Too bad, a modern take on this might have been interesting, if it worked in any way.
A man's decent into evil is revealed, and a woman's revenge is initiated. A little too corny to be truly frightening these days, but a good solid story and build up to the finale. I heartily recommend this movie. Pleasantly surprised.
Second Nature-Perhaps if this was my first "secret agent" or "experiment" movie ever it would have been good. It was pretty predictable, lame romantic interest....some good action scenes though. If you found this on TV and were bored for something to watch, it's not horrible. It's doable, but pretty predictable.
Curdled-By far the most original concept in the group. Woman fascinated by death quits her job as a baker in a bakery, and goes to work for a "unique" maid service company. They specialize in cleaning up really gory crime scenes once the police are done. Quirky, interesting, and I liked it. It didn't blow me away, and the ending was pretty predictable to me (but then again I have seen like a billion of these things) but it was an interesting and sort of humorous concept. I like original and quirky and this fit the bill.
Why didn't the devil's helpers just switch the babies in the first place? Why the whole adoption ruse that would later make the father question where his kid was. I understand he didn't mention to his wife that their baby had died in "childbirth", but why had he never seen his own kid's body or know where it was?
Why did the father cut the hair in the kid's room so the Nanny could sneak up on him after he witnessed the birth mark? Why not just take the kid out for a moment and cut his hair?
Anyway, seemed like some classic horror movie mistakes and inconsistencies.
The acting horrible, the plot been done before and better.....husband sets up wife to get her killed for his book or movie project. Backstabs his best friend et et. Oh, sorry, did I ruin the ending for you. Don't get this movie, I am telling you. Horrible, awful, bizarre in that it seems to offend every group that it could have marketed itself too. Unless, maybe it was a comedy? I don't think so though.
I loved the book, AND I LOVED the movie. There were some truly frightening moments there, and I was glad we didn't go some places it seemed we were going. I also loved seeing my Rome guy, Verenus (?) playing a bad guy. Really brilliant, I thought.
Tourist Trap--Typical in some ways, but this 70s movie preceded it's followers, so I gotta think this is one that is being copied from. The wax theme was done before of course with Vincent Price, but this has a couple different spins on it. Not my favorite movie, but in the interest of seeing a minor classic that has something to do with major themes, I did enjoy it. Again not the best piece of work (and certainly not acting) that I have ever seen.
Mark of The Devil--Note to self, do not take horror movie suggestions from the husband. First of all, I have seen parts of this (really really bad) movie before. This is a sixties movie and a classic cult movie among some. I, personally, can't get past the bad western, sixties, or Gypsy music that is many time inappropriate and distracting during the whole movie. It's all about torture and witch trials in the 1700 or 1600 hundreds (perhaps even earlier), so you can see my objection to the cheesy western cowboy music being used. Boob shots, pretty girls, a couple of sex scenes that were probably shocking at the time, rapes, knives used on females.....yawn. Really really bad acting by pretty girls, and handsome men with nice eyes and other attributes (that are probably 90 years old now).
Have to say, am again sad to have seen it again, but forced myself to see it all the way through, so I would never need to wonder if it's redeeming at all again. Oh yes, well lit sets where actors use candles as that is the period, but of course castles would actually be lacking light, and so candles would have been NEEDED instead of STAGE SETTING for a horrid movie.
It does look somewhat intriguing at parts, but trust me, just walk away. Ick.
I have seen a lot of Asian horror since Audition, which I love (and three extremes). Maybe those copied something like this (though I know Audition most likely came out before). There are certain story lines in these films that take away some of the surprise when you have watched a lot of them. That's true in this movie, though if you haven't been following Asian horror, it's certaintly a worthy one to watch.
Like I got three for three that I enjoyed a previous week; this three for three was a huge disappointment.
1991 There is Nothing Out There, had a fair amount of stars on Netflix. This is tricky for me, because some of the classics or weird/kooky ones that I prefer are frequently low on stars. And then sometimes when I go for the high stars, I do find a gem. Not so this time. I tried twice, and could not pay attention to this movie to save my life. Just seemed like a Friday the 13th type of movie, high on teenagers being killed after sexual acts.
And then the Darkness 1970 was the best of the bunch. But a lot of movies have been made before and since then that have the "twist" ending this one does. Also not kookie enough (like Texas Chainsaw) to get my vote for weird and bizarre. In Texas Chainsaw the whole beginning wierd hitchhiker, where nothing even gets started yet, is one of my favorites. It's just such a bizarre and creepy encounter. This film could have had more of that, it was boring in comparison to others.
Torture Garden 1968 bored me. Probably when I was younger I would have appreciated the classicness of this movie. Anyone interested in classic horror (the orginal draculas, frankenstien's, mummies, wax museum with Vincent Price) will most likely enjoy this movie. I found that these bore me a bit now (well maybe not Frankenstein <G>).
Looks like there is a later American remake out there. There is also a Chinese (I believe possibly Japanese or Korean) movie with a similar subject but not the same and darker. As a whole though, this Brian DePalma movie seems to have been the start of something, unless someone knows of something a bit earlier, and of course I don't want to give the whole concept away.
I was very pleased. Reminded me a bit of the Asian horror movies due to the stringy hair of the killer. But I don't want to give more away than that either. Rent it, you probably won't be sorry. This is one of those finds I get pretty excited about.
3.5 out of five stars. Fun to watch the seventies fashions and "concepts" of that period of time too:)
My only hope is that it is an adaption of a Phillip Margolin novel, who I enjoy as an author but mainly as a large step up from Mary Higgins Clark. One of those plots with many twists that are made somewhat more plausible by this author than others that try this. This movie was done by Hallmark (another mark against it in my former opinion) in 2004 and directed by Armand Mastroinanni (I have started to appreciate how important it is to pay attention to who the director might be, haven't heard of him before, but thinking now that I will keep my eyes open.)
Very well told "mystery" of 172 minutes. This is a long time to keep my attention folks, and it did that. It is your serial killer mystery of something that starts up again (seemingly) 10 years later, a mystery man, various mystery woman, and secrets that go to the top. And despite the corniness of all that, I found it quite good.
I give it a 3 out of 5 stars. Mainly because of the commercial quality of it, whereas I like some horror movies and mysteries to be a bit more gritty and weird. So some might really prefer something like this to say, Texas Chainsaw Masacre, which interested me even more after I saw the documentary on how the project was done, and the lack of funds et. I was never going to watch that movie until husband got me the documentary. Course this movie is nothing like this, just disclosing why my ratings might seem weird to some who do not value some "weirdness" in their horror/mystery movies.
This is not one of those horror movies where good necessarily prevails in the end. And always appreciate that in a horror movie, but they don't tend to be my favorites. Stephen King novels are kind of like that for me (though there are some where someone lives at the end).
So keep all of those thoughts in mind, and if you can get through all this, it is really an orginal and interesting movie in it's dark and quite disturbing way.
Plot was kind of eh eh, but again, I have seen worse and it was entertaining if you are zonsing for a horror movie and just can't find the right thing.
Now I understand how this works, and actually do appreciate it in some movies, and probably including the orginal Black Christmas. As I have mentioned previously though, I like to be "fed" the info when on my entertainment time. I don't like to think too much about it, and get as much of the story as possible. Now the remake of When A Stranger Calls left the mystery intact, and I think that did work in the remake. In fact, I like the remake more than the orginal. I think of the When A Stranger Calls remake as a completely seperate movie really. Better.
The two main things that are different between the orginal Black Christmas and the remake of Black Christmas is 1) we loose much of the creepiness of the "prank" calls (big mistake in my opinion) but 2) we gain a pretty creepy laid out story of the origins of our resident psycho (the story line was creepy and interesting enough to make this work).
I am not going to say this is a must see or anything (to anyone else but me to whom these things are an obsession), but it is an interesting move. As usual, I found the stabbed eyeballs et al the most uninteresting part of the movie, but it is of that genre so I guess you can't leave that out.
I am not a girl that wants a question half answered. Very rarely can I appreciate a film that wants me to use my imagination or fill in the gaps myself. It's not that I don't have a fruitful imagination, because I do. It's just that movie or tv time is the time for me to totally let go, and just enjoy. I want to be entertained, I want everything answered.
Unlike the orginal, this movie does pretty much spell it out for you. Oh, it keeps you in suspense, don't worry. It's a very disturbing movie, and reminded me of a book that I had read about a modern day town that was really populated by Amazon women. You might note the similarity if you see this movie (and now I am going to have to figure out the title of that book LOL.
God lord, just tried to search for this book and can't find it. Woman moves to nice town. At first everything seems fine. Then she notices men are often quite, meek, in wheelchairs, and kept out of sight for the most part. Ceremonies ensue!! Ancient amazon ghosts reside in these modern women. Anyone know the name of the book that I am talking about. It's stepford wives in reverse, and a bit more edgy:)
