Nightbreed is a movie that was doomed to obscurity for several reasons: one being a horrible marketing campaign ( the movie was marketed as a slasher film when it is actually an alternative super hero movie), and the studio did not give Clive Barker final cut when he was directing it, so the studio cut out a lot of what Barker originally wanted in it, as well as changed how he wanted things to be (i.e. the ending). This film is based on a short story by Clive Barker (originally titled Cabal), about a man who is being mislead by his evil psychiatrist to think that he (the client) is responsible for a series of murders lately. The man also has recurring nightmares about inhuman creatures and a place called Midian, the man ventures out to the town where the murders occurred and it just has to be next to "Midian" a cemetery, the man wanders through the cemetery and gets attacked by two creatures who threaten to kill him, after being bit by one of the creatures though, the man learns he can no longer die and he becomes one of "The Nightbreed" and joins them in their underground city of Midian. The man (known as Boone) then has to help defend Midian against his evil former psychiatrist who hopes to destroy Midian.This film is part slasher film, but the more overwhelming important part of the film/plot is that it is an alternative super hero movie (think if Clive Barker made The X-Men, or if the cenobites from Hellraiser were good guys). The creaures, or "mutants", in the movie
tell the viewer that they've always been around but misunderstood by man, and that because of mankind's ultra violent treatment towards them the creatures, they had to retreat underground. The movie is one of the few major acting roles for acclaimed horror director David Cronenberg (he's the main villain), his acting is pretty horrible when he plays the doctor, but when he plays the killer his acting improves ten fold.The movie has a great 90s vibe to it, some offbeat humor, an interesting concept as well as characters, and AMAZING costumes special effects and makeup. The underground city definitely is reminiscent of the bar in Mos Eisley in Star Wars a New Hope. Danny Elfman also scored the film. This film was a commercial and critical failure when it came out, but it has since become a cult classic. For years a special print of the movie known as "The Cabal Cut", has been touring and playing exclusively on the convention circuit for the last five to ten years, ( a print that has restored as much of the movie as they can find over the years, [the negatives of the film were destroyed in a fire). Well I mention this because later this year The Cabal Cut will finally be getting an official DVD release sometime later this year. I generally love Clive Barker's movies (his dissatisfaction with this film led to him only directing one last film after this one), and this film is pretty great, the only thing I dock it for, is having some minor-moderate logic flaws/plot holes. Other than that though I give it a 4.25/5: you can view the trailer below:
There are tons of classic movies based on works by Stephen King; Carrie, Cujo, The Shining, Christine, Pet Sematary, Firestarter, Creepshow, Children of the Corn, The Dead Zone, Salem's Lot, Silver Bullet, The Green Mile, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis, IT, Misery, and The Running Man, to name "a few". But until 1986 Stephen King was just a writer and every movie adaptation of his work to that point had been made by other people, this movie changed all that. Now imagine you were a producer in 1986 and Stephen King came into your office saying "I'm not happy with any film versions of my work so I'd like to direct my own film, adaptations of my work have been so successful, just think how good this one'll be! And it will be starring 80s young hunk Emilio Estevez, and it will have soundtrack done by my favorite band AC/DC!" Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Well you're right, it has all those elements but Stephen King is what he is, a writer, plus he tends to prefer the worse movie
versions of his work, (He hated Kubrick's version of the Shining and prefers the made for TV Tim Roth version). This is the first and only movie King himself has ever directed. This movie has become a cult classic primarily only because of how bad it is. It does have some things going for it, the cars are cool, the special effects and explosions are cool and stuff like that. The film's plot is very confusing as the movie progresses, at first all technology on earth goes crazy because earth is passing through the tail of a very unusual comet, but as the plot goes on it becomes clear the machines have minds of their own and aliens are somehow involved, taking away most of the story's believably. Everyday objects are running on their own and they're all deadly too, this is meant to instill a fear of the stuff we take for granted, and it partially works. The trucks are scary, an electric knife/saw goes nuts, and a man is fried by a pinball machine, but it reaches a point where it all becomes laughable. A man is killed by a soda vending machine shooting him in the crotch, seen here:
There's a killer ice cream truck, and a man is laying dead on his front lawn having been run over by his own lawnmower, and the very first scene of the movie is Stephen King himself trying to get money from an ATM and instead of giving him the money the machine calls him an asshole repeatedly, seen below:
Plus the film is just plain gross at times, there's a scene where Emilio Estevez is talking to a man on the toilet doing "his business" which is unfortunately audible. The music is great though, the explosions and stuff are cool, the main truck has the face of the Green Goblin from Spider Man on it, but that's about it for this one. I give it a 3.25/5. I do recommend the trailer though, Stephen King is hilariously crazy in it, seen below:
The second Crichton film I saw recently was the movie Coma (1978) it was not written by Crichton but was directed by him and based on the best selling novel of the same name. When patients go in for routine surgeries but come out in Comas, a doctor grows suspicious and does some investigating of her own. The cast was great featuring Richard Widmark and a young Michael Douglas, Ed Harris, and Tom Sellick. This one is a little slow and boring at times (the majority of the film has no musical score), and the plot can be fairly predictable at times as well (it's really similar to a film called Green for Danger [1946]) but production value is top notch (cinematography, editing, acting, what music there actually is, etc.). The film wasn't as futuristic as Looker, but it was interesting and believable in the sense that corrupt crooked things happen by those you should trust quite often (i.e.rarely trust the government, stuff like that ). I give this a 3.75/5. Also in case you can't tell what's in the background of the image up top, there's another view of it above to the left. Though a lot can be predicted about this movie, it does have a surprise or two so I will not explain the image or any more about the film. View trailer below:
I always enjoy Michael Crichton's films, he's one of my favorite sci-fi writers, and this film is written and directed by him. This movie stars Albert Finney (Big Fish, Murder on the Orient Express) and academy award winner James Coburn (The Great Escape, Monsters Inc.). The film is a futuristic dystopian thriller (like a lot of Crichton's work), where a plastic surgeon (Finney) learns that the last four patients he operated on have all died mysteriously, so tries to find a connection btween the deaths, and it leads him to a shady corporation. This film deals with such
themes as the media's concept of what the perfect woman looks like, and some women's obsession with wanting to look perfect. The film also deals with the concept of computers eventually replacing people (in this film they do so just in TV commercials), hypnotism through electronic signals sent out through commercials, and a gun that causes "invisibility" with a seemingly plausible explanation (something to do with the gun shooting beams of light that are part of the light/color spectrum that we humans can't see, that block certain
receptors in your eyes for a short period of time). There is a great scene where Finney gets beat up by an invisible assailant. The film is a really great thriller with great acting, music, special effects and is marvelously well written and so believable (like all of Crichtons work) that part of it has become actuality today.The only thing that might bother people is that the aspect of the story where a computer can make a replica of a person, or measure one's exact eye movements has already come true, so that may make the film seem dated to some, but to me it's a reminder of how crazy the technology we have nowadays, and that maybe the invisibility and hypnosis aspects of the story aren't too far away from becoming reality. I give the film a 5/5 and highly recommend it. You can find the full movie on youtube here, and the trailer is below:
Only Christopher Walken could be completely incoherent when he's supposed to be sane and nearly completely understandable when his character's supposed to be batshit crazy, in other words, as his character gets progressively crazy, walken in his portrayal of the character becomes more coherent. This story is unique and very interesting, it's about an entire family (and group of friends) who were abducted by aliens at the same time only to think it was all a dream til much later when they realize it was real. The film is based on a book which is based on a true story but in the "true story" only Walken's character was abducted. The embellishment was an
improvement however, and the film does a marvelous job using no post-editing special effects whatsoever and is one of the last films ever to do so (meaning no CG, and whatever effects you see, happened live in front of the camera). The film is really confusing and I mainly give it a lower rating just because of that, it didn't really have much of a flow to it. Walken's acting when his character starts to "go crazy" was arguably one of his most unhinged roles and was largely improvised (there are dancing scenes with the aliens people!), but his time being "sane" is completely overacted IMO. If you like alien movies I recommend it, otherwise I just recomend reading about it. By the way, this is also the origin of the classic "tearshaped-bug-eyed-alien" look, this film was the first time they were ever depicted as such. The aliens may look fake and rubbery at times, but I felt overall this film did well with the budget they had. I give the film a 3.5/5, this film is featured in Rue Morgue Magazine's 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See, and the trailer is below:
Though some may love the name it often gets overlooked by serious moviegoers for obvious reasons. Those who look for and enjoy serious dramas the likes of Schindler's List, won't necessarily lean towards a film titled "The Crawling Eye". But here's what you should know about it and why those other people are missing out: The Misfits wrote a song about it, Stephen King is a fan and referenced the film in IT, and John Carpenter said it was a main inspiration for The Fog(1980). The movie was developed from the ruins of a failed British TV series (The Trollenberg Terror) The film is about aliens that hide in a mountain pass always hiding in fog. The aliens start decapitating mountain climbers and prepare for a descent to the village below. The plot is centers around a woman medium who has a psychic connection with the aliens. The film is very well acted, superbly filmed from a cinematography standpoint, and unlike most 50s "B-movies" it is very logically sound. The movie's feel is similar to Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) or The original version of The Thing (1951 aka The Thing from Another World). Just like classic creature films like Cat People (1942) rarely do you ever see the monster, until the end. This is also probably one of the first films to cover the subject of decapitation, and it did a really good job with the special effects (ahead of most 1950s standards). Mystery Science Theater 3000 did do an episode on this movie, but trust me it's still legit. I give it a 4.5-5/5, I'd advise against watching the trailer because it shows the monster, and in my opinion knowing what the monster looks like is worth waiting for. This film is featured on Rue Morgue Magazine's list of 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See.
Not much to say about this one, it was ok but I don't see why it had 3 sequels. Special effects were good but there are better 80s creature horror comedies out there like Gremlins (1984). I give it a 3-3.5/5 (trivia: Leonardo Dicaprio's first movie was Critters 3). Trailer is below:
The second Crichton film I saw recently was the movie Coma (1978) it was not written by Crichton but was directed by him and based on the best selling novel of the same name. When patients go in for routine surgeries but come out in Comas, a doctor grows suspicious and does some investigating of her own. The cast was great featuring Richard Widmark and a young Michael Douglas, Ed Harris, and Tom Sellick. This one is a little slow and boring at times (the majority of the film has no musical score), and the plot can be fairly predictable at times as well (it's really similar to a film called Green for Danger [1946]) but production value is top notch (cinematography, editing, acting, what music there actually is, etc.). The film wasn't as futuristic as Looker, but it was interesting and believable in the sense that corrupt crooked things happen by those you should trust quite often (i.e.rarely trust the government, stuff like that ). I give this a 3.75/5. Also in case you can't tell what's in the background of the image up top, there's another view of it above to the left. Though a lot can be predicted about this movie, it does have a surprise or two so I will not explain the image or any more about the film. View trailer below:
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