My second-annual Halloween horror marathon went swimmingly yesterday. Nine movies in one day! I think that's a record for me, haha. Nothing I watched was of especially great quality, but details ...
Macross Frontier: The Wings of Goodbye (2011): An excellent conclusion to the two-movie retelling of Macross Frontier. Lots of awesome moments, the story is changed in interesting ways, and there's even a definite resolution to the infamous love triangle! (Even if Shoji Kawamori is still kind of a dick about it, haha.) The visuals are particularly spectacular. The TV series already looked pretty good, but the movies take it to another level, and the bombastic concert scenes for which Frontier is well known are amazing here. This is the kind of movie that makes me love anime.
Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned (1980): Think I watched this last year, or the year before ... can't remember. But it's an infamously strange anime movie collaboration between Toei Animation and Marvel that's made all the more hilarious due to its awful English dub. Well worth seeing if you love bad movies.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000): If you're feeling snarky, there's plenty of stuff you can mock in this: It's sooooo emo, it's sooooo brooding, it's soooo anime, etc. (I mean, that ending! It's the kind of thing you would only see in an anime.) But, man, I have to give Madhouse props for creating an absolutely gorgeous movie that still holds up more than a decade after release. If nothing else, Bloodlust has a distinctive look and awesome action. I poked fun at it while watching with a couple of people, but I also enjoyed it.
Leprechaun: In the Hood (2000): I expected this to be awful, and it was much worse. It's absolutely painful to watch. You know this shit was written by some assholes who thought it would be oh so hilarious to put a leprechaun in the world of hip-hop. It might be funny for five seconds if written by anyone with a brain cell, but no. Just awful. I can't even bother to rattle off the worst moments in the movie, because they just make me angry.
White Zombie (1932): Often cited as the first zombie movie ever made. It's an all right flick -- mainly worth watching due to Bela Lugosi (who is an utter prick in this; it's kind of hilarious) and the creepy atmosphere the movie builds.
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009): Sort of disappointed by this, if only because I hoped it would be more ridiculous than it is. Yeah, you get a shark leaping into the air and biting an airplane in half, and a giant octopus treating a drilling platform like it's part of a hentai, but there's too much human stuff going on in the movie. I don't give a shit about any of that -- give me more giant sharks and octopi!
Halloween: H20 (1998): This is the type of flick that makes people look at horror movies with disdain. Utterly stupid, paint-by-numbers slasher flick. It could not have been more boring if it tried. The worst part is that it legitimately tries to be clever in a couple of places, but it fails pretty hard. Worth watching for me only because parts of it were filmed in my town, and I could recognize everything in those scenes.
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992): Somehow I've never seen a Hellraiser movie, so I just watched whatever was on Netflix instant. This is shockingly boring. Really, the only entertainment is in how goofy and awful the visuals for the violence are. I mean, damn. So friggin' janky. It's also fun to mock Pinhead's deep, "scary" voice. If I had watched this with my brother, we probably would have been talking to each other like that all day.
The Wasp Woman (1959): I think TC might have brought this movie up before? This is another snoozer. Way too much bullshit about stupid human problems. If I'm watching a silly B-movie horror flick, I do not care about the humans. And yet it's like 50 minutes (out of a 72 minute movie) before there's any monster action. You might call this impatience, but I say patience is for good movies. When the wasp woman actually shows up, though, it's hilarious.
Hellbound (1994): Just a bit less ridiculous than I hoped it would be. I mean, it's Chuck Norris taking on Satan's second-in-command. Shouldn't it be off the wall ridiculous? Instead, it's more like a straight action flick with occasionally supernatural stuff. In that way, it's kind of strange. But in the end, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks the hell out of Satan's pal, so that's fun.
Mimic (1997): Not a bad movie. I think this is almost all due to Guillermo del Toro. This is the kind of movie that could be really stupid: Giant bugs are taking on the form of humans, and scientists must stop them before they spread into the world above ground. But del Toro works with the darkness well, and keeps the bugs mostly hidden, which is good, because the CG is horrendous. Also, bugs are just gross, so it has that creep factor going for it.
Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011): Decided to end the night right. This is much better than Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Just the right amount of giant monster action, and the interaction among the humans is all hilarious. If you love god awful CG, by the way, this is your movie. I was cracking up like every five minutes at some new CG horror the movie thrust upon the screen. Amazing.
On the queue for this week: I dunno. I watched freakin' 12 movies this week! Cut me a break.
Total Movies: 172 (Blazing Saddles, The Descent, Gundam 00 the Movie: Awakening of the Trailblazer, Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned, Trigun: Badlands Rumble, The Night of the Hunter, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 1st, Dawn of the Dead, Black Swan, Clue, Scarface, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, True Grit, Perfect Blue, The Quick and the Dead, High Sierra, Shutter Island, A Serious Man, Kite, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Broken Blade 3, Kite Liberator, Machete, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Heathers, The Prince of Tennis: The Two Samurai, The First Game, Notes on a Scandal, The American, King of Thorn), The Expendables, Sword of the Stranger, The Hangover, Welcome to the Space Show, Broken Blade 4, The Social Network, End of Evangelion, Neo Tokyo, Red, Dreamcatcher, Jason X, Wag the Dog, The Naked Gun, Dirty Work, 8mm, The Wicker Man (2006), Blood: The Last Vampire, Winter's Bone, The Road, Heartcatch Precure! Hana no To de Fashion Show ... Desu ka?!, Broadcast News, Bulletproof, Dead Leaves, Dirty Dancing, Hot Tub Time Machine, Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows, Cloverfield, Best in Show, Play Misty for Me, Paprika, The Cat Returns, Welcome to the Dollhouse, 12 Monkeys, The Killer, Metropolis, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, The Third Man, The King's Speech, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, The Abyss, The Fighter, Mega Piranha, Dumb and Dumber, The Rebirth of Buddha, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, The Town, Willow, Akira, Morning Glory, The Verdict, I Love You Phillip Morris, Phantasm II, American Splendor, Broken Blade 5, Tangled, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, The Rock, Wanted, Green Zone, Despicable Me, Waiting for Guffman, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, X-Men: First Class, X-Men, Hereafter, X2, Zatoichi, All About Eve, The Thing, Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight, City of God, Das Boot, Some Like it Hot, Downfall, X-Men: The Last Stand, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, Winnie the Pooh, Bullitt, Hard Eight, Memories of Matsuko, Double Indemnity, Freaks, Break Blade 6, Key Largo, The Grand Illusion, The Seven Year Itch, Hermes: Winds of Love, To Catch a Thief, An American in Paris, Ninotchka, Interstella 5555, Hobo with a Shotgun, Dog Day Afternoon, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steamboy, Little Norse Prince Valiant, Redline, Beat the Devil, Casablanca, The Girl Who Played with Fire, Easy Rider, Little Caesar, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Band of Outsiders, The Three Faces of Eve, Mardock Scramble: The First Compression, Clue, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Cabaret, Spaceballs, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rifftrax), If...., El Topo, Irresponsible Captain Tylor Movie 1+2, Gundress, Barefoot Gen, Santa Sangre, The Toxic Avenger, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, House on Haunted Hill, 3:10 to Yuma, Sexy Beast, Tom Jones, The Triplets of Belleville, The Illusionist, Time of Eve, ...And Justice for All, Rio Bravo, Kenya Boy, Good Bye, Lenin!, Macross Frontier: The Wings of Goodbye, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Leprechaun: In the Hood, White Zombie, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Halloween: H20, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, The Wasp Woman, Hellbound, Mimic, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid)
