Release Date: May 17th, 1974 Directed by: John Hough Written by: Leigh Chapman, Antonio Santean Based on:The Chase by Richard Unekis Music by: Jimmie Haskell Cast: Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, Vic Morrow, Roddy McDowall
Academy Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, 93 Minutes
Review:
“I’m gonna eat your lunch, you long-haired faggot!” – Hanks
Peter Fonda starred in several counter culture and road movies in the late ’60s and into the ’70s. So his casting here was pretty perfect and he owns every scene that he’s in.
However, the bulk of the work isn’t just on Fonda, as we also have Susan George, who is exceptional in this, and Adam Roarke, who I always liked but felt was grossly underutilized. Roarke truly gets to shine in this and it’s damn cool to see.
The film also has Vic Morrow in it, as a villainous sheriff, as well as Roddy McDowall in a smaller role. However, any McDowall appearance is worth mentioning.
The story is very Bonnie and Clyde-esque, as it follows a criminal that takes his girlfriend and a buddy along with him, as law enforcement closes in, creating a massive on-the-road manhunt.
While I do like this film a lot, it’s pretty slow for the first two acts. I enjoy the characters and the performances are damn good, especially between the main trio, but there seems to be a lot of filler and chatter. Sure, it helps to build up the characters but this didn’t really get to the good stuff until the long, great finale ramped up in the last half hour.
Once this does get going, it’s fucking perfect, though.
I dug the hell out of the vehicle stunts and all the sequences with the helicopter were damn impressive. I never tire on this sort of stuff, especially from this era when filmmakers couldn’t rely on CGI and post-production visual trickery. Everything in these action scenes had to be captured by real film in real time.
All in all, this is a motion picture that is a reflection of its time and that time’s trends. The story and how it plays out may be predictable and leave you with a feeling of hopelessness but the ’70s were a bleak decade and this doesn’t shy away from that.
Rating: 7/10 Pairs well with: other counterculture films with Peter Fonda in them.
Release Date: May 17th, 1974 Directed by: John Hough Written by: Leigh Chapman, Antonio Santean Based on:The Chase by Richard Unekis Music by: Jimmie Haskell Cast: Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, Vic Morrow, Roddy McDowall
Academy Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, 93 Minutes
Review:
“I’m gonna eat your lunch, you long-haired faggot!” – Hanks
Peter Fonda starred in several counter culture and road movies in the late ’60s and into the ’70s. So his casting here was pretty perfect and he owns every scene that he’s in.
However, the bulk of the work isn’t just on Fonda, as we also have Susan George, who is exceptional in this, and Adam Roarke, who I always liked but felt was grossly underutilized. Roarke truly gets to shine in this and it’s damn cool to see.
The film also has Vic Morrow in it, as a villainous sheriff, as well as Roddy McDowall in a smaller role. However, any McDowall appearance is worth mentioning.
The story is very Bonnie and Clyde-esque, as it follows a criminal that takes his girlfriend and a buddy along with him, as law enforcement closes in, creating a massive on-the-road manhunt.
While I do like this film a lot, it’s pretty slow for the first two acts. I enjoy the characters and the performances are damn good, especially between the main trio, but there seems to be a lot of filler and chatter. Sure, it helps to build up the characters but this didn’t really get to the good stuff until the long, great finale ramped up in the last half hour.
Once this does get going, it’s fucking perfect, though.
I dug the hell out of the vehicle stunts and all the sequences with the helicopter were damn impressive. I never tire on this sort of stuff, especially from this era when filmmakers couldn’t rely on CGI and post-production visual trickery. Everything in these action scenes had to be captured by real film in real time.
All in all, this is a motion picture that is a reflection of its time and that time’s trends. The story and how it plays out may be predictable and leave you with a feeling of hopelessness but the ’70s were a bleak decade and this doesn’t shy away from that.
Rating: 7/10 Pairs well with: other counterculture films with Peter Fonda in them.
Release Date: June 24th, 1983 Directed by: John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, George Miller Written by: John Landis, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Melissa Mathison, Jerome Bixby Based on:The Twilight Zone by Rod Sterling Music by: Jerry Goldsmith Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Scatman Crothers, John Lithgow, Vic Morrow, Kathleen Quinlan, Burgess Meredith (narrator), Dick Miller, Steven Williams, Al Leong, John Larroquette, Selma Diamond, Priscilla Pointer, Nancy Cartwright, Christina Nigra, Donna Dixon
Amblin Entertainment, Warner Bros., 101 Minutes
Review:
“Hey… you wanna see something really scary?” – Car Passenger
After recently watching the Creepshow television series, as well as revisiting the movies for the umpteenth time, I got the itch to rewatch Twilight Zone: The Movie, as it has a lot of similarities and I hadn’t seen it in at least a decade.
I like the highpoints of this movie almost as much as the Creepshow films. However, Twilight Zone is pretty inconsistent, as the first two segments are weak while the latter two are really good. And maybe it was put in this order in post-production because Steven Spielberg felt the same way, even though one of his segments was one of the crappier ones.
The prologue and the first segment were both directed by John Landis, coming off of An American Werewolf In London, a true horror classic. The prologue was a pretty good setup and I loved it when I was a kid. Landis’ segment, however, plays more like an episode of Amazing Stories.
Although, two of these segments play like Amazing Stories episodes and maybe this movie is what inspired Spielberg to create that show just two years later.
Anyway, Landis’ segment is actually incomplete due to an accident involving a helicopter on the set of the film. The accident killed two kids and actor Victor Morrow. It was a pretty controversial event back when it happened (see here) and it forever ruined the working relationship between Steven Spielberg and John Landis.
Moving on to the second segment, it’s the one directed by Spielberg himself and it is also the other segment that feels like an Amazing Stories episode. It’s also really boring and slows the movie to a crawl. But thankfully, Joe Dante’s segment gets the movie back on track.
By the time the third segment rolls around, you might find yourself in a comatose state that even the gentle, kind and always fly Scatman Crothers couldn’t pull you out of during the previous story. But once you get to the midpoint of the film, everything picks up, gets better and the movie delivers.
The third and fourth segments feel almost as good as the best segments from the Creepshow franchise and they save this movie from being a total disaster.
Where the first story dealt with an unlikable, old, racist piece of shit and the second dealt with old people getting to feel young again, the third deals with a young boy with special powers and a nice lady that eventually wants to help him, played by Kathleen Quinlan. It has more energy, it’s a more interesting story and the monster effects that Dante had created for this are superb. I love the third segment and it’s actually a story I would revisit if ever there were a followup to it. Plus, it has Dick Miller in it.
Now the fourth segment is directed by George Miller, the man behind the Mad Max franchise, and it is a remake of the most famous Twilight Zone episode.
The story sees an airplane passenger freak out over a monster on the wing of the plane. It may sound like an odd setup but it is a great segment that builds suspense incredibly well and also benefits from the great talent of John Lithgow. I also really liked the young Christina Nigra in this, as she added some good comedic seasoning at just the right moments. She was also really good in Cloak & Dagger, alongside Henry Thomas, a year later.
The final segment features the best (and only real) monster of the movie. The special effects are outstanding and the payoff in the finale makes the rest of the movie worth sitting through.
In the end, Twilight Zone: The Movie is a good example of what I don’t like about anthologies: consistency. The first half is bogged down by dry, slow, boring stories that one has to suffer through in an effort to get to something better. Thankfully, the second half of the picture is good.
In retrospect, though, it feels like this is almost a movie length pilot to Spielberg’s anthology television series Amazing Stories. If you’ve ever seen that show, this feels like an extension of it more than it feels like it fits within the Twilight Zone franchise. However, this would also lead to the Twilight Zone getting resurrected on television. In fact, it relaunched just a few days before Amazing Stories debuted.
Going back to the Spielberg segment with the old people experiencing their youth again, there are a lot of parallels to it and Ron Howard’s Cocoon. I’m not sure if this was an inspiration for that movie and its sequel but it’s very possible.
In fact, Twilight Zone: The Movie seems to have had quite the impact between launching a new TZ television series, influencing Spielberg’s Amazing Stories and its similarities to Cocoon, all of which came out two years later in 1985.
Rating: 7.25/10 Pairs well with: other horror anthology films of the time: the Creepshow movies and Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, as well as the television shows Amazing Stories and Tales From the Crypt.
Also known as: Monster (alternative title – racier version) Release Date: May 16th, 1980 Directed by: Barbara Peeters, Jimmy T. Murakami (uncredited) Written by: Frederick James, Frank Arnold, Martin B. Cohen Music by: James Horner Cast: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Lynn Schiller
New World Pictures, 80 Minutes
Review:
“Hold it! We think we know where these things come from, but we have no idea how many there are.” – Dr. Susan Drake
I remember seeing this film multiple times as a kid. Back then, I saw it on premium cable and usually late at night. However, the version I saw back then was tame in comparison to the one I just watched. So apparently there are different cuts of the movie and the one I just experienced for the first time was the “racier version” called Monster.
The big difference is a pretty shocking one, as the humanoid sea monsters in this version not only murder every piece of flesh they come in contact with but they also rape all the hot women in the movie that can’t get away. I had to do a double take each time this happened because I certainly would’ve remembered that detail had I seen it back in the ’80s.
I feel like this version of the film also had a lot more gore. The old cut I saw did have a good amount of blood and violence but this edit seemed to push it to another level. And maybe this was due to the censors circa 1980 thinking that sea-beast rape and clawed off faces were a bit too much.
In retrospect, the “racier version” comes off as a true drive-in classic that would draw the admiration and respect of the legendary Joe Bob Briggs. And frankly, I’d love to see him feature this cut of the film on The Last Drive-In.
Humanoids From the Deep was produced by Roger Corman and his studio, New World Pictures. It seems pretty fitting as this movie is very similar to a lot of Corman’s late ’50s and early ’60s creature features. Granted, this upped the ante in regards to tits and gore; it was a Corman feature for a new generation.
But like Corman’s earlier work, this features dudes in rubber suits and pretty hokey but awesome cheap, practical effects.
Overall, the plot is pretty simple. Sea-men rise from the ocean to rape and kill people in a small coastal town. Everything comes to a big crescendo at the town’s big fair, which happens to be set up right next to the water.
The acting and direction are about what one would expect from a flick put out by New World.
While this isn’t a fantastic film, it’s still a pretty good time for fans of ’80s horror with a good amount of onscreen violence.
Rating: 6.25/10 Pairs well with: other Roger Corman produced creature features, C.H.U.D., The Beast Within and Piranha.
Also known as: 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx (Italy) Release Date: November 17th, 1982 (Italy) Directed by: Enzo G. Castellari Written by: Dardano Sacchetti, Elisa Livia Briganti, Enzo G. Castellari Music by: Walter Rizzati Cast: Vic Morrow, Christopher Connelly, Fred Williamson, Mark Gregory
Deaf Internacional Film SrL, United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), 89 Minutes
Review:
What happens when you mix Walter Hill’s classic The Warriors with John Carpenter’s phenomenal Escape From New York and have the Italians make it? The answer: 1990: Bronx Warriors or as the Italians called it 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx.
While this ripoff is not a great movie, it is still a pretty entertaining way to spend an hour and a half. Plus, it has Fred Williamson in it and I’ll watch that guy crack skulls until the end of time.
The weakest part of this film though, is the villains. You have this pair of baddies who ride around in a yellow semi together. Their names are Hotdog and Hammer, I shit you not. Hotdog is apprehensive about his villany, while Hammer is just an evil prick hellbent on being an evil prick.
The film is full of really fantastical and gimmicky gangs like The Warriors. We have the Riders, who are basically the Warriors on motorcycles. Then you have a roller hockey gang that are similar to the Baseball Furies from The Warriors. There are the Tigers who are dressed like pimps wearing face paint. There’s a gang that wears bowler hats and dances around like Taco in the “Puttin’ On The Ritz” video. There is some neanderthal caveman gang that lives in the sewers. There are probably some others too but these are the ones that stick out. There’s also a cool drunk hobo.
The plot of this thing sees a rich white girl cross the bridge into the Bronx, which the government has declared “No Man’s Land”. It is a lawless zone run by gangs, who each take their turf really seriously. The girl hooks up with a dude named Trash, who is the leader of the Riders. The rest of the plot is confusing but the girl is set to inherit a billion dollar corporation and is on the run. The hockey gang kidnaps her, the Riders team up with Fred Williamson’s Tigers and decide to raise hell. Hotdog and Hammer are trying to kill everything, well mostly just Hammer as Hotdog wants out of the arrangement.
There is not as much action as you would hope but when the action gets going, it’s pretty solid stuff. Fred Williamson decapitates some punk ass thug at one point, which is the violent highlight of the film.
1990: Bronx Warriors is a good time killer. It’s nowhere near as great as the films it rips off but it is a nice Italian homage to them. And again, it has Fred Williamson in it.
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Talking Pulp 
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