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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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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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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“We shall committ many sex crimes together, brother”
In context, this still makes no sense
Renowned curmudgeon and author HP Lovecraft is dead and, unlike many other popular franchise creators in a similar situation, his works are in the public domain. It’s a mythos that you can have great fun with so writer/director Ansel Faraj decided to make a genre-bending movie based that asks two important questions: “what if Lovecraft wrote about things that are real” and “what is a father was coming to terms with his son being…. an artist!”
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Allan Caggiano, who by his own admission has no formal training, set out with a four-person production crew to make a movie and for that I applaud him. He also said that “reviews (even the harsh ones) are greatly appreciated” so on the off change he gets to read this I hope he doesn’t think I’m being unfair with what’s about to be said. Making any kind of film is a soul-breaking task, and at the very least he brought into the world something that a group of us spent a pleasant hour and a half watching.
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Another day, another apocalypse; this time in the form of Merrick; a boxing champion who had his career curtailed by one of those annoying diseases that wipes everything out for plot purposes. It’s written, directed, and produced by newcomer Benjamin Diouris, and the trailer makes it look low-budget. well presented, and a bit of a downer. Just the thing for a quiet summer’s viewing.
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One of the greatest things about Sir Christopher Lee (of which there is a long list) is that he always gave an incredible and committed performance regardless of the quality of the film he was in. As such, whenever someone finds one of his lesser-known works it’s always worth a punt, even if the film is otherwise quite bad. And by golly does this 1977 John Hayes directed movie prove that!
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Want a practical example of why bad films get released under multiple names? This bit of viewing was picked purely on the grounds of there being the word “cyber” in its title; so had it been seen under its “Phoenix 2” or “Droid Gunner” monikers then you wouldn’t be about to read this cautionary tale. Then again, had just that bit more effort been put in by director Fred Olen Ray then the following would probably have been far more positive. It’s funny how life works out like that.
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Trash or Treasure 