“I like movies that make America look great. Like “Rambo III”!”
“Teenage Wasteland” is about as inept a slasher movie as you can get, and yet it’s oddly compelling. Once again campers begin disappearing at the hands of Angela, and no one really knows why or wants to know where they went. All Angela has to say is “They went somewhere” and that’s fine for the cannon fodder that appear throughout “Sleepaway Camp III.”
It didn’t take long for “Sleepaway Camp” to mock its own premise, as after the shocking ending to “Sleepaway Camp,” “Unhappy Campers” doesn’t miss a beat in re-introducing Angela. In fact she’s a puritanical camp counselor devoted to stopping the hormonal teenagers running wild in her camp, many of whom want to outdo Angela and run her out of camp with pranks that go awry thanks to Angela’s own clever thinking.
You would think in a time where films like “Blackenstein” and “Dr Black, and Mr, Hyde,” that “Blacula” would be one of the worst blaxploitation titles of its time. Despite the title, “Blacula” is actually one of the strongest vampire films of all time, and one of the creepiest of its sub-genre. “Blacula” is a tragic character drawn a victim to his blood lust who begins turning everyone in to his spawn when he finds himself alive in the twentieth century, and it’s a shock to see such an entertaining movie arise from a concept spun off from Count Dracula.
Jess Franco’s vampire film genuinely doesn’t live up to the hype it’s garnered with horror and film buffs over the decades since its release. It’s a tedious and often dull affair that manages to numb the sexuality due to its incessant filler. The filler is ever present from the opening shots, and is used to pad the film’s run time, from performances in front of crowds, right down to dream sequences, much of it is used as a tactic to pad a thinly veiled “Dracula” remake.
Director William Wesley’s “Scarecrows” is the epitome of a good idea given a poor execution. “Scarecrows” is one of the many scary scarecrow movies that have become a sub-genre onto themselves in the horror genre, and director Wesley paints his tale like an EC Comics story. Though I can think of plenty more films about scarecrows with a better delivery of its concept; particularly “Dark Night of the Scarecrow.”
The Robert Englund starring “Phantom of the Opera” is a mix between “Darkman,” the original “Phantom of the Opera,” with a hint of “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Like the aforementioned film, Englund’s character thrives in dreams, and sports a nasty pizza face that is only slightly darker than Krueger. It’s almost as if Krueger was pulled in to our world, and found a way to live among the mortals through various false faces. Christine Day is an opera singer trying out for a brand new musical, and decides to sing a mythical piece of music called “Don Juan Triumphant.” While performing, she’s knocked unconscious by a falling light that drops her like a bag of rice, and she awakens in ancient times.
It’s great that such a polished film like “Gone Girl” doesn’t opt for a more safe and Hollywood bound climax where we’ve seen a labyrinth of lies unfold in to a new bow. By the time “Gone Girl” has ended, director David Fincher has written his characters in to a corner, and they’re not at any point going to squirm out of it. I loved “Gone Girl” mainly because it’s a murder mystery without the kind of surprises you’d expect. Our characters are amoral and unlikable, and director Fincher has a keen sense of cynicism toward marriage and how it can be a fiasco that devolves in to a play.