Lordy, did this movie suck. It was allegedly made in 1979, but watching it you’d never know it didn’t come out sometime in the mid-50s. It’s a movie where a big monster eats teens at night after one or two stray from the pack, and connects it with an environmentalist message about the evils of pollution, much like all the big monsters from back in the day were.
The overall film quality doesn’t help matters either. It’s extremely fuzzy, and the colors bleed into each other quite a bit, making it look like a third or fourth generation copy of an old, worn-out VHS. Despite having a full DVD all to itself, it has a similar level of quality as one of those movies you’ll get on a big budget pack, with four movies crammed onto one disc. It is a bit understandable in this case, however. When your monster looks like a rubber plesiosaur with a Fu Manchu ‘stache, I can understand the desire to keep the picture quality down low enough that it’s hard to make out what’s going on.
It’s hard to say who this was supposed to appeal to. It’s obviously meant to be a throwback to the old 50s style sci fi horrors, but those old ones had a cheesy charm to them that’s thoroughly nonexistent here. Even drivel like, say, The Giant Gila Monster, which featured an iguana tearing apart tiny models of buildings, was more entertaining (and, I might add, had better picture quality too, despite shring DVD space with three other films). There’s really only one effective moment in the entire film, and it comes right at the end. After the evil monster is dead, and everyone feels safe, we see a giant egg by the lake starting to hatch. A possible sequel to this film? Now that’s scary.
Rating: Zero stars
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Monstroid
Blue Sunshine
This was a bit of a surprising film. I had gone in expecting a cheapo 70s horror movie, and instead was treated to a cheapo yet rather engaging thriller. I would say it involves a mystery, too, but since the paragraph long description on the back of the DVD case helpfully reveals the mystery for you, that kind of went out the window.
The big mystery, that I will now helpfully reveal to you so that nobody will have it unruined for them, begins when a man suddenly loses all his hair at a party, and then goes on a murderous rampage before being killed by his friend pushing him in front of a truck in their struggle. The friend now goes on the run to try to figure out what caused this odd reaction in his friend, and eventually discovers that it was caused by “Blue Sunshine”, a bad batch of LSD that was being sold to people at Stanford University, and now, after a ten year incubation period, is causing baldness, headaches, and murderous rampages. The dealer, now running for Congress, now wants the hero of our story dead, especially once the politico’s wife goes crazy from it too while our hero is visiting her, and all the various witnesses see is him booting her out a high rise window while holding a bloody knife and then running away. Don’t you just hate it when people randomly jump to conclusions like that, without having all the facts in?
Despite some hiccups caused in large part by a fairly nonexistent budget (whenever the people lose their hair, it all comes off at once, looking suspiciously as though they were all just wearing wigs overtop of bald caps), there is a good deal of tension throughout the film. Zalman King does a surprisingly good job as the lead here, looking more than a little like Sean Penn as he runs around avoiding the police and trying to solve all this chaos. This was, of course, back when he was still acting, and before he became famous for directing and producing a number of softcore erotic films and TV shows with David Duchovny. Simply put, this is a much better movie than one would have randomly guessed from the talent and money involved. It also came with the option, should you choose to take the DVD up on it, of allowing Elvira to cut in and toss out some jokes, as this was taken from her TV show. I chose to watch it without her, myself, as I didn’t want my first time watching to be constantly interrupted like that. You go with your own gut, however.
Rating: ***
Friday, October 5, 2007
Twitch of the Death Nerve
This late effort by Mario Bava has a major historical relevance to it. It’s the first slasher movie, and as such ranks up with Night of the Living Dead as one of the most ridiculously over-imitated horror movies in all existence. If that were all it had to offer, though, I would be an unhappy reviewer today, having to write up two negative reviews at once. Fortunately, however, it actually manages to be fairly entertaining, if not really one of Bava’s best movies.
This is a definitive “body count” movie, as its advertising openly proclaimed that there were thirteen characters, and the fun was to be had watching all thirteen dying in different and generally exciting ways. It didn’t quite hold up to the promise of an exciting new way for each character, as a good chunk of them die from machetes, spears, and strangulations, but the film maintains a good pace, and provides enough humor to make up for any other shortcomings.
The DVD also comes with an essay on the making of the film, in which we can learn just how many shortcomings the film had to overcome. Apparently partway through filming the producer fled with all his money, so there was a great deal of making do and creative maneuvering to shore things up. One thing I was amused by was how, despite the script calling for a good chunk of the film to take place in a forest, they were unable to get permission to shoot in any real forests, so Bava had to improvise by buying branches from a local florist’s and holding them up to the sides of the camera to simulate a forest, something that I was somehow completely oblivious to while watching the film.
It’s not one of Bava’s best movies (he only made one truly great film in the 70s in Rabid Dogs), but it works more than it doesn’t, and it’s just fascinating to watch this and see just how much was blatantly lifted from it for a number of slasher movies from the early 80s (the first couple Friday the 13th films certainly come to mind). It’s not the best starting place for Bava’s work, unless you happen to be a huge slasher fan, but it’s certainly worth picking up.
Rating: ***
Reeker
Man was this a chore to get through. It’s both a shameless rip off of any number of much better movies, and filled with such sad attempts at juvenile humor that, had I not already decided to review it before putting it in the DVD player, I probably would have left it partway through to eat until I felt happier. You people have no idea what I go through in life, watching drivel like this, so that you can be better informed and know not to.
The plot concerns a group of college kids that join up together to share expenses on a road trip to a big festival type party, only to have their van break down in some isolated road where they run afoul of a shambling monster called the Reeker that goes around killing them one by one. It’s called the Reeker because it smells so terrible that its scent warns them whenever it’s nearby. Not exactly a film that understands the concept of ‘subtlety’, they show its odor not only by having the characters mention it, but also by having them start coughing really unconvincingly like the actors had seen movies of people smelling really foul things but had never personally experienced anything worse than a gassy fart. Just in case that wasn’t enough to drive the point across, however, the creature also shimmers in the sun like a mirage, as the director evidently decided that his special effects budget would best be put to use by animating stink lines around it. This is the kind of delightful quality this film brings to the table.
It also features a blind character for the sole reason of repeatedly letting us know that his other senses are super enhanced like Daredevil now, so they can all handily use him to sniff out the beast just in time for it to kill another of them. Add to this an opening throwaway death scene of a family that was so beyond clumsily handled and awful that I wanted to return the movie right then and there, and an ending that shamelessly rips off Jacob’s Ladder by way of Dead End, which accomplished nothing but to remind me of much better movies I could have been watching right then. It is a big, confused, muddled mess of a film, with no redeeming values to it at all. Do not see this film.
Rating: Zero stars
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Hunger
I have a bit of a problem with vampire movies. When I watch a horror movie, I have this tendency to want the monsters in it to be scary and nasty, and yet the bulk of vampire movies tend to make them Anne Rice rejects that go around sexing it up and being all goth. There are, of course, some notable exceptions, such as the Nosferatu films, but for the most part vampire films spend way too much time trying to be sexy instead of being scary. Now, which of those two possibilities does this film fall under? Well, considering that it opens with a bunch of goths dancing to Bauhaus at a club, I think we can write off the scary aspect.
It’s rather curious to see such a great deal of talent being so misused in this film. I normally like Tony Scott’s movies, but this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen from him (granted, it was his first feature length film, so I guess he has a bit of an excuse). He fills the movie with an array of incredibly pretentious music and supposedly dreamlike imagery in a poor attempt to fill the film with a gravitas that it in no way has. It’s also an incredibly muddled film; close to halfway through the film, when Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon meet, the film completely forgets what it has been about up to this point in favor of setting up a lesbian angle between them (after what I’ve been watching this week, I am beginning to suspect that all women the world over are one step away from becoming full blown lesbians) that completely fails to work as, despite having Catherine Deneuve in it, it also has Susan Sarandon. The ending comes out of nowhere too, in a clumsy attempt to remember what was going on at the start of the film and trying to shoehorn it into the lesbian act. Just rubbish.
Also, I’m a big Bowie fan, but, while I did like his character in this (for what small a role he had), he’s not exactly known for appearing in good movies, and this one is no exception. Save your money.
Rating: *
School of the Holy Beast
My lone previous foray into the world of nunsploitation films, The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine, was moderately entertaining, but really didn’t go far enough into the shocking and taboo-shattering stuff that one could presume would be featured in a genre whose sole purpose is to be all blasphemous and show nuns kinking it up bigtime. I guess I should thank the Japanese the next time I meet one then, because this movie is every bit as wonderfully perverse as you could ask for from such a film.
The plot at first feels like the standard “righteous individual infiltrates cult to expose it” story, with young Maya joining the Sacred Heart Convent in an effort to find out what happened to her mother there that lead to her death. What really works nicely, though, is the slow discovery that Maya is every bit as crazy as the people she’s investigating. Her chosen method of revenge against the people who wronged her mother is, shall we say, different (I would never reveal it here, but damn, it was a little messed up).
Along the way, of course, we are treated to all the things one could hope for in a movie about lustful nuns, including lots of whippings, lesbianism, rape, a dirty priest, and so on and so on. I’m not sure why naughty nuns are so hot to me, it’s not like I went to Catholic school or anything to really develop any kind of love-hate relationship with them. One thing I think I can say with some certainty, though, is that between this and Ilsa I’ve been opening up about my own weird fetishes way too much with all of you this week. Just accept that this is a good movie, if you’re into this type of thing, or think you might be, and we’ll all call it an overly uncomfortable, needlessly revelatory day, shall we?
Rating: *** ½
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Race With the Devil
In this movie, Peter Fonda and his wife and friends go on a vacation in an RV, only to run afoul of a band of devil worshippers that chase them through the boonies. If that doesn’t sound like a totally awesome premise to you, then I just don’t know that we will ever meet eye to eye on anything. To be sure, I had bought the movie because I had misheard the premise and thought that the Satanists (I know, it’s not PC to view Satanists and devil worshippers as synonymous, but fuck those pretentious idiots) were also bikers, which is about the only way to take this thing to an even higher level, but as it is it’s a pretty damn good thriller all the same.
I probably should throw in a spoiler warning for this paragraph, even if it’s something that becomes pretty obvious pretty early on. Anyway, while I was initially disappointed at the lack of vengeful, demonic bikers (and the subsequent tragic realization that we weren’t going to be treated to a horror twist on his old biker movies like Easy Rider), the fact that apparently every single person in the entire town is a part of this dark coven was pretty damned awesome, and made for some really effective moments, the best of which is when one of the characters decides to go swimming in the town’s public pool, only to slowly realize that every person there is silently staring at her. The idea of the non-believing sheriff, long a staple of dumb movies, is here nicely turned on its ear when Fonda figures out he was just lying to them all.
That said, there are some definite problems with this film, mainly that it opens up slowly. Really, really slowly. Before the Satanists arrive, we are treated to a too-long prologue showing them deciding to go on vacation, everyone getting together, and going on the big grand road trip adventure. They finally make it out to the sinister wilderness, but it’s still daytime, and no self-respecting cult member would sacrifice a virgin to their dark elder god until nightfall, so in the meantime we get Fonda and his pal Warren Oates riding around on motor bikes for a ponderously lengthy time. If you are to watch this, I could not recommend strongly enough that you skip ahead to the big cultist gathering, and give the dull nonsense at the start a pass.
To be fair, once it gets going, there are two really good chase scenes, first when the vacationers are discovered by the cultists and have to hightail it out of there while the cultists angrily smash out their windows, and then at the climax, when seemingly half the town takes to the road for a big highway chase. So it’s nice that a good two thirds of the film are good, though it’s a shame about that last third. Still, though, at its price its well worth the investment.
Rating: ***
Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS
So here’s the thing. At one point, I was indeed aware that this was a full-blown porno, but somehow I managed to forget this fact over the years, and came to believe it was just a standard 70s exploitation film. Imagine my surprise, then, when I bought it expecting nothing more than another sleazy 70s grindhouse type film and just got nudity and sex every two seconds to go along with the Nazis performing grisly experiments on their victims. Call it a nice bonus, I guess.
As might be expected, the plot (based on factual events, according to the film, as it lies to our faces) centers on Ilsa, the head of a Nazi prison camp who delights in sadistically abusing her prisoners and performing various experiments on them. Her stated goal, in defiance of the Nazi patriarchy, is to prove that women have a higher pain threshold than men, and so would presumably make better soldiers or something. I’m not sure where she was headed with this, really, as I have a sneaking suspicion that it was only a thin pretense to enable them to show scenes of men and women being tortured a whole lot, in a variety of different ways, be it by pressure chambers, heat chambers, whippings, etc. Whippings especially. This film, as one could expect from a Nazi porno, is extremely fetishistic, with a great deal of care taken to their various uniforms and to a great deal of bondage (Ilsa herself is renowned for bringing male prisoners to her bedroom, and then having them castrated afterwards for not pleasing her enough, until she meets a new American prisoner who can boss her around and fully dominate her in the sack).
In the knowledge that it was based on factual events (the only change was that the various events were condensed into one locale), it was a bit eye-opening for me to discover certain things about World War 2 that I had never before known. One such thing is how, when whipping prisoners, the female Nazi officers would strip topless, presumably so their arms would be less constricted. Another is the knowledge that, back in the 40s, every last woman in existence seemed to be at least a C-cup, leading me to believe that Russ Meyer may have actually been a documentarian rather than a nudie director with a love of big topsails. One thing I had been aware of, and which the film backs up, is that all women back then wore big old bloomers that completely covered them and preserved their modesty, which was rather amusing both because of how frequently they were stripped of them anyway, and for how I live in an age where an eye patch would often be considered an overly modest piece of female underwear, and I must laugh at past generations for their lack of my futuristic space age knowledge.
So yes, the film certainly has its share of amusing moments to go along with its heavy amount of sleaze (though let’s be honest here, it’s not really any sleazier or more misogynistic than most porno films), but overall the film is a bit lacking. It doesn’t go far enough with its grotesqueries to be a match for any of its more notable exploitation peers, and most of the women weren’t really attractive enough to make the nudity palatable enough to justify its existence. It’s kind of an ‘eh’ movie, quite frankly. Despite my love of women in Nazi uniforms, I find I simply cannot recommend this film. You should all look elsewhere for your Nazi fetish porn.
Rating: *
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
I’ve been hoping to pick this film up for some time, as this one and only team up between Hammer Studios and the Shaw Brothers ranked pretty highly on my Hammer-films-I-must-see-someday list, but for some reason I’ve been consistently forgetting to purchase it for a couple years now. Well, the wait is over, and I have to say, while there were a few stumbling blocks, this film does manage to mostly live up to the expectations I had for it.
As one might expect from such a colossal team up as a British horror company and a Hong Kong martial arts company, it features Peter Cushing as Van Helsing venturing forth to China to do battle with both vampires and ninjas, accompanied by his own posse of Chinese kung fu masters that he befriends along the way. While I don’t know that I necessarily need to continue this review beyond that sentence, let me also note that, despite Christopher Lee turning down the role of Dracula, leaving it in the hands of a guy whose makeup leaves him just shy of being a full-blown drag queen, the overall blend of the two companies winds up working out pretty well.
Dracula, as he should when not being played by Lee, kind of takes a backseat to the title vampires, who I must admit kind of disappointed me when I first saw them. I guess it’s just me, but I had kind of had some high hopes of an awkward cultural clash of Dracula venturing out to China to revive and rule over the 7 Golden Vampires, only to be a little put-off when they all came back to life and began hopping around instead of walking. Sadly, the Chinese vampires in this film are fully capable of walking, which was kind of a let down. Sure, the zombie hordes they dredge up out of the ground hop occasionally, but they mostly do this weird little shuffle thing that manages to look rather adorable more than anything else. Still, though, they look pretty vicious, and are pretty nasty when they actually wade into battle with swords, because fuck just using their hands and teeth, right? One other thing I found rather amusing about them was how, rather than get their victims through a dark seduction like European vampires have historically done, the 7 Golden Vampires just sort of charge at women, rip open their blouses, and leer at their tits a bit before dragging them back to their unholy temple to drain them of blood. It’s that kind of interesting cultural difference that I always find so fascinating when watching films from other countries.
The big, expansive battles, which are the main focus of the film, come off well, and despite the ease with which Cushing’s posse of kung fu brothers (and younger sister, who oddly enough despite being unmarried has a different family name) are able to take down a band of ninja early in their voyage, quite a few of them start getting killed off once the vampires actually start to throw down with them. While Cushing’s obviously going to make it through this alive, in the hopes of milking another few face-offs with Dracula down the road (which didn’t end up happening; not only was this Cushing’s last film for Hammer, but Hammer, whose popularity had been in decline since the rise of the more gore-drenched horrors of the 70s, closed down its horror branch a mere two years later), none of the other characters are particularly safe, which the film uses to its advantage, adding a level of uncertainty and grimness to the affair. A few minor problems aside (such as the spoilers in the following paragraph), this is a really good, well-made film.
One other thing about the ending, for those of you that don’t mind being spoiled: I realize that the 7 Golden Vampires were the main villains for this, and not Dracula, but when it comes time for him and Van Helsing to have their big climactic throwdown once the other vampires are all taken care of, can’t it at least go on longer than ten seconds? Jesus.
Rating: *** ½
Frankenstein Created Woman
Sign # 53 That You’re Jogging Too Much: Both knees crackle like you just added milk to them when you take your socks off to shower. Not good. It’s good, then, that this film was quality enough to take my mind off how my quest for a trim belly is slowly ensuring that I’ll have none of my original leg joints when I’m forty.
I’ve always enjoyed Hammer Studios’ take on Frankenstein, as they gave him a more gentle edge and had him and the monster slowly becoming friends together over a series of years. It’s an interesting twist on the whole story. This one, late in the series, dispenses with the monster altogether, in favor of having the doctor taking up shop in a small ignorant town with another doctor and an assistant, experimenting on a new bid to cheat death by capturing the soul shortly after the end of life before it can move on. This comes in handy when his assistant is falsely accused of murder and is executed, with the assistant’s girlfriend, witnessing his death by guillotine, throwing herself in the river as a result. This proves invaluable to the good doctor, who now has a soul available for capture in his wrongly executed assistant, as well as having a fresh body to place it in, in his girlfriend (why he couldn’t have put the soul back in its original body is unclear, but as Frankenstein has gotten in a spot of trouble here and there in the past for just such things, I’ll leave him to his own judgment on such matters). Sure enough, the experiment has its problems, as the newly-revived girl, possessed by the spirit of their assistant, now takes his revenge on the three punk rich kids who had actually committed the murder and got him wrongfully convicted.
It’s the acting that really elevates this to one of the top tier Hammer Frankenstein movies. Peter Cushing had already had a good deal of experience with the character; here he is so manically obsessed with his work that he’s still reading up on it while on the witness stand. The three punk rich kids are all suitably loathsome as well, with their obnoxious laughter sneering at the stupid commoners they are surrounded by, and their delicious fear when they realize what’s now going to happen to them as a result of their wicked misdeeds.
This isn’t a great film, but as I was only expecting an adequate movie and nothing more (it came as the first feature in a two-pack of Hammer films along with The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, making it the best double bill I’ve gotten from them since The Devil Rides Out/Rasputin the Mad Monk), it certainly exceeded my expectations. It’s got everything you could ask for from a film like this – quality acting, a good visual flair (something Hammer films were always known for), and an appropriate amount of ghoulishness from the unsavory proceedings going on. It’s well worth checking out, particularly given that it comes with an equally good second feature.
Rating: *** ½
Monday, October 1, 2007
Night of the Demons 3
I should probably get this right out of the way from the start: this is not as good of a movie as the second film is. We can evidently have one superior sequel, but this one brings the quality level back down to below that of the first movie, which I’m not particularly fond of. It’s a damn shame is what it is, though this film does have a few good things going for it all the same.
The first, and most obvious, thing to praise about the film is the nice level of casual nudity pervading the whole effort. After the opening throwaway death and credits are done with, we’re immediately whisked off to two of the female stars, who proceed to get naked, look in the mirror, and discuss each other’s bodies, something I’m sure every one of my female readers has done with her lady friends on any numbers of occasions. It’s a good thing that the film throws such a good amount of nudity at us, as the main part of the film is a bit of a chore. After a panicked shootout at a liquor store (during which, naturally, the brother is the only one to get shot), a gang of obnoxious assholes (and the two women from earlier, who the assholes had picked up right before trying to buy booze) decides to hide from the cops in Hull House. Now, here’s one thing that bugs me about the cast we have dumped on us in this movie. They are all familiar with the legend of Hull House, and even if they weren’t the supposedly less hot of the original two females panics as they’re entering the grounds and tells the rest all about it to try to convince them all to turn back. Despite this, however, when Angela shows up and casually mentions that she lives there, everyone just automatically trusts her, and has no problem whatsoever with wandering off alone with her. Including the panicked girl from before. These people are a piece of work. About the only even vaguely interesting person, aside from Angela of course, is a cop that’s ominously on his last day of the job, and is hoping to bring the kids in safely so that the less forgiving cops on the force don’t try to gun them all down for the mess at the liquor store. Even he’s not all that interesting, but at least he’s not an annoying twit like the others that he’s foolishly putting his life on the line to protect. Seriously now, it’s like a group of teens deciding to party at Camp Crystal Lake in Jason XI, and figuring the quiet guy they find there in the hockey mask is a pretty okay dude to try to hang with. Completely rubbish.
There are some good death scenes, yes, as these things always have, and that combined with all the nudity on display makes the film watchable, if nothing else. Still, it’s really not worth your time, unless you happen to already be fond of the first two (and really, who wouldn’t be fond of at least the second one?) and want to be a total completist about it. I can certainly understand the appeal in that, considering that’s why I bought this, but don’t be expecting anything actually good.
Rating: * ½
Night of the Demons 2
Faithful readers may have noticed that I have a bit of a weak spot for bad horror movies. While this has led me astray more times than I can count, it has served me faithfully today, as it led me to purchase this, now in its first ever DVD release. I had had fond memories of seeing it way back in the day on HBO or Showtime or somesuch channel like that, and remembered liking it better than the first one (one benefit of horror movies: it’s the only film genre where the sequels are better than the originals with any level of frequency), but hadn’t seen it in a good decade now. Fortunately my memory has served me well here, unlike so many other of my childhood films, for this movie is indeed a superior sequel.
Just as a quick recap for those who haven’t seen the original: a group of teens goes to an abandoned funeral home on the edge of town for a small Halloween party, raises the dead via use of a ouija board, and everyone begins getting possessed by demons and most of the characters died. Jumping ahead a few years, we’re now at a Catholic school that’s getting ready to host its annual Halloween dance (Is this really that popular a holiday at Catholic schools?), and naturally one group of teens wants to sneak out and party at the villainous Hull House, now haunted by Angela, one of the possessed from the first movie. While much is made about how the demons there can’t leave the grounds due to an underground stream surrounding the place (demons can’t cross running water, don’t you know), some dope of a woman swipes some lipstick from the place, and this somehow enables the evil to escape.
Right there is one of the reasons this movie is superior to the original. The first one played for very low stakes, as all someone had to do was get past the underground stream and they were safe. Wasn’t nobody in danger except a group of idiots that blatantly placed themselves in danger. With them capable of running loose, however, the world entire could be in peril, and if the film sadly backs away from this near the end, then at least they tried, damn it. Naturally, being a sequel, there’s an increased amount of violence to go along with this greater threat (and an increase in the nudity factor, which never hurts), giving the movie an extra bit of spice.
Another thing that makes the film much better is the stronger humor on display here, and is never better than when the idiot teens get the aid of a Super Nun, who, if not quite as awesome as the kung fu priest from Dead Alive, is still pretty rough, even when faced with the threat of decapitation. There’s also some great moments, like when a girl says, “This is so romantic” while getting it on with her boyfriend in an old abandoned building where a bunch of murders had taken place while a thunderstorm is raging on Halloween night and while a demon women watches them from the corner, though to be fair, it’s uncertain whether they knew she was there or not. I clearly need to start dating Catholic girls, they seem to definitely be my type of women. To fully round out the characters, we also get a priest who’s so casually dismissive and nonbelieving of anything anyone says, no matter how much evidence is thrown in his face, that I suspect he may well have once been a policeman in a Lifetime original movie. Hell, even when he directly sees a statue of the Virgin Mary weeping blood, which I would imagine most priests would regard as a rather big deal, he casually dismisses it as vandalism and tells everyone else they’re crazy for believing in demons. This is clearly the type of person you want trying to convert people to Christianity.
It’s good that the movie works so well, because the DVD does not. One would think that, after the format being around for a good decade now, we’d be getting nothing but quality product, but Lion’s Gate evidently decided to just port a VHS copy of the film onto DVD. It’s full screen, and not extremely sharp, because they’re cheap bastards. Still, it’s the only version of the film you’re going to find anywhere, so enjoy it in whatever form you can get. Also, just as an October bonus, and at the request of a friend, I’ll be going against my judgment and start assigning star ratings to my reviews, so you can all ignore everything I write and just snap up the stars like they’re goddamned Pokemon or something.
Rating: ***
