I’m often surprised at how great “Night of the Comet” holds up. Watching it years after I saw it back in the mid-nineties, I was pleasantly entertained by it, and how it unfolded as that perfect post-apocalyptic tale. It garnered comedy, horror, suspense, and valid villains, all the while reveling in its eighties kitsch. “Night of the Comet” remains an influential apocalyptic horror film, and for good reason. It manages to touch upon the doldrums of the apocalypse while also setting down on some truly entertaining characters.
Tag Archives: N
Nihilism (2013)
Ah the crises of faith. Everyone has it at some point. “Nihilism” deals with the crisis of faith and one woman questioning her world and the deity she prays to. One thing I could never understand is the title. Is it nihilistic to question one’s faith? Is it nihilistic to doubt their beliefs?
Ninja III: The Domination [Blu-ray/DVD Combo] (1984)
“Ninja III: The Domination” encapsulates everything you loved about the eighties. There are ninjas, Sho Kosugi, Aerobics instructors, Lucinda Dickey with puffed hair and an Aerobics uniform playing an arcade in her house, a synth pop soundtrack, and yes, a callback to “The Exorcist.” To reflect upon the fitness-centric decade, Dickey’s character even seduces a man by pouring V8 juice down her body. Teaming a revenge film with a possession film, “Ninja III” is every bit the silly genre mashing I remember from when I was a kid. While I have fond memories of Lucinda Dickey being called upon by her floating sword back then, “Ninja III” watches surprisingly well today. It’s silly as all hell, but in the end it’s a fun eighties trip that you can’t help but smile through from beginning to end. And who didn’t love Ninjas back then?
Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection (2013)
Every three to four years, a new indie filmmaker thinks they can rise up and give a new flavor or angle to “Night of the Living Dead” and provide audiences with a new look at Romero’s classic horror film. “Night of the Living Dead” remakes are cyclical and the last time we had a remotely fresh take on the film was in 1990, and that’s due to the fact that Tom Savini had help from friend George Romero. Every other rehash since has been piss poor, embarrassing, and just damn unnecessary. How many times can we keep watching the same old story? How many new perspectives can you add? It’s impossible to make the 1968 film feel new and original when the first film mastered it, in the first place. “Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection” only has the illusion of presenting itself as a new version of the Romero tale because the entire rehash is now set in the UK. See? It’s not the same old indie filmmakers trying to upstage Romero, it’s new! In truth thiscan’t stand on two legs since it’s anything but a remake.
Naughty Teen (Cara Dolce Nipote) (1977) (DVD)
It’s clear that when One 7 Movies boasts that “Naughty Teen” is a rare sex comedy that many haven’t seen, they mean business. The cover for the film makes “Naughty Teen” look much more gritty than it actually is, and the women on the cover definitely isn’t star Ursula Heinle. Beyond that, the film is generally flawed with some skips in the footage, and both corners of the picture blurred, obviously to distort a television logo or crawler of some kind. Thankfully it’s not a distracting aspect of the picture, and is mostly insignificant if you focus on the film.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
“New Nightmare” is the final installment of the series and something of a meta-movie that pre-dates Craven’s wildly overrated “Scream” series. Rather than deconstruct the slasher film, Craven deconstructs the “Nightmare” series once and for all studying the over saturation of Krueger on the masses of pop culture fanatics and dares to ponder on the notion that the “Nightmare” movies may have actually done more harm than good. Basing most of the film on reality (including the stalker sub-plot), “New Nightmare” breaks down and disavows the series opting instead to depict them as fiction that have taken on a life of their own in the midst of the pop culture overload.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
I spend a lot of time debating and exploring “Night of the Living Dead” to an almost obscene degree. While today it’s been passed around more than a bong at a Grateful Dead concert, has been included in every horror boxed set imaginable, and has been remade, reworked, and rebooted to a sickening degree, somehow George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” has managed to survive it all. It still stands, feet planted, in the ground and taking whatever the film world throws at it. A lot of horror geeks say Romero gets too much credit for “Night.” I mean, in the end isn’t it just a retread of the novel “I Am Legend” and “The Last Man on Earth”? And surely, it’s not the first genre picture to star an African American man in a dominant role. But still, “Night” is just art in motion. It’s still a rich and deeply effective indictment on humanity, and still possesses themes about the inner monster that ring true even in the digital age.