The Conspiracy Of Dark Falls (2022) Is Very Dull


If you’re getting wound up by this years Oscar lists, then please rest assure that movie awards are pointless marketing doodahs, handed out through a combination of marketing, indifference, and stupidity. My evidence for that statement is that this film has won 16 awards and been nominated for another 15, for acting, direction, and production, when it’s less cinematically fulfilling than the NFT adverts YouTube holds your time ransom with. Continue reading

A Warning To The Curious (1972)


It may surprise modern folks, but the reason that A Christmas Carol did so well when first released by Charles Dickins was because it tapped into a grand tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time. So it’s probably of no surprise that the BBCs decision to commission a run of ghost stories for Festive viewings in the 70s was less to do with providing an alternative to bawdy light-entertainment and more to do with maintaining Victorian values. So it’s educational horror, beyond the usual anatomy lessons.
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13 Slays Till Xmas (2020)


The straplines made me think this was going to be good old fashioned Psycho Santa Slasher, but this is actually a horror story anthology with a Christmas motif and framing device. Which isn’t a problem as that’s prime quality festive family fun in the Super Fortress. Thus we fired up the streaming service and let the intro credits roll.
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Gold Told Me To (1976) is not that devine

Spooky


This was picked because of it’s title and enigmatic premise. After watching it I found out it was made by Larry Cohen, and then I found it he had directed, written, and produced such genre classics as Q: The Winged Serpent, Maniac Cop, and Black Caesar. He also did The Stuff, which I love but I get why others find a bit tedious. So it’s nice to see where he came from, and how far he had improved.
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And now, a request for your cash; For Charity!

Sorry I’ve been away for… wow, almost two months!… but life and doing another season of Paul And Andrew Watch All Of got in the way of keeping the reviews coming through. However, I carried on watching movies to keep me going and, as I often do when sitting on a nice sofa in a warm room, I acknowledge that things could be far worse. For a start, I could have been homeless. So, as is my semiannual tradition, I’m going to spend time watching films I know I’m going to hate in the hopes you’ll donate some cash to help homeless people.

It’s a simple concept: I watch Amityville movies for 24 hours straing, possibly losing my mind because they’re all incredibly dull and frequently nothing but cheapy mockbusters, you get to see it happening in real time as I stream it and mock/encourage me directly as I try to get through it all, and we both help get some much needed cash to Crisis UK. Or you do the same but send the money to a homeless charity in your part of the world and tell me you did it. Main thing: Bad Movies + Endurace Watch = Donations + Amusement.

Things start 30th of September, which means you have plenty of time to raid your sofa for change and tell all your friends! Or even your enemies if they’re good for a share or a couple of coins into the pot. The main thing is that it’s happening and everyone is invited to you might as well make something good happen from it, other than me finding new ways to describe a pondurouse bit of cinematic chaff. So, please: send money to justgiving.com/page/24-hours-in-amityville and wish me luck as I try to spend 24 Hours In Amityville.

The Raggedyman

Wanted: Dead Or Alive (1986)

Rutger Haure died in 2019, and he’s still got two movies to come out because he was just such an unstoppable powerhouse of great acting. Apparently, he himself said he was only brilliant in two or three of his roles, which is clear modesty on his part. So I picked this to watch as he was on the front cover, and I can comfortably say that this isn’t one of his best. But it’s also too interesting to not share thoughts on, so here we go.
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Footprints on the Moon (1975)


This had an enigmatic title, came from a noted Italian genre director, is being marketed under the normal quite crazy Shameless banner, and had a synopsis that sounded rather spicy. So as I was in the mood to try out something with a bit more European flavour than normal, and it didn’t look like yet another giallo slasher, it was worth a punt.
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Winds Of Change (1978)


Metamorphoses (Japanese: 星のオルフェウス, Hepburn: Hoshi no Orufeusu, “Orpheus of the Stars”) is a 1978 Japanese animated anthology film, produced by Sanrio. Directed by Takashi Masunaga and based on Ovid’s book of the same name, it took 3 years and 170 Hollywood animators to make. But that bombed, so 7 minutes were trimmed, a Peter Ustinov narration got added, and the whole thing got re-edited around a disco soundtrack. Did that pull its fat out of the fire? Well…
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Deathstalker (1983) is a terrible film

“We shall committ many sex crimes together, brother”


Quite often the phrase “for its time” is used when trying to evaluate movies, but I’ve no idea as to when the use of rape as narrative punctuation was ever considered an acceptable thing. I also appreciate that saying such things is a strong opening for a review, but when it’s in the lynchpin of the first, second, and every subsequent scene in this sword-and-sexual-assault fantasy its discussion needs to be as prominent as writer Howard R. Cohen and director James Sbardellati made it.
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Final Exam (1981) is a bad film with some genuinly amazing ideas.

In context, this still makes no sense


This can easily be dismissed as yet another slasher that turned up on the coattails of Halloween and Friday The 13th, as part of The Golden Age Of Slashers. And it has all the hallmarks of such a film; it’s cheap, follows the tropes, and has a lot of so-so acting and directing. However, for all it’s many failings, writer and director Jimmy Huston needs to be applauded for making a film that really tried to do something different with the genre in several interesting ways.
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