A place that will be reviewing the free films and shows at Hocus Focus Productions' free online cinema as well as indie movies you can watch on Streaming Services.
Please, use the comments to offer your own, well thought out and honest reviews.
I know some of you who follow this are filmmakers yourselves and I've got a request. I have a "Sci-Fi Marathon" Playlist on YouTube that has shrunk considerably because of disappearing channels and I'm guessing the inclusion of some videos the original posters never should have put up.
Well, it has come to my attention that the SyFy Channel WILL NOT be marathoning "The Twilight Zone" this year for the 4th of July. So, I'm thinking we'll share our Sci-Fi Marathon again to give sci-fi fans something to watch. Right now it's at 37 titles, but some of those are shorts and some are older movies, so just about an hour. I'd guess we still hit the 24 hour mark pretty easily, but I'd like to flesh it out with some new blood, so if you have Sci-Fi shorts or features on YouTube and want them included in the Playlist, please share the links below and I'll try to get them in there.
So, I was searching for the classic, "Slumber Party Massacre", which I don't think I've ever seen, on Prime Video. I'm too cheap to pay to see it and too honest to pirate it, but feel as a genre reviewer, I need to see it. Well, it's "currently unavailable" on Prime, but this alternative, "After School Massacre" showed up in the search. It was free. I was ready to see a movie. I watched it. I felt dirty.
Rather than a trailer, I give you cast interviews. You hear that music in the background?
Every piece of music in the film was like this and competed with the dialogue
for space in your ears. It was torture.
"After School Massacre" is the type of movie that in the VHS days was wildly popular. It has lots of young women, scantily clad, being stalked by a killer. Unfortunately, there was no clear heroine in this movie. What there was were a couple of unique kills (what are the odds that my curling iron scene from "Jack vs Lanterns" would be topped in a flick I had never seen?) Watch for an interesting way to use a mailbox. There's the jerky mail character, the nerdy murder fodder, a kind of bumbling cop and basically a population of inept adults. These are all necessary ingredients to the B-movie slasher flick.
The lighting and camera work range from okay to impressive. The outdoor stuff makes far better use of lighting and color than the indoor shots, which I think is strange. Usually indies have more time and control when shooting indoors than they do on the street. The atmosphere of the indoor shots really could have benefited from post lighting. But overall, it was acceptable. The performances by the main characters were mostly pretty good. The killer and the goofy boyfriend were way over the top, but I'm pretty sure they were going for that. The rest of the cast was capable to comical. Again, probably intentional given the tone of the movie.
It's one of those movies where if you watch it in the right mood, you can tell everyone making it was having a good time. That's one reason I shared the cast interviews instead of the trailer. Sometimes an indie film's best feature is the behind the scenes energy that makes it to the screen.
The other reason I shared the interviews is to get that point across about the music. The score is at constant odds with the dialogue. I'm not sure if the dialogue recordings were all poor and so the music was put there to mask it or if the dialogue was fine and ruined by the music. (I know in "Lumber vs Jack", the scene where they discover the tree fungus on the guard, that music was chosen to mimic the mic dropping because we had broken a cable the night before). Of all the little quirks movies like this tend to have, this was the only one that made it difficult to watch. Prepare yourself for that and strap in for a throwback to VHS horror fun.
What can I say about "Uberzombiefrau"? Not a whole lot, actually because:
A. The audio and attempts at German accents made it nearly impossible to understand about 30% of the dialogue, so I had trouble keeping up with the story. I may have enjoyed the movie more if I had turned on the captions.
B. I fell asleep at one point, but because of point A didn't bother to rewind and rewatch what I had slept through.
"Uberzombiefrau" is a very ambitious indie movie in the very specific subgenre of "Nazi Zombies". It has one or two interesting twists and an looks like overall it was trying to be a bit reminiscent of the "Ilsa" movies of the 70s, but with nearly none of the sexual overtones of those movies. Bella Demente plays General Markus, and while statuesque, she isn't presented nearly as gigantic as the cover art used on Amazon Prime Video suggests.
The movie has a very impressive IMDB rating of 7.3! Not bad for something with an estimated budget of $10,000. The castle location is cinematic and well used, there are tons of extras for a smaller movie, and stock footage is MOSTLY used to good effect. (A Black and White clip snuck in there. Normally I wouldn't care, but it was a completely unnecessary shot and could have been left out. I was wondering if it was used on purpose as an in joke for fans of such films, but then I would think a bit more out of place footage should have been used to help the joke stand out.)
The "problems" with the movie are evident in the opening scene, so once you watch that, if you stick around, at least you know what you're in for as the film progresses. Much like the six minute opener of "Jack vs Lanterns" or the Refrigerator Scene in "Crystal Skulls". In "Uberzombiefrau" we have a bit of an action sequence with an experiment on the dead going wrong. The zombie costume is mostly impressive, but for some reason a close up of the zombie's un-decayed feet hitting the floor is used and we're also treated to a shot of the back of his head, which reveals the slit on the back of the rubber Halloween mask being used. It's a high quality mask, but the slit sort of gives it away. (You'll notice the Lantern King in "Jack vs Lanterns" USUALLY wears a hood). So, if you're prepared to accept small flubs like those, and realize that you probably hadn't understood anything that was said up to this point (seriously, turn on those closed captions if plot is important) then by all means, keep watching. There will be some shaky keying F/X and explosions with nearly no sound, but towards the end of the movie there is a lot of zombie action.
It doesn't say so in the trivia, but I suspect what we see is some reenactors as zombies shambling around the live F/X they would use during an outing. The use of "smoke" cannons is great, but far too quiet to sell as grenades exploding. Several actors mime firing their weapons, but with little sound F/X and no muzzle flashes. The zombies are made up to varying degrees too, with hands largely ignored (I'm guilty of this from time to time too.) One really annoyed me though. Since the zombies have controllers in their skulls, we're told by an Ally forces Scientist that shooting them in the head is the effective way to stop them. Then we watch as one zombie, wearing a mask with the top of his head blown off, chases characters around in several scenes.
Oh, and watch for the orange tips on the hero's guns. Seriously, some electrical tape or a sharpie could have fixed that.
I would suggest skipping to the end. The chaos of the final assault on the Zombie Headquarters was worth the price of admission (that being included with Prime in this case).
If you're a zombie fan, Nazi monster fan, retro horror fan or fan of cheesy movies, then this one might be worth a watch. Let's face it, if you're reading my blog, you likely fall into one of those categories...or you're related to me.
Strictly speaking, 1993's "Lifepod" is not an "independent film", but as a made for TV movie from the 90s, it certainly shares some of the limitations and charms that make indie movies appealing.
For one thing, there is the cast. Robert Loggia certainly has his movie credits, but in the 90s he was doing guest appearances on TV and he was perfect in this. CCH Pounder always turns in a great performance and Ron Silver was part of the ensemble cast and directed this movie. Directing a movie touted as being based on a Hitchcock classic ("Lifeboat") is no easy task.
One of the types of movies I love as a low budget filmmaker, myself, is the isolation movie. It allows for a small cast, limited locations, and thus a lower budget. This also makes it a great genre for television. The trick is to craft a solid story with interesting characters and make everything seem larger than what you're presenting on screen. Keeping an audience interested in just one location can get very tricky. "Lifepod" had the added attraction of being set in space and the in the future. The sci-fi elements instantly appeal to a specific audience (if handled well, which I thought they were), while the characters and mystery can draw in other viewers.
For a movie of this type there was a surprising amount of action. The opening "ship wreck" was handled very well and helped to set up the characters in their dire situation and lead us into the mystery that would follow. Was the ship sabotaged? Did the saboteur survive? And if so, was he or she aboard this lifepod?
All in all I really enjoyed this one. The sets created atmostphere without being so dark and dreary that the images were muddy. The acting was, as you would expect from this cast, superb and the special F/X were pleasantly dated, using well crafted models rather than CGI spacecraft. This is significant because of the time in the 90s when this was made. CGI was coming into its own and was very popular while models were often considered "old fashioned", yet, in many cases, especially with lower budgets, CG simply wasn't up to the cast of being convincing yet and really well used models were the better choice. I think they were used very well here.
The story develops a bit slowly, but there are, as mentioned, action sequences that break the monotony. The slow pace eventually helps feed into the despair that the characters are feeling about running out of supplies and possibly never finding rescue. In the background of all of their struggles is the nagging question about whether it all comes down to bad luck or the intervention of someone up to no good.
If you're looking for a movie to watch that requires you to pay attention a bit, but still gives you cyborgs, explosions, sci-fi and even a little gunplay, then "Lifepod" is a good way to spend 90 minutes.
There are actually several movies on Prime Video by this title. I am reviewing the one about a fog that eats people here. I mean, I think that's what it was about. It's complicated.
"Collapse" is a strange kind of slow burn movie in that it starts out pretty strong and then drops quickly into a slow moving study on humanity. It's not a horror movie for everyone and definitely leans more toward the drama side of its listed genres.
Cynthia Gatlin stars as Sheila, a physicist at the end of the world. (What is it about Sheila as a scientist's name? I named the entomologist in "Lumber vs Jack" Sheila.) Sheila is the conscience of the movie. The voice of reason in a set of characters that are trying to figure out this mysterious fog that has been wiping out life on the planet. Eventually we are led to believe that we are looking at the four last adults on the Earth. She recites poetry, quotes philosophy and generally tries to help the others, and the audience, figure out what's going on.
The rest of the characters are pretty much exaggerations of personality traits, with Heather, played by Kristin Barret, being the most two dimensional and annoying. She's the "survive at any cost, nothing is my fault, I need to be in charge" character that is in all of these apocalyptic movies, but dialed up to 11.
Some other reviews make a point of insulting the acting. I actually don't think the acting is all that bad, but the dialogue was awful at times. Sheila's monologues were even worse. Or were they soliloquys? There is definitely an attempt at a Shakespearian style in this movie. It didn't work for me.
I watched it because the description mentioned a monster or creature. I knew about the mist (not that mist), so figured I would never see much of the monster, but I never guessed that it really wouldn't play an important part in the movie at all.
If you're looking for a fun bloody 90 minutes, this isn't it. If you want to listen to a lot of dialogue, explore some interesting concepts about humanity, and watch some people in a closed space get on each other's nerves during a dire situation, then this movie is for you. Expect a lot of concepts to be thrown out at you and very few of them to be explored to any depth.
Technically the movie is very competently made. Good sound. Mostly good video and a couple of uninspired but effective computer generated visuals.
This is probably best suited for a high school sociology or philosophy class.
