The hostage drama Curfew is a frustrating mix of effective and incompetent material. Despite some good moments, in the end it’s not worth coming home in time to see.
Archive for category New Reviews
I break this curfew
Nov 5
UFO Identified
Nov 4
After our assorted forays into Haunted New York History and an occasional Paul Naschy werewolf movie or two, November at Teleport City is all about science fiction and spy television. And we’re kicking things off with a history of Gerry Anderson’s SPACE: 1999. The Space: 1999 Story – In the SHADO of the Moon takes a brief look at the career of Gerry Anderson and the development of the show that would serve as the eventual origin of Space: 1999 – UFO. There will be silver miniskirts.
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
Between October 31st and November 1st there’s a weird dividing line: at midnight, the whole USA suddenly turns its attention from Boris Karloff to Bing Crosby; the ghosts and monsters of the whole past month suddenly disappear, and it’s nothing but nauseating wholesomeness until the end of December. Before this happens, here’s something genuinely horrific to help bring a close to Halloween 2013…
More than a decade after the unexpected success of The Blair Witch Project, most of the follow-ons from Myrick and Sánchez’s film have mimicked its “found footage” aspect without stopping to consider what else could be done. Here are a handful of films which actually take a thoughtful approach to reconsidering the role of the camera in horror movies:
Atrocious (2010) — A Spanish film that at first looks like another pointless Blair Witch retread… until you get to the very end, and realize the film makers have done something really clever;
La Casa Muda (2010) — Not a found footage film, but a movie whose technical gimmick helps subvert its real intentions;
Silent House (2011) — The American remake of the Uruguyan La Casa Muda, which tries to take the (to say the least) controversial subject matter of the original and make it less ambiguous and more acceptable for an American audience… and in doing so, made it far worse and even ghastlier;
And…
Lovely Molly (2011), directed by Blair Witch‘s Eduardo Sánchez, a near-masterpiece that taught me I cannot trust what I think I’m seeing… especially when I’m watching the director’s interview.
This started as a fun reviewing project, and quickly turned sour. I was going to add a fifth movie for contrast, a Bollywood remake of Blair Witch that decided to omit the whole “found footage” aspect. But to my surprise, these first four films I’d chosen all turned out to have a harrowing common theme — the brutalization of children — and considering the disturbing nature of this common theme, the last film seemed jarringly out-of-place.
Finally, since this set is obviously more Trick than Treat, here’s a grim little Jess Franco outing that seems positively cheery by comparison:
1964: El Segreto del Dr. Orloff (aka Dr. Orloff’s Secret, Dr. Orloff’s Monster, Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll…)
Will Laughlin is the Braineater.The AFI Silver theater went on a month-long Aussie exploitation binge, and I was there. Also, here’s a teaser for the forthcoming Drive-In Super Monster-Rama update and something extra-Halloweeny just for the hell of it:
Fear in the Night (1972), in which Hammer Film Production taunts us with suggestions of all the pseudo-giallo movies they never actually made…
Long Weekend (1977), in which taking a wilderness camping trip together is exactly the wrong way to fix your ailing marriage, even if Mother Nature isn’t out to get you…
Patrick (1978), in which a three-year coma is no obstacle to a psychotic psychokinetic…
Road Games (1981), in which there has to be a better way of occupying oneself on a cross-country drive than throwing down with hitchhiker-stalking serial killer…
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), in which it isn’t just the kids running away to join the circus…
and…
Turkey Shoot (1981), in which nobody really expects neo-fascist re-education camps to do any re-educating, anyway.
A sassy Sasquatch
Oct 26
Recent news reports may have debunked the Yeti, but there’s still hope for Bigfoot. But if there really is a Bigfoot, let’s hope he’s not as cranky as the one in the movie Night Of The Demon.
Faux Poe
Oct 21
Hessler and Price are together again (for the first time) for a Poe adaptation that actually has a little something to do with Poe, or at least as much as any AIP Poe film has to do with Poe. Poe’s short story, “The Oblong Box,” has to do with a man who witnesses the obsession of an artist friend on a ship with an oblong shipping crate. So committed is the man, seeming delirious and mad, to this box that when the ship is wrecked during a storm, he sinks to the bottom of the ocean with the box rather than abandon it. Not to spoil the surprise, but it was a coffin containing his dead wife, though no one knew of the contents lest they refuse to travel overseas with a corpse. Hessler’s film does indeed contain a coffin that is referred to as an oblong box.
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
Once upon a time, there were two cousins named Golan and Globus. One day, they got in their heads the idea to make a series of movies based on children’s fairy tales, Red Riding Hood being one of them. However, this is one fairy tale that doesn’t have a happy ending.
Timing is everything, and it was fun to coordinate the database meltdown/move to a new home for Teleport City with the same happening to the B-Masters site. But reconstruction is just about complete (still need to sweep up some drywall dust and mount my guffawin’ spittin’ Laffun Head somewhere), and I do have rather a lot of updates since last we spoke. So in the service of not flooding or making a hundred-review post, I’m going to edit things down to the most recent and encourage you to poke around.
Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Plague of the Zombies, Cry of the Banshee, The Mummy’s Shroud, and Revenge of Frankenstein — all reviews salvaged from the wreckage of old Teleport City, spruced up, corrected, partially rewritten, and with added artwork.
Colonel Sun – the first James Bond novel after the death of Ian Fleming, written by Kingsley Amis, who comes across as rather a bit above it all. He also really hates M.
That Prince Among Shampoos and Yes, We Have No Pappy — in case you wanted to know about James Bond’s favorite shampoo company and which cocktails to pair with bay rum aftershave, and what whiskey to buy instead of Pappy Van Winkle, the most coveted whiskey in the recorded history of spirits.
From Donald to Dean – a four part series looking at the history of Matt Helm in book and film, and examining how the stone cold assassin of the books became Dean Martin.
Japan Destroys the World — a look at four films — The Last War, Genocide, Goke: Bodysnatcher from Hell, and Prophecies of Nostradamus — in which Japan exterminates mankind in really strange fashion
I think that’s enough for today
-----Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
We are family
Oct 6
What makes Lovers And Other Strangers more often than not a lot of fun to watch is that it not only understands how crazy various relationships in a family can get, you’ll see that your own family problems are probably nothing compared to the problems faced by the people in this movie.
Bored in East L.A.
Sep 26
We all had to start somewhere. PM Entertainment started with movies like East L.A. Warriors that were so bad that it’s hard to believe they became the kings of action just a few years later.