Review – The Monster Club

Fans of the old English horror anthology pieces from the 60s and 70s can watch the sub-genre take one of its last breaths in this odd outing from 1980. In the bracket, John Carradine plays author R. Chetwynd-Hayes, the author upon whose works the vignettes are based. After a not-so-subtly-gay interlude with vampire Vincent Price, our two new-found friends retire to a nightclub for monsters (or at least actors in monster masks that look like they might have been ordered from the back pages of Fangoria). There Price spins his tales, punctuated by bizarre musical performances by the likes of UB40 (not to mention a strip tease with a surprise ending). The stories themselves are a mixed bag. The second one was a little too silly for my taste. The first and third were more effective (particularly the ghoul drawings in number three), but both were damaged a bit by the inclusion of dorky monster names (a “shadmock” in the first and a “hum-goo” in the third). Then in the end Price gets to make a heavy-handed but nonetheless thought-provoking speech about the relationship between horror stories and horror in real life. I can’t say if viewers who aren’t into this kind of thing will get much out of it, but genre fans should probably put this on their to-view lists. Mildly amusing

Review – Moby Dick (1956)

John Houston and Herman Melville were meant to be together. The director’s love of emoting and speechifying is tailor-made for the author’s grandiose, obsessive allegory of good and evil. Screenwriter Ray Bradbury does a fairly effective job of condensing the whale-sized novel down to a manageable two hours or so. Some of the whaling sequences make for difficult viewing, but at least they’re actually integral to the plot. My only real gripe here is that the technical aspects of the production are prosaic. More creative camerawork in particular would have been a real asset. Overall I suspect one needs to be in the proper state of mind before taking this on, but if the itch hits you then this will do a fine job of scratching it. Mildly amusing

Review – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Two things surprised me about this movie, though in retrospect neither of them should have. The first was how strongly it depended on the original. I went to see it with a friend who hadn’t seen the first one, and that helped make me acutely aware of all of the considerable number of moments where a joke or plot twist or even just a bit of dialogue was a reference to Curse of the Black Pearl. The second surprise was that after two and a half hours the ending was a weak set-up for yet another sequel. References to past and future productions aside, this stands up reasonably well as a fluffy bit of summer fun. The script isn’t as tight as the original, and Johnny Depp mails in his performance. But in exchange we get more extensive special effects and more elaborate fight sequences. Mildly amusing

Review – The Mephisto Waltz

You see it coming in the first five minutes. It happens in half an hour. And then on the movie goes on for more than an hour longer. The plot takes some entertaining twists and turns, but ultimately this is still pretty much a one-joke movie. The 70s-era production values lend a note of creepiness. Mildly amusing

Review – Blood Bath

A better script might have turned this from a bad, low-budget horror movie to a good one. The concepts behind the vignettes in this anthology piece aren’t bad, but the dialogue and action are so stiff that the plot gets lost. The bracket also loses focus around midway through. That notwithstanding, there’s some entertaining stuff here. Actor-wise, keep an eye out for supporting roles played by Doris Roberts and P.J. Soles. Mildly amusing

Review – Deep Shock

“SciFi Channel Original” joins the pantheon of great oxymorons. This production can be divided into two categories: stuff stolen from other movies (primarily The Abyss) and time wasted while the characters flounder around waiting for the next stolen plot element. Giant electric eels try to keep an underwater research station from using nuclear torpedoes to seal a hole in the earth’s crust below the arctic ice cap before … oh, let’s be honest. The story doesn’t really matter. If you like cheap effects and bad acting, you’re in the right place. Beyond that, this production doesn’t have much to offer. See if desperate

Review – The Phantom of the Opera (1989)

It’s hard to think of this as anything but “The Freddy of the Opera,” and that isn’t just because Robert Englund stars as a villain with a horribly scarred face. The whole production has a late-80s slasher movie feel to it, which clashed unpleasantly with the traditional gothic trappings of the tale. Though the bulk of the production follows – more or less – the plot from the novel, the Leroux stuff is bracketed by a modern bit in which our heroine is knocked unconscious during a Broadway audition and dreams/remembers the bulk of the plot. This brought the “Dancing Cavalier” plot from Singin’ in the Rain so strongly to mind that this picture became even harder to take seriously. There’s enough Phantom here to make this vaguely entertaining, but the “innovations” this time around almost universally detract. Mildly amusing