The End of Dr Blood's Video Vault

Yes, it's really the end of the blog this time.

This news will come as no surprise to my readers who have noticed that I've slowed down a lot over the last couple of years and not watched many movies at all. For one thing, I don't have the time or patience for reviewing horror movies anymore, and for another, I've lost interest in movies completely. I could blame it on various health issues that have come and gone, but really it's just part of getting older and growing out of stuff.

I'll leave the blog up as some of what I wrote is funny to go back and look at. In particular, the horrible punctuation mistakes of the early posts are somewhat amusing, and all of the vitriol I poured out on crappy low-budget horror is still relevant. Pointless movies made by delusional people which I really only wrote about because I had nothing better to do. Meh, we live and learn.

So what's next? Nothing really.

Up until fairly recently, I'd still been buying the occasional DVD from CeX, and although I wanted to write a series of posts called "The Joy of CeX", it's just not the same as those fantastic pawn shop scavenger hunts I used to go on. There's no satisfaction from the hunt when you can easily look up whatever you want and buy it from a website. The bargains are there, of course, because DVD and Blu-ray are almost dead as a format. Hell, the entire movie industry is pretty much dead now too, or if not dead, it's certainly extremely poorly and ready to kick the bucket at any time. There's nothing relevant for anyone my age. In fact, there's very little which is relevant for anyone over 18 now. It's mostly a lot of misguided, preachy, virtue-signalling, political crap which is so poorly disguised with feeble "storytelling" that only the very foolish still buy into it.

Having said that, I don't even watch the older movies I collected, they just sit on my bookshelves as a reminder of this great time-wasting folly. Same with the books I will never read and games which I never play.

So yeah, that's it. Nothing more to see here unless I change my mind again one day. I can't really see it happening though. There's no money to be made from any of this. In case you missed it, the magazines are slowly disappearing, and the big name blogs (which have never been acknowledged by normal people for having any credibility) are apparently e-begging. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and all those Patreon pan-handlers can fuck right off. If you really want to pay "idiot tax" to a bunch of people who don't care about anyone except themselves, go ahead, but I'm not falling for it.

The whole "scene" is now an even bigger pile of cliquey shit with nothing but the really shitty people left in it. When they aren't cross-promoting each other, or falsely playing the victim while bullying and inciting witch-hunts against anyone who challenges their brainwashed opinions, they are regurgitating the same old nostalgia crap as clickbait. It's pathetic and boring. The rest of us, the good people who've seen the light, have kicked the dust of this crap off our feet and moved on.

Later, gators.


Update
Photobucket is holding everyone to ransom over third-party image hosting. It looks like they finally did what all the trolls, haters, psychopaths, bullies, and pathological liars couldn't do. They killed my blog.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

"Alice returns to where the nightmare began: The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse."

There's no point writing any kind of in-depth review of "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter". It's just as disappointing and "samey" as all of the "Resident Evil" movies, and it's even more boring than playing one of the linear computer games that it's based on.

With lots of overly dramatic music, big bangs and explosions, crowds of zombies, close-up hand-to-hand combat, surprise T-virus mutated-zombie jump scares, and too much reliance on timers to create tension (which nearly always falls flat), you will rightly wonder who exactly this movie is intended for other than diehard fans. It certainly wasn't intended for me or anyone looking for characters with any depth or a story that can't be summarised in more than three sentences.

The only character to stand out even a little bit is Isaacs (played by Iain Glen, otherwise known as Ser Friendzoned from "Game of Thrones") who goes through various incarnations of being either a clone or the real Isaacs until you don't care which is which. Various other characters from the previous movies return as little more than cameos. Wesker, the Red Queen, and Claire whatever-her-name-is (played by Ali Larter) all get dressed up to play pretend for hardly any reason.

The rest is just a mess of running around and fighting in the dark with CGI everywhere and computery things popping up to remind you that this is all based on the Capcom console game which nobody has played since the late 1990s. It's not difficult to follow what little story there is, but it's not worth paying too much attention to it either.

There's a bit of anti-Christian nuttery to make it appeal to the Lefties, but since the motivation of the bad guys and subtext is blatantly more akin to the the rise of the SJW religion/virus and the rioting zombies who subscribe to that ideology, it comes across as a pathetic and hilarious misfire.

Sadly, the once uber hot Milla Jovovich really looks her age now (and more so, once you get the in-joke that I've just made), so I'm glad this is "The Final Chapter". Any more would be as embarrassing as middle-aged James Bond.

Passengers (2016)

"A spacecraft travelling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early."

Yes, I'm sure you've already heard the rumours, "Passengers" is just a "chick flick" set in space. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl... or something like that. Probably more of the latter than the former, regardless of which gender (from the thousands of fictitious ones) you might claim to be.

It looks good, has great effects, and has much better acting than the story deserves. It'll also hold your interest, as it did mine, right to the end. But then you'll think, "Damn, fooled again!" There's nothing here which you haven't seen done a hundred times before but in more terrestrial locations.

For the most part, I enjoyed "Passengers". Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence make a likeable but ill-matched couple, and Michael Sheen is a little bit too perfect as the robot barman. Even the spaceship is quite cool. The trouble is that the plot outline was probably written on the back of a stamp by someone who watched "Wall-E" (and possibly a very small part of "Silent Running") as a child.

With nothing of any substance here, "Passengers" is ultimately an easily consumed and instantly forgettable January movie, and to make matters worse, it's filled with nauseating self-sacrifice propaganda.

Next!

2016 - The Year in Review

Damn, it's that time of year again when all the movie bloggers post top ten lists influenced by their political ideologies. So, while they cross-promote and virtue-signal each other like crazy people, I'll just calmly sidestep the circle-jerk by not making any lists whatsoever.

Once again, there haven't been enough horror movies this year to make a "Top 10 Best Horror Movies of 2016", let alone another "Top 10 Worst Horror Movies of 2016" to accompany it. Even combining all the movies from other genres which I've watched this year, it would be impossible to find 20 in total which I feel like mentioning again. It's really been that bad.

Cue the comedy tumbleweed...

Same time next year, Mr Tumbleweed?

Movies I Enjoyed in 2016

There were a few movies I liked, but apart from "Gods of Egypt", "The Huntsman: Winter's War", and "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children", none of them were from this year.

In October, I went on a minor journey into some Hitchcock classics with "The Birds" and "Rebecca", but I couldn't sustain enough interest in old movies I'd already seen dozens of times before to continue. I also discovered that I don't actually own DVDs of the more famous Hitchcock movies to make a series out of it and found myself slipping away from horror towards what can only be described as "great works of A-level English literature turned into dumbed-down movies for the plebs". I was just about to review "Great Expectations" when I realised that I couldn't stand any more of that horribly dated old bollocks. Even "The Joy of CeX" and their ridiculously low prices wasn't enough to tempt me back once the spell was broken.

Pure shit which makes no sense.

Instead, I watched "The Wailing", hoping that South Korea was going to deliver the goods like they did with "Gwoemul" ten years ago. I got really into it to start with as it ticked all the right boxes of "otherness" and "different", but alas, it was not to last. This already tonally-challenged abomination turned into pure shit two-thirds of the way through, didn't make a lick of sense to me at the end, and I gave up on watching and reviewing movies again. We don't even "do" Hallowe'en in Britain, so there was no point in burning myself out even further.


TV Shows of 2016

Other than compulsory viewing of "EastEnders" and "Wentworth", I mainly used the television to play Xbox games this year. I didn't watch any "Game of Thrones" except the last two episodes, and I have no interest left in "The Walking Dead", "American Horror Story", or "Ash vs. Evil Dead".

I did force myself to watch the entire first season of "Westworld", although after a couple of episodes, it turned into yet another one of those shows with more padding than narrative progression. The whole thing could have been condensed into one movie without all the "Groundhog Day" repetition, flashbacks, "flashforwards", and general messing about with timelines. Oh wait, it already was. Yeah, I think I'll stick with the original 1973 movie, thank you, rather than waste my time with another "Lost". Just like how the "Losties" were dead all along, I expect the "Westies" will all turn out to be robots when "Westworld" returns for another season in 2018 (when everyone has forgotten about it) anyway.

In fact, the highlight of this year was watching Donald Trump win the Presidential Election. Considering that I'm not into boring politics, I was still intrigued enough to watch it on the BBC, who dragged the final result out forever in the vain hope that it would change in favour of their fellow Lefties. It was great but cringeworthy late night television. Watching more and more American Democrats and SJW-types get well and truly served when Hillary Clinton lost was hilarious to me, and the fallout which followed on social media was like bittersweet icing on a cake already made delicious with their salty tears of misery.

It would be fantastic if Trump's win signalled the beginning of a long overdue worldwide change back to normality and killed the annoying Millennial religion of SJW-dom, political correctness gone mad, and the crybully victim-culture which the mainstream media has milked for all it's worth, but I doubt that it will happen. The Illuminati bankers and Reptilians from Saturn have had their plans delayed a little bit, but that's all. The fact that we voted to leave the EU six months ago in Britain and still no "Brexit" has occurred speaks volumes. As the old joke goes, "It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government still gets in."


In Remembrance

A veritable shit load of actors, entertainers, and celebrities died again this year, including several "stars" who apparently only departed this plane of existence just to upset millions of people who had never been fans of theirs before. Here are the majority of the ones I heard about through the wailing and gnashing of teeth on social media. I've highlighted the names of those I knew of before they died. R.I.P.

Lennie Bluett Leonard White Yves Vincent Richard Libertini Myra Carter Anna Synodinou Umberto Raho Angus Scrimm Ed Stewart David Bowie David Margulies Brian Bedford Conrad Phillips Franco Citti Alan Rickman Micole Mercurio Bairbre Dowling Sheila Sim Dan Haggerty Lois Ramsey Glenn Frey Colin Vearncombe Abe Vigoda Frank Finlay Terry Wogan Dave Mirra Richard Gladman Maurice White William Haze Louise Plowright George Martin James Douglas Nancy Reagan Richard Davalos Robert Horton Keith Emerson Sylvia Anderson Paul Daniels Larry Drake Ken Howard Earl Hamner, Jr. Garry Shandling Patty Duke

Frank De Felitta Ronnie Corbett Douglas Wilmer Merle Haggard David Swift Martin Fitzmaurice Doris Roberts Victoria Wood Prince Madeleine Lebeau Sylvia Kauders Reg Grundy Nick Lashaway William Schallert Nicholas Fisk Valerie Lush Ian Watkin Rosanna Huffman Burt Kwouk Angela Paton Harambe David Spielberg Muhammed Ali Lidia Biondi Ronnie Claire Edwards Ann Morgan Guilbert Dave Swarbick Anton Yelchin Sharon Douglas Götz George Stuart Nisbet Robin Hardy Caroline Aherne Michael Cimino Noel Neill Corrado Farina Seamon Glass Ken Barrie Vivean Gray Terence Bayler David Huddleston Barry Jenner Cynthia Szigeti

Kenny Baker Patricia English Arthur Hiller Michael Leader Steven Hill Marvin Kaplan Peter Comi Gene Wilder Jon Polito John Hostetter Johnny Rebel Hazel Douglas James Stacy Alexis Arquette Todd Kimsey Herschell Gordon Lewis Peter Collingwood Laura Troschel Pete Burns Gary Dubin Ricky Callan Jean Alexander Richard Cavendish Margaret Ashcroft Lene Tiemroth John Carson Robert Vaughn Lisa Lynn Masters Yevgeni Lazarev Andrew Sachs Colonel Abrams Bernard Gallagher Valerie Gaunt Van Williams Alice Drummond Don Calfa Margaret Whitton Peter Vaughan Greg Lake Walter Swinburn Alan Thicke Bernard Fox Rick Parfitt

...and this evil fuck. Burn in Hell!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

M.R. James' Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee

The late Sir Christopher Lee narrates a series of four half-hour ghost stories by M.R. James. Originally shown on BBC2 during the last week of December, 2000.

Watch them while you can!


The Stalls of Barchester (December 23rd, 2000)




The Ash Tree (December 26th, 2000)




Number 13 (December 29th, 2000)




A Warning to the Curious (December 31st, 2000)




Buy them on DVD from Amazon here: Ghost Stories for Christmas (Expanded 6-Disc Collection Box Set) [DVD] - Note: Does not include Christopher Lee reading "The Ash Tree".

M.R. James' Ghost Stories for Christmas with Robert Powell

Robert Powell narrates a series of five partially-dramatised ghost stories by M.R. James. Originally shown on BBC2 during the last week of December, 1986, they included "The Mezzotint", "The Ash-Tree", "The Rose Garden", "Wailing Well", and "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad".

Watch this one on YouTube while you still can!

Wailing Well (December 28th, 1986)





Buy them on DVD from Amazon here: Classic Ghost Stories of M R James [DVD]

Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

"The next installment in the blockbuster franchise, UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS follows Vampire death dealer, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) as she fends off brutal attacks from both the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her. With her only allies, David (Theo James) and his father Thomas (Charles Dance), she must stop the eternal war between Lycans and Vampires, even if it means she has to make the ultimate sacrifice."

Considering that I've already bitched and whined as much as is humanly possible about how disappointing this entire series of "black and blue films" is overall, all I'm really doing by reviewing "Blood Wars" is repeating what I said about "Underworld: Awakening" four years ago but with a few extra names dropped in. Sadly, I've watched these movies get worse with every sequel (or prequel), and I'd almost forgotten what happened in the last one until I read my own review.

Suffice it to say that with a running time of just over an hour and 20 minutes (including 4 minutes of recaps at the start and several more minutes of flashbacks scattered throughout), there isn't a lot of anything new here. It's already obvious that it's not going to be the last of the "Underworld" series, but it's easily the weakest so far and reeks of being another half-arsed filler. "Underworld" really should have been a TV series after the first theatrical release if this is the way they are going to play it.

Obviously, Kate Beckinsale looks fantastic again. Also of note is Lara Pulver as Semira. She looks like a more perfect version of a young Sigourney Weaver from certain angles, but occasionally she has the air of Eva Green about her too.

It's almost the same deal with Theo James who reminds me of a younger Julian McMahon, Bradley James who looks like Mads Mikkelsen playing Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale", and James Faulkner who resembles Albert Finney way too much. Maybe the casting director thought they were trying to make a lookalike compendium of the latest James Bond films because that's what they've ended up with, give or take a few werewolves and vampires.

Whatever the case, the plot is weak, characters aren't given enough time to develop, and every slow scene seems to be designed as a hindrance rather than an attempt to progress the story. Consequently, if you only see the last 5 minutes, it will be enough to prepare you for the next installment, because the padded action sequences are nothing memorable either. A couple of important characters are completely wasted, but I'll say no more than that. Maybe it's an intentional contempt for the audience, or maybe it's just inept filmmaking, I'll let you decide for yourself.

Although the choreography improves later on, the majority of the action scenes are little more than a bunch of extras who no one cares about getting confusingly slaughtered in the background to the even more confusing duels between the main protagonists. There's never any sense of threat or danger involved due to none of the characters having enough screen time for you to get to know much about them.

The be all and end all of this "Underworld" movie is that it seems to only exist for completists and fans who will buy it anyway. If you haven't seen any of the others, you won't know what to make of it, who anyone is, or why anything is happening, and even with prior knowledge, "Underworld: Blood Wars" will still be very disappointing.

Already showing in Europe since the start of December, American audiences will have to wait until January for the theatrical release. For those who are wise to these things, the fact that it's a "January movie" says it all.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

"When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that stretches across time, he finds Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. But the danger deepens after he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers."

Really fucking good! I'm amazed at how much I enjoyed this, especially considering that it's a kids' film by Tim Burton.

Obviously, I only watched it because Eva Green is in it, and she does not disappoint. In fact, I don't think I've seen her give a bad performance in anything so far. She's not as sexy as she was in "Dark Shadows", "Sin City 2", or "300: Rise of an Empire", but then again, she's not playing that kind of role this time either.

Even though "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is more or less a ripoff of Marvel's "X-men", it's beautifully filmed, almost flawlessly acted, and has lots of surprises in the casting. Samuel L. Jackson chews scenery brilliantly, Terence Stamp is used far too sparingly, but you can't complain when Rupert Everett is in it too!

As expected, the characters and plot (based on yet another YA novel which I have no intention of ever reading) are a bit weird here and there, and the CGI Slender Man/Jack Skellington-wannabe (a lot like the one in this year's "Blair Witch") makes several appearances (because that's the scary thing now, apparently), but it's not an excessive Tim Burton fantasy. In other words, there's no Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter being overly "eccentric" to spoil it.

I'd even go so far as saying that "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is an "epic" children's adventure. A few nods to (or obvious "borrowings" from) other well known classics for the same age group are noticeable without being cliché, and it all just works. Admittedly, a major part of the story involving "time loops" falls apart under closer scrutiny at the end, as happens with every "time loop" sci-fi or fantasy movie ever made, but the target audience are unlikely to notice.

Highly recommended for all ages, and definitely one to buy when it gets released on DVD and blu-ray. If it's still playing at a cinema near you, catch it while you can.

Oh, and [SPOILER] Judi Dench's character dies in it, which is always a bonus!

Arrival (2016)

"When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team - led by expert linguist Louise Banks - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers - and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity."

So, I watched 2 hours or more (trust me, it felt longer) of this utter shite based on a novel about alien octopusses which look like the Cloverfield monster, and I can now safely say that it was boring as shit and didn't make any fucking sense whatsoever.

I'm not some fucking thickie who can't decipher movies, but "The Arrival" is such a fucking artsy-fartsy, tangled mess that there's no explanation possible for what it's supposed to be about without drifting into some obscure philosophical bollocks which nobody normal knows about or has ever read anyway. No moral, no message, none of the most obvious questions answered, nothing memorable, just piss poor storytelling. It doesn't even have Charlie Sheen in it!

Here come loads of spoilers because fuck this movie.

She looks about as happy as I did watching this horseshit.

Basically, some ovaloid spaceships appear all over the world, and the aliens inside look like scary octopusses, or walking hands, or spiders. Take your pick, they are all nasty. The ugly motherfuckers walk like disembodied hands and squirt ink. Whatever the fuck they are, you wouldn't want one swimming up your arse.

A woman linguist (played by Amy Adams) with no make-up (because she's a scientist and clever, yawn!) and a bunch of other nondescript scientists go aboard one of the ships and attempt to communicate with the octopusses, but because the military are involved, someone (predictably) sets a bomb off during one of their missions, and the story starts again, and again, and again. Not like "Groundhog Day", but like someone fucked up editing it all together.

There's a little girl involved and a baby who may be the same person, and both are the linguist's daughter or the linguist herself. Both or all of them are destined to die of some horrible incurable disease which probably came from the octopusses. I'm fucked if I know. By this point, I'd developed a serious case of Forest Whitaker eye (yeah, he's in it too) and didn't care about anything. No action, no ray guns, no boobs, no blood, no cats. Why does something like this even exist? Oh yeah, because nerds and cucks like sci-fi.

After a scene more of less straight out of "The Abyss" (another slow movie which is also boring as shit), the aliens communicate with subtitles then leave. The linguist phones a Chinese scientist guy to tell him what his dead wife's last words were, and we're back to the linguist, and the little girl, and the baby again. Apparently she's married to the Jeremy Renner scientist guy now too, because that isn't predictable at all.

And none of it makes any fucking sense!!!!

Why are they here? Fucked if I know.

8.4 on the IMDb? Give me a fucking break. It's not even worth 1 out of 10. This is complete and utter shit from beginning to end. Allegedly, it rips-off Samuel R. Delany's "Babel 17" too.

I can't wait to see how badly director Denis Villeneuve fucks up the "Blade Runner" sequel with more style over substance now. Actually, I'm not. I won't be watching it.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

"The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York's secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school."

Meh, there's nothing too original or exciting in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". As many have noticed, it really is like a "Doctor Who" special mixed with "King Kong" mixed with "Pokémon".

The lead who I can't be bothered to look up the name of (Edit: it's Eddie Redmayne) channels Matt Smith so much that he might as well be Matt Smith. He has the same mannerisms, awkwardness, and dress sense. He even has a bowtie, uses his wand like a sonic screwdriver, and carries a suitcase with Tardis properties. I'm not calling J.K. Rowling a plagiarist, but... yeah, this is either plagiarism or a really blatant homage, take your pick.

For those who care, Colin Farrell is more than tolerable, and Johnny Depp gets less than a minute of screen time roughly 5 minutes from the end.

Other than that, and the abundance of CGI, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" isn't the worst thing I've ever seen. The period setting in New York works well, and I expect American Harry Potter fans will love it. But because I'm not ten years old, and I loathe all things Harry Potter, it didn't do anything memorable for me.

As theatrical family films go, it's okay-ish. The creatures aren't very scary, and the story is easy to follow. It's just so below average in every other way that it's hardly one of this year's "must sees".

The Disappointments Room (2016)

"A mother and her young son release unimaginable horrors from the attic of their rural dream home."

I'm going to address the elephant in the room straight away: "The Disappointments Room" is aptly named. Everyone can now sit back smugly and chuckle, because saying that is about as obvious and predictable as everything else in this ghostie movie.

It's such a shame when a movie like this fails to deliver, especially as everything was in place for it to be good. The North Carolina location is fantastic, Kate Beckinsale in a blonde wig is still as beautiful as ever, and there's even a cat in the story. Unfortunately, "The Disappointments Room" contains nothing which hasn't been done before, or more importantly, done better.

If you can't guess how "The Disappointments Room" is going to go after the first ten minutes, either you haven't seen enough horror movies (which is possibly a good thing) or you haven't realised the formulaic nature of just about every "ghosts and hauntings" movie ever made. You can be sure that director D.J. Caruso and his co-writer Wentworth Miller have seen everything though, and they've thrown as many tropes as they could into this in arguably not the best manner. Having said that, there are some good moments among the unoriginality, but even then, they aren't great.

Acting-wise, it's okay. Kate Beckinsale seems to have become the Belén Rueda of American horror, and will probably continue in the same vein for years to come. She's always technically been a MILF, but now she's playing one as part of the plot, and there's nothing wrong with that. Her supporting cast, because let's keep it real here, don't have much to do or very much screen time, but they are perfectly acceptable. The storytelling is a bit rushed, and it's that element more than any other which makes "The Disappointments Room" into more of a generic product than something you would want in your collection.

Gerald McRaney's role is woefully small but important, but hey, it's not the size but what you do with it, right? Fortunately, a potentially annoying child in the form of Duncan Joiner playing Lucas is also nipped in the bud early on. The latter has an encounter which is so obviously cribbed from "The Shining" that of course it works, and he's not such an irritating little piss afterwards.

"Bones" fans will spot Michaela Conlin for a few seconds with no discernable lines of dialogue, but who cares? She's in it, it's another IMDb credit, and the point of her character is made. For those who might blink and miss it, Lucas Till's character Ben pretty much nails why the rich, middle-aged "yuppies" have moved to the countryside anyway in a buzzkill, quasi "meta-cinema" line which isn't wasted at all. Some slight socio-political commentary there, maybe? On the plus side, maybe not.

If you want to see more original (although still highly formulaic) stories in the "ghosts/haunted house with a mystery" subgenre, you can choose from "The Uninvited" (1944), "The Haunted" (1963), "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (1973), "Burnt Offerings" (1976), "The Haunting Passion" (1983), "The Haunting of Seacliff Inn" (1994), "House of the Damned" (1996), "The Others" (2001), "Penny Dreadful" (2005), "The Orphanage" (2007), "The Abandoned" (2015), and literally hundreds if not thousands more. There's even enough of the "architects renovating a building and setting ghosts loose" movies that they have become yet another subgenre in their own right. One that springs to mind from only a couple of years ago, "Altar" (2014), was almost the same story as this but set in a windswept manor in Northern England.

If you're a Kate Beckinsale fan, you'll love her in "The Disappointments Room". If you're a ghost story fan, you'll watch this anyway for completeness. But if you're looking for originality, something like this (or anything recent in the whole horror genre) is not for you.

Hudson Horror Show 14: 35mm Film Festival Announcement

"The Rules of Hudson Horror Show" Trailer:



Official press release:

Hudson Horror Show #14, the Hudson Valley’s only 12-hour 35mm retro movie marathon will take place December 3rd, 2016 at the South Hills Cinema 8 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Limited tickets are on sale now and are just $38.00 in advance and only available at www.hudsonhorror.com. We’ll have six movies, all projected off 35mm film!

The show just got far more brutal as we are proud and well a little scared to let everyone know that the latest addition to our fall show is… 1978’s horror/exploitation classic I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE!

Starring the beautiful Camille Keaton and produced and directed in 1978 by Meir Zarchi, this movie is so violent that it was still named by TIME in 2010 as one of their Top 10 Most Ridiculously Violent Movies ever! Critic Roger Ebert reviewed the movie and claimed it to be the “worst film ever made” and said that it was a “vile bag of garbage”. The vicious and stomach turning gang rape, the violent and brutal castration and murder scenes are so intense that the complete version of the film is still banned in England and Ireland to this day! Can YOU sit through it all?

We are very excited to be presenting a 30th anniversary screening of THE HITCHER! Three decades back this great little stalk and slash road picture didn’t make much of a splash at the box office, but it became a cable TV staple in the late 80’s and early 90’s. See Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell (in whiteface) in their greatest roles!

The trailer at our last show was met with thunderous applause so we knew we had to track down one of the last know surviving film prints of the original DEATH RACE 2000! Forget the sanitized remake, nothing can compare to David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone and Mary Woronov running people over cross country in this futuristic sci fi classic!

Jordan Garren, that maniac from the B Movie Film Vault, presents one of our two fisted headliners, THE HOWLING! Directed by Joe Dante and starring Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee and Robert Picardo, THE HOWLING still stands tall as one of the greatest werewolf movies of all time. The special effects of Rob Bottin always looked great on TV, but trust us; the transformation scenes need to be watched on the big screen!

Our second headliner also features the wizardry of the Maestro Rob Bottin and that is 1987’s ROBOCOP! Yeah, we know all of the sequels and remakes sucked, but Director Paul Verhoeven’s cyborg movie is a five star masterpiece! Seriously, this movie is damn near perfect. You’ll run out of the theater yelling lines like “I’ll buy that for a dollar”, “I work for Dick Jones” and “Your move Creep”!

We will also have the ever-enigmatic MYSTERY MOVIE!! Will it be a slasher classic? Maybe we will show another terrible rubber monster movie? We are keeping tight lipped on this one, but we will tell you that is definitely, 100% a horror movie!

As usual, the two lobbies at the theater will be packed to the gills with vendors selling t-shirts, DVD’s, toys, posters and so much more. Interested in being a vendor? Send us an email to info@hudsonhorror.com. Tickets are not needed to shop the vendor’s area, but you will need a ticket to watch the movies.

Just like the last few shows, we will be booked in two different rooms in the same movie theater. One room is already long sold out; tickets are moving fast for the other. It doesn’t matter which room you sit in because both rooms will see the same exact movies, just in a different order. Get your tickets now at www.hudsonhorror.com. Just $38.00 in advance for 12 hours of 35mm movie madness!

We will see you on December 3rd, 2016 for Hudson Horror Show #14! Tickets on sale now at www.hudsonhorror.com.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

"A servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveller the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff."

It's very tempting to blog about "Wuthering Heights" simply to hit back at the "Jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none" movie reviewers who've tried to invade the horror genre (as they have done with various degrees of success over the last five years), and play them at their own game by intentionally reviewing some of their movies less than favourably, but I'm not going to stoop to their extremely low level by writing off this classic movie as nothing more than a great wraparound ghost story ruined by a load of soppy romantic drivel meant for repressed Victorian girls in the middle.

Somewhere amongst my disapproval of the faux "journalists" who've tried their hardest to destroy what little camaraderie was left in the various horror "communities" (which has resulted in hardly any true horror movies being made now), plus my added dislike of the confusing old books I was forced to read at school, the part of me which can still discern the good found a thoroughly engrossing gem in this adaptation of "Wuthering Heights".

To cut a long story short, I never finished reading "Wuthering Heights" when I was doing my English Literature A levels. The alien setting of the bleak Yorkshire moors, the ever increasing number of inconsistent characters, and the over-complicated style of this sprawling soap opera were even worse to me than reading some middle-English tripe such as Chaucer or the more nebulous poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Once given the opportunity to learn about a more straightforward book for the exams, I jumped at the chance by devouring "Pride and Prejudice" instead. I vowed never to read "Wuthering Heights" again (I've kept the promise to myself easily), and I had no interest in ever watching the movie until I started investgating the work of wartime directors as a possible theme for this month's "Hallowe'en Countdown".

What a delight awaited me when I discovered that this "Wuthering Heights" is an abridged version of only the best parts of Emily Brontë's tedious novel! The whole second generation of Earnshaws and Lintons (and God knows who else because that's where I threw the book in the bin) are absent, yet the tragic themes remain the same. Catherine's social climbing still wrecks her love affair with Heathcliff, Heathcliff is still a vengeful savage at heart, and the other characters are all moral weaklings trapped by their various finances, hereditary status, and genders in the class system.

As movies go, director William Wyler obviously did a fantastic job with this Samuel Goldwyn production, albeit with some disagreement about the ending. Behind the scenes, Wyler managed to beat most of the ham out of Laurence Olivier and even contain the disputes with Merle Oberon, although the surprising lack of physical chemistry between the leads is still noticeable until Cathy is on her deathbed.

It's almost possible to feel some sympathy for "milksop" Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella, due to the respective charisma of David Niven and frailty of Geraldine Fitzgerald. rather than wanting them to die horribly from the moment they first appear. Their very American period clothing is a little jarring for anyone seeking historical accuracy where there won't be any, but that's a minor quibble.

Even Flora Robson, known best to horror genre fans as Aunt Agatha from "The Shuttered Room" (1967), and possibly the lesser seen "Eye of the Devil" (1966) starring David Niven once again, comes across as far more human and defeated as the long-suffering housekeeper and narrator Ellen (or Nelly) Dean. Out of all the characters, she's likely to be more remembered than Laurence Olivier trying to pass for a Gypsy with highlights of Kiwi brown boot polish on his face.

Albeit a product of 1939 with affected speech patterns and stagey line delivery, "Wuthering Heights" is considerably more even in quality than Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940), and you won't find yourself cringing. After a few minutes, Greg Toland's Academy Award winning cinematography will make you forget that this is all in black and white too.

"Wuthering Heights" is a dark, brooding story with dark, brooding, and mostly unlikeable characters in its original form as a book, but with over half of it gone, the core works well as a tragic romance. It's not the same thing as reading the book, so you can't just watch the film instead of studying if you are unlucky enough to have it on your syllabus, but the subject matter has been rendered into an easily digestible work of art which is far more enjoyable than it really should be.

Thus, we have another movie for October which isn't something a "horror fan" would normally think of watching. Sometimes you just have to take a chance on something outside of your comfort zone, because life is too short to watch shit movies.

Rebecca (1940)

"A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife."

Although I'm the first to admit that I'm not much of a Hitchcock expert, this Oscar winning gothic thriller seems ideal (at least atmospherically) for my second recommendation in the run up to Hallowe'en.

There's not much I can tell you which you can't find out for yourself by Googling or reading Wikipedia, as it all seems fairly typical of an Alfred Hitchcock wartime film noir to me. "Rebecca" was Hitchcock's first American movie and his second adaptation of a book by Cornish author Daphne du Maurier.

Apparently, David Selznick wasn't happy with losing control as producer to the whims of Alfred Hitchcock and reshot several scenes, but I have no clue what they were or even if it matters that much. The movie ran way over budget for all kinds of reasons, and I don't think anyone involved was completely happy with it either during or after production.

Much like any other movie of the time, "Rebecca" is all very dated with mostly awful overacting and line delivery, and effects such as rear projection during the driving scenes are glaringly obvious. There's even what appears to be roadkill in the background of the second day out in Monte Carlo (actually California) with Maxim and the future Mrs de Winter.

"There will only be 8 planets left... after I destroy Uranus."

With several changes to the original novel by Daphne du Maurier, the standout amd most memorable character becomes the sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers (as played by Judith Anderson) rather than the romantic leads. Danvers is quite the looker, hardly ever blinks, and has the worst kind of fangirl crush on the dead former mistress of the house. Weirdly, we never get to see the titular Rebecca de Winter in flashbacks, and have to learn nearly everything about her from the rose-tinted memories of her obsessed servant. But just like the novel, the new Mrs de Winter doesn't even get a first name.

The only big problem with "Rebecca" is that it's hard to care about any of the characters other than Laurence Olivier's cuckolded Maxim, and to some extent, George Sanders as the opportunistic adulterer Max Favell. A very young Joan Fontaine is simply far too mousey, awkward, and scared of her own shadow as she comes to terms with her new position among the upper classes to be a sympathetic character for modern audiences who have never encountered domestic service themselves. Except for period TV dramas such as "Upstairs Downsatirs" and "Downton Abbey", I'm glad to say that I've never had much to do with the antiquated British feudal system either.

What makes "Rebecca" worth watching for its two-hour duration is the set design for the interiors of Manderley, the atmosphere, and the anticipation of revelations with a twist. Getting there may not be worth the trouble for some people (including anyone who has seen or heard any of the remakes and clones), but as a precursor to "The Uninvited" (1944)—an equally dated ghost story which I've often recommended for Hallowe'en—it's certainly interesting to see how certain moral codes were only everso slightly more relaxed four years later.

Due yet another remake any time now, "Rebecca" is still worth checking out if you don't want to wait. A certain British newspaper gave away barebones DVDs of the movie several years ago (which you can now pick up for pennies on eBay), and of course, it's been uploaded all over the internet streaming sites (despite not being officially in the Public Domain as far as I know) for those who want to search for it.

As an old black and white movie, I don't know if there's any benefit in buying a blu-ray version, but I'm sure at least one exists. The existing DVDs have several grainy moments near the end which could be the result of an intentional effect shot through a piece of net (perhaps to simulate fog or smoke), but they are all good enough for most people.

The Birds (1963)

"A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness."

Do you have ornithophobia? Do feathery things terrify you? No? Me neither, but there are some poor souls out there who would absolutely wet themselves at the thought of ever watching "The Birds", and not in a sexy way.

I've still got a soft spot for "The Birds" after reading Daphne Du Maurier's novella in one of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" collections at school. The written version is much more real than the film somehow, although in fairness, birds are usually quite harmless creatures, and you can't ever really imagine them turning against humans.

"The Birds" is almost as far-fetched as trees, grass, and other plants turning against people like in "The Happening" (2008), and I'm surprised that nobody picked up on M. Night Shyamalan's inspiration at the time. However, there's always a nagging doubt when it comes to nature or animals of any kind that they know something which we don't and will one day turn against us.

Alfred Hitchcock never explained why the birds attack, but everything seems to centre around Melanie (Tippi Hedren) and her relationship with Mitch (Rod Taylor). This has lead at least one reviewer to suggest that the birds are somehow telepathically controlled by Mitch's mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) due to her anxiety about losing her son to another woman. I think that interpretation is clever, but it's reading far too much into subtle points within the film. The way "The Birds" is structured mirrors the romantic subplot, but there's no suggestion of telepathy in the original short story.

There are several things which stand out in "The Birds" including Tippi Hedren's beauty, an early appearance by Veronica Cartwright, and how amazingly well thousands of real birds (and nearly 400 trick shots) were used. It's a good thing that Alfred Hitchcock never listened to the advice about working with children or animals, especially as it is well documented that he disliked birds himself.

Unfortunately, "The Birds" is becoming quite dated now, and the stagey dialogue is often extremely cringeworthy. In fact, the only member of the cast who seems to be able to act without affectation is the late Rod Taylor. Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette are only slightly more tolerable than the horrible overacting from Jessica Tandy, although there are unintentional laughs to be had at everyone's expense for a modern audience.

The special effects are, sadly, also not that great anymore. Some bird attack scenes look as if they belong to a bad 3D version of the movie rather than being the groundbreaking Disney Studios work they actually were, and of course, any blood is bright red like paint.

Platinum Dunes were once going to remake "The Birds", but thankfully, they seem to have given up on that idea. What would have even been the point? There's already a sequel, "The Birds II: Land's End" (1994), which should be more than enough for anyone wanting to watch badly made crap instead of the original.

If you are looking for something other than yet another slasher to watch on the run up to Hallowe'en, you could do far worse than break out this or any other Hitchcocks you might own. It may be impossible for the virtue signallers to ignore the director's alleged obsession with Tippi Hedren behind the scenes, but "The Birds" still stands as one of Alfred Hitchcock's more entertaining movies.

Three in a row for the first day of October 2016

Here we go again. It's going to be another October where horror reviewers fall over themselves to watch as many movies as they can, and nobody will read their blogs because they are all too busy writing their own.

I usually take a break from blogging around this time every year because Americans yawping on about the Hallowe'en non-holiday get right on my tits, but owing to the fact that I've hardly watched anything new at this point, I may as well join in the circle jerk.

I'm not sure whether to label these three movies as horror or thrillers, but I watched them and moatly enjoyed them. You might like them too.


Hush (2016)



"A deaf writer who retreated into the woods to live a solitary life must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears at her window."

A bit of an updated version of "Wait Until Dark", "Mute Witness", "Blink", "Blind Terror", "Julia's Eyes", and a plethora of others where an attractive but disabled woman gets menaced in her own home.

There's a cat in it named "Bitch" who survives, so that's a point in its favour, but the Apple product placement is blatant for those of us who notice such things.

Nothing new here, and one scene apes "The Collector", but it's a nicely done home invasion movie. I believe that Blumhouse produced it (which usually is the kiss of death) and Netflix are distributing it.


The Good Neighbor (2016)



"A pair of mischievous high school kids create the illusion of a haunting on an unsuspecting neighbor. While keeping his every reaction under surveillance, they see much more than they bargained for."

As much as I hate writng "neighbour" in the misspelled American way, this is an American film, so I'll leave it alone.

Not much to say about this other than the leads are pretty good, the twist is unexpected, and the story managed to keep my attention until the end. In some ways it reminds me of "Killer Net" (1998) at the beginning, but the story soon heads in a very different direction.

Another cat has an important part to play in the denouement. How interesting.


Don't Breathe (2016)



"Hoping to walk away with a massive fortune, a trio of thieves break into the house of a blind man who isn't as helpless as he seems."

If you've already watched the previous two movies, there really is nothing original in this one. It's yet another home invasion featuring a disabled "victim" with a secret. No cat this time though.

Out of the the three, this is easily the weakest, not least because of its setting, obvious SJW panderings, and the huge mistake of trying to make anyone feel sorry for the thieves. Personally, I wanted all of them to die.

A lot of younger movie enthusiasts think this is good, and if you haven't seen anything like it before, I suppose it's okay.


Hopefully, I'll have something much better for you tomorrow.

Blair Witch (2016)

"After discovering a video showing what he believes to be his vanished sister Heather, James and a group of friends head to the forest believed to be inhabited by the Blair Witch."

Starring another load of people you've never heard of and are probably never likely to hear of again, "Blair Witch" is an unnecessary sequel to a faux found footage movie I never liked very much in the first place.

So why watch it? Truth be told, I didn't. I just let my friends tell me how horrible it is, how annoying the characters are, and then I decided to write a nasty blog post about it. Hey, at least I'm honest.

I have no intention of ever wasting my time watching this shit made by Millennials for Millennials, or anything else Wingard and Barrett cobble together. From what I've been told, "Blair Witch" appears to borrow heavily from the Slender Man game and even features a thin-limbed CGI witch-creature to seal the deal. And that's really all I or anyone else needs to know. The rest of it is simply noisy jump scares.

Curious about what the Blair Witch actually looks like? Want to just see the witch and save yourself some money? Here ya go:

Naked Slender Man is actually pretty scary.

Fuck this movie and the original.

If I want motion-sickness from a movie which looks like a camera was being whirled round someone's head in a sock, I'm sure another equally lame "indie horror" offering will appear soon enough.

31 (2016)

"Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns."

Yet another adaptation of "The Most Dangerous Game", but this time populated with the usual American white trash characters and psycho clowns which are the norm for Rob Zombie's movies. Maybe he has something against Juggalos, or maybe he likes them? I really don't know. What's far more evident is how there isn't a whole lot of anything very original about "31".

In other words, "31" is Rob Zombie's version of "Hostel" and "The Running Man" with his very beautiful wife Sheri Moon Zombie as the star, and Malcolm McDowell picking up a pay cheque for doing not very much except play dress-up and chew scenery in the background.

Jeff Daniel Phillips as Roscoe Pepper and Richard Brake as Doom-Head steal every scene they are in, but Richard Brake is the most memorable as a cross between Rorschach from "Watchmen" and a much better version of The Joker than in any of the "Batman" movies.

The rest of the cast play mostly disposable characters who exist only to be killed off before you even have time to care about them. Everyone runs around stabbing, bashing, slicing, and wielding various weapons against each other in a very satisfying manner if only this movie had been made 10 years ago. The kills aren't very inventive, but they are competently executed. Pardon the mostly intentional pun.

Malcolm McDowell punctuates all the expected blood, gore, and violence like something out of Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" (1978), but there's not really enough of him to stand out like he often does. Shame. Fan favourites Meg Foster and E.G. Daily make up for this to some extent by adding more pathos to their performances and characters than the rest of the movie actually deserves.

Minor spoiler: Sheri Moon Zombie has lovely wrists, but the open ending is annoying.

Nicely shot, "31" isn't a bad movie, and it's certainly much better at storytelling than "The Lords of Salem" (2012), but Rob Zombie's best work still begins and ends with "The Devil's Rejects" (2005).

The Neon Demon (2016)

"When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has."

Imagine, if you will, "Zoolander" without the intentional comedy, or "Starry Eyes" without the horror. Got those fixed in your mind? Good. That's pretty much what "The Neon Demon" is, but it's not as good as either of them. In fact, it's just not good.

There are two major problems with "The Neon Demon" which render it absolutely worthless even for the Millennial dripsters who would normally gush over similar products. First, it's slower than molasses going uphill in January. Second, Elle Fanning has neither the looks, height, or demeanour to be a fashion model. The latter would make the whole movie unintentionally hilarious, but for the fact that it's also tedious as shit.

If this movie is really supposed to be a horror movie, Nicolas Winding Refn has no idea what a horror movie should be. Granted, it's a horrible movie, but there are no scares, no surprises, and not really much of anything of interest once you take out the mildly titillating lesbianism and necrophilia.

While boobs and blood used to be all that was needed for a movie to qualify for the genre, things have moved on a bit in the rest of the real world. Audiences now like subtle things such as a compelling story and decent characterisation too, neither of which you'll find here.

As "The Neon Demon" is contrived to be very Elle Fanning-centric, it's a pity that she doesn't have the "X Factor" or any screen presence whatsoever. As a girl-next-door type, I'm sure Elle has her devoted, horndog fans, but based on her performance in this movie, I'm not likely to ever be one of them. It's hard to tell if her acting is good, bad, or horrendous because every character in "The Neon Demon" is unlikable and seems to be affected by some kind of Asperger's Syndrome anyway.

Keanu Reeves stands out in his two minutes of screentime, but he's last-billed for good reason. In what can only be described as an extended cameo where he's still channelling John Wick, he's not much more than a miserable so-and-so, albeit with all the best lines. I would say more, but I've already written more words than his character has. If you're a big Keanu mark and want to see "The Neon Demon" purely because he's in it, be prepared to be disappointed.

If you're looking for a movie which satirises the fashion industry, you would obviously be better off with "Zoolander" or even the unfairly maligned "Zoolander 2" (which is almost as great as the first one). Sadly, "Showgirls" did all the seedy stuff better many years ago, and both "Eat" and "Starry Eyes" did the horror properly.

I was asked if I had seen this movie last night, and my reply was, "Seen it, hated it." That doesn't make for much of a critique, but it's all that really needs to be said when anyone mentions this pretentious arthouse crap in future. I wasn't even going waste my time reviewing it because, like most new movies, it's not worth the effort of sitting through in the first place, but I suppose I've done it now. "The Neon Demon" is complete and utter shit.

Still nothing good to review

Every so often I think about reviewing something again, but unfortunately, there's been nothing worth watching this year. The quality (and quantity) of new horror movies is even worse than last year, and the year before, and the year before that. There are lots of reasons for this, but the blame mostly lies with lack of talent and new ideas. It doesn't help that the various nepotistic cliques of niche reviewers keep praising utter shit (when they aren't writing lazy nostalgia pieces) because it's all they have left to talk about.

The only "Summer movie" I watched.

Yes, we've had "The Conjuring 2" which deserves some kind of mention for trying to match its sets to how things looked in the Enfield poltergeist haunting videos on YouTube. I noticed the pop posters and had a bit of fun trying to identify the ones which were obviously different or in the wrong places. The Bay City Rollers, David Soul, and Joanna Lumley posters were close, but I don't remember The Kinks pullout poster from Jackie magazine actually being one of the girls' decorations. I also have some concerns over the family owning 1960s-style telephones (especially the wall-mounted kitchen phone) rather than trimphones from the late 1970s, but I can let that pass as "good enough". British telecommunications were not this movie's focus or forte. As for jump-scares, yeah, the nun-demon got me, and old Reg had a good moment.

Some people remarked how "The Conjuring 2" felt like more of a Christmas movie than anything else (duh, because it's set at Christmas), and I have nothing else to add to that uber "insightful" (oh God, that awful low-brow word overused by sheep across the internet!) observation. It's not Christmassy like "Gremlins", but the seasonal trappings are there in the background if you bother to look for them.

Maybe I should congratulate James Wan on trying his hardest to make heroes out of a pair of known charlatans. I'd never even heard of the Warrens before "The Conjuring", mainly because I don't really "do" paranormal investigation bullshit, and of course, I'm not American. According to ghosthunter Harry Price, the Warrens only turned up once, very briefly, and weren't big players in the Enfield poltergeist investigation at all. Patrick Wilson singing an Elvis song as Ed Warren is also a bit weird, out of place, but probably kind of nice for the ladies. So kudos for having very little historical accuracy then. But hey, the whole thing was a hoax anyway, so who even cares?

Not the worst thing I've ever seen but damned close.

I've also watched some horrid Kevin Bacon movie called "The Darkness". It's filled with clichés and the usual predictable possession guff, albeit with a couple of seemingly original "native American" touches which fall flat. Typical Blumhouse shit and as worthless and instantly forgettable as everything else they churn out. I think they tried to make it controversial by having an autistic kid in it and making him even more evil than autistic kids usually are in movies, but it didn't work out too well. Most "reviewers" simply saw Kevin Bacon attached, exclaimed "Doesn't he look old now?", and that was the highlight for them. "The Darkness" was rendered virtually unwatchable, however, by being filmed with a handycam with its very noticeable quivers and judders. Could nobody afford a tripod? Perhaps they spent all the budget on advertising their website. I don't know and don't care.

From other genres, "Green Room" bored me rigid. American Nazis (for lack of a better term) imprison a punk band in their backwoods concert hall and much merriment fails to ensue. I couldn't understand what that Yeltsin guy (who died by running himself over this year) said in any of his mumbled lines, and the namby-pamby feebleness of the instantly unlikable characters frustrated me. A couple of gunshot effects were undoubtedly cool near the end, but "Romper Stomper" is still the go-to movie if you like this kind of thing.

Fuck me, I liked something!

The biggest theatrical release for me was "Gods of Egypt". I actually enjoyed "Gods of Egypt" to the extent that I got threatened with physical assault on Facebook (and one person blocked me) because I dared to like something. The fucked-up-ness of that whole situation is quite hilarious. I've seen people getting all bent out of shape because I didn't like something but never the opposite. Even my infamous and blatant love for the "Twilight" movies never went that far. To this day, people still bitch about how I liked an incredibly successful franchise which they consider to be "non-horror" even though it had vampires and werewolves in it, while at the same time, they rave about their shitty horror-comedies which are even less worthy of being part of the genre. Some people, as we know, are just nuts.

Don't get me wrong, "Gods of Egypt" isn't a great movie, but it's easily as good as "Clash of the Titans" or any of those other adventures meant for little kids. It looks fantastic, the story is okay-ish, and it certainly didn't wreck Egyptian mythology as much as "Immortals" shat all over the ancient Greek legends a few years ago. I saw some SJW bullshit about "whitewashing" with the casting, but since those comments came from people who have no education or faintest idea about the diverse ethnicity in Ancient Egypt, I can laugh that off. There's no point arguing online with liberals, SJWs, or any other brainwashed "causers" because their combined IQs are less than a tin of pilchards. They clearly didn't watch the movie anyway, because if they had, they would have realised that there are more black characters than any other race portrayed. It may be one actor (Chadwick Boseman playing Thoth) repeated hundreds of times, but it still counts!

Starring lots of beautiful actresses whose names I can't remember.

Lastly, as far as new movies go, I watched "The Huntsman: Winter's War" and almost loved it. Again, nothing all that new, and no Kristen Stewart in it, but it has some nice bawdy British humour and a little bit of visual subtext which reduces the current "gender wars" (which really only exist in fake realities such as American college campuses or online, you know) into the minuscule kerfuffle that they truly are. If you don't pick up on it, you aren't good at reading images and certainly shouldn't review movies.

Among many things I've boycotted, I obviously haven't watched the remake/re-imagining/reboot/sequel of "Ghostbusters" because I don't like horror-comedies and didn't ever like the original or its sequel. The original failed at everything I call entertaining, apart from the one scene with the old woman/librarian ghost, and is just too sickeningly "American" for my taste. In other words, its comedy is fucking lame. Big deal that they changed all the genders, I couldn't care less if they replaced the characters with talking bags of shit. I doubt that anyone would notice the difference, but it's possible that I'd be more inclined to watch it if they had. Replace the cast with cats though, and I'd definitely watch the next one.

Please don't make any more of these!

Thanks to Amazon Prime (and a mixture of curiosity and boredom), I suffered through the three "Divergent" movies. I had no idea what to expect, and now wish I hadn't wasted my time. They are full of "pretty" talent, owe a lot to "Starship Troopers", and have some decent eyecandy here and there, but sci-fi blows anyway, and this is particularly shit sci-fi at that. When the kids all celebrated one of their minor victories by self-harming with tattoos, that was enough for me. I'm not the target audience for this crap, and even if I was, such trendy teen sci-fi has really gone downhill since "The Hunger Games" ripped off "Battle Royale".

In other news, I may start a new blog eventually about computer games. Aside from making cat videos and intentionally awful 5-hour podcasts, I've been playing computer games more than watching movies this year because, as I said at the start, this has already been a truly shit year for movies, and it isn't going to get any better.