Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 52

Godzilla - A 1000 Piece Puzzle from Super 7

Werewolves (2024) - Movie Review

One year after a super moon event turned anyone and everyone exposed to moonlight into a blood-thirsty werewolf, another super moon is about to rise in the night sky. As people across the globe race to fortify their homes, a group of scientists prepare to test a potential cure... This, I am sad to report, is an Idiot Plot Movie. A movie wherein every single thing that happens is predicated on each and every character being an absolute dolt. It got so bad that, towards the end, I began rooting for the werewolves.

Not that my expectations were all that high to begin with, I knew what kind of movie I was going to see. The problem, I think, was that the people who made Werewolves did not know what kind of movie they were making, or had made.
While the film staggered and splashed across the big screen, my mind drifted back to the Werewolves panel at this year's Son of Monsterpalooza. That is where I watched star Katrina Law, director Steven C. Miller, suit actor Dane DiLiegro, and effects legend Alec Gillis engage in an entertaining conversation about the making of the film. 
A great deal of lip service was paid to the supposed human element of the film. Werewolves, they said, featured characters who were wracked with guilt over having become monsters that murdered or maimed family members, friends, and neighbors. There were also characters that enjoyed and embraced the change. Who yearned to return and revel in yet another bloody night of chaos and carnage.
Which is what I went in expecting to see. There was just one problem, though. Matthew Kennedy's scattershot script does not have people in it. There is no human element to it, at all. What the panel had described and discussed did not resemble what I was watching. 
While it was clear that the actors had been directed as if there was a human element to what they were doing, the script gives them nothing. There is little to no backstory, no motivation beyond what is needed to get somebody to move from Point A to Point B, and no sense of menace, scope, or urgency.
For a movie whose elevator pitch might have been "Think The Purge, but with werewolves," I was disappointed by how antsy and impatient the movie made me. Despite all the talk and preparation for the chaos and carnage to come, little to none of it is heard or glimpsed. 
Couple that with the primary characters never seeming to be put in any kind of life-threatening danger and what do you have? A 90-minute disappointing nothing burger of a supposed monster movie.

Alien Nation (1988) - Soundtrack Collection

Goldsmith's unused score for Alien Nation was one of only three he composed and performed entirely on synthesizers. The other two were for Michael Crichton's 1984 science-fiction thriller Runaway and Martin Campbell's 1988 legal thriller Criminal Law. More on those later.
Alien Nation would be the second collaboration between director Graham Baker and Goldsmith, following 1981's The Final Conflict. While Goldsmith's score for Alien Nation might not be as robust as the one he wrote for The Final Conflict, it did not deserve to be rejected.
The big irony here is how the story behind Goldsmith's score, told in the liner notes of this limited release from Varèse Sarabande, is more interesting than the film it was written for.
A melody that is used throughout the score was first written by Goldsmith for the Oliver Stone film Wall Street. After Goldsmith quit Wall Street, he opted to use it for Alien Nation. When that score was rejected, he recycled his unused melody yet again, for The Russia House (1990). The third time was charm and the melody became one of Goldsmith's better known and admired love themes.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #6

March 1886. Eight-year-old Robin Weaver was reported missing and search parties from Burkittsville were dispatched. Although Weaver soon returned, the first search party did not. The bodies of the searchers were found at Coffin Rock, completely disemboweled, with their arms and legs bound together. Young Weaver claimed to have met a mysterious lady, who seemed to float in the air. Front: A photograph of the second search party at Coffin Rock.
Robin WeaverIt has been a good two decades since I have paid any attention whatsoever to The Blair Witch Project and its mythology. As much as I enjoyed the film, at the time of its release, I wish that Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez had paid a little more attention to the detailed backstory they created for the film.

Zombie Island Massacre (1984)

Oakland Tribune - Sunday, October 27, 1985On the lower right hand side of this ad, clipped from the Oakland Tribune, are the listings for the screenings in San Francisco. At the very top of the listings is the Electric Theater. That is where I saw Zombie Island Massacre.
It also marked my first of what would be many trips to an actual, honest-to-goodness grind-house movie theater. Each week offered a different triple bill. A mix of whatever current movie was about to end its theatrical run, some moldy oldie, and the occasional first run low-to-no budget exploitation flick. Zombie Island Massacre is a lackluster example of the kind of first run flicks that 'debuted' at the Electric.
I regret not staying for at least one of the other two films on the bill. If my memory serves me well, those might have been Terminal Island and The Howling. So it goes.

The Strange House, Volume 1 - Manga Review

When an anomaly in the design of a detached house is noticed by a prospective buyer, he brings it to the attention of a freelance occult writer he knows. The writer, from whose perspective we are seeing this story play out, is intrigued about the anomaly, but doubtful there is anything occult about it.
The writer starts questioning her doubt after an architect friend looks at the plans. He notices that there are all manner of weird anomalies in the detached house's design. This gives rise to some strange and unsettling ideas and theories from him about how and why those anomalies are there...
When I started the first volume of The Strange House, I had no idea of what I was in for. The core concept of a house having a sealed room, one that has no windows or doors allowing for either ingress or egress, was vague and confounding enough to get me curious over whether there would be a natural or a supernatural explanation behind it.
Having finished that first volume, I still have no idea of what is or is not going on with, or in, that damn detached house. I just know that I have to read the second volume, so I can find out what, if anything, will happen next. 
Even though it is made very clear that there is something very wrong and very weird going on here, whether it has anything to with the house, or if it is just overactive imaginations gone wild, remains to be seen.
All I can share, for now, is that the first volume of The Strange House grabbed my attention and gave my nerves a wee-bit of rattling. I recommend it.

Alien Resurrection (1997) - Soundtrack Collection

If you ever wondered what The Poseidon Adventure might have been like if a xenomporh had happened to be on the ship, this movie provides the disappointing answer.
John Frizzell's score for the film is solid, but unexceptional. Nothing in it ever grabs or holds my attention. Which is why I chose to pass on an upgrade when an expanded edition of the score was released by La-La Land Records in 2010.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #3

The Damnation Game by Clive Barker - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, May 10, 1987While I do remember reading this book, I remember very little about it. Not surprising, since, as I type the words you are reading at this very moment, the time of reading would be some 37 years ago.

Alien 3 (1992) - Soundtrack Collection

The Alien trilogy, back when it could qualify as one, paralleled Romero's Dead trilogy, back when it also could qualify as one, to a certain extent.
Night of the Living Dead and Alien were both commercial and artistic successes that had distinct influences on their respective genres. The same applies to their sequels, Dawn of the Dead and Aliens, which amped up the action and expanded the scope of the fictional worlds in which their stories took place.
Then came Day of the Dead and Alien 3. Both were dark and downbeat films that did not sit all that well with audiences or critics. While Day is my favorite of Romero's zombie films, Alien 3 is not my favorite Alien movie. While there are plenty of things I like about Alien 3, they do not come together to form a satisfying whole. The film is unfocused and clunky. The result of studio interference, no doubt.
Elliot Goldenthal's score is one of those things I like about the movie. Just not enough to switch out this original soundtrack album 1992 release for the expanded, remastered edition put out by La-La Lands Records in 2018. So it goes.