Once again, Juniper spent the last few weeks of summer visiting family in the cool and verdant mountains, rather than sticking out the “Hell’s front porch” phase of the season here in the Chesapeake tidewater. So here’s another update heavily freighted with reviews of films she’d rather not think about (plus a couple less loathsome things we watched together after she got back):

Candyman (1992), in which some urban legends really are true, even when they really are just legends…

Entrails of a Virgin (1986), in which there are plenty of entrails, but precious few virgins to be found…

Grotesque (1988), in which you get three movies for the price of one, plus the disembodied conclusions to two more as a bonus…

The Killer Snakes (1974), in which the Shaw Brothers do Willard, and no animals weren’t harmed during the production of this film…

and…

The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), in which it takes almost long to type the title as it does to watch the movie.

It’s been… What? A year and a half since that happened? I’ve been missing that, let me tell you! Anyway, here’s the new stuff:

Gawain and the Green Knight (1973), which you might alternately think of as the beta test for Sword of the Valiant, or as Monty Python and the Holy Grail without the jokes…

The Green Knight (2021), in which the same old story gets a much more thoughtful (and also much more engagingly odd) treatment…

Halloween H20 (1998), in which, incredibly, we finally get a really good Halloween sequel…

The Last Dinosaur (1977), in which the title refers more properly to Richard Boone than to his Tyrannosaur nemesis…

and…

Rolls Royce Baby (1975), in which Erwin C. Dietrich borrows Lina Romay from Jesus Franco, and then just has her ride around the middle of nowhere in an old-timey limousine, picking up hitchhikers to screw.

And here’s another up-from-the-studs rebuild:

The Journey: Absolution (1997), which was my first brush with David DeCoteau way back when.

 El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.

Here’s what went up last night at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting:
 
Army of the Dead (2021), in which what happens in Vegas damned well better stay in Vegas…

Crocodile (1979), in which Sompote Sands evidently couldn’t quite complete the shift of gears between ripping off “Ultraman” and ripping off Jaws…

Devil’s Express (1975), in which Brooklyn karate gangs battle each other for dope-pushing territory and an ancient Chinese demon for the fate of humankind…

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), in which screenwriter Daniel Farrands attempts to revitalize a floundering, superannuated slasher franchise by reconfiguring it as an “X-Files” clone…

and…

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), in which the studio walks that back with a quickness after the original cut gets curbstomped by preview audiences.
 
Also, I’ve finally grown sufficiently embarrassed of some of the reviews from my first few years of operation to rewrite them practically from the ground up. So far I’ve identified a dozen reviews in need of such treatment, and I expect I’ll discover a few more before I’m through. Here’s the first installment on that project:
 
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which Hammer Film Productions were just trying not to get sued, but accidentally touched off a revolution in world horror cinema…

Die, Monster, Die! (1965), in which American International Pictures entrust Daniel Haller to do for H.P. Lovecraft what Roger Corman had already done for Edgar Allan Poe, but the venture doesn’t go nearly as well…

and…

First Man into Space (1958), in which an also-also-ran British studio perfects the art of impersonating cheap American crap.

 El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.