Recent Movie Reviews

Amityville Horror II: The Possession- I was inspired to watch this film when I discovered this description of it on Sound on Sight "It has all the subtlety and grace of a jackhammer hitting a gas line and exploding into a fireball of sex, gore, incest, asshole fathers, holy-roller mothers, snarky demons, and homicidal kids. And this is meant in the most endearing way possible". This film certainly fits that description well and far surpassed my high expectations. Literally every horror movie and haunted house cliche is on display during the first half of the film. The asshole father is portrayed by Burt Young, Rocky's friend Paulie, in a role he was born to play. The incest scene is one of the truly strangest and unnecessary scenes in any horror movie ever. Unfortunately the absolutely hilarious over the top haunted house first half transitions into the less funny Exorcism second half. Amityville 2 does nothing to further the demonic possession subgenre, and is literally just a rehash of The Exorcist with a more campy tone. While the second half is rather disappointing, the awesome over the top cheesiness of the second half more than makes up for it. I would give this film an 8/10

On a different note, why is it always the Catholic church that is called upon to perform an exorcism? Have they even tried other options? I mean what if the demon within the child gets its strength from tainted pork, wouldn't a Rabbi be a better choice? And you can't convince me that a few hours with a Snake Handler Pentecostal priest wouldn't straighten out an unruly demon more efficiently than some holy water and rosaries. Nah but it has to be the Catholic church because no other group of people is dumb enough to believe in foolishness like demonic possession.

The entire film is available on Youtube, however it's too big to put the whole thing on this blog so here's part 1. If you're into cheesy horror I would advise you to at least check out the first half.

Brother From Another Planet- The title of this film pretty much sums up the entire plot. It is about an alien slave, who besides his 3 toed feet and detachable eye just happens to look exactly like a black human, that crash lands on Ellis Island. The alien eventually ends up in Harlem and as the saying goes "hilarity ensues". The alien is mute so most of the humor of the film is based around his inability to talk and his incomprehension of black culture. The funniest parts of the film are when the white alien bounty hunters go to Harlem to try to recapture the black alien. While the film contains some genuinely funny scenes, it becomes repetitive towards the end. The film is overly long and also suffers from a completely unnecessary and extremely heavy handed anti-drug message. Nevertheless it was an above average movie and worth a watch it you can find it. 6/10

Scream, Blacula, Scream- Unable to decide between watching a horror film or a blaxplointation film, I decided to compromise and try to find a combination of the two. I was disappointed that I was unable to find the most famous example of this combination, Blacula. However Netflix had this sequel to it. I will admit that I have never seen the 30's version of Dracula with Bella Legosi, so I don't know if this is an attempt to adapt that story into black culture, but I highly doubt it is. The plot is very simple, and stupid, the leader of a voodoo cult dies and the group selects a female member as the next leader instead of an ambitious male member. Feeling scorned the male member resurrects Blacula to take revenge on the group, but Blacula instead tries to use the voodoo group to cure his undead curse. This film is easily the least scary vampire film I have ever seen, and unfortunately isn't even bad enough to be funny. Worse yet it includes none of the features that make blaxploitation films great, mainly no hatred for the white man, no cool black lingo and no over the top fight scenes. If you want to watch a blaxplointation film stick to the original and still greatest Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. If you want horror you'll find scarier stuff in childrens cartoons. 3/10