Movie Night! 'Did I Really Just Watch That...?' Edition

It hasn't been a bad week for reading, fingers crossed for more of the same next week. Lets see how it goes. Work is still intense but I've got a days leave on Tuesday, for my birthday, and a chunk of that will definitely be spent reading in the comfy chair :o) 

For now, lets catch up with a couple of movies that I've watched over the last week. Two movies, with one thing in common; a moment where I did a little double-take and said to myself, "did I really just watch that?" And the answer was 'yes, I really did', although for one movie, I really wished that I hadn't...


'Humanoids from the Deep' (1980) 

When mutated salmon starts walking on two legs, the residents of a fishing town find out that neither sea nor land is safe... Especially if you're a lady in a bikini. The residents must fight back to stand any chance of survival.

'Humanoids' also goes by the name of 'Monster' (for its original European and Japanese release) but lets be honest, 'Humanoids from the Deep' is the far better name so we're sticking with that here ;o) 
'Humanoids from the Deep' is a hell of a lot of fun; another creature feature that knows the drill and executes it perfectly. You can see the ending coming, a mile off, but there is more than enough blood and gruesome practical effects to make the journey worthwhile, especially the scenes at the fair.

And I mentioned the 'did I really just watch that?' moment... Well, the 'woman giving birth to a mutant fish baby' scene was an obvious contender but... The winning moment came when, in the middle of a fairly gruesome 'creature feature', a boyfriend looking to get lucky uses his ventriloquists doll to charm his girlfriend... and it works. Not quite in keeping with the rest of the film but said boyfriend gets top marks for originality.


'Dead House' (2014)

A quiet family night in is interrupted by a gang intent on a night of torture and murder. Or is a night of torture and murder about to be interrupted by whatever lies in the laboratory in the cellar...?

If the picture hasn't already given the game away, I'll give the game away a little bit more... You know that I will watch anything with zombies in it? Well, here we are... I don't mind dropping a little spoiler though as this whole movie was one big 'did I really just watch that' moment, and not in a good way.

For a start, what kind of husband/father keeps his zombie experiments in the cellar with his young family upstairs? Lends a new definition to the term 'Mad Scientist', I'm not sure what that was all about...

That wasn't the worst of it though. While the 'zombie moments' are fairly pedestrian, the rest of the movie is a series of rape and torture moments that serve no purpose other than to shock, nothing to do with the 'plot' at all. Actual, decent storytelling would have held my attention, this didn't. I really do watch this stuff so you don't have to ;o)





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘The Pan Book of Horror Stories’ – Herbert Van Thal (Pan Macmillan)

Image
I was going to say that original posting will resume tomorrow but the way things are right now, probably safer not to promise anything ;o) In the meantime... I found this old review last night (originally posted Here ) and it feels like it fits in with what this blog is all about right now so, I thought I'd give it another shot here. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be the case today but when I was a child at primary school, the shelves were covered with books that I’m sure a teacher today wouldn’t let an eight or nine year old anywhere near. Maybe it was just my school, I don’t know, but I’m not complaining though; I had a lot of fun trawling my way through some great reads. This time round, I’m talking specifically about the ‘Pan’ and ‘Fontana’ horror series; books with the most lurid covers and stories to match inside. I only had myself to blame but at least three quarters of the nightmares that I had as a child came from reading these books and staring at covers festooned with rot...
Read more

'Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone’ – Zub, Scharf, Canola (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
It’s starting to look like this could be the week where I make a half decent dent in my ‘Comics TBR Pile’, lets see how we do... I’ve really been struggling with the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection just recently (more than one reason but I want to finish the collection first before I talk about it) and I thought that I’d have to take a little step back from ‘Conan’ comics and come back when I was in a better mood for it. Until I realized that there was another ‘Conan’ comic lurking in the TBR pile and maybe I could give that a go instead. So that’s what I did. I’ve caught little glimpses of the ‘Black Stone’ storyline, in other ‘Conan’ comics, but I can’t help but feel that the event has kind of passed me by a little. That’s on me though to be fair, I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish right now and there are so many books that I just haven’t been able to focus on; I suspect a couple of them talk about a Black Stone… Oh well, I’m here now. Where better a place to catch up on ‘B...
Read more