Thursday, November 29, 2012

Review Bomb!



Hey gang! So is Horrorthon over, or what? According to the rules we worked out last year, all the reviews should have been written by the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which was obviously a couple of days ago. But Cat's the only one to actually wrap things up and I suspect there might be other reviews out there still to be written. It feels like a lot of us have been swamped by pesky old Real Life (I know I have), and with Xmas coming up it would be nice for some closure.

Unfortunately, I still have fifteen (fifteen!) reviews I haven't written yet. So here they all are, in a short, loose, machine-gun fashion. Ideally I want to come back to all these flicks and give them the full treatment, but I thought it would be best to 1) at least get them in before November is over, and 2) possibly catalyze a bit of Best-Ofs action from the lot of you. Is this mike on?

Here we go...


Species 1995 ***

Ben Kingsley hires some alien hunters and yells at them for not adequately fixing his gaping failures. Also boobs.




Martyrs 2008 *****

Many things about this movie will blow your mind, not the least of which is that almost all of it takes place in the same house. I plan a spoil-everything review so the biddies can see what the fuss is all about.




Frankenstein Conquers the World 1965 ****

One of my top five favorite Toho kaiju flicks, with a cool creepy premise and the best best BEST alternate ending of any movie ever. I may have to buy a copy of this dvd to adequately illustrate my point.




War of the Gargantuas 1968 ***

Sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World with more hair (the dude on the left in this picture is supposed to be the same dude on the left from the picture above). Also stars Russ Tamblyn, the weird shrink from Twin Peaks.




The Earth Dies Screaming 1964 *1/2

Snoozy British C-movie that nobody remembers and nobody should.




Severance 2006 ****

Just as funny and good as 50PageMcGee said it was.




The H-Man 1958 ***1/4

Atomic blob people stalk the Tokyo underworld. Better blob effects than The Blob.






Attack the Block 2011 *****

Absolutely brilliant. Don't listen to Tami.




Alien Vs Predator 2004 ***1/2

Given the reviews leading up to this, you'd think this movie would piss me off, but it's actually pretty good.




Alien Vs Predator Requiem 2007 **

Ah, there it is -- this movie pisses me off enough for two movies, maybe more. Terrible.




Pitch Black 2000 *****

Holy crap do I love me some Pitch Black.




Event Horizon 1997 *1/2

I've never been able to stand this movie and now I've seen it three times. Someone will pay.




Predators 2010 ***3/4

Despite Adrien Brody doing a Batman husky voice, this flick is pretty decent.




Critters 1986 ***

Late 80s goremedy with Dee Wallace bringing her A game, god bless her. Also, Neelix gets killed.




Prometheus 2012 **1/2

Same batch of idiots you remember from a few months ago, doing the same idiotic stuff, marring what could have been another classic Ridley Scott movie.


Ka-BAM! I'll let that sit for a day or two and then hit you up with some Best Ofs. Hope to see some of you guys here.

12 comments:

Octopunk said...

To Tami's credit, I don't think Attack the Block would be very watchable on an airplane. Also I stole her gif.

JPX said...

Wow, what a tease - I want to read full reviews of all of those movies! You watched more this year than in recent years, bravo! Although I didn't watch as many movies this year it was still fun, as always! I will try to do a roundup this weekend. I still have a bunch to review as well but I agreed to co-author a psychology book (stay tuned) and it is eating up a lot of time. Nice job and terrific reviews this year! I'm so happy you chose sci-fi horror. Too soon to think about next year?

Catfreeek said...

I had no idea War of the Gargantuas was a sequel. Daaaamn!

I loved Attack the Block too, best monsters I've seen in a long time.

Excellent line up and I too would love to read full reviews. Maybe this year merits a time extension due to so many busy schedules.

DKC said...

I definitely would love your full take on Pitch Black as we both love that movie. I also look forward to the Martyrs spoil-fest as well since I know that's not my thing but I am curious.

I will try to get a wrap up done soon too!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I'm happy you posted this Octo. I have a pile of movies I never reviewed. I may borrow your 'review bomb format'. In fact this might be the solution to ending the Horrorthon season we've been seeking for years. The question is - would they count towards numbers?

I'm dying to read your full blown Martyrs review.

Also I love that you've seen Event Horizon 3 times and hate it. I saw it when it was in the theaters and thought it was ho-hum but I noticed your problem with it the blog comments over the years.

JPX said...

I love the idea of the "review bomb" and I'm going to do it myself! I think we should all do it when we run out of time. I do not believe that it counts towards our numbers though. It's just a good way to remind yourself of things that you have watched in case in the future you forget whether you watched something or not.

Catfreeek said...

I'm all for the review bomb as long as its used just as a catch all if time runs out not as an excuse not to write reviews during horrorthon. I do think its better than nothing at all.

Octopunk said...

I did this just to do something different.

I have unwritten reviews every Horrorthon, and even when I didn't (last year) I still had some leftovers from 2009 I wanted to get around to someday (I actually rewatched all the remaining 09 movies this year, including Frankenstein Conquers the World and Martyrs).

I actually assumed these would count, since we let other 1-sentence reveiws count. But I still intend to get to every single one. Time has been a major crunch for me this year, and based on the amount of absenteeism I've assumed I'm not the only one.

Conclusions? Don't know if I have any. But I'll keep writing. I encourage more review bombs! It takes away from the surprise but maybe dialogue about what other folks still have to write will spur the writing to happen.

Catfreeek said...

I liked your review bomb and that's a good point about the one sentence reviews so I think they should count. I personally really like reading your reviews so I'm hoping you'll double back and do the full review but either way you should get credit.

AC said...

somehow this year i ran out of steam to read (and ideally comment on) everyone's reviews, so just speaking as a reader, review bomb works great for me. like lots of us it seems life is keeping me too damn busy. my personal goal is to be less busy next october so i can put my time and energy where it belongs: horrorthon!

and like many who commented above, octopunk's pithy reviews just make me hunger for the longer versions.

AC said...

jpx, what book? that's a big deal, congrats!!!

JPX said...

AC, it's part of Barlow's "Treatments That Work" series and I'm working on one for nonepileptic seizures (Conversion Disorder).

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...