Agency of Vengeance: Dark Rising

Score: 2 Out Of 10

          I am going to try something different. I watched a crappy Sy-Fy-channel-esque film and instead of holding to my own standard of what a good movie should or should not be, I am going review it compared to other films of it's caliber. "Agency Of Vengeance: Dark Rising" was written and directed by Andrew Cymek and stars Brigitte Kingsley, Landy Cannon and Julia Schneider. The movie is about a secret government agency whose goal is to protect people from monsters. Summer Vale is their top agent who is a mess after her fiance is killed by a giant monster on their wedding day, but she has to pull it together to stop the impending armageddon. Other than Michael Ironside, there is almost nothing about this movie I like. The story, dialogue and acting are all over the place. Also the special effects, which are terrible, are greatly overused. There is no reason for CGI blood when someone gets shot.

        But when you compare this film to others in the made in the same style (or with a similar budget), it is still really terrible. The film as a whole just feels completely phoned in. It is almost like they were not even trying to make a good movie. The fact that I swear I saw one of the main characters look at the camera more than a couple of times just highlights how bad it all was. To be fair, This is a sequel and I have not seen the first movie, but if this movie is this bad then I do not want to see the original. What really hurts about the whole thing is Michael Ironside. I love that guy. I love most of his movies and the fact that he is in this makes me worry. Is he broke? He could do so much better than this.

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Nurse 3D (10 CC's of Lame)

Score: 3 Out Of 10

           This movie has been sitting in my Netflix queue for quite some time and I finally looked at it and said 'Why not?' after having sat through the entire film I can actually think of several reasons why not. "Nurse 3D (2013)" was directed by Douglas Aarniokoski and stars Paz De La Huerta, Judd Nelson (yes, that guy from "The Breakfast Club (1985)") and Katrina Bowden. The film is about a nurse who also happens to be a serial killer who preys on married men. She becomes obsessed with a new nurse in her hospital and the high jinks begin. Honestly, the writing is bad, the dialogue is all over the place and the acting is just plain horrendous. Everything our main character says is said in this ridiculous sexy voice reminiscent of bad porn star stereotypes. You do not need to sound sexy when ordering medications or asking about a patient. After a few minutes it stops being fun and it just becomes really annoying.

     I understand that this movie was made to look like an old "grindhouse" film from the 1970's but those movies did not just rely on style, although had plenty of it, they had real substance to them. A lot of those films had a point to make (mind you, not always a good point, but a point none the less) and this film just does not. It really is just a bunch of sex and violence for the sole purpose of showing people sex and violence. By the way, if that is your thing then do not let me dissuade you, this movie is right up your alley. But me, I need more than that and this movie just did not deliver for me.

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.
Twitter: @BMovieguy

Wolfcop (All Bark and a Little Bite)

Score: 5 Out Of 10

          I am a pretty big fan of werewolf movies. The problem is that for all the films I have seen from this genre, there are very few good ones. So whenever I come across a new movie I get a little excited thinking there is a chance I could have found another good werewolf movie. "Wolfcop (2014)" was written and directed by Lowell Dean and stars Leo Fafard, Amy Matysio and Sarah Lind. The movie is about an alcoholic police officer who is transformed into a werewolf while investigating a string of bizarre events and uses his new found wolfiness to better solve crimes. By the way, no, this film will not be added to my list of good werewolf movies. The dialogue is awkward and there are too many moments where the acting just becomes laughable. Another problem is that the longer the film goes on the more convoluted the story gets. By the end  of the film I was getting confused over who was who and what was what. Do not misunderstand me, Normally I like a film that requires thought, but this was just plain confusing.

      A big thing I always look forward to in a film like this is the transformation scene. I am happy to report this film features mostly practical effects and the end result is a pretty good (and gory) transformation. My only complaint about it is that the first thing we see transform is the main characters' penis. I get that it was meant to be funny and shocking but my first thought was 'That was unnecessary.' That being said, if there is another thing that saves this movie and it is the humor. There were a few moments throughout where I was laughing for the right reasons, just not enough for me to really be able to recommend this movie to anyone. Hopefully the sequel (announced for 2016) will get it right, because I really do like the premise.

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.
Twitter: @BMovieguy

Arachnid (Giant Spiders Done Decent)

Score: 6 Out Of 10

          I really wanted to hate this movie. From the moment I saw the cover I thought, 'Great, another giant spider movie.' But by the end , I wound up with some mixed emotions. I did not completely fall in love with it, but I did find a lot of positives in this film. "Arachnid (2001)" was directed by Jack Sholder and stars Chris Potter, Alex Reid and Jose Sancho. The plot focuses on a group of explorers who go to a small village in Guam to investigate weird insect bites and soon come face to face with bizarre arachnids in various shapes and sizes. The acting is only so-so but there are some gems in there, one scene in particular where a man has been partially cocooned and his trying to explain his condition to the rest of the team. The writing is a little all over the place. Characters are irrational in one scene and completely together in the next. Overall what really saved this film for me was it's use of practical special effects.

         In 2001, CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) still was not that good looking, especially in low budget films. So the vast majority of the effects in this film rely on puppets and latex and paint and all that good stuff. The end result is genuinely creepy moments. I admit to getting itchy more than once while watching the movie. One scene I really enjoyed was a dream sequence where one character watches another transform into a man sized spider. So, in the end what we have is not a great film  but not really a bad film. If your in the mood for some creepy crawlies and can put up with some awkward digital effects and nonsensical writing, give this film a go.

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Fankenstein and the Monster From Hell (A Big Disappointment)

Score: 4 Out Of 10

  

            I am a fan of horror movies produced by "Hammer Films Productions." More often than not I feel that their versions of the classic monsters are some of the best around. Although once in a while even Hammer lets me down. "Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)" was directed by Terence Fisher and stars Peter Cushing, Shane Briant and Madeline Smith. The film is about a young doctor who begins trying to recreate Dr. Frankenstein's infamous experiment, but is apprehended and sentenced to five years in a psych ward. Once there, he finds the legendary doctor himself and they soon begin work on a new creature. The first problem I noticed with this film is the acting. Peter Cushing is fantastic (as always) as Dr. Frankenstein, but everyone else in the film is just plain terrible, Including the monster. To be fair, I do not put all of the blame on the actor playing the monster (David Prowse).

    If you can not tell by the picture to the right, Prowse was wearing a lot of make up and some prosthetics and as a result it seems he had to play the role with out being able to change his facial expressions, much like he was wearing a mask.  Conveying emotion with out people being able to read your facial expressions is very difficult for any actor, but not impossible (Ex: "The Maskmaker (1959)" starring Marcel Marceau). In addition to (mostly) poor acting the writing was also not very good. Nothing happens for literally the entire first half of the movie, and things do not really begin to pick up until the films climax (the last ten minutes or so). The whole film just feels forced, not as imaginative, or anywhere near as stylized as many of the other "Hammer" horror films that I have seen. In the end, I was just downright disappointed.

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.
Twitter: @BMovieguy

The ABC's of Death 2

Score: 7 Out of 10

          I will start off by saying this film is actually leaps and bounds better than the first. It has more humor to it and there were a lot more good segments than bad ones this time around. "The ABC's of Death (2014)" is an anthology horror/suspense film. If you are not familiar, the premise is that twenty six different directors each made a short film (some of which are only a couple of minutes long) based on one word and then they are presented in alphabetical order. The result is a film like only one other thing you have seen before. A lot of the shorts are humorous, some are genuinely creepy or scary, and a couple made me even want to look away from the screen for all the right reasons. Also there were at least three shorts that I would not mind seeing as a full length feature ("C is for Capital Punishment," "I is for Inheritance," and "V is for Vacation"). Although, despite the vast majority of the shorts being pretty entertaining, there were some hiccups.  

       The couple of animated shorts were just weird and confusing. I really did just sit there after both and think 'What the fuck did I just see?' Even a couple of shorts seemed to be just weird for the sake of weird. Another few shorts had really bad special effects, as if the person(s) who worked on them just did not care at all. Overall, I would say that  I am impressed that a movie comprised of twenty six potential failures rolled up into one film had so few problems. The first one seemed like a real cluster-fuck with a lot garbage hiding the good content but this one seems to be just the opposite. And once again, I did have quite a bit of fun trying to guess what the word was going to be at the end of each short.

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Cockney Vs Zombies (Couldn't Understand A Word)

Score: 8 Out of 10

              Normally I like to go into a movie blind (meaning I do not watch any trailers or read up on the film at all) and just be surprised, but admittedly I saw the trailer for this movie and decided I had to see it. "Cockneys Vs Zombies (2012)" was directed by Mathias Hoene and stars Rasmus Hardiker, Harry Treadaway and Michelle Ryan. The film focuses on a small group of bank robbers and a connected group of nursing home residents who are trying to survive a zombie apocalypse in London. The film is fast paced and funny. The info-graphic/poster to the left should give you an idea of just how fast paced this movie was. But what immediately struck me about this movie was in fact the humor. Ever since "Shaun of the Dead (2004)" there have been quite a few comedic zombie films (some good, some not so good) so when I first heard about "Cockneys" I instinctively rolled my eyes, but the more I watched the film the more I found myself laughing out loud.

      The down side of this film is the special effects. They seem to range to really good and well thought out to bad and completely phoned in. Although, the acting (an jokes) in this movie is so good that even when the special effects did get bad I felt like I could excuse it. I have said many times before, special effects do not really make a movie, good story telling does, and that is what is at the heart of this film. Through out all of it I genuinely cared about what happened to the characters. The combination of humor and a good story are what really put this movie head and shoulders above most other comedic horror films. I might even put this in my top five favorite zombie films.

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Nymph (A.K.A Killer Mermaid)

Score: 2 Out Of 10

         I went in to this movie knowing it would not be good. I know you should not judge a book by it's cover but there are sometimes when you can just tell that a movie is going to suck. This was one of those times. "Nymph (2014)" was directed by Milan Todorovic and stars Kristina Klebe, Franco Nero and Natalie Burn. The movie is about a couple of girls who meet a man and decide to sail away to an island that is home to an old abandoned fort. Once they are there, they become stranded and something begins hunting them. To give you an idea of how bad this movie was, our main character is supposed to be a journalist yet she seemingly has no intuition of any kind whatsoever. This aspect of the film seems to be a metaphor for the entire rest of the film. It is a really nice idea, but it just does not seem to pan out at all. The acting is bad and the writing is all over the place. On the other hand, I have to admit the the cinematography was pretty good. This was a pretty gorgeous film.

       What is really sad is that this film does have a lot of good things going for it. They do not show you the "monster" until late in the film and there is a nice plot twist in there. The problem really is the overall presentation. The film as a whole just feels like a cookie cutter horror movie. I got the impression that the writer sat down, watched a bunch of horror movies and then came up with a formula for how to write his own horror movie. The end result is something that just feels generic and lame. The most eye rolling moment of the film was when the creepy old man warned our protagonists not to sail out to the island. See what I mean?

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy

The Virgin Spring (55 Years Later)

Score: 9 Out Of 10

         February eighth is the fifty fifth anniversary of "The Virgin Spring (1960)" being released in it's home country of Sweden, and believe it or not, I have just sat down and watched it for the first time. "The Virgin Spring" was directed by Ingmar Bergman and stars Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg and Gunnel Lindblom. The film is about a young women who is traveling with a farm hand to her church, but along the way she is raped and murdered. Her attackers, by way of coincidence (or possibly fate), come to be house guests of the their victims' family. No joke, this is the best movie I have seen in a long time. This film is so well acted and directed that one of the most powerful scenes plays out with only two lines of dialogue, yet is one of the most tense scenes I have ever watched. I also found it interesting that the sound cuts out twice during the rape scene. I am not sure if this was intentional but it did make the scene much more unsettling. 

         I was also fascinated by the amount of symbolism in this film, which was not in any way subtle and deeply religious. The film at it's core is questioning the existence of a higher power and by the end reaches some very surprising conclusions. Fifty five years after the initial release of this film it still holds up. If you have doubts about how good this movie is, just remember it is part of the Criterion Collection and it won the nineteen sixty one academy award for best foreign language film. The absolute best compliment I can give this film is that as soon as it ended I immediately wanted to watch it again and with another person so we could discuss how good it was.

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Thale (Scandinavian Horror)

Score: 6 Out Of 10

          This movie has been on an off my radar for a while so I finally decided to sit down and watch it. "Thale (2012) was directed by Aleksander Nordas and stars Silje Reinamo, Erland Norvold and Jon Sigve Skard. The movie is about two men who are hired to clean up a crime scene and stumble upon a mythological creature. It is not long after the mystery of how the creature came to be begins to unravel. Honestly the film is not bad, but overall I felt it was to predictable. I kept guessing everything that was going to happen moments before it actually happened. Also, I had more fun reading the Scandinavian folk lore the film was inspired by than I actually did watching the movie. That is not to say that the film was bad, it was well acted, well scripted and well directed. One thing I found interesting was that through out the first half hour of the movie, the lighting kept moving from light to dark and back again. It made for a disorienting visual effect that really added to the suspense.

     

       Another thing I genuinely liked about this movie is that there is a nude woman featured through out the film. I know that sounds like a typical guy thing to say, but what I specifically liked is that the actress playing the role (Silje Reinamo) was not portrayed as being erotic. The nudity of that character actually played into the story in a logical way and was shot very tastefully. The only things that really bothered me here were the films pacing and the overall predictability of the film. Horror films are best when they have a lot of surprises in them and this one just lacked overall.

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy

Lust Of The Dead (A.K.A. Rape Zombie)

Score: 1 Out Of 10

         There were a lot of things that ran through my mind while I watched this movie. Why would someone make this? Why would someone agree to be in this? Why was this recommended for me on Netflix? I admit, I was completely flabbergasted for the entire seventy three minute run time. "Lust Of The Dead (2012)" was directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu and stars Rina Aikawa, Yui Aikawa and Kazuyoshi Akishima. The film is about zombies taking over the world. The twist (as if you didn't see this coming) is that all the zombies are men and they only attack women. Instead of killing the women, they gang rape them. All of this is caused by climate change allowing radiation from space into our atmosphere, then the radiation affects the male genitalia in a way that turns us into zombies. After being raped, women are turned into evil spirits. That was a series of sentences so stupid I can not believe I just typed them. 

         Every thing about this film is just bad. The concept, the writing, the acting and the special effects (both digital and practical). I get that this movie was meant to be funny, but it opens up with a woman being raped and beaten by her husband. It is pretty hard to laugh at a movie after a scene like that. Seriously, there was not one person on set, maybe someone in the editing room or a producer who said, "wait, you want to film what?" Do not get me wrong, I admittedly have a pretty dark sense of humor but you have to draw the line somewhere. And once again, Why was this recommended for me on Netflix? Because I watched "Godzilla's Revenge (1971)!?"

Love,

   The B-Movie Guy

Daughters of Satan (Tom Selleck Vs. Witches)

Score: 4 out of 10

          When I was in high school I went through a phase where I watched a ton of movies (mostly from the 1960's and '70's) about Satan worshiping witches. Most of them involved the same few themes; people (mostly women) being burned at the stake, naked people (mostly women) being whipped and/or tortured and the numbers "666" being referenced in every way you could imagine (addressees, vehicle numbers, dates, etc.). So, was "Daughters of Satan" any different? "Daughters of Satan (1972)" was directed by Hollingsworth Morse and stars Tom Selleck, Barra Grant and Tani Guthrie. The film is about a guy who works for a museum who buys a painting of a few witches being burned at the stake specifically because one of them greatly resembles his wife. It is not long after that that a spooky mystery begins to unfold. so how does this film measure up to it's contemporaries? Honestly, not well. Most of the movie is pretty boring and predictable. There are a couple of nude torture scenes, but they even seem tame compared to other films in this genre.

            To be completely honest, if it were not for the nude torture scenes this whole movie could have passed for a long episode of "Night Gallery (1962)." There was also no real mystery to the story. By a half an hour into the film you can pretty much guess what is going to happen and how the whole thing is going to end. There are a couple of scenes that are pretty cool (and there is one scene of a mortician singing to a dead body that really had me laughing) but the movie as a whole is formulaic, unoriginal and just down right boring. Even Tom Selleck's amazing, seventies mustache was not able to save this one.

Love,

   The B-Movie-Guy

Twitter: @BMovieguy

P.s.

I could not find a trailer, so here's the whole movie. I'd tell you to enjoy but that's not going to happen.