Alien: Resurrection (1997) - Movie Review

Official Score = 1 Devil 

Alright, I hate to say it, but some times movies need a new fresh look (or in some case the final nail in the coffin,) before that franchise destroy's itself with shitty campy movies that just destroy itself!

A couple of examples of this are:

1. Halloween 2 (2009). Now the truth is, is I liked this movie, but this movie showed that the remake series of John Carpenter's classic movie series was already beginning to head down the wrong path...

2. The, 'Sleepaway Camp' movie series... Now here is a great example of a classic slasher movie franchise that just did not listen to itself... What I mean by this, is that the first 2 movies were true B-Movie exploitation genius... But the sad truth is that the third in the series, where as it was good, was starting to head in that direction of over done campyness, and the 4th one... Well to say the least was there...

And that is just a couple of examples, another one being, Alien: Resurrection (1998):

You see, this movie, which brought back Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters) for her final performance as, 'Ellen Ripley', was over exaggerated... The guns were ridiculously oversized, the story concept, (a story of how Ellen Ripley is brought back to life through cloning centuries in to the future in an effort to bring the, 'Alien' species back to life, (to use as weapons...) A great story concept right?) Well the truth is, is the story was poorly written and unbelievable...

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) with her, 'Xenomorph' off spring... The birth of a mistake...

The truth is, is that the only 3 things that I liked about this movie was the fact that Sigourney Weaver came back to series, and some classic 90s talent like, Winonna Ryder (Edward Scissarhands) and, Brad Dourif (Child's Play) came in to the film...

And the last thing that I liked was that this piece of garbage got the studio's to take the series in a different direction and brought Ridley Scott (Alien) back to direct, Prometheus (2012)... A prequel to the first one... (For those of you who don't know, Ridley Scott was the maestro that helped bring this prolific series to life!)

In the end, if you haven't seen this movie yet, but are a fan of the series, but haven't seen this movie yet... I would say, 'do so'... It is one of the series (but if you are going to expecting the same type of epic that made the first 3 so good... The you maybe disappointed... If you go in to it expecting nothing... Well you never know!)

Tales From The Crypt... Oh How We Miss Them

The Cryptkeeper welcoming us back for another wonderful, 'Tale From The Crypt'!

Back in the late 80s there was a late night horror TV anthology series that was just something to be hold... It had some truly scary episodes, some truly funny episodes... but rather they be scary, or funny, most of them were truly something to enjoy... And with those episodes, you would get horror movie quality special effects (the like of which made horror movies great, and which have been found to be lacking in most modern horror movies...) And in all of this, you get some truly amazing talent, (including: Tom Hanks (Apollo 13), Larry Drake (Darkman), etc...) And along with the amazing talent of filmmakers like, 'Robert Zemeckis' (Back To The Future) and you got the amazing HBO late night smash hit, 'Tales From The Crypt' (1989 - 1996)!

Based on the EC Comics series of the same name, this series debuted on HBO on June 10th 1989 and would go on to superstardom, and become one of the most famous horror anthologies of all time, making, 'The Crypt Kreeper' (Don't let the name fool you kiddies, he may look scary... But he is more awesome then will give you a jump!)

The face of late night TV in the late 80s - the mid 90s... A face that only a mother could love!

Now the reason that I say that this series would probably go on to be one of the most famous horror anthology TV series of all time... The reason for that is this... Well you might say that, 'The Twilight Zone' is that... The truth is, is that what makes, 'The Twilight Zone' one of the greatest anthologies of all time is not because of the horror aspects of the series, but because of everything (the science fiction side to...)

No in the case of Tales From The Crypt... They became the, 'The Twilight Zone' of horror anthologies, having pulled off a long list of celebrated 80s and early 90s superstars, including (Besides those mentioned above): Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters), Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Brad Dourif (Child's Play), Margot Kidder (The Amityville Horror), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Malcolm McDowell (Halloween)... And that is just to name a few!

Legendary actor: 'Kirk Douglas' in a scene from, 'Tales From The Crypt'!

 Included in this also is the fact that most of this series was extremely well written, with stories that were extremely well crafted, with enough character development, that when the shit hit the fan (and I mean this show had episodes that were about 1/2 hours long, so the fun gore moments, when the shit hit the fan came rather quickly...)

And along with great stories and great acting talent was the fact that this show... considering the fact that (well at least when I got in to it... And I got in to it when it was still on the air) was still running on late night, had some surprisingly great special effects that I would say would rival just about any special effects that you would see in any movie!

The use of an, 'Electric Chair' is just one example of some truly remarkable special effects in the series!

But besides what I mentioned above, one of the coolest things... And I imagine that this probably would sound pretty odd, but the truth is, is that I would say what tops out this series over all is, 'The Crypt Keeper'... I mean John Kassir (Batman: Arkham Origins), did an amazing job bringing the crypt keeper to life and giving him this sort of bad ass hilarity that just made him perfect!

In the end, I guess what I am trying to say is that there were few series (anthologies or otherwise), that are made these days like shows like, 'Tales From The Crypt'... I know that: Tales From The Crypt Presents: Bordello Of Blood (1996) didn't do all that well in the theater, but this series in it's heyday was truly prolific, and left a mark on the world of TV, and for the fans like me, we miss that, and would love to see, 'Tales From The Crypt' come back in all of it's glory!

Child's Play (1988) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_385" align="alignright" width="353"] Official Score = 2 Devils[/caption]

When you are a kid one of the favorite things that kids like to do is to play with toys right? If you’re a boy, then oft times it would be to play with Action figures and video games of some sort (I don’t know what sort of toys are out there today, but when I was a kid it was all about Gi Joes and Transformers and the like.)

One of the things that I used to like to do when I was a kid was to watch TV Shows and Movies that were based on these Toys and Video Games that I used to like to play with when I was a kid, such TV shows as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (The animated TV series that was around in the 80s and the movies that were around in the early to mid 90’s) GI Joes (The 80s animated series), and others of the like…

The truth is though is that I found another type of movie that was based on toys when I was a kid that I also found to be rather interesting, and that is the horror movies that are based on toys!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] This killer doll from, 'Puppet Master' (1989) is one of the most famous killer toys in horror movie history![/caption]

When I was a kid, I have to admit that I really didn't like these movies (scared the hell out of me), but I re-discovered them here in the last decade or so, and I have to admit that they are a source of some awesome good times! Such movies as:

1. Dolls (1987)

2. Puppet Master (1989)

3. Hellraiser (1987)

And of course there is the more famous and universally recognized horror movie that has to do with demonic toys and the lot, and that is Child’s Play (1988)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] He will be your son or daughter's friend to the end... The only problem is, is that ending is brutal![/caption]

Now I did like this movie, but I do have to admit that I thought the sequel was better and I will tell you why… The direction from Director Tom Holland (Fright Night) was great, and even thought that writing by Don Mancini (Cellar Dweller) was great, and heck even the acting from Alex Vincent (My Family Treasure), Chris Sarandon (Fright Night), Brad Dourif (Halloween) and even for the most part from Catherine Hicks (Turbulence) was fun…

It was just lacking something which we will get in to in just a second…

You see this movie which tells the story of how after nearly dying, a criminal puts his soul in to the body of a heavily sought after doll that ends up falling in to the hands of the, ‘Barclay Family’ who then decides to terrorize the family until he can get himself out of the body of the doll and in to the body of little Andy Barclay (Vincent) and can continue his reign of terror!

[caption id="attachment_2667" align="aligncenter" width="450"] When a toy is trying to transfer his soul in to your body, you got to ask yourself... 'How did I get here?'[/caption]

Now the truth is, is that this movie was a fun one, but the formula was all wrong… What I mean by this, is that in Child’s Play 2 (1990) and Child’s Play 3 (1991) and began to get kind of convoluted for all of the future Child’s Play movies, is that the sequels all brought the element of more of the surrealistic slasher films that were so popular in the 80s, but Child’s Play felt more like it was a supernatural movie (which it really should not have been, and would have been better a surrealistic slasher flick!)

In the end, if you watch this movie you might find that you like it, but it is definitely not what you would expect!

http://youtu.be/p3zPevsovDE