hadn’t as, apparently, I was greatly affected by it and rightly so, it’s a fucking NASTY film. But, a year later, Ghostbusters shit me up just as bad so maybe I’m just a YELLOW CHICKEN. But it ignited a love for ghoulies and ghosties that never left. It was kept burning by Fighting Fantasy books, Scream comic, 2000AD, Splatterhouse arcade machines, Garbage Pail Kids, Monster in My Pocket, Supernaturals, Oink! And the ability to draw whatever my imagination desired. The mid-late 80s was a fucking incredible time to be a young Horror fan.

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

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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.

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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.

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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 →

Demolition Man: Simon Phoenix, A Love Story

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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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