Beyond other Fulci films

New Orleans- and hell-based The Beyond outscares the namby-pamby New Orleans Anne Rice books and out-zombies Fulci's other zombie flick Zombi 2. Its strange dream-like opening of a gate to not-heaven--prefaced by most of the movie's weird encounters and gruesome deaths surrounding a haunted hotel--eventually unearths its "the dead will walk the Earth" evil.

The sub-par dubbing and acting and the overwrought 1970s rock-tinged suspense music will be painful for non-horror fans, maybe, but delicious quirks to horror lovers. This is an increasingly claustrophobic journey into the horrors of a supernatural evil bursting forth from its tomb. The zombies are some of the slowest in film history, and the hero in the final battle scenes seems to fail to understand that shots to the head do the trick, but both of these failings serve to endear this film to me. It presupposes stupid actions by scared people, and that's a fair presupposition--all the "Scream film"-like genre-bending notwithstanding.

Great fun.

Haiti RULZ!

Another gem of a horror film. True, the zombies here are slow, shambling servants, and there will be few if ANY frights for horror fans, but the ambience of West Indies superstition and native religion are deliciously fun.

A good pick for fans of old horror and zombie completists.

Rumble in the London jungle ... Karloff vs. Lugosi ... DING DING!

That's right, kids. Horror monster icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi fight. No, Karloff's not the shambling Mummy against Lugosi's Transylvanian vampire. It's Karloff's sinister, drawling horse driver against a witless servant who thinks he's got one up on Karloff's villain.

I won't spoil the fun by telling you who wins, but one of them dies.

OK, so that epic fight is really only a small scene in what was a surprisingly likable horror film. Yes, it stutters to a start start with an initially wooden-acted scene with bright-eyed twentysomething Russell Wade as medical student Donald Fettes. But after Wade gets to school, we're introduced to the much more interesting Dr. McFarlane. This doctor's hidden past and relationship to a scenery-chewing, grave-robbing Karloff as John Gray is wonderful to watch.

I heartily recommend this to fans of older horror films. It's well-paced and creepy, with a fascinating, Frankenstein-like back story of medical necessity bringing on sinister crime.

"Stupid! Stupid"

Yes, Martian friend ... or wherever you're from ... humans ARE stupid. Building firecrackers then grenades then atom bombs then hydrogen bombs. Then we'll discover the way to light up the universe like a can of gasoline. Stop us!

Look at Vampira's fingernails. They ARE scary. And Bela Lugosi sniffing a rose is poignant and old.

And Tor in a speaking part as a regular human being is GREAT. I mean, until he gets turned into a shambling 400-pound zombie servant.

And those cigar-shaped UFOs that aren't cigar-shaped. That pilot must be a little wobby in his noggin.

What a great movie. People had FUN making it, and it was a hundred times better than the tedious, predictable The Uninvited. I struggled to get through that and eventually just fast-forwarded to the crappy, predictable twist ending. I mean, at least Plan 9 From Outer Space is pretty unpredictable. What the hell will Ed Wood make these people do next?

Entertaining. Quirky, Wonderfully flawed. I can absolutely see why the film is a cult classic. It's evidence of the love of Hollywood by a director-writer-producer, his cast, and his crew.

Zombies 4-Eva!

I just finished reading the superlative Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Glenn Kay. Now I've built a basic database of zombie titles and release dates from this excellent book. What have YOU seen? I think he's a pretty good judge on these things, watching for what zombie fans want: some depth, some likable characters, and gore.

Here's the database, available for you to check out: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rQI2zW4ZNK5Q-QKL-XLKyfQ

Return of the Yawn

Only George could make Darth Vader's origin story poorly paced, predictable, boring, and silly.

*sigh*

And so goes Revenge of the Sith.

A fight for justice

This dramatic film that takes place almost entirely in a hot, humid jury room is slightly melodramatic (expected from films of the time), but uniformly well-acted and captivating in its subject matter. Courage, fear, cowardice, racism, discrimination, and the system of public juries are all explored in detail as the 12 men on this murder case try to make the right decision. Of course, it's not like that all the way through, as Henry Fonda starts as the movie as the only person standing in the way of a fast, unanimous guilty verdict.

Great courtroom drama, above and beyond the overly controversial pap we're fed by today's crime shows. 

I haven't seen the extras on this latest version, but I can't recommend this film highly enough.

Beautiful Africa ...

... and two middle-aged white people.

Funny that this comedy classic is out of print as a decent DVD and that the only one you can get has Chinese characters all over it, is colorized, and is full-screen. Yuck.

This Yahoo! DVD pick was OK. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn have chemistry as quarreling lovers, but their incipient affair runs out of gas when they fall for each other and into more treacherous waters in the river.

Ehhh.