THEM! (Good 4 stars)

An awesome movie for its day, this radioactive 1954 Warner Bros. release was quite entertaining. Sure, the giant bugs look a little hokey, but everything else about this film was done pretty well. There are some interesting shots at times because the film was originally expected to be in 3D. The 3D equipment malfunctioned, however, on the day of its test, making the ending shots of the flamethrowers shooting directly at the camera pack less of a punch. If you haven't heard about this movie, it's about mutant ants in the desert of New Mexico that beginning killing and attempting to build colonies on navy ships and eventually L.A. By the way, these buggers are at least 10 feet long! At times these older movies fail to excite the less patient and arguably less imaginative audiences of today, but I, for one, found this movie easy to resign myself. The use of the informational film on ants that is shown at the meeting really makes the movie a lot creepier. It made it easier for the larger ants to get under your skin. I give this movie 4 stars, but I would add to that the fact that this movie isn't for everyone. It's not really scary. There isn't a lot of gore. It's just an old fashioned, fun, 50's horror/sci-fi flick. I would recommend it to anyone who is planning to have a make-out date. Probably a good one for younger kids also.

"Make me a sergeant! Give me the booze! Make me a sergeant! Give me the booze!"

In the Mouth of Madness (3.5 stars)

This is a pretty good film. It's another John Carpenter piece. It carries an interesting message about religion and reality as it is dictated by the masses. Hayden Christiansen (from the Star Wars prequels) has a short appearance as a paperboy. In a way, this movie is sort of like a John Carpenter book-centered version of David Cronenberg's Videodrome (watch for a review of this great film in later posts). There are a couple shifts in reality, and it becomes difficult (and at times impossible) to say exactly what's actually happening and what is only imagined. It's good though. There's not too much gore but just enough to get by as a horror movie from the 90's. There's a quote on the cover to my copy of this movie that says "This is the best film in John Carpenter's career!" I'm not sure what clown wrote that or how much he was paid to say it, but still this is worth checking out. Look for the actor who played Vigo in Ghostbusters II. I don't know the guy's name, but you'll see him. Nice visual effects, good performance by Sam Neill. 3.5 stars. Definitely all Carpenter fans should see this movie. And in reality, everybody should be a Carpenter fan. You do the math.

The Thing (Good 5 stars)

This is an amazing movie! The special effects in this movie are 'out of this world' for 1982! Kurt Russel is great. The script is brilliant. This is a remake of the aforementioned 'The Thing From Another World'. It is my opinion that this is one of the most incredible movies ever. I don't even want to say anything else about this movie. Everyone should see this. 5 goddamn stars. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll scream!

The Thing From Another World (Good 3.5 stars)

This is the original version of which John Carpenter's The Thing is a remake. The basic idea is that an alien spaceship crash lands on the North Pole. Some army guys dig it out of the ice and take it back to their base. Some idiot accidentally melts the ice, freeing the alien from its dormant state, and it begins to run the isolated arctic camp amok. Being that this was made in 1951, one must not expect to see too much gore (or really any at all). Also, keep in mind that the monster will be talked about much more than physically seen. If you go into this movie understanding these things, it will be a pretty rewarding experience. The script is fun. There is a lot of play in the dialogue. All in all, it's a good movie. The characters are pretty typical of the sorts of characters you see in movies of this era. They are mostly pretty two dimensional. The monster really just looks like an interpretation of Frankenstein. That's probably for the better though. It would probably have discredited the movie to some degree if they attempted to make a ridiculous alien costume. Anyway, not too much else to say about this one. It was good. Being a huge John Carpenter fan, it was nice to get a look at some of his idol's work. 3.5 stars. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys these older sci-fi/ufo flicks.

Beware the carrot . . .

Horror Hospital (Bad-Good 2 Stars)

So I bought this for a dollar on a used vhs. The cover gave me high expectations for what this film would be, a 1970's British horror hit filled with 'black humor and grisly bloodshed'. Yeah, right. In fact, I would really like to give this movie a lower rating, but I feel that my expectations colored my opinion of it too much. If you walk into this movie not expecting to see all kinds of strange, gory, medical experiments being performed on unwilling test subjects, this movie might be alright. It's got Alfred from the original Batman movie (Michael Gough), so the acting isn't so bad. The script is passable. Also, the ending was good enough that I didn't feel right rating this movie too low. It was the first time in a long time a movie left me genuinely surprised. However, the gore is just not there. There is a little bit of blood once every ten minutes or so, but other than that you get nothing. On the back cover of this movie it talks about rampaging monsters. There is one, and you see him a grand total of maybe 4 or 5 times adding up to about 1 minute. It speaks of hippie zombies. Well, there are some kids who have been lobotomized, but that doesn't make them zombies. Anyway, I was very bored with this movie. There comes a point where the plot just sort of hits a plateau, and it doesn't give you much more to go on until the last 5 minutes or so. Unfortunately, this plateau hits pretty early in the movie. Alright, I'm sick of knocking this movie. I would recommend it only to die hard fans of Michael Gough (you know they're out there) and to people who love to be disappointed by what they read on the cases to their movies. I give it two stars mostly because the ending surprised me and because the acting was good enough to drive my hopes that something cool might eventually happen.

Depending on what color the paint was, Dr. Death might rather watch paint dry than watch this movie again.

City of the Living Dead (Good 5 Stars)

Well, I felt sort of feel guilty for mentioning Fulci's one and only flop before mentioning any of his masterpieces. So here it is! My favorite Fulci movie I have seen to date. City of the Living Dead is (in my humble opinion) the best Italian zombie flick to come out of the 80's. As I've mentioned in previous posts, the pace in these Italian horror movies can be sort of slow and are definitely not made for people who have problems with short attention spans. However, the gore pay off in this movie is so great you may not even notice the speed at which the plot moves. The premise is that a priest has hung himself and in doing so opened the gates of hell. If you are seasoned in this genre you'll know that opening the gates to hell means only one thing . . . zombies! Fulci really outdoes himself as far as the realism and nastiness of the gore in this film. The script is interesting enough. It sort of flops back and forth between a reporter and a woman looking for the town in which the gates of hell have been opened so they can attempt to seal them shut and a psychiatrist and his patient in the town where the gates have been opened. There are of course other characters we meet in this town who experience the supernatural phenomena, but the plot is mostly driven by these four who eventually meet a little boy. In the end, the four converge and have a final stand off with the evil. Who wins? I honestly could not tell you. It's difficult to interpret the ending, but not in an obnoxious way. In conclusion, I give this movie 5 stars. It has good rewatch value. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it and possesses an attention span greater than that of a goldfish. So watch it; your life just may depend on it . . .

If you enjoy this film, keep your eyes peeled for more Fulci recommendations. Dr. Death says enjoy the maggot baby!

Zombi 3 (Good-Bad 5 stars)

It's sort of funny that Director Lucio Fulci made one of the most amazing contributions to the Italian horror genre (Zombi 2) and then followed it up with one of the most hilariously bad movies ever made (Zombi 3). I am a huge fan of Fulci, and this is the only movie he ever disowned. And yes, it really is that bad.
All aspects of this film are so terrible that where they all converge you find an almost unheard of level of trash. The acting is horrendous first of all. In fact, the acting alone is sometimes enough to illicit a laugh from me. As if that weren't enough, the script itself is actually pretty laughable on its own. Furthermore, the dubbing is pretty sloppy. For those of you acquainted with Fulci already, the gore in this movie is almost nonsensical when compared to the realistic effects in his other movies. There is really no consistency here with the zombies themselves either. Some move incredibly fast; some move very slowly. Some are able to survive in two parts even if their head is severed from the rest of their body (this is an allusion to the most hilarious scene in the movie by the way). Some people who are bitten take days to turn, while others can turn in less than 20 seconds.
Five stars: I recommend this movie to anyone who likes to laugh. Just promise though that if you watch Zombi 3 you'll watch Zombi 2. Fulci really is a great director. I don't know how to excuse him for this disaster. Just take my word for it.


Who knew their would be risks while working on a project named as innocently as 'Death 1' ?

Dead Alive (Bad-Good 5 stars)

This movie has it all! Labeled the goriest movie of its kind by some, Dead Alive is a hilarious zombie blood bath. It was directed by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) and is wildly entertaining.
I watch this movie at least once every six months or whenever I find someone who hasn't seen it yet. It is a classic. I could probably write pages and pages about every little thing in this movie, but I wouldn't want to ruin anything.
Immediately, you will get sucked in by the movie's sense of humor. Soon after, an engaging yet silly romantic melodrama begins to unfold. Half an hour after that and you'll be knee deep in absolutely ridiculous zombie carnage. And the whole time the gore is just disgusting and almost slap stick at times.
This truly is one, if not THE best zombie movie ever made. 5 huge stars. Watch it, or else . . .

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Good 3 stars)

As far as sequels to amazing movies go, this one doesn't do too bad. The rules are bent a little bit giving Freddy a freer range to spread his carnage. This is cool to an extent, especially earlier on in the film. Eventually, towards the end a lot of the subtlety with which they handled the struggle of the main character with Freddy is totally discarded. It starts out being conceptual enough to be somewhat believable and ends up being so crudely obvious that I found it difficult to swallow.
Overall, the film is pretty good. There are several images in some of the scenes which I found to be more disturbing and psychologically effective than comparable images in the original. Once again, the acting was good all around. The gore was pretty good. It held my attention for the most part, though there were a few dips.
I would rate this movie a little higher, but I feel like the series took a nose dive as far as the "dream realism" that made the original so creepy. Freddy has a lot more lines in this sequel than in the original. That does something to the character that makes him less of an incarnation of evil and more of a contrived device to sell popcorn.
Anyway: Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, 3 stars, worth a watch if you enjoyed the original installment. The dream-gore alone makes all the negative stuff even out. Dr. Death is going to sleep; wake me if I start turning into Freddy, ok?

The Exorcist (Good 5 stars)

I must start out this post by saying that I did not watch this movie directly before making this post. I have watched this movie twice in my life. I will never watch it again. This is the scariest movie ever made in my opinion. There is not a single other movie that bothers me in anyway, but this movie plagues my mind for months after each viewing. It gives me nightmares.
Because of that fact (and many others), this movies holds a unique place. I've talked to my friends about this movie to see if I was just being a sissy about it. The responses I've got about it were interesting. Apparently, all of those people that I talked to about it that had a strong Christian or especially Catholic upbringing considered it the scariest movie of all time. Whereas, everyone else either flat out said it was stupid or just remained largely unaffected by it.
The movie is amazing no matter what your religious background is. It is, without a doubt, mercilessly effective psychologically. I really don't want to talk about it too much more. It scares me just thinking about it for prolonged periods of time. So you should see it if you haven't yet. Five stars if you have the guts for it.

Dr. Death is sitting this one out though.

Nightmare City (Good-Bad 3 stars)

This movie is a product of one of my favorite horror sub-genres: 80's Italian Zombie movies. All in all, this film is not bad. The pacing is much more merciful than a lot of other Italian horror movies of the era. The dubbing was done reasonably well. The gore was up to par (although you can always have more, in my opinion.) The acting was pretty typically mediocre.
So, I bought this movie because I was reading about it and found its take on the zombie genre interesting. It sounded like a pretty impressive idea to have fast moving zombies that could use weapons and fly aircraft. However, the result was disappointing. The zombie make-up literally looked like feces. There were times I enjoyed the zombie attack scenes, but it was largely difficult to maintain a willful suspension of disbelief due to the fact that the only thing separating the zombies from the rest of the cast was that the zombies had poop on their faces and were much more violent. Also, the premise the movie used to explain why these people were becoming contagious flesh-munchers was confusing. One of the generals describes that they've studied a body of one of the infected and discovered large amounts of radiation. This radiation rapidly destroys the red blood cells so that the infected being has to feed on the blood of others to survive. Radiation was also used as the excuse for the zombies to be of superhuman strength and possess incredible powers of rejuvenation (which allows them to not be killed except by penetration of the cranium?) As far as I know, radiation sickness is not contagious. I believe they also associated some sort of germ element with the contagion, but that still doesn't account for everything.
The soundtrack, I'm pretty sure, is eerily close to the soundtrack used in one of my favorite Italian horror movies. I can't recall which one as of yet, but I'll get back to you when I do.
Anyway, I would recommend it to someone who was very serious about the genre or to a group of creative jokers that just wanted something to tear apart. It's not really that funny on its own. I give it 3 stars for the first 30 minutes or so, 2 stars for the next 20 minutes, and 1 star for whatever is left. I don't want to ruin anything, but I feel it my obligation to mention that the ending really pissed me off.

For a quick run-down: 3 or 4 pairs of breasts (one gets sliced off), an irrelevant use of the line "That sounds like science fiction to me.", choreographed dancing to elevator music, at least one good dismembered eye ball, and a whole lot of throat slicing action.

There you have it. Nightmare City, take it or leave it; no big loss either way.

Consider yourselves warned by the diabolical Dr. Death Mu ha ha ha ah ha

Nightmare on Elm Street- (Good- 5 stars)

This 1980's horror film classic is among my favorite of Director Wes Craven's accomplishments. The script is creative and original for 1984. The acting is reasonable and at times even pretty good. This is Johnny Depp's film debut by the way. Robert Englund and John Saxon are a few other names that make this cast pretty damn good.
Basically, a group of teenagers in a small town is having terrible dreams about the same ghoulish figure. From the very first scene we realize these dreams sort of blur the division between fantasy and reality, as many of the dreams often leave very tangible evidence behind. The plot centers around a young teen named Nancy who is struggling to learn who this monster is and how to defeat him. However, the rest of the town thinks she's just crazy.
I really don't have too many complaints against this movie. I have watched it probably a dozen times now, and it always holds my interest. It is truly a scary movie. The gore is excellent though not excessive. The nightmare imagery is quite effective and is consistent with the way people dream. I believe that psychologically, the film does very well to target children in a sometimes overtly sexual way. This provides Freddy, the aforementioned monster, with a degree of evil that few horror movie villains are able to achieve. He becomes much more realistic to us through this fact as well. In a society where new stories of child abuse flood the media every day, it is a fear with which we are all too familiar.
The only real complaint I can give is that the characters' solutions to their problems, specifically Nancy, often seemed a little simplistic or juvenile. However, the simplicity of these solutions mostly fit the age of the persons involved, and they abide by reasonable "dream logic". In conclusion, five out of five stars, excellent movie, any self-respecting horror fan should see it.
Check in for reviews of the subsequent sequels to this classic! Dr. Death wishes you all terrifying dreams . . .

Welcome to Dr. Death's Horror Movie Review

For those interested in the horror genre but not keen on watching hundreds of movies and sifting through to find the good, the bad-bad, the good-bad, and the bad-good, welcome to Dr. Death's Horror Movie Review. Using this blog, I will make entries for every horror movie I have watched. I will rate, critique, and recommend movies. Each title will be rated as being good, good-bad, bad-good, or bad. The good category pertains to the classic horror movies. These movies are highly acclaimed and will score well against any horror ruberick. The good-bad category is designated for movies that are cheezy or for whatever reason are so bad they are funny. Many low-budget, poorly written, and poor acted films will comprise this category. The bad-good category is a category which caters to movies that incorporate an element of humor or melodrama which might make them at face value, seem like good-bad movies. Movies such as the Evil Dead Trilogy and Dead Alive will be reviewed in this section. The bad category is self-explanatory. In this section will be listed movies that under no circumstances or under no pretenses should anyone ever waste the time to watch. I have spent a lot of time torturing myself with movies like these so that you don't have to. Please take my word for it when I say that I will approach a movie from every critical angle and do anything in my power to make the movie enjoyable before placing it in this category. Feel free to post requests, suggestions, enraged rants, and really any feedback that you feel is relevant. Dr. Death will be your spectral guide to the horror genre!