Phantasm II (Blu-Ray) and a story

I got a copy of this today from a friend as an early birthday present.  I'm going to do a proper review next week, but it reminded of something amusing.

When Phantasm II was released in theaters back in 1988, I was in high school in Joplin Missouri.  The theater that would be showing it was massively promoting it the entire week before it opened.  They promised a big surprise for everyone there on opening night.   My friends and I were already excited to see it, so this got us even more amped up for it. 

The theater showing it was on the mall, but it only had two screens.  There was no stadium seating, and it was very cramped.  This theater usually only got the worst movies, only occasionally did it get something good. 

They were hoping that this would be a big draw, it was summer and it was the only horror movie coming out that month.  We arrived for the first showing that night and were shocked at the turnout.  Other than me and my friends there was only a handful of people in the theater.  The theater was obviously expecting a bigger turnout.  

Suspended above the seats was a huge net full of balloons. They were all silver balloons, blown up to about the size of "The Ball".  The theater manager came out and explained that hidden inside one of the balloons was a ticket.  Whoever got the balloon with the ticket would get a t-shirt, poster, and a press kit from the movie. 

The theater manager, complete with looked like a "Mr. Microphone" then said "Ladies, release the balloons".  Two young ladies pulled on different corners of the net and down they came.   Chaos ensued as everyone scrambled to sort through the balloons.  This went on for longer than expected, seeing as the theater was less than a 1/3 full.

Sadly, I didn't find a special balloon.  I have however, never forgotten that night at the theater..

Grave Encounters/Grave Encounters 2

After hearing about these for some time I finally decided to set down and watch them this weekend.

Grave Encounters

The Plot:
The cast and crew of the ghost hunting show Grave Encounters spend the night in the supposedly haunted  Collingwood asylum. They get more than they ever bargained for at Collingwood though. 

My Thoughts:
While I generally don't like the found footage genre, I was surprised with Grave Encounters.  The start of the movie is a great send up of every ghost hunting show you've ever seen.  Watching the crew bribe gardeners, coach the fake psychic, and stage the "scary" shots was great.  When the ghost inevitably arrive there are quite a few good scares. 

and that's a wrap!

The crew avoided doing typical horror movie cliches and they reacted realistically to the ghosts. The only complaint I have is that the last act was too long.

Grave Encounters 2

The Plot:
A group of film students sets out to prove that the film Grave Encounters  actually happened.

My Thoughts:
As much as I enjoyed the first one, the sequel left me flat.  It was to meta for my taste. Starting the movie off with people reviewing the first movie just killed it for me.  They took the shaky camera to the extreme too.   Motion sickness does not endear a movie to me.  Also I'm pretty sure  film students wouldn't record themselves buying pot.

They should definitely stop here and not try to squeeze any more life out of this concept.  

Monstervision

Some fun news for fans of Joe Bob Briggs and Monstervision.  Joe Bob has started putting up transcripts of the Monstervision episodes on his website.

Monstervision Transcripts

I remember watching these back when they aired.  A good friend and I would meet up and spend the evening listening to Joe Bob explain just why these movies were terrible, but fun.

The transcripts aren't quite the same as watching Monstervision, but still fun. 

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the CHUD

This featured a who’s who of “B” TV stars and a cameo by Robert Englund. It wasn't available on DVD in the United States until recently. 

It's now available as part of this eight film set. 






I remember "The Unholy" being decent and having fun watching "Waxwork" 

It will be fun to re-watch these now that I'm older and see how I feel about them now. 

Piranha 3D

The Plot:
After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents.

My Thoughts:
Ok, so first of all why was Richard Dreyfuss in this movie? Did they offer him a dump truck full of money, and was it just to have someone from "Jaws" in the movie? Christopher Lloyd sounds and acts like he was playing Doc Brown again. About a third of movie is like watching a girls gone wild video, which makes some sense, Jerry O'Connell's character was supposed to be making a "Wild Wild Girls" video. They really went out of their way to amp up the nudity though. I can only imagine the unrated DVD version.

My biggest disappointed though was the effects. A lot of the effects looked really bad in this. One scene of a boat sinking was so obviously fake it should have been in one of the "Shark Attack" movies.

The bottom line with this movie is that is was made for teenage boys. It's packed with tons of boobs and gore, and not much else. Although they may not be cheering after they see what happens to Jerry O'Connell's character.

Also, Elisabeth Shue wins the Sara Conner bulk award for this movie.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

I have to say that I was disappointed with this film for a number of reasons. The first is the back story of Freddy. Changing him from a child murderer to a garden variety child molester was a mistake. I had always just assumed that Freddy was a pedophile AND a murder. That was what made him doubly frightening. This Freddy was the same guy you see on Dateline getting caught by Stone Phillips. It's also hard to believe that all of the children just erased the memory of Freddy and what he'd done to them.

Another problem was the effects. The effects were serviceable, but nothing spectacular. Watching the original movie you were amazed at what they could do with such a small budget and no computer effects. Now I don't mean the whole movie should have been "green-screened" but they could certainly have tweaked the dream world a bit. Freddy didn't really seem to do all that much. For someone who could control dreams, he didn't take advantage of that much. In the original this was due to lack of budget, but surely they could come up with something scarier than the boiler room now.

The actors didn't really seem to shine either. They did an acceptable job, but no one really stood out.

In the end this felt less like a remake and more like another one of the sequels to me.

Daybreakers

The Plot

In the year 2019, a plague has transformed most every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save humankind.

My 2¢
I was very disappointed with this movie. It's the perfect example of having a great concept, but not knowing how to execute it properly. The characters all came off as one dimensional, without a lot a motive for their actions. There was no real chemistry between the actors either. Willem DaFoe was just there to be the prerequisite half crazy guy he always is. Claudia Karvan played the leader of the human resistance, and she was so calm it didn't seem like the Vampires were a threat to her. Ethan Hawke never really seemed to change emotions either, he was sullen and sleepy through the whole movie.

I won't say what it is, but the "Cure" for the Vampirism was in two parts. The first part of it I didn't understand how it worked, and they certainly never tried to explain it. They also relied on a lot of cheap scares, where suddenly something made a loud noise and jumped towards the screen.

I'd give this 1 1/2 out 4 stars mostly for the visuals of the Vampire controlled world.