Reviews

****Spoilers Ahead (if that is possible)**** Wow, talk about fond childhood memories being destroyed!! I saw this film when it first came out in 1981 as part of a drive in movie double bill with Galaxy of Terror. I was only 11 years old and had to beg and beg to get my parents to take me. I remember being scared as hell by this film and thinking it was so bloody and repulsive. I just tracked it down on DVD and watched tonight and man was I young and foolish. It was the cheapest, stupidest horror/sci-fi film ever. A lobster monster briefly appears and rapes a female crew member on some useless outer space exploration mission. It is what happened next that really killed me. The raped gal is then possessed and starts violently killing off the rest of the crew. Although this space babe seems to have super strength, never have movie victims been so ineffectual at defending themselves or using problem solving approaches. They have guns but do not shoot her. They have explosives yet fail in every attempt to use them. They can't even use blunt objects to club her. When they do get her in bad situations they just run away instead of killing her. Despite this, the biggest loser of the bunch is able to out wrestle her and strangle her with cords at the end of the movie. If she could be strangled how did she kill off the entire crew before someone gave her the smackdown??? The best thing I can say about this film is that it has moments of inspired screaming and also, it is oddly comforting to know that far into the future, we will still use plastic milk crates like I did in college for furniture and storage.

I loved the original NOTLD. It was the first film to really, really scare me as a kid and I love it for that reason. Even though its a pretty old film, it still has a cool, creepy atmosphere and still can give you a sense of dread. I always thought it was because its almost like a documentary at times and it is easy to feel like you are in the house with the survivors as they are besieged by the dead. As much as it pains me to say it, the 1990 remake has none of the qualities that made the original NOTLD so great. While the acting is better and the zombies look creepier, the film isn't scary and I can't figure out why. I just sat there the whole time comparing it to the original and finding it lacking. I also was bummed by the way they changed the story from the original and made Barbara a fightin, cursin, tough as nails chick. To this day I am still perplexed and baffled by why I don't like this film better. I really tried and I really wanted to. Its a shame because I really love the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I guess my recommendation must be somewhat neutral. Its not an awful film, it just seems to be missing something that makes it good or memorable. In the end I don't think it should have been made and added nothing to the legacy of the original film.

O.K., I have to start by saying I am about as big a fan of the original Dawn of the Dead as you can be. I saw it in a drive-in with my parents when it came out and I was only 9 years old. I loved it then and the hundreds of times I saw it thereafter. When I heard that a remake was in the works I immediately got excited, but then thought about how awful the remake of Night of the Living Dead was and got worried. I had little to fear after all. Although there were a million differences from the original to the remake, I loved it anyway. Yes they story was changed. Yes the zombies were faster. Yes there were many more characters. SO WHAT????? Did it make the NOTLD remake great because they stuck to the original so closely? Hmmm, I thought you might see my point. This was more of a new take on a classic and as such it was a lot of fun. It had fast action, cool scares and I really had the same sense of despair and hopelessness that I did in the original. These things were scarier and MUCH harder to deal with and I loved it!!! My only issues are as follows: 1. Why oh why would anyone agree to leave the mall for a boat trip to nowhere? 2. How can one get so attached to a dog they just found that they are willing to go on a suicide mission to save him? 3. Why oh why would anyone leave that mall for a boat trip to nowhere??? Thesee points aside, this was a great re-imaging of a classic and does not deserve all the bashing it gets on here. How bad can a horror film be when it knocks The Passion out of first place at the box office. Needless to say, The Passion only had one resurrection while Dawn had millions so its more bang for the buck.

I'm not sure why this film is as underrated as it is. This is an amazing, depressing and in many ways brilliant film based on the Richard Matheson classic novel "I Am Legend". Vincent Price effectively conveys the terror and despair of being the last living man on an Earth that is now overrun with vampires and/or zombies. The depiction of Price's day to day bleak existence is a moving and powerful thing to behold and the continual menace of the hordes of zombies is creepy in the same way as was later depicted in "Night of the Living Dead". In fact, as noted by others here, one can not watch the scenes where the zombies lay siege to Price's boarded up house and attack his car without recognizing how close these scenes would later be copied by George Romero in his classic zombie films. If you are a fan of horror film history or just looking for a classic and unique film with an interesting story, track down this lost gem.

Hey I know this not going to be remembered as a classic sci-fi film but it is very underrated on here for some reason. This film had alot going for it and alot of interesting themes such as man v. machine and man v. modernization and even themes relating to man's inner nature. Besides that, did anyone else notice that this film is like an updated version of the classic western "Shane"? Think about it, gunslinger on the run arrives wounded and recovers with help of a decent family, forms bond with young boy, saves family from others like himself... its "Shane" in outer space. This is Kurt Russell's best film since Escape From New York and he does alot with the role and conveys alot without having to speak. Lets see Stallone or Arnie do that sometime (yeah, right). I would love to see a sequel to this one and I would recommend it to any sci-fi fan. Give it a chance!!

And so he does!! This is a bizarre and amazing cult classic of a samurai film that is apparently pieced together from two longer films in the "Lone Wolf and Cub" Series. From my point of view the viewer would never know this was a composite film and it stands alone as an amazing and strangely hypnotic piece of violent film history. I first viewed this epic while in college and did not really know what to expect. I thought I was in for a simple and bloody martial arts flick. Well, it was bloody as all hell but this is more of an epic art film than something on Saturday kung fu theater. It is hard to describe what makes this movie different but its combination of great acting, direction, pace, dialogue and score set this film far above any other martial arts film I have ever watched. In addition, this is the only film that seemed to portray samurai sword fights as I always envisioned them, very quick and very bloody with little or no fencing. The swordfighting in this film is unreal and stunning. I would recommend this to fans of action but I would also recommend this odd film to serious film fans, there is something going on here you might not expect. In conclusion I just want to say, "they will all pay....WITH RIVERS OF BLOOD!!!"

This was a wild ride of a movie!! I can not recall ever seeing a film that blended so many disparate elements and did so successfully. Brotherhood of the Wolf can loosely be described as a historical mystery/action/horror/martial arts film and as odd as that mix sounds, it really works!!! The film was so well put together and filmed that I found myself suspending disbelief about such things as french and indian martial artists, armored monsters and vatican assassins. My only complaint is the film was a little too long and could have been trimmed slightly. Otherwise this is a beautiful, exotic and strange treat that I would recommend to anyone who can watch a film and avoid the temptation to overanalyze things. Check out the wildest scene fade in history too!!!

Highlander II is without a doubt the biggest disgrace ever to be wrought upon mankind. It is even more tragic that it happens to be the follow up to the classic Highlander. As a huge fan of the original Highlander film, I was excited when I heard a sequel was in the works. A friend of mine that was an even bigger Highlander fan saw Highlander II the first night it came out. I will never forget him coming back from the movie with a disgusted look on his face. That night he gave me advice that years later I still regret not taking. He told me never to see this film because if I did, it would destroy the memory of the first Highlander forever like it had just done for him. Needless to say, I did not take his advice and saw the film the next day. Why was I so stupid??? As foretold by my friend, Highlander II is so bad, it makes it impossible to fully enjoy the first film. It is beyond my understanding why the makers of Highlander II would choose to completely ignore all the things that made Highlander great and, among other things, contradict the plot and storyline of Highlander at every possible point. How uncool is it to find out that the immortals are aliens???? How ridiculous is it to have Sean Connery reappear 500 years after his death with no explanation??? How much did you want to track down the people responsible for this film and beat them senseless with a dead fish???? Forever more the word Zeist will be "fightin words" in my vocabulary.

It is great to see that I am not the only one that was creeped out by this largely unseen film. I have been a horror film fan since i was 6 and had seen all the classic horror/slasher/gore films long before ever seeing Black Christmas. However, none of those films actually scared me like Black Christmas (or "Stranger in the House" as it was called in the U.S.). I first saw Black Christmas when I was in my second year of college and even though I watched it surrounded by friends and others in a brightly lite dorm, the weird, dark atmosphere of the film and the extremely bizarre phone calls made me uncomfortable and still do when I think about it years later. The scenes of the killer wandering around the attic making strange noises and playing with the body of the first victim also rank as the most frightening moments in my own film experience. Some of the comments here compare it to John Carpenter's Halloween but in my opinion Black Christmas is a much more effective and scary film. If you are looking for a disturbing and frightening film, you should seek out this forgotten classic and watch it alone late at night. You won't regret it.