Graphic Horror: Creepshow
Creepshow 1982
One thing that I’ve been a big fan of for quite a while is the TV show Tales From the Crypt, and before that show existed it was a series of several different comic books from EC comics under titles like Shock Suspenstories, the Vault of Horror, and Weird Science. This film was made as an homage to those comics combined with the short stories of Stephen King. Last March during my first Graphic Horror Blogathon Jason Soto over at Your Face! reviewed this film and put it on my radar, but it’s taken me this long to finally get around to it. Another reason why I wanted to watch this is because Movie Reviews 101 and Movie Rob are holding a Stephen King-a-thon all this month so be sure and check out all of their Stephen King reviews while you’re at it. As far as the movie goes, it’s not quite on par with Tales From the Crypt for me, it’s much more on the comedic side of things than the horror side and that didn’t quite work for me though I could see the appeal of it.
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Graphic Horror: The Monster of Frankenstein
The Monster of Frankenstein aka Kyōfu Densetsu Kaiki! Frankenstein 1981
Another day, another obscure Marvel anime released by Toei in the early 80’s. This was produced just one year after their Tomb of Dracula adaptation, this time they adapted yet another Marvel adaptation of a classic horror icon with Frankenstein. There were a couple things that I noticed very early on when comparing the two films, first is that many of the American dub voice actors would later go on to lend their voices to the iconic original dub of Akira. And second, that this was a much better film overall than Dracula. It’s still a long ways away from being a good movie, but it’s not the hilariously bad mess that Dracula was. This was a very serious and somber look at the tale of Frankenstein with a combination of some unique ideas as well as some of the standard ones. For the most part, I did enjoy it even if I knew how it was going to end up.
Filmwhys #59 The Double Life of Veronique and Blade II
Episode #59 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Dru Jeffries from 24 Panels Per Second who asks me why I hadn’t seen the Double Life of Veronique, the French and Polish doppleganger film from director Krzysztof Kieślowski before his famous Three Colors Trilogy. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen the second film in the Blade trilogy and often considered the best one from director Guillermo del Toro shortly before he had done some of his best work with the two Hellboy films and Pan’s Labyrinth.
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Graphic Horror: Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned
Yami no teiô kyuketsuki dorakyura aka Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned 1980
It’s October and I’m kicking it off with my first Graphic Horror post for the month. After Marvel had a string of failures in their TV movies in the late 70’s and their one success with the Incredible Hulk, they also sold the rights to some of their other comics including their Frankenstein series and the Tomb of Dracula which introduced Blade to Toei Animation. Toei is probably most well known for being the studio behind Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, but before either of them came this cheaply animated made-for-TV film. It was later dubbed and released in the US in VHS and Beta but has since gone out of print and isn’t available on DVD, though copies have made their way online. I of course watched the English dub and found it hilariously awful. There is so much going on in this film and very little of it makes any sense that it’s amazing to watch. I found myself laughing uproariously through much of the run time even though I did have to split my viewing across two nights.
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It’s October, and that means Graphic Horror
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to watch a full movie that I intended to review for this site here so I wanted to spend a quick moment to give an update to you on what I’ve been doing lately and what I hope to be doing here in this coming month where nearly everyone starts bringing out the horror movies from now until Halloween, and I’m no different. I’m not quite sure how many movies I’ll be able to get in this month, but I plan on adding at least four films to my graphic horror tag for films based on horror comics, plus the usual two episodes of Filmwhys that aren’t specifically horror related, the next of which has already been recorded and will be posted on Monday as usual. I also have had the chance to appear on a couple podcasts in the past few weeks so I thought I’d share those here as well.
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Buckaroo Banzai
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension 1984
I don’t often spend a lot of time thinking about my criteria for what makes a superhero movie vs. some other category of film similar to a superhero movie. Like the difference between a superhero movie and a straight up sci-fi movie, or a cop vigilante film, or a martial arts film. I have thought about it in the past, enough to come up with a specific set of criteria that still allows for enough wiggle room for my personal preference to come into play. No matter what anyone tells me, I don’t think I’m ever going to be convinced that Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies is actually a superhero movie because there’s no way I’m going to actually watch it. Looking specifically at this film based on my criteria: it wasn’t based on a comic book but it did have a comic book published to tie in with the film’s release. He doesn’t have any superpowers, but he is a neurosurgeon, particle physicist, rock star, action hero, and gains the ability to see camouflaged aliens and shock Penny back to life. He doesn’t have a secret identity, but his name is Buckaroo Banzai for goodness sake. And when you look at his supervillain for lack of a better word, he is very much over the top and highly theatrical in nature, and his defeat does in fact, save the world.
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Filmwhys #58 Dial M For Murder and Buckaroo Banzai
Episode 58 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Jay Cluitt from Life vs. Film who asks me why I hadn’t seen Dial M For Murder, one of Hitchcock’s classic murder mystery thrillers that’s full of twists and turns. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension which I have spared you the full title in this episode title where Buckaroo Banzai is a neurosurgeon, particle physicist, rock star who saves the world and becomes a superhero. Or at least we discuss what exactly makes a superhero in our opening topic.
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Gen 13
Gen13 2000
Most superhero movie fans are aware of the unreleased Fantastic Four movie made in the mid 90’s in order for the company to retain the rights to the characters for a few more years. That wasn’t the only unreleased comic book movie to exist, just likely one of the most well known. The Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie was also mostly unreleased as it never came out in theaters, but eventually had a home video release in the US. Gen 13 has never officially been released in the US to date for a very different reason. Gen13 was a comic book initially published by WildStorm comics which was a part of Image comics. The film was produced in part by Buena Vista Pictures, owned by Disney set for a 2000 release date on home video. By the time this film was nearly completed, WildStorm comics was struggling and was sold to DC comics which is owned by Warner Bros. As a result, this film was shelved in the US and only released in a handful of other countries through Paramount Pictures as the distribution company. Which is a bit of a shame because while I didn’t fall head over heels for this film, it’s something that could have had a niche audience and it deserves that at least. Since it was unreleased in the US, it wasn’t rated by the MPAA, but if it was I imagine it would have to have at least a couple minor cuts in order to get a PG-13 rating. There is a bit of non-sexual nudity along with plenty of blood but no gore. But as for the origin story it tells, it’s just above average.
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Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal 1981
You may remember that one friend you had when you were younger, you know the one who had the hidden stash of Playboys and knew how to get alcohol and cigarettes. Or the one who had the cool dad who let him and his friends watch whatever they wanted from their VHS library or have the run of the TV which also happened to have HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax. Or maybe you were that kid and your friends would come over to your house. I don’t remember those friends very clearly anymore, but I do remember visiting one of those friends when I was somewhere around early middle school, maybe 5th grade and we watched Heavy Metal because we weren’t supposed to be watching it. I remember when I was younger I had a love of darker animation like Secret of N.I.H.M, the Last Unicorn, and The Mouse and his Child, but the days where I would discover Liquid Television, Vampire Hunter D, and Akira were still several years away, though Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards was also right around this time even if I don’t remember if it came first or not. So this was unlike anything I had ever seen before and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Over twenty years later I’ve finally gotten around to revisiting it and unfortunately it’s not everything that I remember back when I was 12 or so.
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Hero at Large
Hero at Large 1980
This was one of the first obscure movies that I wanted to watch during the first year of this site since it did have a theatrical release here in the United States even though I had never previously heard of it before. I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of it as the cover art featured John Ritter with his feet in a giant washbasin and his costume hung up in the background. What I got was a really heartwarming comedy about a struggling actor who wants to make a real difference. It’s rather far-fetched at times, but Ritter’s Three’s Company era charm really won me over even as he’s going after his across-the-hall neighbor with an almost stalker-level abandon. It also had an overwhelmingly late 70’s feel to it with some of the fashions and overall look to it, which makes sense as it did come out right at the beginning of the new decade in 1980. There was also one brief nod to Superman which had come out to great acclaim just two years prior.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 