Razorback!

A gigantic, killer, horned pig.  I have always thought wart hogs and such were pretty scary looking.  And I've always wanted to see one as a monster on  movie.  Apparently I missed this masterpiece when I was a teenager and it's not an easy movie to catch.

This is a bit of a cheat because it's not streaming free and the budget is kind of big to consider it "indie".  In fact, according to the IMDB trivia section, even back in 1984, they spent $250,000 on a full sized animatronic pig.

But, the movie is definitely "niche". I managed to DVR it when it ran on TCM.  You can currently RENT it on Amazon.

"Razorback" is a mix of  three revenge stories and a giant monster movie.  Two men have reasons to want to kill the  titular creature and at least one of those men, Carl Winters, played by Gregory Harrison, also has some human villains to contend with, although he doesn't know it.  You know me, I like to let you guys get the plot from watching the movie, but those are the bones of it.  Giant pig, bad guys, heroes out for justice and/or revenge.

The cinematography is just amazing.  Another trivia tidbit refers to this movie as "Ozploitation".  Australia was very popular in the 80s, I think mostly thanks to "The Road Warrior".  Cinematographer, Dean Semler, set a very dark, desolate mood.  The landscape became a character and every shot was more impressive than the last.  The movie is worth watching for some of the truly beautifully shot scenes alone.

Russell Mulcahy didn't do a bad job at directing either.  Another reviewer stated that he felt the action sequences were a bit hard to follow, but if you're used to 70s and 80s monster movies, you're familiar with the standard "Monster Cam" POV shots, not showing the creature in full much, if ever, and all of the tricks a good director will use to cause viewers to build the monster in their minds.  I think it's an art that CG has largely killed.  Audiences just expect to see the monster now.  The whole thing, jumping and climbing and running and eating people. Mulcahy relied more on atmosphere and suggestion most of the movie.  Giving us glances here and there until things really get moving.  It's an art form all its own and done well here. We do get some nasty close ups of the Razorback and it's actually not bad looking.  Good by the standards of the day.

The creature F/X are on point, but we're given very little explanation as to where a pig the size of a Buick came from.  "Interbreeding" is mentioned and we're told that it's bristly hair makes it hard to shoot. (Really.)  Aside from that, little explanation is given and little is needed.  We know it's strong as a rhino and hard to kill. A proper monster.

The human villains would be comical if they weren't so violent.  That's not to say that comedy can't be dark.  In fact, there are one or two scary moments in the movie that definitely have a comical tilt.

I  recommend this one for fans of cinematography, mutated animals, gigantic monsters or Australia. 
It slows down now and then, but the atmosphere is relentless from about the 20 minute mark, keeping you on edge even when not much seems to be going on.

Robowar - A Review!

Wow.  If you had asked me last week if Reb Brown had ever been in a bad movie my answer would have been, "Of course", but I would have quickly followed that with, "...but they're always entertaining."  I'm not so sure I can say that now.

"Robowar" is another of those "blender" style mockbusters from the 80s, when VHS was still a thing and cable ran almost any competently produced movie (meaning it had audio and visual that basically matched up), especially late at night.  Explosions, gunfire, a "name" and nudity ( I don't recall any in this movie) also helped get movies to your TV sets.

Another thing producers liked to do back then to ensure an audience is something many still do now.  They would take well known movies and sort of mix them together.  "Robowar" is "Predator" if you take the alien hunter out and put the robot run amok in his place.  So, "Predator" mixed with "The Terminator", or "Robocop", maybe a little bit of "Chopping Mall" or "Deadly Friend".

A bit of disclosure here: I spent a good portion of this movie checking updates on my phone.  So, while that didn't give the deep plot a chance to truly take hold of me, it also speaks to the movie's ability to capture my attention at 3 AM.  Honestly, I was paying enough attention to notice how many scenes were nearly direct lifts from "Predator".  I mean, there are bound to be similarities between movies about an unstoppable hunter chasing soldiers through the jungle and I'm the first to admit that the concept alone isn't really enough to say that this is a rip-off, but to have one character stay behind to "buy the others time" while facing this unstoppable hunter with a blade (a machete instead of a huge knife) seems like they just took the original script there and changed the names...and maybe the weapon a bit.  Perhaps it was more an homage, like our stuffed dog in "Stopped Dead".

I would say to watch the movie and judge for yourself, but I don't feel good recommending this movie to anyone.  It has its moments, as any Reb Brown action movie does, but the picture quality was mostly poor on the stream I saw and the sound was "eh".  I suppose if you have Amazon Prime, have watched your way through everything else you want to see and keep your finger ready on the fat forward button  you can give about 25% of this movie a watch and have a good time.  Or, watch it back to back with "Predator" and marvel at the fact that at least now we acknowledge when a movie is being remade.

Let's do a little test. - Alien Vengance and the YouTube Creator Dump

So, by now some of you may have heard that YouTube is making it more difficult to monetize videos in 2018.  For smaller channels anyway. I spent the better part of November and December getting my channel on track for being ready for the requirements, but we didn't get to close to the subscribers or hours streamed that we needed to keep our "Partner" status.  I have been a verified partner for years and had "Director" status (I think that's what it was) before that.  In short, for  years I've provided original content to the channel even if nobody was noticing and kept my channel in good standing.  That earned me and others like me, zero loyalty.

Blogger provides a way to share videos, but I don't how long, or what my upload limit may be.  I do know that I am thinking of loading the first minute or so as a teaser to YouTube to keep my subscribers there in the loop, but full instructional and review videos will be posted in the ad supported blogs, here, if possible.

Let's start with a test of "Alien Vengeance: The Other Me", the trailer, here.
I'm using this video because it happens to be on the desktop I'm working on at the moment.  It's short, so not a lot of upload time and, the movie it promotes is available for you to view on Amazon Prime.

Go watch "Alien Vengeance: The Other Me" at Amazon, rate it and review and if you like pop back here and leave a comment.

"Subject 7" and "Monster"

It's a two for one day on the Indie Reviews !

I haven't done a review in a few days and probably won't be doing another for awhile.  I find myself not having as much time to devote to watching things to review.  That's one reason that today's review is of two short films.

Both movies took less than 30 minutes to watch.

I am also going to try and make an effort to watch more of the short movies on Amazon Prime because I have noticed with my own titles that they don't seem to find as many viewers.  Maybe it's vice verse.  Whatever, not as many people watch them and they don't have the shelf life of the features.  Hopefully these reviews will help a bit more.

Since shorts do tend to be a bit "one trick", especially in the sci-fi and horror genres, I won't be able to say a whole lot without spoiling what is likely to be a "twist ending".

First film up, "Subject 7".  It has won numerous awards according the art work on the IMDB page. I won't say it didn't deserve them, but I didn't see a whole new, special or groundbreaking in the 18 minutes.  It's a well shot movie and Alex Fandel does a fine job as the woman who awakes in the woods with only a tattoo to give her a hint as to how she wound up there.  She wanders around, presumably trying to find a way to civilization as her body begins to "itch" and go numb.  The problems here were that we could have gotten the story in three minutes.  At least what story we're presented with.  The longer run time is all for build up.  It's never easy to do a movie that doesn't rely on dialogue to get plot points across, but abandoning the plot altogether doesn't seem like a proper trade off.  I had no idea who "subject 7" was, who she was getting away from and where she was headed.  I did make the mistake of a reading a review with a spoiler and perhaps if I hadn't, the tension would have held me longer.  Here is the trailer for you to watch.  Read no more than this before you watch the movie.

Now, onto "Monster".  Quite a few movies on Amazon Prime with this title, so be sure to use the link to find the one starring Alex O'Toole.

Okay, so it's five minutes long.  Another one that's more about build  up than pay off.  Honestly, I think this is the result of so many of us growing up on "The Twilight Zone" and thinking that if the ending is unexpected, it's enough.  There was actually a lot more to those old shows than serving up a clever one liner at the end of the episode.

Monster is dialogue light (not sure if I remember any), which is fine, but it is also, in my opinion, light on monster action.  Take that opinion with a grain of salt.  I like to revel in the monster even if it's a 1970s Doctor Who rubber menace that never should have been put in front of a camera.  The acting is good, the movie is shot and edited well enough, but again, it's exactly what you expect from a short film now.  Maybe all of the film festivals have just caused me to see too many of these.  There's nothing to make "Monster" a strong recommend, but there is nothing at all wrong with the movie.  If you need five minutes of slightly tense entertainment, this is a good place to find it.  It's also currently "Free with Ads", so you don't even need Prime to watch it.

CRAZED - An Adrelanine Pumped Revenge Movie

CRAZED may not have any clear heroes, but it sure has a few vivid bad guys.  If you like seeing violence perpetrated against those most would agree "had it coming", this movie is for you.

Available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Trailer.
NSFW and not for everyone, as explained about the movie in my video above.

Look for it on Amazon or watch it here on YouTube for a rental fee.

Terror in The Wax Museum

Not be confused with the 1933 classic,  "Mystery of the Wax Museum", starring Fay Wray, Lionel Atwill, and Glenda Farrell, or the 1953 3D remake, "House of Wax" with Vincent Price (proving that some remakes are excellent movies), "Terror in the Wax Museum" is a bit of a whodunit with kills that allow it to be categorized in the horror realm.

By the way, I'm sure the intention was absolutely for the 1973 movie to be reminiscent of the two classics I mentioned.  It's difficult to imagine a movie set in a wax museum, using the words "wax museum" in the title not being at least a bit connected to the movies which came before it.  It's almost unavoidable.

To be sure, this little production doesn't stand with the movies that came before it and yet, it rises far above it's derivative roots.  It sort of played out like a made for TV movie.  The pacing was a bit off at time and the edits a bit rougher than you'd expect from a theatrical release.  It has some comedy and the well-known names turn in capable, but a bit campy, performances.  The movie features Ray Milan, Elsa Lanchester, Maurice Evans, Patrick Knowles and John Carradine to name a few.

It has all of the elements you'd expect from such a movie.  A museum full of wax figures modeled on famous killers, a boiling cauldron of wax positioned under a dodgy catwalk, a disfigured, hunchbacked, deaf mute assistant, an eccentric museum curator who may be a bit too attached to his figures and of course MURDER.

The lighting falls into that TV movie category most of the time.  Not super bright and cheery, but hardly shadowy and moody, which the 53 movie gave us.  Still, the movie manages to create an atmosphere that is a bit off from center and creepy at times.  This atmosphere is often broken by a Scooby-Doo like tip toeing through the museum by characters who have heard a noise in the night.

There are some clues dropped here and there and few blind allies that lead to red herrings, but in the end you probably could guess the killer if you're paying attention and enjoy that part of the game.  Overall, it's a decent little old dark house sort of thriller with some mystery, comedy and clichés thrown into the mix.

Perfect for these cold nights we've been experiencing on the East Coast recently.  Get under the blankets, head over to Amazon Prime and give "Terror in the Wax a Museum" 73 minutes to entertain you.

It should be noted, I have soft spot for these Wax Museum movies.  I watch Mystery and House every year in October.  "House of Wax" is one of the first horror movies I remember watching with my Dad when it was on TV one weekend afternoon.  I don't think I even saw the whole thing, but I remember being very confused by the big reveal toward the end.  And "Mystery of the Wax Museum" is one of the first TCM movies I remember wanting to add to my annual roster of Halloween Horror viewing.  Osbourne's introduction and after movie wrap up reminded me of classes in film school and the nostalgia just stayed with me.  That said, this affection for the two movies could have given this one a leg up, but it also could have made me more critical of the newer film.  In the end I think it was original enough to justify it's existence, but true enough to the style to be a nice addition to the very limited sub genre.

Curse of the Headless Horseman

This is going to be my shortest review yet, I think.

"The Curse of the Headless Horserman" is an ultra low budget movie from 1972.  It is currently running on Amazon Prime.

I can't remember the first time I saw this movie, but it was so forgettable that I began watching it again.  As soon as it became familiar I remembered that I had been really disappointed in it the first time.  Here's the thing, movies with budgets this low are hard enough to make now with digital gear and editing on your home computer.  Back when  you had to shoot on film, they were disastrous technically.  Smudgy transfers haven't helped.  So right off the picture quality and sound are tough to deal with.  Add to that a plot right out of a sitcom where they have to make a business work in order to keep it, but it's haunted, maybe, and you've got the makings for a rough 75 minutes.

I try not to trash movies too often on here and I'm sure there's something watchable in here somewhere, but I can't remember what it was and all I did know was that I wasn't willing to sit through it again in order to find out.

There you go, gang.  A movie so mind-numbing, even I wouldn't give it a second chance.

If you want to give it a first chance, hop on over to Amazon and make use of your Prime membership.  Leave a comment about whether or not you think I should give it a second viewing and proper review.  Only AFTER you've seen it though.  If you can't make it through the whole thing, I'm not going to revisit it.