What was the last movie you saw?

[KGeo777]

BAY OF BLOOD 1971 - Finally got around to seeing this proto-slasher. Certainly appears to be a major source of inspiration. The watching eye of a killer reminded me of Black Christmas and a few of the murders likely influenced Friday the 13th. But the story is more thematically deep than your average slasher film given the lack of innocent characters. It seems like the bay itself is the source of the killing instinct, using people to prevent it from being changed. Interesting idea.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Murder Mansion aka Maniac Mansion (La mansion de la niebla, "The mansion of fog," 1972)

Spanish shocker involves a bunch of folks who wind up at a spooky old mansion near a cemetery, mostly due to the heavy fog on the roads around the place. Stories of vampires, witches, etc., but it's not a spoiler, really, to say that somebody is just trying to drive somebody crazy, because that plot twist is quite obvious. Decent atmosphere and, once it gets going, a pretty heavy body count. Only one character with any depth. She gets a flashback to explain her fragile mental state. Overall, not very engaging.

 

[Randy M.]

BAY OF BLOOD 1971 - Finally got around to seeing this proto-slasher. Certainly appears to be a major source of inspiration. The watching eye of a killer reminded me of Black Christmas and a few of the murders likely influenced Friday the 13th. But the story is more thematically deep than your average slasher film given the lack of innocent characters. It seems like the bay itself is the source of the killing instinct, using people to prevent it from being changed. Interesting idea.

I agree with everything you say, but would warn potential viewers, this is a very violent movie. And gory. But the underpinning of plot/story is stronger than any slasher I can recall from the time. Unlike American slashers, Hitchcock's influence is still discernible here.

 

[Randy M.]

The Murder Mansion aka Maniac Mansion (La mansion de la niebla, "The mansion of fog," 1972)

Spanish shocker involves a bunch of folks who wind up at a spooky old mansion near a cemetery, mostly due to the heavy fog on the roads around the place. Stories of vampires, witches, etc., but it's not a spoiler, really, to say that somebody is just trying to drive somebody crazy, because that plot twist is quite obvious. Decent atmosphere and, once it gets going, a pretty heavy body count. Only one character with any depth. She gets a flashback to explain her fragile mental state. Overall, not very engaging.

Yes to all that. The number of coincidences and pre-planning for the woman to arrive at the mansion at just the right time are incredibly implausible, so it's hard to take the movie seriously as a thriller.

 

[Jeffbert]

You've never seen The Magnificent Seven?

No less than three times, but that neither name nor face are familiar.

 

[KGeo777]

I agree with everything you say, but would warn potential viewers, this is a very violent movie. And gory. But the underpinning of plot/story is stronger than any slasher I can recall from the time. Unlike American slashers, Hitchcock's influence is still discernible here.

I am not interested in gore--I suppose if I had seen it in 1971 I would have been shocked by it--but since other movies copied the violence--it didn't matter to me. It no longer could shock.
But the idea was more intellectual than any slasher movie I have seen.

 

[Randy M.]

I am not interested in gore--I suppose if I had seen it in 1971 I would have been shocked by it--but since other movies copied the violence--it didn't matter to me. It no longer could shock.
But the idea was more intellectual than any slasher movie I have seen.

Understood, just thought anyone here not comfortable with gore and violence and thinking it sounded interesting might like the warning. (Although, I suppose the title is kind of a hint ...)

And, too, while in most '80s slashers the characters might as well be named Target1, Target 2 ... for some reason I found the killing in this one more disturbing. Maybe because the underlying premise was more adult and devious than in American slashers.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

TV series - not movie -
Just watched the BBC 1981 series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the Internet Archive.
Pretty good.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : Douglas Adams : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which was broadcast in January and...

archive.org

I just went to find this again and was startled by how many productions there have been.
find your favorite here:
Archive.org - HGTTG video & collections

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Aftermath aka Zombie Aftermath (1982)

Ultra-cheap post-apocalyptic film. Three astronauts returning to Earth discover that there's been a nuclear/biological war. One of them gets killed during the landing. One of the others is played by special effects wizard Jim Danforth. The third is our hero, played by the guy who produced and wrote the film. There are a few "mutants" running around (guys in rubber masks) to vaguely justify the alternate title, but they're a very minor part of the film. Mostly it's about the main bad guy (cult actor Sid Haig, the only familiar name in this thing) and his minions killing men and raping women. Eventually the hero starts a one-man war against the villains.

The movie takes itself very, very seriously, despite the fact that much of it is a blood-soaked exploitation action film. There's dialogue about honor and justice and such. The lack of a budget is apparent at all times. Super-fan Forrest J. Ackerman plays a guy who curates artifacts of civilization. (Probably some things from his own gigantic collection of stuff related to SF/F/horror, I'd imagine, and maybe some of Danforth's stop motion animation models.) The voice of Roger Corman favorite Dick Miller is heard on tape.

 

[KGeo777]

I broke with my tradition of watching old tv shows like Mannix and Cannon (sorry Joe, Frank), and decided to get a couple of chores out of the way.
First up, WAXWORK 2: Lost In Time. Had watched the original last year or so and while I didn't love it, I liked it enough to finally check out the sequel. I had heard many years ago that there was an ALIEN-inspired sequence, and looked forward to it--but it was kind of cheap. In fact, the trouble with the film on a technical level is that it was very claustrophobic like you expect from direct to video productions.
It was obviously a comedy more than any kind of horror film--a few things were amusing like the severed hand dousing the heroine in all sorts of drinks and goo, and Bruce Campbell in a spoof of THE HAUNTING. But it had an extended story that seemed to be a combination of Highlander, the Raven, Masque of the Red Death, Cat People, and lord knows what else. The ending breaks into a music video using footage of the cast shot as they were making the film. It was kind of painful. The most noteworthy thing about it is that they cut to a Nosferatu parody where he has two victims in a bed and one of them is an uncredited Drew Barrymore.

TRICK R' TREAT 2007 - I heard so much about this one that I almost watched it last year but decided to hold out until now. I knew one of the stories in advance so it wasn't a surprise but to be honest, if I had not known, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. I will give it credit for trying to do something Halloweenish with a Creepshow quality and a Pulp Fiction kind of story overlap. There are some few scattered visuals which are effective or would have been memorable in a more traditional film. The opening sequence is the best part , but it just does not work as a scary film. The actors are fine but there isn't much characterization. The litmus test for stories like this would be relating the idea to someone in a few sentences and finding some irony or suspense in it--but that's not really the case here. The big problem with it for me was the over-direction and omnipresent music. Hard to be enraptured by the story when you are hit over the head with the score and constant camera movement. You never feel like you are in a real house or neighborhood--you just know there is about 150 IATSE members out of camera range. So not one I would watch again despite the hype.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

DEFCON-4 (1985)

Canadian post-apocalyptic film also starts with three astronauts returning to a war-ravaged Earth. In this case, one's a woman, and they're aboard a secret space station orbiting the planet, ready to rain down nuclear death on the commies when WWIII breaks out.

(In an effective early scene, one of the men gets a videotape from his wife, who has no idea where he is or if he's even alive.)

It does, of course. The trio, who have been up there more than 400 days, debate whether to return to Earth. This becomes a moot point when somebody takes over the station's control by remote control and brings it down. Once again, one of them is killed right away. In this case, by "terminals," who use him for food.

That's the least of the worries of the two survivors. There's also a survivalist guy with a homemade armored vehicle and a gang of paramilitary types under the command of a very young guy. Not to mention the fact that one of the nuclear bombs on the station, now on Earth, failed to launch and is ticking down the seconds until it explodes . . .

Obviously done on a modest budget (although not anywhere near as poverty-stricken as the previous film) but with interesting characters and plot twists. The default hero starts off panicky and slowly evolves into someone desperately fighting back.

 

[Jeffbert]

DEFCON-4 (1985)

Canadian post-apocalyptic film also starts with three astronauts returning to a war-ravaged Earth. In this case, one's a woman, and they're aboard a secret space station orbiting the planet, ready to rain down nuclear death on the commies when WWIII breaks out.

(In an effective early scene, one of the men gets a videotape from his wife, who has no idea where he is or if he's even alive.)

It does, of course. The trio, who have been up there more than 400 days, debate whether to return to Earth. This becomes a moot point when somebody takes over the station's control by remote control and brings it down. Once again, one of them is killed right away. In this case, by "terminals," who use him for food.

That's the least of the worries of the two survivors. There's also a survivalist guy with a homemade armored vehicle and a gang of paramilitary types under the command of a very young guy. Not to mention the fact that one of the nuclear bombs on the station, now on Earth, failed to launch and is ticking down the seconds until it explodes . . .

Obviously done on a modest budget (although not anywhere near as poverty-stricken as the previous film) but with interesting characters and plot twists. The default hero starts off panicky and slowly evolves into someone desperately fighting back.

The title reminds me of the video rental store where I once lived. All the best action scenes on the video boxes are on the worst films. I am visualizing this one's: an armored guy riding a strange motorcycle is in the foreground. Cannot recall the story, though.

 

[Jeffbert]

Carbine Williams (1952) arrested and imprisoned for moonshine, David Marshall Williams (James Stewart) is doing a long stretch in Federal Prison, where he eventually works in the machine shop. Stuff happens... & he builds from scratch a compact semiautomatic rifle.

Interesting bio. 7/10.

 

[Steve S]

The Creator - enjoyed it, some stunning visuals in places and a thoughtful story. It's definitely worth seeing on the big screen if possible.

 

[AE35Unit]

Insidious, The Red Door (2023)
Red snore more like. The best bit is the closing song, Stay, performed by Patrick Wilson, the star of the film.

 

[Happy Joe]

Earlier this month I purchased Prey (2022). It is actually a pretty good prequel to the predator series.
Even though it was not a big budget production, I like it..
... Not certain how they will get the flintlock in predator 2 back into the hands of the predators... (perhaps a prequel sequel was intended, before the disney buyout of Fox?)

Last week, I received a copy of The Pope's Exorcist (2023) another enjoyable movie IMO...
Russel Crow's character is based on the head exorcist of the Catholic Church , Father Amorth... (quickly scanned through a couple of his books and intend to read them; they look pretty good).

Enjoy!

 

[AE35Unit]

Children of the Corn (2020)
Children of the Yawn more like...

 

[AE35Unit]

Pet Sematary:Bloodlines (2023)
Prequel set in 1969, not bad but also not really necessary

 

[JunkMonkey]

Puma Man (MST3K)
Untamed Youth (MTS3K) Both with No 1 Son. Both terrible films but Untamed Youth had the slight disadvantage of being a little boring. Joel and the Bots were really having to work hard to find material.

 

[hitmouse]

Evil Dead II (1987). Rewatched for the first time in about 30 years. Still excellent.