The Movie Marathon Thread (1 Viewer)

[Brian Kissinger]

Well Travis, since you bring it up:


Dance of the Dead
Tobe Hooper


This film wants to grab you from the get go, and not let up. Tobe uses fast music, fast pacing and super fast action (the editing was "intense") to try and make you feel like you're on a rollercoaster. Does it work? Yes and no.

You get a great sense of the degradation of times after world war 3, and at no point did I ever find myself going, "No way this would happen." In fact, quite the opposite is true. I could easily see a sub-culture doing this type of "entertainment" today.

The mother daughter plot/subplot isn't really anything you haven't seen before, and it is serviceable. The real pleasure of the film is watching people (especially the M.C. ....played with charm by Robert Englund) take such pleasure in what they are likely to become.

I would say this is the best Tobe has been in awhile.


Favorite Kill Again, not a whole lot of actual killing in this film, but that body burning scene is quite crazy.

Running Body Count
21 deaths
2 animal deaths
1 inappropriate anal sex
2 suicides
1 set of intestines run through film projector

 

[JohnRice]

Where are the posts from Steve's daily "Hotties who get naked" marathon?

 

[Brian Kissinger]

Dreams in the Witch House
Stuart Gordon

There's a lot going on in this one. Other dimensions, the necronomicon, a witch, a rat with a human face, human sacrifice, a hot neighbor single mom, an old guy "praying" that made me laugh everytime (Thanks a lot Monty Python) but wasn't supposed to be funny, and some other stuff.

The one theme that worked for me was not being able to control your actions....even when those actions are things you'd never do. Everything concerning this worked quite well. Everything else (aside from that hot single mom neighbor) kinda fell flat.

I get the idea (pretty common in Lovecraft) of other dimensions right within our grasp, and that there are things there that we want no part of. However, the witch isn't exactly scary. She's not even 1/10 scary as that crazy old lady in The Shining. Hell, she isn't 1/10 as scary as my mother-in-law. The rat (very disappointing make-up from Berger and Nicotero) was distracting, not unnerving. And while I like the idea of the unhappy ending, most of it felt rushed and like they just went, "Shit, now what do we do?"

This has been my least favorite of any yet.

Favorite Kill Nothing really stands out here. So instead I'm going with favorite nude scene....and the hot single neighbor mom wins in a landslide.

Running Body Count
25 deaths
2 animal deaths
1 inappropriate anal sex
3 suicides
1 set of intestines run through film projector

 

[Brian Kissinger]

Man, it took me awhile to get the rest of these in, but I eventually did. I apologize for the abbreviated reviews that follow, but some of these it has been a couple weeks since I viewed.

Imprint
Takashi Miike

Sick Girl
Lucky McKee

Incident on and off a Mountain Road
Don Coscarelli

I've wrote about these 3 before, so I don't have a lot to add to my previous thoughts. I still enjoyed all 3 on the re-watch, but I'll admit I almost had to force myself to get Incident in again. It was better than I had remembered. Alas, Sick Girl didn't hold up quite as well. Once you know where the film is going, it kinda sucks the suspense from it. The characters are still enjoyable, but not nearly as moving as May. Imprint is what it is.


Haeckel's Tale
John McNaughton

This being adapted from a Clive Barker story, I should have expected a "bizarre" story, but I still couldn't help myself from going, "no way." I'm still a little unclear on some things here. For those who have not viewed this yet, you may want to skip the next bit as it contains spoilers.

At its heart, the film is a love story, correct? Our lady is so in love with her dead husband, she has him brought back from the dead so she can have carnal pleasure. Okay. I got no problem with that. But what were the other zombies doing there? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I sensed a big undead gangbang was about to go down. In fact, the non-husband zombies get pissed and kill the new husband when he tries to stop the proceedings and in turn ruin their chance to get down. So did this lady just dig the zombie love? You can't help but feel bad for the dead husband. His wife loved him so much that she had him brought back, but then he just isn't enough for her, and she has to get a bunch of other dead guys too. Poor guy.


The Fair-Haired Child
William Malone

Nothing much new or special here. Unlike the previous tale, you pretty much saw where this was going right away. I'll admit I did find the "fair-haired child" a bit creepy. And the one "face-smash" kill was a hoot. But otherwise, nothing worth noting.


Chocolate
Mick Garris

Believe it or not, this one was (perhaps) the one episode I was most eager to view. I've made it clear earlier that I'm no Mick Garris fan. But this whole shebang was his idea (a big theme was the "no interference" from producers or studio) and I've heard more than once some of his films have suffered (especially Sleepwalkers) from studio mingling. So I could only assume, this guy had something he really wanted to do, and do it on his own terms.

The result? To be completely honest, I'm still not sure how I feel about Chocolate. I'll admit I do like the idea behind it. To actually be "inside" someone. To know what they do, to feel things the way they do, and to experience life through someone else. But here is where I feel the hour limitation hurt. It's never explained if Jaime knows what she is thinking as well as experiencing her emotions. And a little more here and there would have gone a long way in paying off the "murder" scene. And then once they meet, it all feels very hurried, and a little silly. It is certainly one of Garris's better efforts, but I still was underwhelmed.



and finally,


Deer Woman
John Landis

You take a woman who is half human and half deer, have her go to clubs and casinos to pick up guys, and then rip their penises off and kill them. Pure gold. Brian Benben is flat out comic genius in this one. And I don't think I've laughed as hard in a long time as during the scene where Dwight is trying to play out scenarios in his mind.


Running Body Count
47 deaths (give or take)
5 animal deaths
2 inappropriate anal sex
3 suicides
1 set of intestines run through film projector
2 broken penises
1 sex with a spider
1 zombie gangbang

 

[Brian Kissinger]

So here is how I rate em:

1. Deer Woman (John Landis)

2. Homecoming (Joe Dante)

3. Gigarette Burns (John Carpenter)

4. Haeckel's Tale (John Mcnaughton)

5. Pick Me Up (Larry Cohen)

6. Sick Girl (Lucky McKee)

7. Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper)

8. Dario Argento (Jenifer)

9. Imprint (Takashi Miike)

10. Incident on and off a Mountain Road (Don Coscarelli)

11. Chocolate (Mick Garris)

12. The Fair-Haired Child (William Malone)

13. Dreams in the Witch House (Stuart Gordon)