Staggering across the finish line…

Posted onDecember 31, 2017

 

…and immediately signing up for the next race.

 

 

2017 was not one of our more productive years, to put put it mildly; a larger than usual serving of mea culpas seems in order.

 

But as always, a new year brings new hope.

 

Many thanks to our visitors and commentators We very much appreciate your continued support (and patience).

 

Best wishes to all for 2018!

 

 

 

Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

Catching Up on Past Roundtables, Part 2: Peter Cushing

Posted onDecember 27, 2017
Dr. terror's House of Honours: The B-Masters Salute Peter Cushing

La Grande Trouille/Tendre Dracula (1974)

A great horror star has given up his career in order to devote his life to the cause of Romance. His producer sends two inept screenwriters after him, to drag him back to his commitments. But the fugitive star is much more than he seems to be; and the two idiots soon find that nothing in the real world could prepare them for entering the realm of either horror or romance.

It’s often said that Peter Cushing didn’t make any truly bad movies, because his presence alone was generally enough to save even the worst of them. Trust me to find the exception. La Grande Trouille is so awful that I find myself digressing even further than usual to avoid talking about it. This French would-be comedy wastes not only a good premise, but also the talents of some other fine actors in addition to Cushing: Alida Valli and Miou-Miou.

Will Laughlin is the Braineater.

It’ll make you grin

Posted onDecember 24, 2017

SmileMichael Ritchie was an inconsistent director, though with Smile he struck comic gold.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

I want my mummy!

Posted onDecember 22, 2017

 

So I did something about it.

 


 
 

THE MUMMY’S CURSE (1944)
…is notable chiefly for the contempt it displays for the franchise which contains it. That said, it’s probably the only chance you’ll ever have to see a 3,000-year-old, undead Egyptian princess using a microscope.
 

I have also copied over:
The Mummy’s Hand (1940)
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

…and as a consequence, I am currently suffering a strange medical condition I call “bandage-blindness”.
 
 
 
 
 

Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

Catching Up on Past Roundtables, Part 1: WTF?

Posted onDecember 20, 2017
WTF? A B-Masters' Roundtable

Indian cinema frequently borrows from popular Hollywood movies, but never has the borrowing been more bizarre and less appropriate than in Kutty Pisasu (2010), a Tamil film that brings together the divine retribution of Kali and.. and…

You know what? I can’t. I just can’t. Suffice it to say it’s one of my least favorite American pop-cultural artifacts, and it has no place mixing with Indian mythology… but you’ll have to read about it for yourself. Oh, and there’s also a singing/dancing child star who goes around incinerating people. It’s weird, it’s wild, it’s colorful, and it’s much less fun than you might think.

Kutty Pisasu

Will Laughlin is the Braineater.

Why, yes: I have gone completely out of my mind

Posted onDecember 15, 2017

 

Thank you for asking.

 

 

I noticed the other day – rather to my consternation – that it has been a decade since I drew a line under my viewing of the original ten Friday The 13th movies. This detail coincided with a weird itch I’ve had lately to revisit the franchise, so that I was able to interpret it as A Sign.

Here’s the thing, though: I approached the F13 films the first time as a slasher movie neophyte, so that I was reacting to them cold, and my reviews, as a set, constitute a record of my journey through them, and the progressive thickening of my skin—or, as Zack Handlen put it at the time, “your horrified dismay slowly blossom{ing} into somewhat affectionate contempt”—and I don’t want to lose that aspect of them.

So here’s the plan: I do intend to revisit and revise the first one from a more knowledgeable perspective, as over time I’ve come to consider it a bit smarter than I was prepared to concede (or, perhaps, recognised) the first time; albeit still dumb as a box of hammers in the broader sense; but beyond that, I won’t be revising the other reviews too much, merely tweaking and tidying them up as they need it.

The other aspect of this trip down memory lane is that it gives me an excuse to embark on something I’ve had in mind for ages, namely, Rating The Final Girls (or Boys, or Couples). I know that for some (most?) people, slasher movies are all about their kill scenes, but for me, they stand or fall on their Final Girl sequences. I came out of my first F13 journey considering Amy Steel’s Ginny Fields the best Final Girl of all*, and I’ve seen nothing over the past decade that has made me change my mind about that. Thus, I’ll be ranking our Final Girls on The Ginny Scale, according to their endurance, ingenuity, willingness to get their hands dirty, and bad habits like putting their weapons down.

(*Please feel free to debate the point! – or to make recommendations…)

Of course not all slasher movies go along with the Final Whatever convention; and conversely, sometimes you find a proper Final Girl in a film that’s not really a slasher movie. Neither of these deviations will rule a film in or out of overall consideration.

And while in the first instance this project will simply address existing Final Girls, I hope that this will motivate me to tackle more of the slasher films I’ve accumulated but not watched. In that respect, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that one of the things that has held me up is trying to pick a starting point…nor that *my* starting point isn’t what the dogma dictates. However, for the sake of the last remnants of my sanity, I won’t be going any further back in time than the beginning of the 70s.
 
 
 

Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

Love hurts, but not for the viewer

Posted onDecember 14, 2017

Dream LoverAlas, I could not find the unrated version of Dream Lover to watch, but that did not stop me from enjoying this thriller.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

A B movie with a professional score is music to my ears

Posted onDecember 4, 2017


The Sword And The SorcererThe David Whitaker musical score for The Sword And The Sorcerer is truly magnificent, helping to raise the movie out of its low budget origins. And shock of all shocks, the movie does not suffer from being directed by Albert Pyun.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.