New Year's Evil

New Year's Eve to me is one of the most overrated holidays. It is a holiday where we wait for hours for basically just a ball to drop and it is just an excuse for party goers to party. It becomes more and more each year and is a tiresome thing. If it were up to me, I would just treat New Year's Eve as a normal day. The film, New Year's Evil from 1980 just adds more bad stuff to all of this.New Years...

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Christmas Vacation

During it's fourteen year run, the National Lampoon Vacation series was pretty top notch. It produced a different concept of following a family and all their crazy adventures. It was a series that besides "Vegas Vacation" showed Chevy Chase in his prime as a comedic actor and also many series can't say they used every rating from R, PG-13 and PG for the various films which shows it's a series...

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Looper

When I look back at films I watched during my high school years, you could say it was "Joseph Gordon- Levitt time". Gordon-Levitt first became really well known as the young kid on Third Rock on the Sun. Then he appeared in films and didn't become a big name until 2009. He was an actor that always seem to be cast by good directors like Steven Spielberg in "Lincoln", and also supported by...

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An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story

Found dead in her bed in 1986, Christine Morton's death left Williamson County, Texas in shambles and caused her husband Micheal Morton to be found guilty of murder and facing a life sentence in prison. In November of 2011, with the case now twenty fife years old, we learned of the startling new evidence of another man's DNA linked to Christine's murder. "An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story" is the documentary story from CNN Films about...

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Curse of Chucky

To say in 1988 that we were going to have a horror film about a doll as a killer that later spawned a successful series would seem unreal. No doubt it would be interesting but very silly regardless and also a risk film due to the possible bad reactions to it. Still as history showed, Child's Play was a hit and it made it's mark on the horror world. It was the first movie in a popular series that still has nothing close...

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Thor: The Dark World

  Out of everything in the Marvel Universe, when it comes to paper (comics), Thor is about the dumbest character. He will always look like the California surfer guy smoking the second hand smoke. He's a character that is supposed to fit into Norse mythology but I don't see much of that in him whatsoever. Unlike someone like Batman or Spider Man, this character has only one weapon and that is...

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Ted

Is there anyone in this world who really didn't grow up with a stuffed teddy bear? It's something that defines childhood and can create long lost memories. A fine example of this in the film world is Pixar's first film "Toy Story". It was about a boy's childhood told through toys; a story of kindness and the early years of school. Even though it may be somewhere in the back of the mind with those notions, the...

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Blackfish

Founded in 1964 by Milton C. Shedd, Ken Norris and David DeMott, Sea World was the newest theme park attraction in the 60's. It was a theme park attraction that was different for the 60's and even now due to it's marine life theme. From it's popular roller coaster Kraken in Orlando, Florida to the Madagascar Live! Operation:Vacation show in San Diego, California, this points to why Sea World is so successful....

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The Blair Witch Project

"In October 1994, three film student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary....""A year later their footage was found"This great quote in short tells the details of the Blair Witch plot. It is a plot that like most horror films can be questioned. How can the woods be the only setting? What is the purpose to this? Could it really work with only three cast...

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Carrie

'While living in his trailer, a very young author Stephen King started writing "Carrie" for Cavalier Magazine. After writing three pages, he thew it in the garbage but was later pressured by his wife Tabitha to finish it. King, an English teacher at the time shaped the story from two girls he knew from high school and grade school. After successful profiting from the successful novel, King quit teaching and moved full...

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Gravity

In this day and age, when it comes to films about space, there are some very different kind of films. On one end, there are truly low budget horror films like Jason X , Critters 4 and Leprechaun 4: In Space. There are also some decent small, indie films about space like the popular 2009 Moon and Europa Report from 2013.That said, Gravity breaks all traditions regarding space films....

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Rush

 Along with being a film guy, the other passion in my life is sports and the credit for that has to go to my family. My dad played baseball throughout his youth and we have been Detroit Tigers season-ticket holders for years. My mother's family is a hockey family and my uncles and aunts have won numerous high school championships. My younger brother is a baseball and hockey player and I enjoy cheering...

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Aliens (1986)

Initially, I blew off the Alien series as if it was nothing. I thought it was a series that was just normal sci-fi stuff so I had with no intention to go run and watch these movies. Well, the Alien series is not just your ordinary series. This series is quality and deserves attention. Aliens which is a sequel to Alien and the second movie in the series is the movie...

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The Serpent and the Rainbow

Wes Craven really is kind of a hit or miss director. He made The Serpent and the Rainbow in 1988 at an interesting time of his career after having some success with Nightmare on Elm Street but after the disaster of Deadly Friend. The Serpent and the Rainbow has a few interesting ideas but Craven never really develops them very well. This is really a big miss film from Craven.Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman...

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Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators

Even though they reach a limited audience, 2013 has been the year for Syfy films. With it's original name, Sci-fi, it's was a channel in the beginning that brought us reruns of old films and some original films that didn't really have an audience. As time went on, the channel delivered some popular tv shows including Ghost Hunter and also cult shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000...

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Bats: Human Harvest

After watching many horror films over the years, the idea of bats being the central feature of a film never really crossed my mind. Bats sometimes are in the background but not the stars of the show. These little mammals are obviously small and maybe a little creepy but unless you get very close, I just don't find them very scary.That said in 1999 came the movie Bats which received negative...

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Win Win

Even though you maybe could question it, I think being a teenager is one of the toughest parts of a person's life. It's the end of childhood and many things need to be done as you transition to being a grown up. We have seen many films throughout the years on this subject; some good and some bad. Win Win tackles this subject with excellent results.Here Kyle (Alex Shaffer) is a troubled teenager and is...

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Invasion Roswell

For years, the government denied the existence of Area 51, a mysterious area in Nevada rumored to be the site of alien spaceship crash and governmental experiments. It is an area where nobody has been allowed to enter which has fueled many conspiracy theories including alien life and storage of an alien spacecraft, time travels, and weather control. What a place! Finally in 2013 after years of denial, we got confirmation...

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Ghost Shark

 Even though they are highly enjoyable subjects in the film world, sharks are kind of limited if you think about it. Obviously they are confined to water, so the killer sharks are limited to that type of atmosphere. Well Ghost Shark is a Syfy film so you know this is going to be a different type of shark film. Let's just say Ghost Shark is quite different and also entertaining.The movie...

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King Kong (2005)

When you think of famous cinema monsters, King Kong definitely comes to mind. First released in 1933, it was a film very different for the time and it still has an impact now. There was a sequel in 1962 with another Japanese film in 1967. American King Kong films followed in 1976 and 1986. In 2005, young director Peter Jackson after two years of finishing the successful Lord of the Rings trilogy,...

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Children of the Corn

Of all the Stephen King books and films, I find the movie Children of the Corn to be about the most interesting. As a fan of horror movies, I think films with children as villains seem to work for me. Poltergeist and Insidious are two quality horror movies that involve children and families. Village of the Damned was another and this spawned others. Children of the Corn is one of the most interesting...

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Kids

You can look at the film Kids in a lot of different ways. Maybe it's a film for teenagers. Maybe it's a film for adults. Maybe both. Well anyway this film came out in 1995 and never really never got a chance. A difficult film with an uncomfortable subject but that is why it works.Directed by controversial director Larry Clark, Kids from 1995 was originally given an NC-17 rating but was then released...

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Fright Night

I wish I had seen the original Fright Night from 1985. Usually you don't watch a remake until you see the original but with Fright Night it was different for me. This remake of Fright Night is one of the few films that I liked that is aimed towards my (teenage) age group.With the same idea as the original, a teenager finds that his neighbor is a vampire. With many ideas involving teen themes, this turns...

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Hugo

I read the book Hugo in the 5th grade I think but it is only a vague memory. The film adaption is is a different type of kids movie. It is a masterpiece film that does everything the right way and works on every level.The main setting is in a train station in the middle of Paris in 1931. The plot follows the book storyline of how an orphan named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) finds a...

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Scream 4

After two pretty solid films, the Scream series hit bottom with Part 3. Actually the whole horror genre kind of went downhill in that early 2000's time frame. Ten years after Scream 3 came Scream 4.Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell ) is back in Woodsboro after ten years to promote her new book in her old town. Ghostface however is back and has struck again killing off a new set of victims.The film has a difficult task of reviving...

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Blast Vegas

I have said it before and will say it again, films from Syfy are not my favorite. Most are low budget with bad plots but the bottom line is you know what you are getting going in. These films are not designed for the whole world but instead for a very small audience. Blast Vegas works on this level.Blast Vegas has a very cheap Vegas vibe going on and involves a group of college...

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Sharknado

  On July 11, Sharkndo made it's debut on the Syfy channel. It was a twitter sensation that had non-stop talk on any film site for days and you could probably call it a cult movie by now. An Asylum film and one of the few types of films I don't follow because we know the lack of quality of these. The films are usually rehashed from popular films like Abraham...

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