54 reasons why Beetlejuice sucks!

Heavily promoted by the blogosphere's Horror Lamers clique as "teh bestest moovee evah", "Beetlejuice" (1988) competes with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975), "The Addams Family" (1991), "Psycho" (1998), "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), and "Trick 'r Treat" (2007) for the coveted title of my most hated film of all time.

I just can't abide any part of it. Even hearing someone mention the name is enough to get my hackles up, and if they then go on to say that they love the movie, they soon cease to be an associate of mine. I'm not ashamed to say that I've blocked people on Facebook and Twitter because of this piece of crap. If I had my way, all copies of the thing would be rounded-up and burnt on a huge bonfire!

Some would say that I simply have an irrational dislike of "Beetlejuice" based on my equally irrational dislike of all things Tim Burton and Alec Baldwin related, but that's not entirely true. While I freely admit to going out of my way to avoid any Tim Burton or Alec Baldwin movie, I have many good reasons for hating this one—fifty-four of them, in fact—which I now present for you below.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

1. Tim Burton has only directed one good movie in his whole career—"Batman Returns" (1992)—and, obviously, this is not it.

2. "Beetlejuice" was originally meant to be a real horror film, not a crappy comedy. According to the IMDb:

Looking for a project to make after the success of "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," Burton optioned a script by horror author Michael McDowell. Being a horror author, McDowell's script was decidedly non-comedic, and was primarily a horror-thriller with a few minor comic elements. McDowell's story featured no Afterlife sequences, no other ghosts except for the Maitlands, and depicted Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who co-opted the position of an angel named Swallowtail, who helps ghosts lead peaceful existences while they await entry into their permanent resting places. Beetlejuice's goal is to kill the Deetzes rather than get them out of the house, and once he's dug up by the Maitlands, he cannot be controlled; the idea that he can be summoned and exiled by repeating his name three times was not added to the script until Burton became involved. This Beetlejuice wanders the "living world," assuming a variety of different forms to torment the Deetzes, and in the climax attempts to kill the Deetzes' nine-year-old daughter, Cathy, who was the only person able to see the Maitlands (as opposed to Lydia, who in McDowell's script was a disaffected, sixteen year old punk rocker whom Beetlejuice attempts to rape). The Maitlands then guide Cathy through an exorcism ritual that both allows them to be seen to the Deetzes and banishes Beetlejuice to another realm.

3. The opening credits with corny Danny Elfman "oompah" music will set anybody sane's teeth on edge. You just know that this is going to be a comedy rather than a horror movie, and that horrible sick feeling where bile rises up inside you begins.

4. 2:57 - Animal cruelty! Horrible as spiders are anyway, Adam (Alec Baldwin's character) launches a great-big-hairy-one to certain death by throwing it out of the window instead of carefully taking it outside. "If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive!" Predictably, poetic justice soon follows.

5. 3:08 - Geena Davis was hotter than hot back in the day, but her character is dressed like a frumpy 80-year-old! What a terrible waste! No wonder Adam would rather play with his lame little model village than his wife. Yeah, right. It's so unrealistic! If you have something which looks like Geena Davis as a wife, there's no way that she's leaving the bedroom again until she really is 80 years old!

6. 5:18 - Adam listens to the crappiest music in the crappiest way possible. Mono cassette recorder! Ugh! At 19:15, you can see that he owns a much better looking stereo to play his fuzzy warbles on in his office.

7. 7:37 - One of the first rules of driving is that you never swerve to avoid hitting anything. Always brake instead! If the Maitlands had braked and run that nasty little yappy-dog over, the movie could have been all about them trying to make a baby for two weeks instead. Now that would have been worth watching!

8. 9:17 - WTF is up with this green screen crap? Dated much?

9. 9:43 - Apparently, ghosts are like vampires and cast no reflections. Gah!

10. 11.08 - The title of the movie is wrong, as you can clearly see. It's supposed to be "Betelgeuse" just like the star!

Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... whatever.

11. 13:46 - Delia Deetz (Catherine O'Hara) is kinda smokin' hot, but she's married to a cardigan-wearing doofus like Charles (Jeffrey Jones)! In what universe would anything like that really happen? Presumably, the same one where Geena Davis is a model village "widow".

12. 14:41 - Winona Ryder, as emo-kid Lydia, can't act!!! And what's with her Victorian funeral clothes? She's too miserable to be a Goth!

13. 15:12 - Introducing Otho (Glenn Shadix) aka a cheap attempt to milk some homophobic humour out of a camp stereotype in a PG-rated movie! And why does he come in through the window rather than using the front door? Apart from using his awkwardness and size to make him look even more ridiculous, it's never explained.

14. 17:44 - Crappy-looking decapitated head effect followed by a even crappier headless body running around. How is this supposed to be funny apart from being inept?

15. 20:18 - Lousy stop-motion sandworm... on Saturn! But Saturn is classified as a gas giant because it's almost completely made of gas and not sand.

16. 23:00 - Adam can't read or pronounce things properly. Typical Yank! Form your own conclusions for why he makes Betelgeuse sound like a Jewish name.

17. 29:59 - Why is sexy Miss Argentina (Patrice Martinez) green with a pinky-orangey wig and cape? What's she meant to be? Did Captain Kirk diddle her in "Star Trek" or something? She slashed her wrists as a suicide; she didn't suffocate!

18. 33:07 - "I've been feeling a little flat." Really? Is that the best joke anyone could come up with? It's also the only actual joke in this so-called comedy. Hilarious if you're still in infant school.

19. 33.27 - There's no greater accomplishment than ripping off the style of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) because you have no imagination of your own, is there? How (un)original.

20. 37:56 - Totally unconvincing stop-motion fly. How feeble is it not to use a real house-fly? Wasteful too. Flies are pretty cheap, and there are lots of them around. The Insect Actors Union will hear about this!

21. 38:17 - "Help me! Help meeee!" Because the target audience of 8-year-olds are likely to be familiar with "The Fly" (1958), aren't they?

22. 40:30 - Oh, how risque! Meh.

23. 41:52 - Because the target audience of 8-year-olds are likely to be familiar with "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) too?

24. 43:32 - Awful incongruous background music.

25. 44:35 - Even more ill-fitting (that means the same as "incongruous", just so you know) background music.

26. 46:03-46:56 - Why is Betelgeuse in a coffin, and why do the Maitlands need to dig him up? What's the point? Shouldn't he just appear when summoned like Candyman? A minute's worth of padding. Gah!

27. 47:46 - More animal cruelty! No need to throw the poor little mousey like that! That's a long drop for a tiny rodent!

28. 48:25 - "I've seen 'The Exorcist' about 167 times..." just like the target audience haven't, but 167 times more than the Horror Lamers have.

29. 48:27 - "And it keeps getting funnier every time I see it!" Exactly what's wrong with today's retarded "yukyukyuk" horror fans who would laugh to see a pudding crawl. "The Exorcist" is certainly not comedy, but now they will think it is because Betelgeuse says so. Ironically, however, it is funnier than "Beetlejuice".

30. 48:41 - Jerk-off gesturing is a bit much for a little kids' comedy, isn't it? I'm no prude, but WTF? Followed by a bit of upskirt perving at 49:00. Again, WTF?

31. 50:22 - The infamous F-bomb is dropped with a honking crotch-grab! Oh dear. Tim Burton really does have no idea who his target audience is meant to be.

32. 50:32 - "He seemed awfully pissed off," as the potty-mouthing continues. Oh, how boundary-pushing! Not. Did Tim Burton help Rob Zombie out with dialogue later?

33. 51:32 - A little bit of homophobia directed at Otho in a particularly unpleasant manner by Beryl (Adelle Lutz). Not even delivered in a joking way. Otho's witty "The Wizard of Oz" referencing comeback is, unfortunately, the most memorable line in the whole movie. Had to be "The Wizard of Oz" too, didn't it? Because we all know who stereotypically loves Judy Garland musicals!

34. 52:34-54:24 - The self-indulgent, incongruent and absolutely cringeworthy lip-syncing musical interlude.



Obviously this occurs for padding and because nobody could think of anything better to put in. On a deeply personal level, I detest this "possession" scene more than any other in any movie ever.

35. 59:46 - Pitiful Betelgeuse-snake stop-motion animation. Almost as bad as something Ray Harryhausen would have done 7 years earlier. So unrealistic.

36. 1:01:37 - "Edgar Allan Poe's daughter". Only a couple of things wrong with that reference and its implications.

37. 1:01:57 - Crappy misquoted "Dirty Harry" line for no laughs whatsoever.

38. 1:02:27 - A whorehouse in a kids' film? Not only age-inappropriate, but in this case, suggestive of necrophilia too. This is a PG! It's not even a PG-13!

39. 1:06:14-1:06:51 - The surreal (and poorly done) stop-motion metamorphoses of the Maitlands into God knows what their heads are supposed to be. Too weird. Too much of what Tim Burton was to become.

40. 1:07:18 - Further proof that Winona Ryder can't act. Exceedingly flat line delivery even for a depressive teenager with Asparagus Syndrome. She has less expression changes than Liv Tyler or Kristen Stewart put together!

41. 1:08:02 - A gross-out cockroach-eating moment. Animal cruelty!

42. 1:08:49 - "...and shit like that..." Oh, who even cares at this point?

43. 1:10:13 - Stupid unconvincing masks. What's the point when Barbara changes back (at 1:10:44) before the Maitlands get chance to use their "fright faces" on their intended victims anyway?

44. 1:14:14 - The whole atmosphere of what could be a chillingly tense seance/conjuring scene is completely ruined by more of Danny Elfman's music overpowering everything.

45. 1:17:37 - The two decaying-corpse ghosts hovering over the dining table could be one of the most horrific images ever... except that it's in a shitty kiddified comedy! Waste!

46. 1:18:46 - Betelgeuse's WTF fairground costume jumps the shark into cartoon land! It makes no sense, it looks stupid, and it's a precursor to everything which will ever become nauseating about Tim Burton's movies. There's surreal and then there's total bollocks, and this is firmly in the latter category!

47. 1:20:07 - Another homophobic joke as Otho's horror at magically being forced to wear an unfashionable '70s leisure suit plays on the stereotype about gay dress sense. Way over the heads of most children, but shame on you, Tim Burton!

48. 1:20:38 - What happened to the snakes which Betelgeuse put into Charles Deetz's hand at 1:20:33? Continuity!!!

49. 1:21:13 - Predictably, Delia's weird-ass sculptures just have to come to stop-motion animated life and join in the craziness. We're now in Tim Burton's whacked-out, arty-farty imagination, and it's not a pleasant place to be.

50. 1:21:45 - What the bloody Hell is that thing which comes through the "Dr. Caligari" doorway? An alien-corpse preacher? A deformed dwarf-corpse with macrocephalus? Whatever Tim Burton was drinking or smoking at the time, I don't want any! This whole scene is far too weird for anybody in their right mind to enjoy.

51. 1:24:17 - Barbara riding a sandworm across time and space to save the day! Well, of course! You couldn't make this shit up! Okay, you could if you couldn't come up with a better ending. Don't forget to laugh at the dated effects. No? Please yourself.

52. 1:24:46 - A happy ending for everyone then, except Maxie (Robert Goulet) and Sarah Dean (Maree Cheatham) who must have had their necks broken when they were violently launched through the ceiling at 1:19:24.

53. Another cringeworthy lip-syncing routine at the end.



54. If you add up all of Michael Keaton's time on screen, the title character only has 17 out of 92 minutes! That really sucks!


So there you have it. "Beetlejuice" isn't horror. It's not even a proper horror-comedy. It's not scary, it's not funny. It's embarrassing, dated, and cringeworthy, but it's definitely not funny.

What audience is this really meant for? It's a PG with normally R-rated language, adult situations, sexual innuendoes, animal cruelty, homophobia, a smidgen of (debatable) racism, attempted paedophilia, suicide, images of death and the dead, and so much cigarette smoking that it's almost an advertisement for the tobacco industry!

How the Hell did the MPAA pass "Beetljuice" as a PG when something like "The Conjuring" (2013)—which is clearly a PG-13—gets an R? If this isn't proof that the MPAA is corrupt, it's still food for thought, eh?

Is "Beetlejuice" something that 'ickle kids should watch? Based on the damage that it's done to the minds of the tasteless plebs in the Horror Lamers clique, I don't think so. It's not because of the rating though, it's just because the movie totally sucks.

Evil Dead (2013)

"Five friends head to a remote cabin, where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods. The evil presence possesses them until only one is left to fight for survival."

I have good news for you! In six months time, if you can't find the "Evil Dead" remake/sequel (requel?) in Wal-mart's bargain bin then you'll easily be able to pick up a copy from your local pawn shop. Trust me, there will be thousands of "Evil Dead" DVDs sitting proudly alongside all the "Saw" sequels, Platinum Dunes remakes, "Masters of Horror" episodes, the After Dark Horrorfest collection, and the budget Echo Bridge multipacks.

Even though there are many people in the "Uuuuh" generation who will buy "Evil Dead" on DVD and Blu-ray for the full price, you can be sure that the majority of them will kick it to the kerb just as quickly once they actually see it again. This "Evil Dead" isn't going to go into anyone's top 100 or even their top 1000 list unless they have something severely wrong with them.

"Has anyone seen my dentures?"

Starring another bunch of TV non-actors who you've probably never heard of (Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore), "Evil Dead" has brought horror full circle for the "hobby horror" brigade who claim Sam Raimi's original "The Evil Dead" as the inspiration for their own half-arsed handycam masterpieces. You have to laugh, you really do.

If the "Evil Dead" remake is the pinnacle of everything these so-called "indie" filmmakers would like to achieve, it makes me glad that I was born in a time when we had real horror movies instead of this slew of shit. It also makes me glad that I have less years ahead of me than behind me so that I won't have to suffer many more of them. RIP Roger Ebert, by the way. He was lucky to escape when he did.

Rather than write yet another boring review telling you all about the lack of characterisation, the plot holes, the poorly written and delivered dialogue, terrible acting, hard to see "quick cut" action scenes, the homages, tropes, and all the "excessive gore" which didn't even begin to redress the balance, I'm going to do something completely different this time. I'm going to repost my Twitter timeline from when I watched "Evil Dead" with a huge audience of only two other people in the movie theatre.

A SPOILERIFIC COMMENTARY WILL FOLLOW.
Do not read any further if you want to watch "Evil Dead" on your own.

He clearly loves tofu and drives a Prius.

Here are my Tweets in the correct chronological order. Timings are only approximate since I was trying to watch a shitty movie at the same time.

There's a little bit too much "vocal fry" in the new Evil Dead for my liking. #mushmouths #valleygirls #horrible #evildead

Jessica Lucas = vocal fry to the max
Jane Levy = mumble, mumble, mumble

No dialogue coach was available for Evil Dead obviously. #evildead

I wonder how long it will be until the characters start saying "super" instead of "very". Hating it already. #evildead

13 minutes into Evil Dead... BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED. #evildead

NO! Not dead cats hanging in the basement! I'm done here. :( #evildead

"youshudnttavetouchedanyfingfromdatbassment" - mumble, mumble, mumble #evildead

The Book of the Dead looks like a 5 year old made it... or if I drew the pictures... lol... This is crap. #evildead

20 minutes into Evil Dead... is this 90210? LOL The soap opera drama... #evildead

22 minutes in... "Evil Dead" POV through the trees and a big scary monster.... bored.

22 minutes into the Evil Dead. Why does this bitch makes so much noise? Grunt, gasp, grunt, gasp... SHUT UP! #evildead

23 minutes... and now she's shrieking too... cliché after cliché... :( #evildead

24 minutes into Evil Dead... TREE RAPE... pussified toned-down tree rape. I wanted to see it going in and out! Utter crap. #evildead

At least the black girl has stopped that vocal fry shit. She did enough to have her own chip shop earlier. #evildead

Couldn't they find any pretty actresses to be in this film? #evildead

Dead dog 29 minutes in. Good. I hate dogs. Still boring as shit. #evildead

"Everything's been getting worse every second"... Yup. This film is shit dipped in shit and sprinkled with shit croutons. #evildead

33 minutes in... Gayest shotgun blast ever! #evildead

"You're all going to die tonight." Try that again with some emotion, please. #evildead

Blood vomiting. Lame. #evildead

"I'm scared that what happened to Mia has something to do with the fucking witchcraft in the basement." Aw, scared little beardy puss.

R-rating achieved through swearing! #evildead

36 minutes in... exploding mirror trope... #evildead

37 minutes in... Olivia pisses her pants. She's the only one who will over this film. Sucks. #evildead

Converse product placement. Overpriced plimsoles. #evildead

The pacing is all out. No tension whatsoever. Bit like the original really. #evildead

40 minutes in... frenzied, quick cut stabbing scene, hard to see who is doing what to who. Horror is dead. #evildead

Beardie little pussy just grew some balls and killed Olivia with a broken bit of toilet... now he'll be all PTSD about it. #evildead

42 minutes in... duct tape on stab wounds doesn't actually work. Just so you know. You need superglue. #evildead

"I released something evil, Dave, I released something evil." Yeah, stutteryguts, keep repeating yourself some more. Dialogue. #evildead

If he says, "My mind is going, Dave, I can feel it!", I am walking out. #evildead

Natalie is kinda hot. Nice hair. #evildead

"I can smell your filthy soul." Yeah, right, there's no soul in this film at all. Soulless crap. #evildead

I don't care about any of the characters. At all. #evildead

Quick cut locking and chaining the cellar... oh my God... please end! #evildead

Did this movie only get an R rating for saying "Fuck" a lot? #evildead

Beardie weirdie is now William Shatner... "This book... iswrittenin... some... ancientalphabet..." #evildead

Don't waste your money on this film. I think there's something wrong with people who have been praising it.

48 minutes in... EXPOSITION... yeah, we know the story. This is the second remake and 4th Evil Dead film after all. #evildead

49 minutes. Nice blonde gash. LOL #evildead

Yeah, right. Blame the dead cat in the basement for all the problems with the evil dead. LOL #evildead

Cutting her arm off with an electric carving knife.... hmmm, "I Drink Your Blood" (1970) much? Rip-off! #evildead

LMFAO MOAR DUCT TAPE! #evildead

Yeah, nailguns don't actually fire nails like bullets. EPIC FAIL! 54 minutes in... #evildead

I'm glad that they are pulling the nails out. Those big six inch nails are too expensive to waste. #evildead

Beardie got beaten to death with a tire-iron/crate-opener thingy. Kewl... if you're 12. #evildead

57 minutes... "David, my face hurts..." Yeah, it's killing me too. Die already, you one-armed freak! #evildead

58 minutes... "I'm going to do what I'm going do... I'm going to do what I'm going to do...okay?" Do it! We heard you the 1st time. #evildead

I wonder what David's going to do...? I'm sure he's gonna do what he's gonna do though. Poor excuse for Ash. #evildead

Had to have a Zippo lighter, didn't he? Do you know how expensive those are? You don't throw them away like a Clipper! #evildead

I am watching "Evil Dead" the remake. 59 minutes in... please end... please end... please end this shit. #evildead

Is she singing a Justin Bieber song???? "Baby... baby..." NO!!!!! #evildead

"I can't do this... I can't do this...." Repeating every line twice is getting annoying. Repeating every line twice is... #evildead

60 minutes in... that's an hour... the ARISTEIA... arming scene for you plebs... Toolshed! Chainsaw! Groovy! NOT! #evildead

1:03 Water scene in cellar is watery. BORED. #evildead

Is Beardie dead now? Good. Dirty hippie. #evildead

1:06 Mumbling even worse with a plastic bag on her head. Mumble, mumble, mumble... bitch. #evildead

"Your mama sucks... " Wait! Haven't I heard all this before in "The Exorcist"? #evildead

"Stop it... I'm begging you." Who says that? Really? Really? And with no emotion or any act of begging to accompany it. LOL #evildead SUCKS

Adrenalin to the heart and de-fibrillation doesn't work on corpses, you know. FAIL #evildead

"You're at peace... you're at peace now." And you couldn't even say that in just one try? #evildead

Buried her... dug her up... buried her again... MAKE UP YOUR MIND! #evildead

1:11 Dirty hippie came back! Predictable. #evildead

"Go!" "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to go anywhere." GAH! Double-line padding AGAIN! #evildead

1:13 Did they really just turn Mia into a final girl? Are you fucking kidding me? #evildead

Bound to be a twist now she's found Linda's magnifying glass pendant thingy wotsit. #evildead

1:14 End of Carrie-style jump scare. Fell flat. #evildead

It's raining blood... Hallelujah... It's raining blood... #evildead

Hellraiser music? #evildead

1:15 Blair Witch shot from poster art. And they really have made her the final girl. :( #evildead

Yeah, right, girls know how to use chainsaws. LOL LOL LOL Would be more believable with a spoon. #evildead

1:16 Paul Daniels used to do the sabres in a box magic trick too. LOL #evildead

LOL Superhuman evil dead HULKS out, throws car! LOL #evildead

1:18 Okay, so cutting her own hand off was nice. She could've just waited for the Evil Dead demon to get closer though. Stupid. #evildead

"I'll... feast... on.. your... soul..." "Feast on this, motherfucker!" Samuel L. Jackson strikes again. #evildead

1:19 Chainsaw thing quite gory... BUT I've seen worse (or better as the case may be). OTT like Tarantino. :( #evildead

1:20 Please end... please end... please end... please end... please end... please end... please end... please end... please end... #evildead

1:22 THANK YOU, JESUS! it's over! Time for a piss. I couldn't care less about anything after the credits. Seen it all before. #evildead

Kilroy was here.

Yeah, I think my Tweets sum up everything I need to say about "Evil Dead". Unlike the actors in this movie, I'm not going to repeat myself. I'll never watch it again either.

"The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever Experience", my arse! More like 17 million dollars spent on marketing minus $100,000 spent on an instantly forgettable movie without a single scare. I've seen out-of-date food rotting in my fridge that's more horrific.

The "Evil Dead" remake is the last ironically named six inch nail in the coffin of the horror genre.

Horror is dead. RIP horror.

24 reasons why Trick 'r Treat sucks!

Inspired by a discussion I had on Vampire Freaks, I rewatched one of my least favourite horror movies of all time and compiled a list (with timings) of all the reasons why "Trick 'r Treat" (2007) sucks.

Wizarduniverse.com doesn't even exist! Ignore the endorsement!

1. 4:43 - Emma's death. Everything happens under the sheet. You don't see anything but the blood stains. Aftermath shown at 6:20. Nothing special. Stupid "Creepshow" ripoff.

2. 15:00 - Fat kid puking. Meh. Too over-the-top and fake.

3. 21:52 - Killing the fat kid. You don't see anything. Again, it's all under a blanket.

4. 22:56 - Lame jump scare performed by a little kid.

5. 24:57 - Fat kid's severed head on potter's wheel. Nothing special. Very quickly shown aftermath again.

6. 28:10 - Sexy "vampire" bit, but nothing to see except the bloody aftermath. This is an R-rated movie? Puh-lease!

7. 30-38 mins - It's just "The Goonies" meets "Are You Afraid of the Dark"! Bah! All kids. It's a little kids' movie! There are no characters to care about either.

8. 43:45 - Very brief fake intestines shot. Blink and you'll miss it. It's all a giant prank anyway. Lame.

9. 47:47 - Dead zombie-ghost kids aren't scary. Looks like a zombie walk.

10. 50:28 - Nice dress on the girl on the left with the cleavage, but no nudity from her! What a nasty tease.

11. 53:48 - Blink and you'll miss it, Wilkins' protruding broken bone. That's as gory as it gets.

12. 55:01 - Briefest flash of boobs possible during the sexy werewolf dancing. I will admit that the werewolf transformation is fairly original except that it looks even faker than the similar scene in "A Company of Wolves".

13. 56:19 - You don't see the werewolves tear Wilkins apart. It cuts to the kid with a tater sack on his head watching. Most unsatisfying.

14. 1:06:12 - Very quick knife cut to Kreeg's Achilles tendon. Not bad but the cut is too high up, and you don't really see it happen.

15. 1:07:33 - Broken glass on palms. Meh! Corn syrup and bits of glass.

16. 1:08:05 - Tater sack kid on ceiling. Stupid and a ripoff of the equally silly scene in "The Exorcist III".

17. 1:09:30 - Shooting the tater sack kid in the head at point blank range with a shotgun doesn't have the splatter you would expect. His pumpkin head should be all over the walls!

18. 1:11:00 - Tater sack kid's dismembered but still living and crawling hand. "Evil Dead II", anyone? Gah!

19. 1:11:15 - The only "adult" line and one which sums up the whole movie!

20. 1:13:08 - No stab to be seen. Aftermath reveals twist. There was no stab except for a lolly going into a candy bar!

21. 1:15:10 - Stupid "A Christmas Carol" ending. Kreege is Scroooooooge! Humbug! All the stories suck in this anyway.

22. Plus every time one of the characters even mildly swears there's a comment about it. The werewolf girls are told off because there are kids present. The fat kid's murderer tells his son off for swearing, and the retarded girl tells the pretty blonde girl off for saying "Damn". The strongest words seem to be "ass", "asshole" or "screw" and each one is only used a couple of times. Pathetic and unrealistic dialogue.

23. Basically, it's so kiddified and not scary that "Trick 'r Treat" barely counts as a horror movie at all. At the same time, the 5 seconds of nudity and gore mean that little kids aren't legally allowed to watch it. It fails for either audience. It's almost a comedy except that it isn't funny either. No wonder it went straight to DVD and didn't get a theatrical release.

24. Anyone who likes this movie is either a small child or a moron.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

"Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial, object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest."

It's "Sci-fi Saturday" again so I've given my old $1 VHS "Deluxe Letterbox Edition" of "2001: A Space Odyssey" another try to see if it's grown on me. It hasn't.

Without doubt, "2001: A Space Odyssey" is still the most boring film that I have ever seen in my life. I wish I could say that "Solaris" (1972) is even worse, but I've only watched the 2002 remake which at least had sexy Natascha McElhone in it.

I have no idea why people rate "2001" so highly. It might look nice (for the time), but there's hardly any story. What little story there is has nothing to do with any "Odyssey" that I know about. Where is Odysseus or Circe in all of this? Nobody gets turned into pigs, there are no flirty chats between Athena and the hero, and there's no archery contest at the end. What a jip!

I suppose the scenes between the HAL 9000 computer and Bowman (Keir Dullea) perk things up a bit, and it's nice to see the much missed Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) from "Rising Damp" in something other than an old Cinzano commercial, but right from the start with a bunch of idiots badly dressed up as monkeys, it's pretty obvious that this movie is a complete turd.

There's a tiny bit of horror towards the end when Keir Dullea is trapped on the other side of the universe in some kind of rich Elizabethan girl's bedroom until he eventually gets old and dies, but that's it. That's all I get from this.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" is just a load of cheap gorilla-gram costumes, little toy spaceships cleverly filmed to look like real ones, colourful fake spacesuits, Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" waltz, and a big, black, meaningless monolith which turns up simply to be arty. Nothing is answered, but no questions are posed either other than why anyone would make such a piece of crap or expect anyone else to watch it.

I'll be completely honest with you, I don't understand "2001: A Space Odyssey". Not only that, but I don't like it either. There's no action, no sexiness, no big, scary monsters. There's no message to it and no lessons to be learned other than to never watch it again.

Next!

M (1931)

"When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt."

If you want true escapism, there's nothing like an overrated old black and white movie from the 1930s. Thus, I'm finally going to say something about "M" which has now become fixed firmly in my mind as the best cure for insomnia since NyQuil.

I can't even find the words to describe how boring "M" is to watch, or how overacted and frustratingly slow it all is. It's taken me over a week to get through "M" in 15 minute installments because that's as long as I could cope with it until my brain shut down in rebellion and I kept falling asleep.

In the restored version of "M" (as embedded at the top of this post), a third of the movie is completely silent as Fritz Lang intended. There are no voices (or subtitles), no sounds of car engines, or even any ambience during these scenes. Essentially, this is a throwback to the silent era due to sound licensing fees at the time, but without the visuals of "Metropolis" to keep anyone entertained.

Of course, you can always make up your own dialogue during the police searches. I chose to put the words "Where's the sausage?" and "I must find the sausage!" into the mouths of every character. Trust me, it works quite well. It works even better during the "talking" scenes once you turn the shouty German dialogue off completely. And, yes, before you ask, there are indeed lots of sausages in this movie.

I'm sure that "M" was absolutely groundbreaking at the time in its depiction of a serial killer, but it's horribly dated and almost embarrassing to watch now. The cops have nothing to go on except that the killer owns a wooden table, a red pencil, smokes cigarettes, and can whistle one of the tunes from "Peer Gynt". Well, that makes him easy to single out then! And what is the gangsters' master plan to catch him? They use beggars to keep an eye on all the children in the city. Yeah, like that won't cause comedic complications.

Facetiously, I was going to say that the poster is the best part of the film. I'm sure the more pretentious, artsy-fartsy film reviewers have a copy of it proudly displayed on their walls along with "Metropolis", "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". The trouble is that "M" does have a few good points in spite of itself which makes that argument seem rather puerile.

Peter Lorre is outstanding as the whistling murderer Hans Beckert (Fritz Lang did all the whistling), but he has hardly any screen time for the first hour among all the gangsters and cops who have their own agendas for wanting him gone. There's way too much political nonsense going on in the background which is dull as ditchwater to sit through. There's nothing like lingering over unnecessary details and too much talky exposition to really slow things down to a crawl either.

After just over an hour, things start to come together with the cops realising that their murderer doesn't actually need to own a wooden table but may have written his "Jack the Ripper"-style letters to them on a window sill (thus increasing the number of suspects to the whole world!), and the beggars manage to get a chalk letter "M" slapped on the back of Hans Beckert's coat. Like that won't easily brush off! I don't think I've ever seen a plot so contrived or with characters so inept since the last film I watched.

More by luck than judgement, Hans Beckert gets trapped in a office building by a gang of burglars who, in spite of knowing who he is, don't seem to be all that zealous about catching him (although they eventually do). Colour me confused! The next twenty minutes provide plenty of opportunities for a lot of bulgy-eyed expressions from Peter Lorre as he is forced into hiding in the attic, but not much else. Could Peter Lorre be underused even more? I'd be surprised if his total screen time adds up to ten minutes including the very end.

For those in the know, it's only the final kangaroo court scene which gives "M" its dubious claim to fame. It's all pseudo-philosophy with questions asked about what gives criminals any right to judge a worse criminal. Biblically speaking, it's precisely the hypocrisy that Jesus preached about with Hans Beckert being a not entirely convincing substitute. If you want to start a debate about whether or not insane killers should be protected by the law or executed for their crimes, just show the film from the 1 hour and 34 minutes mark. In the light of recent happenings in America, the final words of the film may hit home to parents. I'm shallow, self-centred and I only have cats so it's lost on me.

"M" isn't really a horror movie so it may not be something you want to watch anyway. There aren't any child murders shown, no scares, no gory bits, or even any suspense. It's more of a crime drama with moderately interesting pre-Nazi Germany imagery. If you like looking at shop windows or watching lots of older German men in suits smoke cigars and drink beer from glasses as big as their heads, this is the movie for you. No wonder Hitler banned it! You can say what you like about all the bad things Hitler did, but hiding this drivel from the world wasn't one of them.

With a running time of an hour and 48 minutes, "M" truly suffers from being all talk and no action. You can easily skip 75% of the scenes for a better paced and less convoluted story. I'm surprised that there isn't a MST3K version in existence which would definitely improve things.

The Shining (1980)

"A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future."

Due to the unbearable heat this month, I thought watching a movie set in Winter would help me psychologically. With three fans blowing continuously, I'm already beyond help physically.

Unfortunately, most of "The Shining" took place indoors and I'm not even going to finish this sentence with any pun using the word "chilling". Trust me, watching "The Shining" in 100 degree weather does not help in the slightest.

I don't really want to review "The Shining" now either since anything I have to say has certainly been said before. I will do so anyway for the younger readers who are still playing catch-up. If you haven't ever seen "The Shining" and you are a follower of this blog then you really need to see this film or return your horror licences.

Even if you've only watched the trailer, you should already know that "The Shining" is Stanley Kubrick's flawed version of Stephen King's famous novel, it stars Jack Nicholson who spouts his famous "Here's Johnny!" line, and there's a creepy little kid in it who talks to his finger a lot.

What you might not know is that Stephen King was inspired by Dan Curtis' "Burnt Offerings" (1976), Scatman Crothers was the voice of Henry in the "Hong Kong Phooey" cartoons, and Shelley Duvall is really weird looking. Okay, you probably do know that last bit.

The trouble with "The Shining" for me is that I don't really know if it's supposed to be a ghost story, a possession story, or just the tale of some guy going crazy. Stanley Kubrick's screenplay is quite a bit different to the novel as I remember it and, apart from the sometimes stunning and frightening visuals, "The Shining" is a mess as far as the narrative goes.

Obviously, the main focus is Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the Jack Torrance character. Apparently, his alcoholism was based on Stephen King's own experiences and this changes the way you think about the character in the novel. You can wonder if what Torrance sees is real or brought on by withdrawal symptoms. In this movie version, however, it's more certain that these things are real so a big chunk of mystery and suspense is lost immediately. Like I said at the start, Kubrick's film is very flawed.

I really don't want to dwell on the differences between the novel, the movie or even the boring TV version with the thumbsucker-mouthed kid in it. They are three very distinct entities and those who enjoy one probably won't like the other two.

What I will say is that I used to really like "The Shining" until I rewatched it and started picking holes in it. There were always parts of it which made absolutely no sense, and Dick Hallorann's death was just plain mean (not to mention wasteful), but the scary bits still worked.

For at least the first two-thirds of the movie, the atmosphere was creepy as Hell and almost nauseating but, when Jack's madness kicked in, it started to get dull. All work and no play, eh? I can't even explain why the final third failed to interest me since it's the section with the most physical action. Maybe I've seen "The Shining" too many times.

I've never really cared about any of the main characters, least of all the pointlessly psychic Danny with his stupid croaky voice or his even more irritating mother. If ever there was a character who I wanted to drag out of a movie and beat senseless, it was Wendy Torrance so kudos to Shelley Duvall for making that role so memorable for me.

The ghostly barman also annoyed me as much as the entire series of "Twin Peaks" which had a similarly surreal vibe to it (and which I loathed after three episodes). As for Jack Torrance, in spite of Jack Nicholson trying to make the character more charismatic, he got just what he deserved. I didn't like him and I had no sympathy for him.

My main gripe about "The Shining" though is that I don't like it when films start getting too surreal for their own good. Stanley Kubrick was really out of control with this one. Of course, there are some nutters who claim that Kubrick was hiding messages about his involvement in the faked NASA moon landings in "The Shining" which, if true, might explain a lot of things. Even so, it's still only the score which makes "The Shining" a masterpiece rather than any of Kubrick's alleged skills. If you took the music out, everything (apart from the infamous bathtub scene and the creepy little girls) would actually be cinematically excellent but also rather tedious.

I'm going to end this with the numerical rating of 5 out of 10 for "The Shining". I haven't done a numerical rating for ages, but, based on how I felt after rewatching "The Shining", it's better than the expletive-laden alternative.

Nosferatu (1922)

"Originally released in 1922 as Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens, director F.W. Murnau's chilling and eerie adaption of Stoker's Dracula is a silent masterpiece of terror which to this day is the most striking and frightening portrayal of the legend."

To be honest with you right from the beginning, I don't think much of "Nosferatu" (otherwise known as the the world's first movie copyright infringement). I only uploaded this film to YouTube because I realised that I still hadn't used my account for anything constructive in the six years since I joined the site.

Having recently discovered that I could actually upload movies longer than fifteen minutes, I decided to start filling my YouTube channel with public domain horrors. I know other people have done this, but since I also discovered that it takes over an hour to upload anything, I don't think I'm going to be a very great rival to the big name "PD" channels.

But anyway, "Nosferatu" sucks. Not only does Graf Orlok (or Count Dracula) suck blood as a vampire (albeit rather invisibly) but the whole film is wretchedly boring. I may have over a dozen copies of it scattered throughout my Mill Creek and other budget horror DVDs, but that's not because I like the film in any way.

For a start, it's all in black and white which is a bit shitty really. Then, to add insult to injury, it's silent (apart from the crappy music added to it after the fact) with a load of title cards which you have to read. Yes, read! Who the Hell watches a film to read it? You'll expect me to start reading subtitles on modern foreign movies next!!!

Of course, I'm being sarcastic as I'm quite aware of how much of a philistine any of that would make me look if I truly felt that way, but I really dislike "Nosferatu" to the point of absolute hatred.

What I hate most about the film is that it's all style over substance. It's just a few "scary" images created by the very odd looking Max Schreck with the ripped-off "Dracula" story underneath it all. Bram Stoker's novel is infinitely better than this crap, and the name changes don't help the movie's cause either.

I loathe the acting especially as I have no idea if the actors were actually saying anything resembling what appears as a caption on screen, and I find the whole cast to be very unattractive. I just can't think myself back ninety years ago into a time before I existed to appreciate any of it. Not only is "Nosferatu" old but everything about it is entirely alien to me, distancing, and it just doesn't grab my attention.

Now I know there are some people who will defend "Nosferatu" to the hilt with all the tired arguments about how groundbreaking it was and how I need to learn all about the styles of the German silent movie industry before being so judgemental, but seriously, have you ever tried watching this film recently?

That's another reason why I posted it back up to YouTube. I want people to actually sit there and watch this crap for as long as they can stand it. I can barely make it ten minutes in without wanting to switch it off, and that's not just because I've seen it so many times before.

"Nosferatu" simply isn't a very good film. Yes, we're lucky to have it since all the copies were supposed to be destroyed for copyright infringement, but it's still badly shot and directed. It's almost as bad as the later Bela Lugosi "Dracula" (based on the official Bram Stoker stage play), and that's saying something.

Basically, "Dracula" works well as a book but has never translated well to screen. Just because "Nosferatu" was the first movie adaptation of the story does not make it the best.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

"Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods."

As much as I really want to give you my review of "The Cabin in the Woods", with so many other horror bloggers all falling over themselves to write about the same clever yet unscary movie, I thought I'd give everyone else a chance at some page hits.

Much as I did last year with "Scream 4" (ironically another "meta-horror"), I'm simply going to list all the reviews from my blogroll as and when they happen. You can call it a "shoutout" if you like as I'm sure there are quite a few horror blogs here which you've never heard of and would be wise to follow.

HorrO's Gory Reviews - THE CABIN IN THE WOODS REVIEW
horrorfatale.com - ‘THE CABIN IN THE WOODS’ – Opens Today
The Non-Review - Cabin in the Woods, Lockout, The Three Stooges: 7 Word Weekend Review
Horror Movie A Day - The Cabin In The Woods (2011)
PLANET OF TERROR!! - The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Dinner With Max Jenke - The Horror Film To End All Horror Films?
The Fear Corner - The Cabin in the Woods (2012) Review
Full Moon Reviews - Horror, Sci-Fi, Action, B-Movies - The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Zombots! - The Cabin in the Woods
DARKMATTERS - The Mind Of Matt - Darkmatters Review: The Cabin In The Woods
The Man-Cave - The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
A Mighty Fine Blog - Film Review: The Cabin In The Woods (2011)
The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema - The Cabin in the Woods (SXSW 2012)
Kilplix's Blog - The Cabin in the Woods review
Uncle Frank's Film Blog - The Cabin in the Woods
Andy's Film Blog - The Cabin in the Woods
The Fear Corner - The Cabin in the Woods (2012) Review
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS - THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
the jaded viewer - The Cabin in the Woods (Review)
Horror Smorgasbord - The Cabin In The Woods (Review/Overview/Discussion)
The Horror Club - The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
A Wimp Does Horror - Cabin in the Woods
Horror Lovers Spot - Cabin in the Woods

Also, just like before, I'm going to wait until the DVD comes out and not get caught up in this zero-day maelstrom of spoilers (although I think you can probably tell what I thought of "The Cabin in the Woods" anyway). If you follow me on Twitter then you already know.

Anyway, if you have yet another review of "The Cabin in the Woods" which I haven't mentioned, just leave it as a comment below and I'll edit it into this post accordingly.

Friday the 13th (1980)

"Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to re-open a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning."

Since it's Friday the 13th, I thought I might as well be as predictable as all the other bloggers and say something about this highly overrated slasher. I'm not keen on the slasher subgenre in general as they are all much the same as each other but with only the locations and names of the characters changing.

I'm particularly less than impressed by "Friday the 13th" as it borrowed its most famous kill scenes from Mario Bava's "Twitch of the Death Nerve" (1971). If you haven't seen it then look it up on YouTube where you can see all 13 kills in their uncensored glory.

But as I loathe Italian horror movies even more than American slashers, I have to give Sean S. Cunningham some credit for making this style of film more accessible to an English speaking audience. It's just a pity that "Halloween" (1978) did everything so much better, and everything which followed "Friday the 13th" was so much worse.

Obviously, "Friday the 13th" will always be remembered for Kevin Bacon's death scene, the fact that it wasn't Jason doing all the killing (Oh, was that a spoiler? Who cares?) until part two, and for having an even crappier "Carrie"-style ending than "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984) which followed it into the land of iconic villains.

"Friday the 13th" has little of merit other than being the first and best of a franchise which outstayed its welcome. The numerous sequels starring the psycho in the ice hockey mask, not to mention all the imitators, have proved that the formula of teenagers who break the rules being hacked to death in various unpleasant ways has a very wide appeal, but if you've seen one slasher, you've seen them all.

Dead of Night (1945)

"An architect senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality. The guests at the country house encourage him to stay as they take turns telling supernatural tales."

Although a lot of people rave about "Dead of Night" being one of Britain's finest horror anthologies, I've never really thought much of it myself. Just because it was the first to link several short horror stories together doesn't make it the best, in my opinion, although it's quite entertaining in places if you are easily pleased.

Two of the five stories are very weak and there's a stupid comedy one involving two golfers which I loathe even more than the entirety of "Shaun of the Dead" so it must be bad. The best ones for me are the racing driver's tale and the story of the ventriloquist's dummy which has a life of its own although I've seen that one done better since as well.

"Dead of Night" isn't so much dated as it is simply a rather unsatisfying experience overall. The ending is particularly messy and then the final twist is just annoyingly predictable, but at least it ties the other stories together in a better way than a lot of the wraparounds on later anthologies.

I'm keeping this review short as I really don't like "Dead of Night" all that much. It's highly overrated (especially on the IMDb of course) and there isn't one single moment that's actually scary in it.

If you like "The Twilight Zone" TV series, you'll probably get something out of "Dead of Night" but, best of all, you can watch it for free on YouTube (in the video which I've posted above). I don't recommend this as a purchase or even a rental as it's just one of those average films which you can only watch once and will then forget about quite quickly.

Superstition (1982)

(AKA The Witch)



"A witch put to death in 1692 swears vengeance on her persecutors and returns to the present day to punish their descendants."

Although this was quite a popular video to rent back in the early '80s, I thought of it as just another Amityville clone with a clichéd story about a witch coming back from the dead. Having seen the far superior "Black Sunday" (1960), I was not impressed.

As you know, I've been looking at a lot of VHS collections recently to see what people are still into since new horror movies have dried-up completely. One of the titles which VHS fans all raved about was "Superstition" but I took it with the same huge pinch of salt that I usually reserve for anyone talking about crappy Dario Argento movies.

Having watched it again last night to see if I had been missing anything, "Superstition" was actually worse than I remembered. It's essentially little more than a predictable slasher film with laughable special effects as well.

The acting was particularly bad and the story served only as padding between the various gore scenes. I admit that the amusing gore was welcome but, as I've often said, if you don't care about the characters then it really has no value.

A lot of people moan about this film not being on DVD when in fact it has been out in the UK (uncut) for ages. I'm not sure about the Anchor Bay US release since I'm not part of the loop and they don't send me any free DVDs to review (unlike some of the even crappier review sites on the internet). I assume that it must be out of print again now like so many others.

I've actually reached the point where I'm so bored that I wouldn't mind a few screeners especially from Lionsgate who seem to be sitting on a huge back catalogue of crappy '80s horror movies. I'm sure they would go down really well as some kind of compilation set even in this age of people downloading everything for free and not buying as many films on physical media anymore.

If "Superstition" was part of a "4 horror movie multi-pack" along with "The Witch Who Came from the Sea" (1976) and a couple of other witchcraft-themed "video nasties" then I'd actually recommend it as cult viewing, but alas, on its own, it's just a bit too dated and average.

The Uninvited (1944)

"A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavoury past."

I'm finally back to working on my "Hallowe'en Countdown" with another ghostie film which I'd never seen before. I'd never seen "The Uninvited" available as a DVD (not even a bootleg) or even a VHS tape and if it was ever shown on British TV then I simply must have missed it.

Luckily, TCM had a marathon of classic black and white horror movies on Monday night through to Tuesday morning and "The Uninvited" was one of them. Although it meant suffering through the irritatingly repeated poem of "The Wolf Man" (1941) beforehand, I missed most of that awful Universal dreck due to not knowing that TCM was on channel 63 on my cable box and having to surf for it.

Anyway, I finally got to see "The Uninvited" which a lot of horror movie review sites say was Hollywood's first attempt at a "serious ghost story". Well, it was and it wasn't especially since, aside from its Paramount Studios locations which are supposed to be Cornwall, it's very British. I'd call it more of a creepy romance with Ray Milland trying to be funny and failing than anything else.

There were quite a few bizarre relationships in "The Uninvited" which were actually a lot more interesting than the ghost story itself. Ray Milland's character and his sister immediately suggested incest to me (viewing it from a 21st century perspective), and I'm sure that he was supposed to be a middle-aged man who was trying to pick-up a naive girl half his age to boot. If this was purely artifice to allow the characters some romantic mobility then it was done badly.

The facts that the original owner of the house had been having an affair and his wife was certainly the object of a lesbian crush (if not more) stood out inarguably even if I may have been making more out of the other relationships than a 1940s audience would. Older men who live with their sisters while courting young girls wasn't quite so weird back then, I suppose.

You would think that even the laziest writer would still have mirrored the past with the present. For Ray Milland to not play a married man having an affair was a wasted opportunity which countless ghost stories since have reworked (right up to this year's "American Horror Story" on TV). Thus, for me, the story itself wasn't neat enough. It was a mess which meandered from one thing to another with far too much spoken exposition.

The reasons for the haunting were already predictable so the back stories became tedious rather than mysterious and the final "exorcism" of the ghosts turned out to be anticlimactic to say the least.

"The Uninvited" may have been an attempt at a serious ghost story but it wasn't a very good one. A lot of the formulas for future ghost stories, including getting a house for a lot less than its real value, animals being used to show that there is something very wrong there, and the "Cassandra truth" trope (and its reverse) being used ad nauseum, were laid down here so I have to give it credit for originality but that is all.

It wasn't a scary film. There was no real air of menace about the haunting and no tension. Although some of the effects were good for the time, unfortunately, Ray Milland completely ruined the atmosphere of the whole thing by being far too jocular and by mimicking the Irish housekeeper's accent at every opportunity.

I'm rating "The Uninvited" as just average. If you haven't ever seen it then you haven't missed anything important.

TCM are showing it again on Sunday, October 30th, at 9.15am.

Fright Night (1985)

"When a teenager learns that his next door neighbour is a vampire, no one will believe him."

Since I'm never going to watch the appalling remake which is currently receiving bad reviews all over the place, I thought I might as well say something about the original "Fright Night".

The thing is, I don't really like this film all that much either. If you stop to think about it for a second, "Fright Night" is only a more comedic teenage version of "Salem's Lot" (1979) in many ways while really overworking the "Cassandra Truth" trope from "Rear Window" (1954) and its clones. Just imagine David Soul instead of William Ragsdale, Bonnie Bedelia instead of Amanda Bearse, and James Mason instead of Jonathan Stark, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

I've mentioned it before on here but what I really hate about "Fright Night" is the Charlie Brewster character. The guy is a total ass on every level and how the hell anyone would believe that he could have the gorgeous Amy as a girlfriend defies all logic. Of course, with hindsight, we all know that Amanda Bearse's real life sexual preferences make the whole situation even more ludicrous but the way that Charlie treats her character is just shameful.

Something I find astounding is the amount of fanboy adoration that "Fright Night" still gets on various internet sites and forums. It's a well made film as far as production values go but Chris Sarandon is largely wasted in his role especially as Jonathan Stark (doing his best Bill Paxton impersonation before anyone even knew who Bill Paxton even was) totally steals the show out from under him.

And then there's Roddy McDowell. Poor, sweet Roddy, having to ham it up as a horror show host whose first reaction to Charlie Brewster should have been where the film ended for him. I can't fault his performance too much as he's the saving grace in the whole horrid fiasco as much as David Tennant has, allegedly, been the only redeeming feature in the soulless remake.

One thing which irritates me beyond belief is Stephen Geoffreys as Evil Ed and, in particular, his voice. Every nerd and horror geek in the universe repeats his line, "You're so cool, Brewster!" as soon as they hear his name but what does he actually do in the film apart from act in a totally affected manner and then get turned into a vampire? I've actually seen Stephen Geoffreys in the low-budget nastiness that is "Sick Girl" (2007) in case anyone ever wondered what happened to him after his stint in the porn industry under the name of "Sam Ritter". His acting hadn't improved all that much but at least his voice broke.

The funny thing is that even though I would love to throw "Fright Night" completely out of the Video Vault, I can't. It's one of those far too successful '80s comedy-horrors which everyone has a soft spot for even though it's not really all that good either as a horror or a comedy. It's almost as overrated as "The Lost Boys".

"Fright Night" is an iconic (almost "cult") film which I rank alongside "The Breakfast Club" (1985), "Footloose" (1984), "Pretty in Pink" (1986), "Weird Science" (1985) and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986). There were more teen movies during the '80s than any other decade, and, since I was one myself back then, I didn't even notice the excesses or superficialities of any of them. In 1985, I loved "Fright Night" just as much as anyone else.

With my rose-tinted glasses firmly back on, "Fright Night" is staying in the Video Vault purely out of nostalgia. Objectively, the movie sucks (no pun intended) but not as much as the remake.

Black Sabbath (1963)

(AKA "I tre volti della paura")



"In this 1963 trilogy of chilling tales, a beautiful woman's ex-lover terrorizes her, a father returns home a vampire, and a ghost haunts a nurse. The vampire story - probably the most famous of the three - stars a poignant Boris Karloff, who also plays host for the anthology."

I'd heard about "Black Sabbath" many years before I actually saw it (on Hulu as it happens) and the hype about it was extreme to say the least. I know that the '60s were quite deficient in truly scary horror movies but, having watched it once again on Netflix, I am still not impressed.

The first thing I noticed was that the "floating head" introduction was very similar to the one from "House on Haunted Hill" (1959). Both could be considered rather comical (or even "cheesy") by some people and even Boris Karloff couldn't make his version any more sinister. In fact, all Karloff's introductions to the stories were little more than comic relief and ranged from an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" style to that of a full-on horror host complete with a stupid vanishing in a puff of smoke trick at the end.

As for the stories themselves, the first, entitled "The Drop of Water", was definitely the best. The grinning ghost of the old woman who haunted the nurse, who had stolen the ring from her corpse's finger, would probably have given a little kid nightmares for years to come. I will admit that it was effective even for me. The initial jump scare where her terrifying visage was first revealed was very well done. There were also a lot of cats which is always a bonus.

The second story, "The Telephone" was not so hot. Even though Rosa, played by Michèle Mercier, was undeniably sexy with her little striptease at the start, she wasn't exactly toned and couldn't act either. There was originally a lesbian subtext to the story which either I completely missed or it wasn't even in the Netflix version but that really held no interest for me anyway. After all the failed attempts at suspense, the ending was just so weak that I really wonder how this film became so overrated.

It appears that the American version of "Black Sabbath" changed the order of the stories so the final tale, "The Wurdalak", should have been in the middle (with "The Telephone" at the start). It looked good, like a Hammer film and really colourful, but the story itself was far too long and rather boring. Boris Karloff moved from presenter back to actor but was unfortunately way past his prime for either role. It wasn't scary or exciting but Mario Bava fanboys rave about it for some reason.

Horror anthologies have always been more miss than hit so the blame lies in the format more than anything else. If "The Wurdalak" had been a full length feature on its own, I'm sure that it would have been a classic even though it was really five years too late to compete with the best of Hammer.

Overall, I was quite disappointed by "Black Sabbath". I can see how it might have seemed good at the time but it's very dated and tame compared to what we have now. The same isn't true of all horror films from this period as some, such as "Psycho" (1960), obviously still hold up well today. I'm rating this as average.

Ichi the Killer (2001)

"Yakuza boss Anjo disappears with three hundred million yen. His loyal gang members, lead by the masochist Kakihara, start a search, but their aggressive and gory methods worry the other yakuza gangs. Kakiharas most frightening counterpart is the mysterious Ichi, a psychopathic killer with a dark childhood secret, who is controlled by a retired cop."

Having just wasted the last two hours of my life watching this utter drivel, all I really want to do now is use every expletive under the sun to describe how appallingly shit "Ichi the Killer" was. As amusing as that would be, it isn't my style and wouldn't really be all that informative for anyone who hasn't watched the film.

Yes, I know that it was made in 2001 and special effects have improved since then but honestly this was like some kind of unintentional comedy. All the spurting blood effects which were obviously copied by Quentin Tarantino for "Kill Bill" just threw me right out of the action such as it was. The characters were all beyond ridiculous and the negligible plot did very little to hold my interest. It seemed to be nothing but set pieces of gore and violence just for the sake of it.

You should all know by now that I'm certainly no prude and I'm also one of the least artistically-minded horror movie reviewers on the internet but I do like a good story and sympathetic characters. I wasn't looking for some big, thought-provoking work of art with "Ichi the Killer" but I was expecting to not be bored out of my mind by it.

Honestly, how do all these Takashi Miike fanboys manage to delude themselves and other people that "Ichi the Killer" is so fantastic? Apart from one of the prostitutes who kept switching from English to Japanese, there wasn't even any worthwhile heterosexual eyecandy in the thing!

Yes, Takeshii Miike fanboys, I'm calling you out! This film is GAY! It's so homoerotic that I'd put it up there with David DeCoteau's "Leeches". Of course there's nothing wrong with any of that particularly if a gang of misogynistic, genital-torturing Yakuza floats your boat but it did nothing for me.

I pretty much hated every minute of this film from the title appearing in a pool of sperm to the ending which I couldn't understand. I'm not being racist but at least two of the actors looked almost identical and I really couldn't tell who was doing what to who or why. Was the blond one only blond so that he could be more easily identified by a Western audience? And what was up with his cheeks being sliced open and clipped together? I didn't get any of it and couldn't even be bothered to follow what was going on after a while.

Suffice it to say that I did work out that a "Muscle Mary" cop called Jigii had brainwashed crybaby Ichi into killing the Yakuza for him somehow using post-hypnotic suggestions but the rest of it, including all the torture, just washed over me like some really cheap and unpleasant predecessor to "Horsemen" (which I also had the misfortune to watch through Netflix a little while ago).

I suppose a lot of people would credit "Ichi the Killer" with kicking off the whole "torture porn" wave of over-the-top gory effects-driven movies which ruined the 2000s for everyone. Gruesome scenes do not make a horror movie if they come without any emotional investment in the characters. Since there were no "good" characters in the film at all, what was the point? People who enjoy crap like this would probably get off watching cockfights or a couple of pitbulls tearing each other apart with just the same feeling of moral detachment.

I have honestly never hated a film as much in my life as this one. There are no merits to it at all. Without doubt, "Ichi the Killer" is simply the worst kind of poorly written and directed pulp. It was at least an hour too long as well. Avoid!

Suspiria (1977)

Boring '70s crapfest with hardly any plot, poor acting, terrible dialogue and a monotonous soundtrack. If you watch a dubbed version, it is even more ridiculous and cheesy.

I have no idea why people like this film other than having some weird need to be pretentious about pseudo-arty nonsense made in Italy. Dario Argento is simply one of the worst directors ever and every "giallo" he made was a meaningless mess. This is slightly more watchable than "Tenebrae" or "Inferno" but not by much.

Apart from a few pretty girls and some innovative gore scenes for the time, there really is nothing outstanding about "Suspiria" at all. In fact, it will seem very slow and tedious to most people and, of course, isn't scary in any way.

There are attempts at suspense but there is never any real payoff to any of them. Things just run out of steam or end up looking badly edited. The best description of this movie is the often used phrase, "style over substance".

I've yet to find any real horror fan who still likes this even though it was hyped beyond belief in the early days by people who simply didn't know any better.

It's something you'll probably watch once just out of curiousity and then wish you had your life back.

"The Only Thing More Boring Than The First 12 Minutes Of This Film Are The Last 92."