My DVDs

I like this movie because it tells the story of a particular cultural movement, at a certain time and place. The music is awesome but it's only one part of a whole way of life, in Man. in the 80s. Wish I'd been there.

Four dopey blokes from the government's Astro Investigation & Defense Service, armed with their guns, rocket launcher, chain saw, and comical New Zealand accents, investigate the disappearance of the entire population of a small coastal town. It turns out Lord Crumb and his extra-terrestrial minions want to export the human flesh taste sensation to the galaxy at large -- cue rampant silliness and enthusiastic low-budget gore. Classical.

Those Italians. Their deep-rooted Catholicism gives their zombie films a touch of hokey that harks back to the zombie legend's Haitian roots, as well as a gloriously grotesque fervour for the destruction of the flesh in graphic detail. The ghouls are more Romero-esque than anything we saw in 'City of the Living Dead', but, despite this being glaringly obvious, the protagonists never seem to quite realize that the things can only be killed by a shot to the head.

But that ending! Romero could never make a movie with that ending! It makes no sense at all! The wasteland is fantastically creepy, and somewhat Lovecraftian! I like very much!

And dammit, if all else fails, there's the soundtrack, which is so awesome that words cannot begin to do it justice. Genius, pure and simple.

Jeff Lebowski -- or, as he prefers to be known, 'The Dude' -- is a waster, a stoner, a pacifist; an all-round LA layabout. When he's mistaken for a millionaire of the same name by goons that piss on his rug, he visits the bloke in question in hope of recompense. Soon -- along with his bowlin buddies, Walter the Jewish convert Nam vet and Donny the retard -- he finds himself mixed up in an insanely complicated kidnapping plot, involving million-dollar ransoms, nymphomaniac stepmothers, gratuitous nudity, evil Germans, porn barons, private dicks, thick teenagers, and Sam Elliott -- most of them out for some kind of personal gain, and all of them connected by the Dude, who abides. (Am I wrong?)

Actually, I thought it was really good. Sure, it has the undead; it has the awesome one-liners ('Never, NEVER fuck with the King'); it has the physical comedy of which Bruce 'Almighty' Campbell is the master. But it's also curiously moving, when Elvis ponders the meaning of it all ('Food, shit, and sex') and his decline to this sorry state.

Also, especially since I watched ED I again a couple of days ago, it made me aware of how far Bruce has come as an actor: from the kid that cracked us all up by the fairly straightforward expedient of undergoing about as much pain & torment as a human being can, to the man that can deliver this layered and complex performance.

Bring on 'Bubba Nosferatu'!

Rupert Everett is at his smoulderingest as the brooding philosophical graveyard keeper whose nightly rounds, which involve dispatching the 'Returners', are disrupted by his ill-advised congress with a young widow and his mentally challenged assistant's relationship with the severed head of the mayor's daughter. Musing on the meaning of it all, Dellamorte goes on a dispassionate killing spree, but someone else keeps taking the credit for his crimes. With gratuitous nudity, gratuitous violence, and the undead all raising their heads within the first ninety seconds, this superior entry into the canon of spag-horror is a strange beast, unable to decide if it's a comedy, an existentialist tract, or a straight horror -- but whatever it is, it's enthralling.

No, I have no idea what's going on. It's pretty neat, though.

A troop of actors, led by Alan Ormsby (in what even the DVD case touts as 'one of the most obnoxious onscreen performances of all time'), heads to an island graveyard to spend the night. Stupid Thing Number One. Alan, whose clothing and facial hair together constitute Stupid Thing Number Two, digs up the corpse of one Orville and dicks about with it, reading a spell to wake the dead. Stupid Thing Numbers Three and Four. Finally, after about 70 minutes of agonizing ego masturbation on the part of Alan Ormsby, the dead get off their asses and kill everyone. Watch when drunk, and play MST3K. Masterpiece of post-hippie social satire, or gigantic piece of shit? Your call.

I'm not easily grossed out, but I have to say I was impressed. It's the maggots that do it, I think. Heck, when you have maggots, drills, and girls vomiting up their internal organs, all of it still standing up to today's standards of effects and gore, who needs a cohesive plot?

Ahh, now this -- this is awesome! At the start it's like watching a movie in a foreign language, but by the end you're talking like a nadsat yourself. Use your glazzies, my droogies, and viddy it repeatedly.

A series of five little stories, created in loving homage to old EC horror comics. Some work better than others, but it's worth it all for the priceless segment with Leslie Nielsen. 'Glug, glug, glug...'

Superb splatter-fest or biting social comment? It's both with knobs on.

Not as good as 'Dawn...', I think. The idea that zombies' brains can be reconstructed seems faintly preposterous to moi -- the whole point of zombies is that their brains are dead apart from the most basic instinct to feed (and, if you're watching 'Braindead', to reproduce). But, you know, can't really complain.

This gets off to a very rocky start. Points for the first killin, but to be honest much of it is so unoriginal as to be tedious. The splatter is amusingly excessive, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. After an hour, you're almost asleep -- and then it suddenly gets good. Really good. That one sequence, about an hour two minutes in, justifies the film's existence. In fact, if you watch the chapter entitled 'Dancing Dead', then skip to the end credits, where an amusing song plays summarizing the film's action, you can save yourself about 80 minutes and still experience the best moments.

Ohh, now THIS is a scary movie! Just the right length, just the right amount of nasty moments & things to make you cringe. Ace.

Buying it on the cheap because I loved 'The Descent', I expected a laugh-a-minute splatter-fest. I got a rather intelligent, quite moving film about human relationships in the face of adversary. And werewolves. It's almost unheard of in a horror film, but the characters were military but not assholes, and I found myself rooting for their survival, rather than for their deaths in the most gruesome ways imaginable.

This I enjoyed. Strange, but very good.

Awww, how can you not LOVE this film?

I enjoyed this. More like this, please, Mr Carrey!

Love love LOVE it! Mr Raimi, I bow before you.

Probably the best of the trilogy, but it's a close-run thing.

One word, Bruce: Groovy!

Proof that you don't need a lot of killins to make a great horror movie.

Teachers that are actually evil aliens bent on world domination. Naked girls. An American high school, and all the stereotypes that entails. It ought to suck, but it was great.

I love it. How good are those damn songs?

The London Underground is not a political movement.

Dear crappy horror movies,

Please be excessive -- nay, flamboyant -- in your crappiness. I'm sticking on a bad movie, which means I want some MST3K fodder, not a 90-minute snooze!

Also, live up to your titles. It's just plain annoying when a movie entitled 'Frogs', and containing many shots of frogs (or were they toads?) sitting around looking frog-like -- I mean menacing -- has people being killed by spiders, by lizards, by snakes, by turtles, and not a single damn frog does anything worse than keep people awake at night!

In conclusion: Europeans do eco-horror best. Let them.

Not as good as I'd hoped it would be. But boy, does that theme song kick ass.

Primed by the badge of honour that is a review on somethingawful.com, I was all geared up for the worst movie ever. It's not. I know one that's worse.

O Mr Hoffman, you are wonderful. Plus, great soundtrack.

Don't be fooled by the PR -- this is a brooding, atmospheric piece of Euro-eco-horror, short on stuff happening, long on ambience, but utterly engrossing nonetheless (gratuitous nudity always helps).

Billy's a good boy, so his struggling inventor father wants to get him an extra-special Christmas present, and eventually lights on the uber-cute mogwai, which comes with three important rules: keep it away from 'light bright'; don't get it wet; and never, ever feed it after midnight. Needless to say, Billy is quick to contravene all three rules, and within 45 minutes the town is overrun with hideous, Disney-loving gremlins. Oh no! Will Billy and his love interest save Christmas?

Sounds dumb, yes, but it's done with a great deal of panache and a wide streak of black humour.