Jeff Burk's Blog, page 9

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #14 – EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS

Fred F. Sears, United States, 1956

You gotta love how paranoid everyone was in the fifties and how popular media reflected it. The Cold War was relatively new and the concept of doomsday at any moment permeated pop culture. This classic channeled that fear into an invasion of flying saucers.

This is obviously a rip-off of WAR OF THE WORLDS but Ray Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion effects raise this to something special. Really, this is just a movie you watch for the classic effects. The story is extremely cliché and standard for the time period but watching a flying saucer crash into the Washington Monument makes it all worthwhile.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #13 – TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

This one’s a little different from what I’ve been watching – it’s a serial killer documentary. Some would debate if this is horror but its close enough for me. Fuck it, this is my project. Disagree? Write your own reviews.

The Grim Sleeper, aka Lonnie David Franklin Jr., was a serial killer active in the Los Angeles area for almost thirty years. He targeted black female prostitutes and due to the cops generally not caring about them – his crimes went basically investigated for almost his entire time killing. He was convicted of ten murders but it is believed that his death toll may have been as high as the low hundreds.

The documentary is a great look at the crimes, the history of the cops’ lack of involvement, and the toll it took on the community he preyed upon. Told through interviews with the people who knew the killer and those affected by the crimes, this is a stark and unsensationalized account of one of America’s worst murderers and how poor minority communities are ignored by the powers that be.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #12 – GALAXY OF TERROR

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

You gotta love Roger Corman, the king of B-movies. He may have only produced this movie but it features all of his hallmarks – violence, monsters, and a sleazy rape scene.

A spaceship crew is ordered by their weird corporate overlords to investigate another ship’s crash but when they show up they are attack by weird and surreal monsters. Immediately upon viewing you will be reminded of ALIEN – which is fine since Corman made his career ripping off bigger, mainstream films. But what is really interesting about this is that it came out five years before ALIENS and a just beginning in his career James Cameron was the second unit director. From characters to set designs, it is very obvious that this was basically Cameron’s dry run for what would become ALIENS.

Weird, filled with surreal sci-fi horror, and also featuring fan favorite actors Sid Haig and Robert Englund – this is a bizarre and exciting cult gem.

Takes ALIENS, take away a couple million dollars of budget, and give the film crew a shit ton of drugs – that’s GALAXY OF TERROR.

I was on the JDO SHOW!

J. David Osborne has started a new conversational focused podcast. It’s pretty great and I was on one of the new episodes.

Here’s the summary:

“On the surface, Jeff and I shouldn’t get along. We have very different taste in movies, music, books, etc. But for some reason, whenever we get together, we always hit it off. Jeff is the editor in chief of Deadite Press, as well as the author of Shatnerquake, Shatnerquest, and Cripple Wolf. We talk about HP Lovecraft (and why I think most Lovecraftian fiction sucks), death cults, Bizarro, becoming comfortable with not being “good,” and the future of this podcast.”

Check it out here!

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #11 – THE CREATURE BELOW

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

THE CREATURE BELOW

Stewart Sparke, United Kingdom, 2016

This was another one that I loved the concept but found the finished product to be rather…lackluster. A women goes on a deep sea dive and encounters a giant monster. After being pulled from the ocean, she discovers that she came back up with an egg. The egg hatches and soon she is caring for a bizarre creature and begins to remember what happened to her in the ocean.

Like I said, cool concept. However everything else is pretty terrible. The acting, the special effects, the cinematography – everything. The writing in particular is shockingly bad. I watched the entire movie but I was extremely confused by almost every character’s motivation. The characters seems to have conflict with each other just for the sake of having conflict.

There’s really nothing I can recommend about this one.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #10 – THE CREATURE BELOW

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

This was another one that I loved the concept but found the finished product to be rather…lackluster. A women goes on a deep sea dive and encounters a giant monster. After being pulled from the ocean, she discovers that she came back up with an egg. The egg hatches and soon she is caring for a bizarre creature and begins to remember what happened to her in the ocean.

Like I said, cool concept. However everything else is pretty terrible. The acting, the special effects, the cinematography – everything. The writing in particular is shockingly bad. I watched the entire movie but I was extremely confused by almost every character’s motivation. The characters seems to have conflict with each other just for the sake of having conflict.

There’s really nothing I can recommend about this one.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #10 – THREADS

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

 

THREADS

Mick Jackson, United Kingdom, 1984

This made have been made for TV in the UK but, holy shit, is this well done. Some may argue if this fits the definition of a “horror” movie but I can’t think of anything more terrifying than nuclear war from the perspective of us average people that would have to suffer through it. And, holy shit, this is easily one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time.

It takes the concepts of nuclear war and starts a few days before the conflict (in a brilliant turn we never find out what exactly sets off the war) and goes for years detailing the effects of dropping the bomb. This movie is unrelentingly cruel and bleak and it tells its story through the normal citizens that find themselves dealing with the horror that our leaders bring upon us. There is nothing to understand or dissect, there is only suffering.

The movie takes on even more horrifying implications when you realize that one of candidates for the current U.S. Presidency has been actively campaigning on using nukes (hint – it’s Trump).

This is the way the world ends – not from a bang or a whimper but when all of us normal people just aren’t paying attention. And then suddenly, it’s all over…

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #9 – LIGHTS OUT

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

LIGHTS OUT

David F. Sandberg, United States, 2016

Wow was this a disappointment. The original short film this is based on is a fantastic work of short terror (check it out here). While they got the original director/writer of the short, I was very suspicious how it was going to be worked into a full-length.

Here’s how they did it – repeat the same jump scares from the short film about a dozen times, add a lot of boring family melodrama, and finish it off with a confusing and over-explained mythos.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #8 – CHRISTINE

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

CHRISTINE

John Carpenter, United States, 1983

Holy shit, talk about holes in my viewing history. I’ve read about forty-five Stephen King books, have seen almost every movie based on King’s work, I consider John Carpenter to be one of the greatest horror directors of all-time—yet I’ve never seen the one Stephen King movie directed by John Carpenter.

This entry in Carpenter’s filmography seems to be overlooked but upon viewing it is kinda easy to see why. It looks the grandeur and scope that most of Carpenter’s best films have. It’s a much more personal story (just like the novel) and while it is extremely enjoyable it lacks the punch of Carpenter’s (and King’s) classic works.

31 Days of Horror I Haven’t Seen – Day #7 – GRIZZLY

Every day for the month of October I am watching and reviewing a horror movie that I haven’t seen before. Here’s today’s:

Grizzly

William Girdler, United States, 1976

I imagine this movie was birthed by a 1970’s coke-addled studio executive screaming, “I want JAWS but on land!”

Take JAWS and replicate every plot point with zero talent and you get GRIZZLY. This movie is bad. Like, really bad. The acting, the directing, the setting – pretty much everything is bad. And it commits the cardinal sin of movies – it gets really boring.

I suspect if it wasn’t for the amazing movie poster art by comic book legend Neil Adams, this movie would be completely forgotten. And rightfully so.