There’s enough good atmosphere, intriguing mystery, and creepy horror to be found in The Killing Hour (a.k.a. THE CLAIRVOYANT) to make it a real shame its distributor didn’t give it a decent theatrical release in its day.I started and abandoned a whole lot of sword-and-sorcery reviews back in 2020. This update gets me just about caught up on those. Also, although I’m taking a break from my kung fu movie studies here, I’m making up for it with a Hong Kong horror film:
Barbarian Queen (1985), in which Roger Corman, say what you want about him, was never under the misapprehension that women couldn’t headline an action movie…
Centipide Horror (1982), which isn’t quite a killer bug movie, but is instead about using bugs as delivery systems for black magic curses…
The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983), which is exactly the movie it sounds like, and yet not quite the one you’d expect once you learned that it was written by Claudio Fragasso and directed by Bruno Mattei…
Sorceress (1982), the developmental prototype for the Corman Conan Cash-In…
and…
The Throne of Fire (1983), in which the son of a wizard is the only thing standing between the Antichrist and a really nice chair
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
The so-called thriller A Lover’s Revenge is Canadian. And made for television. For the Lifetime Network. Though you can now guess its quality, please still read my review so my suffering for my art will be worth it.My next-to-last word on the Halloween franchise, alongside the next step in my kung fu education:
Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (1978), in which Jackie Chan’s first experiment in kung fu comedy goes over like a lead flying guillotine until the prospect of easy money changes its producer’s mind…
Halloween Kills (2021), in which a temporarily incapacitated Laurie Strode gets a little help from her neighbors in the fight against Michael Myers…
The Hunt (2010), which is not only a riff on The Most Dangerous Game that I never knew existed, but also one with a gimmick that I’ve never seen before…
Murder Weapon (1989), which calls itself an erotic thriller, but is really more of an erotic slasher movie…
and…
The Ship of Monsters (1960), in which smoking-hot space girls on an interplanetary mission to recruit breeding stock to replace their extinct menfolk enjoy a much warmer reception in Mexico than others of their sort received in Britain some years earlier.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
Jan 25
In just a little under twenty minutes, the short film Private manages to capture a lot of what made many of those film noir mystery movies from the 1940s and 1950s so compelling.Jan 15
An AIRPLANE!-styled comedy made by a dying Cannon Films might seem to have the smell of doom around it, but A Man Called Sarge is probably somewhat funnier than you may be expecting.Jan 5
Although the hero in Exterminator 2 wasn’t repeatedly covering his face because he was ashamed, I would certainly understand if that were the case.Now that I’m almost done with the Halloween franchise, my thoughts naturally turn toward what I might do for my next long-running undertaking. What I’ve settled on is something of a departure for 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting: under the expert guidance of longtime reader Blake “H-Man” Matthews, I’m going to try to achieve basic competence in the field of Hong Kong martial arts movies. Don’t worry– there’ll still be plenty of slashers, Satanists, rubber-suit monsters, and all the other things you’ve come to expect from me on the agenda, but at least for the near future, you’ll also be seeing a lot more skinny little Asian guys walloping each other. Here’s some idea of how that’s likely to work in practice:
Deadly Embrace (1989), in which David DeCoteau might call himself “Ellen Cabot,” but he isn’t fooling anybody who knows his work at all well…
The Legend of Spider Forest (1971), in which an artist on holiday in Bavaria has his vacation ruined by killer spiders, fugitive Nazis, and a weirdo scientist running his own private nerve-agent lab…
The Vampire Doll (1970), in which Toho tries its hand at Hammer horror, the AIP Poe cycle, and 60’s Eurogothic, all at the same time…
and…
Vengeance! (1970), in which the exceedingly dangerous brother of a slain Chinese opera star vows to get even with the criminal cartel responsible for his murder, even if that means taking on the local warlord and his army.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
Dec 6
Sub-sub-sub par efforts like The Trumpet Of The Swan go a long way in explaining why the demand for American hand-drawn animated theatrical movies evaporated completely.I’m not sure I’ve ever posted an update in which the newest film reviewed and the oldest were separated by more than a hundred years. At the very least, it can’t have happened more than once or twice.
Bad Meat (2011), in which it’s an open question whether the inmates of a reprogramming camp for juvenile delinquents were worse off before or after the camp staff got turned into mindless rage-zombies…
Bones and All (2022), in which awards-bait romance and explicit cannibalism are the two acquired tastes that taste really frigging weird together…
The Frozen Dead (1966), in which the mad scientist and his Nazi paymasters would have a much easier time getting their Fourth Reich up and running if his lab assistant would stop helping…
Halloween (2018), in which it’s another open question whether Michael Myers or Laurie Strode is the crazier one this time around…
Planet of the Vampire Women (2011), which comes within a hair’s breadth of living up to all the implications of that title…
Queen of Atlantis (1921), in which H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha isn’t the only terminally horny sorceress-queen lounging around North Africa seducing European explorers…
and…
School of the Holy Beast (1974), in which I had no idea they made naughty nun movies in Japan!
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.