Category Archives: 80’s Movies

Like Father, Like Son (1987)

Posted on June 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

like father

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father/son switch roles.

Dr. Jack Hammond (Dudley Moore) is highly absorbed in his position as surgeon at a local clinic while hoping to get a promotion to chief of staff. His teen son Chris (Kirk Cameron) has problems of his own whether it is with school work, girls, or bullies. The two don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but then one day one of them drinks a mysterious potion that allows them to switch bodies and see what the other half goes through, which ends up being an eye-opener for both as well as leading to many expected calamities.

This film could best be described as the male version to Freaky Friday and would’ve been a complete disaster if it hadn’t been for the engaging performances of the two leads. After doing Arthur and getting on top of the Hollywood A-list Moore made a lot of poor film choices, but this was one of his better later-career moves and allows him to display his comic versatility and for the most part he is quite funny. Cameron is surprisingly good as well and it was interesting seeing him play against his squeaky clean, religious image that he has now by playing a character, who buys porno mags, jams to MTV and even at one point gives a guy the finger.

The comic scenarios are amusing, but could’ve been played up much more. When Chris is in Jack’s body he seems to behave much more like a 13 or 14-year-old instead of a high school senior. Jack’s behavior when in Chris’ body has issues too. I thought it was funny when he gets up and gives a long lecture to a biology class because that is a subject that he is an expert in, but then when he gives another one to his history class it was pushing the joke too far because no adult is going to be an expert at every subject. I also found it curious that he is surprised when he gets ostracized after snitching on another student as logically we must assume he did attend high school once himself, albeit a long time ago, so he would still remember what the teen culture was like and therefore be able to predict and expect some of the reactions he gets instead of being completely thrown off by them.

There is never any explanation, or at least none that I can remember, about the missing mother, or wife character. I realize that there are many single parent households in the world, but it still would’ve added some extra comic zing by having a mother/wife in the mix. To make up for this it incorporates instead a horny wife character of the hospital’s administrator (Patrick O’Neal) that is played by Margaret Colin who comes onto Moore and even arrives at his home for a sexual rendezvous that outside of a scene involving a burning sofa is pretty dumb.

The ending is a bit corny and the script only touches the surface to what could’ve been a comic minefield of possibilities, but it’s still okay entertainment if one approaches it with low expectations. You can also spot Bonnie Bedelia in a small, nonspeaking part as a woman who gets a wad of gum stuck in her hair.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 2, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Rod Daniel

Studio: TriStar Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy, Movies with a Hospital setting

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Fever (1989)

Posted on June 17, 2016 | 3 comments

fever 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review:  Suspense in the desert.

This review will be a first in a series in which we celebrate Australian cinema by reviewing one film each week from Down Under. Today’s movie centers on Jack Welles (Bill Hunter) who comes upon a suitcase full of money after a shootout with a drug dealer. He decides to keep the loot and take it home to his lovely wife Leanne (Mary Regan) unfortunately when he gets there he finds that she is in bed with another man named Jeff (Gary Sweet). The enraged Jack attacks Jeff, but Jeff and Leanne manage to fight him off while knocking him out in the process. Thinking that they’ve killed him they take his body out to the desert and dump it into a vat. The problem is that Jack isn’t dead and he proceeds to relentlessly chase the two while also being followed by a busy-body deputy named Morris (Jim Holt) who thinks that Jack is hiding something and who in-turn is also being followed by criminal kingpin Mr. Tan (Lawrence Mah) who is out to retrieve his drug money.

For the most part this film works pretty well and has a story that is compact and original and will keep the viewer guessing all the way through to the end. It also has some particularly novel camera angles including seeing the inside of a car, with the driver still at the wheel, as it flips over.

The film manages to avoid most of the expected loopholes that you usually see in these types of stories, but there are still a few discrepancies. The biggest one is that Jack recovers from the blow to his head a bit too quickly and magically. There is no dried blood, or bandages needed despite the fact that he does initially bleed when he is first hit. In fact there is no sign of even a cut and no after effects like headaches, swelling or dizziness that most assuredly would affect anyone else after being hit over the head with a vase and knocked unconscious. There is also a scene near the end where, in an effort to find his wife, Jack barges into a lady’s washroom and kicks open all the stall doors before finding a woman sitting on the toilet, but for some reason she doesn’t scream or react at all when he does this, which is weird.

The casting is another issue. Hunter is way older than the actress who plays his wife and it doesn’t look right or make sense. Why would such a young beauty settle for some tubby middle-ager? It clearly wasn’t for love or money and the actor playing her lover has too much of the chiseled male model features of a soap opera star. The solution would’ve been to cast performers to play the wife and lover that were of the same age and looks range as Hunter.  Average looking, middle-aged people have sex and affairs in real-life, so why can’t characters on the big screen ever reflect this?

The story also suffers by having characters that are not likable and nobody to root for. Any screenwriting coach will tell you that no matter how clever, or creative the plot may be if it does not have three dimensional characters then it won’t work.

However, with all that said there are still enough unexpected twists to keep it interesting particularly the ones that occur during the final ten minutes. The last one is especially good and one I would never have guessed, nor seen done in any other film, so the movie gets kudos for that.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 1, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: Craig Lahiff

Studio: Genesis Films

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cult, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Movies with a train setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Thrillers/Suspense

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Fame (1980)

Posted on June 13, 2016 | Leave a comment

fame 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: School of Performing arts.

Filmed at the now demolished Haaren High School the film is intended to be a showcase of New York’s famous Fiorello LaGuardia High School that specialized in training students in the arts, dance and drama. The story centers on an eclectic mix of teens that join the school. There’s Doris (Maureen Teefy) who is pushed by her mother (Tresa Hughes) into becoming a singer/actress despite suffering from horrible stage fright. Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray) wants to become a dancer despite not being able to read while Ralph (Barry Miller), Montgomery (Paul McCrane) and Bruno (Lee Curreri) all suffer from personal demons/insecurities of their own.

I’m sure in its day this came off as fresh and exhilarating, but time has not been kind to it. The film starts out with the teens auditioning to get into the school, which might have been interesting had it not come off as a poor man’s version of ‘American Idol’, which has dulled our senses so much to the audition process that anything else now seems second-rate. I think what surprised me most about these scenes is how patient the judges/instructors were as all of the teen’s auditions were quite poor and they should’ve been politely escorted out a minute into them instead of being allowed to continue on with something that was clearly not working. What shocked me even more though is that several of the main characters gave horrid auditions that made it look like they had no talent at all and yet somehow they were accepted into the school anyways making it look like this wasn’t necessarily a place for gifted students after all, but instead just someplace willing to bring in any loser that wanted in.

The characters aren’t appealing either. Doris is much too neurotic; Montgomery is boringly benign and Ralph comes off as an obnoxious, attention-seeking clown. There are many scenes showing the students being highly disrespectful to their instructors that normally would’ve gotten them kicked out of any other school, but here for some reason they don’t. Out of all the students Coco (Irene Cara) was the only one I liked as she had genuine talent and also seemed much more dedicated, but the film ends up degrading her by having her character go to a rundown apartment of some slimy producer who wants to ‘audition’ her for his next film even though it is quite obvious to any viewer that the guy is a first-rate sleazebag and his audition is clearly just a set-up to a scam, or in this case an underground porno.

The script is filled with a lot of unresolved storylines and loopholes. For instance Leroy is unable to read and when this gets discovered he tears up the school in a fit of rage and yet somehow still remains a student for the full four years. Did he eventually teach himself how to read and pay for the damages that he caused? These pertinent questions never get answered, but really should’ve.

I enjoyed the shots capturing the New York’s busy and sometimes dangerous city sidewalks as well as a bird’s-eye shot of Times Square. The scene where a couple of students go to a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture is great, but the rest of the movie is just one long mish-mash. At certain points it tries to be a gritty drama and then at other times it breaks out into tacky dance routines. Instead of being a compelling drama it’s more of a broad overview and would’ve worked much better had the number of main characters been paired down to just one or two and the time span cut from four years to just one.

 

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 16, 1980

Runtime: 2Hours 13Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan Parker

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy/Drama, Gay/Lesbian, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Musical

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Baby Boom (1987)

Posted on June 6, 2016 | 1 comment

baby boom

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Yuppie inherits a baby.

J.C. Wiatt (Diane Keaton) is a successful businesswoman who has risen to the top of the corporate world by being quite literally ‘married-to-her-job’, which is just fine with her boss (Sam Wanamaker) as he is the same way and demands nothing less. Out-of-the-blue she gets a call that a distant relative has died and sent her an inheritance. She initially thinks it’s money only to find to her shock that it’s a baby girl instead. J.C. lacks any parenting skills and has difficulty even putting on a diaper, let alone knowing the right sized one to buy. Her annoyance slowly grows to bonding as she finds raising a young one has rewards far greater than her previous yuppie lifestyle could offer.

The premise for this thing is whacked. What kind of halfway normal parent would write a will that has their child shipped off to a distant relative that they haven’t had contact with since 1954 in the event of their death? Certainly there had to have been some close friend or family member that they knew of who would’ve been far more appropriate and could’ve been forewarned that they were the intended god parent. It’s almost like the parents just threw the child off a cliff and hoped someone down below would catch her.

The Harold Ramis character should’ve been chucked from the beginning. He plays her live-in boyfriend, but if someone is working 70 to 80 hours a week then they would have little time for a social life let alone a normal, healthy romantic relationship. The idea is to show that this character’s life is imbalanced, so might as well portray her as being alone and desperate need for genuine human contact making the baby’s presence all the more significant.  Ramis disappears quickly as he bails on her the minute she decides to keep the kid, so why bother introducing him at all?

Although likable I didn’t feel Keaton was the best choice for the part. The character is given the nickname of ‘tiger lady’, but to me that would signify having traits that are cold, steely and bitchy, but Keaton never displays these. Cybil Shephard or Candice Bergen with her Murphy Brown persona would’ve been a better pick and made the character’s transition from cutthroat businesswoman to loving mommy all the more vivid.

The film does have some funny bits and the twin girls who play the part of the infant are cute and respond well to the camera. I even enjoyed when J.C. begins to bond with the girl, but Bill Conti’s musical score gets overplayed during these segments and his cutesy melody gives these otherwise  touching moments too much of a heavy-handed feel.

I certainly liked the message, but writer/director Charles Shyer tries too hard to get it across. Having the character suddenly move out to the country seemed too severe of a shift. This is the type of person who thrived in a big city atmosphere and I don’t think she’d ever fully adjust to the slow pace of the rural lifestyle, which makes this plot twist, in a movie that goes on too long to begin with, come off as a misguided tangent that isn’t interesting or believable and the ending itself is too idealistic.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 30, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Charles Shyer

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity

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Another Chance (1989)

Posted on June 1, 2016 | Leave a comment

another chance 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Jaded playboy seeks redemption.

John Ripley (Bruce Greenwood) enjoys trying to bed every attractive woman that comes along. He even has his dog Rocky trained to bite on their purses and lead them over to him wherever he may be sitting. He is a big star on the daytime soaps and uses this position to take advantage of every young, nubile starlet willing to go to have sex with an established actor if it can in some way help boost their career. Then he meets the beautiful Jackie (Vanessa Angel) and starts to have strong feelings for her, but she catches him with another woman and it’s all over. He tries to win her back, but in the process loses his job and home. While working a part-time gig at a look-a-like show he gets into an ugly confrontation with a psychotic man resembling Humphrey Bogart (Robert Sacchi) who pulls out a gun and shoots him on the spot. John then finds out that he has been banished to hell, but pleads for one more shot at redemption, which he is given, but only if he can win back Jackie’s heart.

The film, which was written and directed by B-actor Jesse Vint, certainly has a crazy wide open storyline that seems to want to mix in the mindset of today’s modern world with that of spiritual one, which doesn’t work at all. Initially I thought the heaven and hell thing was thrown in simply as a plot device, but the more it continued the more I became convinced that this movie was intended to be religious one even though it gets enveloped inside the jaded world of modern day Hollywood, which just makes it all the more loopy.

In more competent hands this might’ve worked as an interesting curio, but the script needed to be better focused and the editing much tighter. The narrative is too heavy-handed to take seriously and everything gets photographed in a flat sort of way making the whole thing seem on par to a TV-movie instead of a theatrical one.

Greenwood gives an engaging performance and helps make a potentially unlikable character more tolerable. Angel is good too and it’s too bad she couldn’t have been in more scenes. The supporting female cast is overall quite attractive, but they’re all made to dress and act like bimbos. Anne Ramsey is on-hand for a brief bit as John’s crabby landlady and Allan Rich has a supporting role as a sleazy agent, but overall the one thing I liked most about the movie was Rocky the dog and that’s about it.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 5, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jesse Vint

Studio: Moviestore Entertainment

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Quirky, Romance, Spiritual Movies

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Near Dark (1987)

Posted on May 30, 2016 | 1 comment

near dark

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Vampires in a van.

Caleb (Adrian Pasder) is a farm boy who spots the attractive Mae (Jenny Wright) one night while cruising around in his pick-up. He decides to take her for a spin and the two initially get along until they kiss and she bites him on his neck, which makes him very sick. As he is trying to get back to his farm where his father and sister live (Tim Thomerson, Marcie Leeds) he gets hijacked by a van carrying other vampires (Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, Joshua John Miller) who try to teach him how to hunt and kill humans, which is something Caleb isn’t ready to do despite his new found necessity of needing blood in order to survive.

Compared to other ‘80s vampire flicks this one is far and away ahead of the rest. I liked how Caleb’s transformation into a vampire is very emotionally and psychologically jarring, which is how I think it would be, even though other films from that period would gloss over this like it was no big deal. I also liked the way it circumvents the irritating erotic overtones by showing Caleb and others sucking up the blood from a human’s neck like a thirsty man coming from a desert instead of portraying it in some sort of cheesy sexy way. The film also has its share of genuinely horrifying moments including a long, drawn out scene inside a hick bar that is violent and ugly, but also quite effective and makes these vampires the menacing characters that they should be.

The acting is all-around quite good including having three actors from Aliens, which is amusingly displayed as the film being shown at a local theater in the small town that Caleb passes through. I was also impressed with the two child stars. Miller, who is the son of Jason Miller who played Father Karras in The Exorcist, is effectively disturbing as this baby-faced kid with a potential of doing some very nasty things. Leeds is also solid as a young, cute girl with some very down-to-earth sensibilities.

The special effects are great and I was impressed with how the vampire’s skin would burn when exposed to daylight, but I also had a bit of a problem with this as well. For one thing the burn would appear so severe that it looked like nothing short of grafting could repair it and yet we would see them in the next scene with their skin fully healed, or looking like it had been smeared with coal and nothing more.

I was also confused with how these vampires manage to obtain such super-human strength. They possess the same bodies that they had when they were human with no apparent additional muscle mass, so where is this extra strength coming from? Is it ‘magic’ and if so where does that come from? This film tries so hard to keep everything on a gritty and real level, but that unfortunately gets hurt by having this illogical and unexplained phenomenon thrown in.

The astronomical odds that these vampires would meet up with Caleb’s father and sister at some random, isolated hotel is a bit hard to fathom as well, but I was willing to forgive it as the one loophole every story is allowed to have. However, the scene where Miller’s character takes Caleb’s younger sister back to the motel room to watch TV and they find that all the stations have signed off for the night just doesn’t hold true. By the late ‘80s, which was when this movie was made and takes place, most broadcast stations where working 24 hours and most if not all hotels where offering basic cable, which included free HBO and these stations were definitely broadcasting throughout the wee hours making this scene completely false for the period it was in.

The film did poorly at the box office when it was first released, but has managed to attain a strong cult following since. I liked most of it, but didn’t care for the eternally thumping music score that gets played in literally every scene and gives it too much of a music video feel and the climactic finish, which is exciting and has some terrific special effects, became too protracted for my tastes.

near dark 2

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 2, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Studio: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Horror, Road Movies, Vampire Movies

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My Best Friend is a Vampire (1988)

Posted on May 23, 2016 | 1 comment

my best friend is a vampire

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen turns into vampire.

Jeremy (Robert Sean Leonard) is just your average teen attending high school in Houston while also working as a grocery delivery boy part-time. On one of his deliveries he meets a mysterious, but beautiful woman named Nora (Cecillia Peck) who bites him on his neck, which slowly turns him into a vampire over the course of several days. It also causes a vampire instructor named Modoc (Rene Auberjonois) to appear who helps mentor him on what life as a vampire is like while also giving him a vampire instruction manual to read. Once the initial shock is over Jeremy begins to enjoy the change, but still must avoid a couple of overzealous vampire hunters (David Warner, Paul Willson) who are out to pierce his heart with a wooden stake.

The film starts out amusingly enough and has a nice balance between being funny and still maintaining an interesting plot. It even manages to throw in a few original spins to the genre, so it doesn’t come off as just another mindless vampire movie retread, at least initially. Leonard is engaging in the lead and the dialogue between the teenagers is more realistic than in most other high school flicks from the ‘80’s.

Unfortunately the film starts to go south when, after faced with all these changes, Jeremy still decides to ask a geeky looking girl named Darla (Cheryl Pollak) out on a date, but I would’ve thought with all the stresses he was going through that starting a relationship would be the last thing on his mind. The romantic angle is boring and adds nothing to the mix. Pollak is a weak actress and her character’s presence could’ve easily been cut out altogether.

The finale is a real letdown and comes off like a typically uninspired farce where the writers have run out of creative ideas and thus try to wrap things up with a benign car chase and frantic running around by the characters. The story is full of logic loopholes and the promising elements at the start ultimately devolve into inane silliness by the end.

I’ll give director Jimmy Huston credit for managing to raise himself up from his humble beginnings, which was as a director to an Earl Owensby produced movie, which is about as low as one can go, but this film becomes just another tired casualty in a long line of films hoping to be the next vampire cult classic, but not making the cut.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 6, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jimmy Huston

Studio: Kings Road Entertainment

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in Texas, Vampire Movies

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The Longshot (1986)

Posted on May 18, 2016 | Leave a comment

longshot

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Betting on a horse.

Four middle-aged losers (Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Ted Wass, Jack  Weston) who’ve spent years attending the racetrack and betting on horses, but never making any money off of it, finally get a tip from an insider. Santiago (Jorge Cervera Jr.) tells them to place a bet on a horse with a longshot of winning because he will feed the animal a certain drug, which will make him run faster. Since the four do not have any funds of their own they decide to borrow the money from a local gangster (George DiCenzo) who gives them $10,000, but with heavy interest added. The men are convinced that they will be able to easily pay it back, but then just as the bet is placed they find out that it’s been a set-up, which sends the four into a panic.

The screenplay was written by Conway who has been an avid horse racing fan for years and even considered becoming a jockey before entering into acting. Like with his other films that he also scripted it is poorly paced with long stretches where nothing much happens. Very little of the runtime is spent on the actual plot and the majority of the film instead deals with meandering conversations and wacky/sketch-like comedy that has nothing at all to do with the main story.

Some of it is mildly amusing like with different euphemisms the men use to describe the male sex organ, but overall it’s pretty desperate. Some of it is too dumb to be believable: for instance what sort of person in their right mind, even a complete idiot, would light a grill inside a parked car with the windows up and not expect problems? The scene dealing with Conway’s rendezvous with the Stella Stevens’ character inside her hotel room is needlessly prolonged and pointless and the segment where Korman eats his beef stew while making loud slurping noises is gross sounding and should’ve been cut out completely.

The one thing that I found interesting is the fact that this film is a bit edgier than most of Conway’s other ones. During the ‘70s he was locked into perpetually G-rated material, but here it gets more PG-13 with one character even using the F-word and Conway close to using it himself a couple of times. He also plays more of a normal person instead of the vapid, dopey one that he usually does. Instead Ted Wass handles the duties of the numskull and in many ways is much funnier with it.

The supporting cast is the only thing that saves this otherwise limp excursion. Anne Meara is great as Conway’s sarcastic wife and Jack Weston becomes a scene stealer as his pal. Other familiar faces pop-up in minor bits including Frank Bonner as a real estate agent, Susan Tolsky as a would-be topless waitress, Jonathan Winters as a pick-up truck driver and Eddie Deezen as a carhop. Edie McClurg is seen briefly as Korman’s wife and Paul Bartel, who has the dubious honors of directing this flick, can be spotted as a racing spectator during the opening credits.

Conway fans will most likely be more forgiving, but others beware. If you do watch it you’ll be treated to an opening rap duet between Conway and Ice-T, yes you read that right, and a closing song done by Irene Cara.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 17, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Paul Bartel

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Gangster Movies, Sports Movies

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Vamp (1986)

Posted on May 16, 2016 | 1 comment

vamp 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stripper is a vampire.

A.J. (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) are two fraternity pledges hoping to avoid a hazing by promising that they can bring in a stripper to the next frat party. They then drive into the city to check out the clubs and find a pole dancer willing to take them up on their offer. One place, which is run by the sleazy Vic (Sandy Baron), has an exotic dancer named Katrina (Grace Jones) that immediately catches their eye. A.J. is invited backstage to meet her only to ultimately be attacked once he finds out that she is really a vampire. Keith is then forced to try to escape from the place on his own with the help of a friendly waitress Allison (Dedee Pfeiffer), but finds that the entire neighborhood is infested with vampires and more popping up wherever he turns.

It’s never a good omen when the film’s first day of shooting coincided with the space shuttle challenger disaster, but on the whole writer/director Richard Wenk does his best to breathe new life into a tired genre. The humor at the beginning is amusing although it goes a bit overboard and the whole fraternity angle could’ve and should’ve been avoided as it comes off as too contrived and the story would’ve worked just fine without it.

Jones, who never speaks a word of dialogue, gives a provocative performance. I enjoyed her white-faced sultry dance and her make-up effects are frightening during the times when she morphs into a vampire.

Rusler makes for a brash and believable college dude and the film only works when he and Makepeace are together, but on his own Makepeace is quite boring. I thought he was fantastic in My Bodyguard, but here he shows no charisma and probably one of the main reasons this film has never attained much of a cult following despite being ripe for it. Gedde Watanabe and Pfeiffer are equally useless and their character’s presence wasn’t needed at all although Baron camps things up nicely as the scheming club owner.

There are a few interesting moments here and there including a rather surreal one inside an elevator, but overall it’s not too exciting. I think the biggest issue is the fact that it’s too easy to kill these vampires off. Whether it’s a wooden stake, daylight, fire, or even a cross these guys seem to have the odds stacked against them and no matter how many of them surround this novice college guy hero he somehow finds a way to off them with relative ease until it seems almost like swatting flies from a wall. At the end when he walks away from it virtually unscathed and giving the impression that it had been ‘no big deal’ resonated with me as a viewer as I felt the same way about this movie.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: July 18, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Wenk

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Dry Humor, Movies with Nudity, Vampire Movies

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Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

Posted on May 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

rats 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rats rule the world!

Years after a nuclear holocaust has turned the earth’s surface into a scorched wasteland, a group of bikers known as scavengers descend into an abandoned building for shelter. Little do they know that the place is infested with large rats that, in their desperate need for food, have become particularly keen to human flesh and attack the group and devour each member one-by-one.

The film was written and directed by Bruno Mattei who was known as the Italian version of Ed Wood. The low-grade production values and uninspired dialogue quickly become apparent, which sucks the viewer into a listless and joyous experience from the get-go. The biggest issue are the rats and although I was happy to see that real ones where used this to a degree is what kills the tension because they are never seen attacking anyone. All they do is go about their normal rat behavior, which is scavenging for food while the rest of the cast, wearing tacky outfits like they are leftover members of an ‘80s punk band, make total fools of themselves trying to act frightened.

In some ways though this is the one thing that I liked, which was watching these rats scurrying around as it looks like hundreds of them were thrown onto the set forcing them to climb over each other and even climb up things, which to a strange degree is fascinating to watch. The movie would’ve been far better had it dumped its whole cheesy premise, as well as the human characters, and just turned itself into a nature documentary focusing on how rats behave and forage for food. Some are actually kind of cute and I was upset to see that a few were set on fire as no animal of any kind should’ve lost their life for this stupid thing.

In the end though the plot goes nowhere and the majority of the action takes place in what looks to be a dingy, grimy basement of a warehouse, which visually makes things quite static. The acting is atrocious and the twist that comes at the very end is quite predictable and something most viewers will see coming long before it finally does.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: August 3, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Bruno Mattei

Studio: Artist Entertainment Group

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Horror, Italian Films, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity

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