Reaction & Review | Snuff

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be gonna covering an exploitation film from 1976. That movie is "Snuff".

Now before I get into what I know about this movie, I should let you guys know that one of the reasons why I prefer getting movies on DVD or any other physical home video format is because I like to discover movies that I have never seen before that have very little to no chance on being on any sort of streaming service. And while some movies I've discovered turned out to be complete garbage, some have kinda surprised me a bit by being either decent or, at the least very least watchable. And also, sometimes, I like to read the synopsis on the back of DVD cases just in case a premise peaks my interest at all.

And in the case of this movie, it apparently has a rather interesting history to it. To start, this movie's title went under a different name known as "The Slaughter" and was made by Michael Findlay and his wife, who were known for making Z-grade shlock films, and this one I'm going to assume was suppose to be no different. And apparently, the film was panned by it's own distributer so much that it was shelved for at least 5 years until someone named Allan Shackleton came in and added a new "controversial" ending to the film and renamed it as "Snuff". Now, I have no idea what this supposed "controversial" ending is suppose to be. All I'm telling you is what I'm reading on the back of the DVD case for the film.

It also claims itself to be "The Bloodiest thing that ever happened in front of a camera". Which I see that as a challenge, because after watching movies like "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl" and "Tokyo Gore Police", this film has *really* big shoes to fill if it ever wants to claim itself as the "bloodiest" thing ever to be put on camera. Now granted, maybe it meant for the standards of 1976, but again, considering I've seen quite a number films that had have had blood gushing like a motherfucker, I really don't think this film will quite live up to the standards I have set, such as the two movies I just mentioned in terms of it being incredibly bloody.

Now, there is one other thing I wanted to mention before I start up the movie, and this is what really peaked my curiosity about it. On the back of DVD case, there's a quote that, I should mention, is *not* cited by any sort of website or anybody well known related to horror, but it still really fascinates me all the same. It reads as follows: "The Actors and Actresses Who Dedicated Their Lives to Making This Film Were Never Seen or Heard From Again!".

Now this could mean any number of possibilities. One, this could be actually true and something horrible happened to the people who took part in acting for this movie. Or two, this could be just an over-exaggeration by the unnamed person who wrote this quote and they just wanted to spark up interest for anyone who might see a DVD or Blu-ray copy of this film somewhere. Which, I will admit, it did grab my interest and, well, the rest is history.

So now, I get to finally see what this movie is all about. Now I should also quickly mention that whatever this supposed "controversial" ending is, I'm pretty sure it's either gonna be tame as hell or it's not going to be scary at all. Now it could somehow surprise me, but I somehow doubt that. But who knows? I won't know for sure where this movie is gonna land for me unless I start shutting up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Snuff".

8 minutes later

Wait, so let me see if I understand what I just witnessed. Anna apparently was holding out some cocaine for herself. Three girls find her, chase her down, and one of them shoots her in the shoulder area, knocking her down. Then they used some kind of wooden binder to hold her feet down while some guys says she must be punished by, I guess, having one of them cut her feet with a knife. And then the blonde girl later says to her that she was lucky because she apparently got the cocaine that they needed and says they still need her. Then why the fuck did they even do all that bullshit to begin with?! That just makes no fucking sense at all.

3 minutes later

So this guy who's interviewing the husband of this, I guess, famous celebrity, is asking him if they'll be filming any nude scenes of his wife for their new movie. Why the hell would *any* reporter even ask that? Unless this actress has been in some soft-core porno flicks, then there's really no reason for any reporter to be asking this sort of question. But then again, I've never been into the journalism business, so what the hell would I know when asking these sort of questions?

6 minutes later

I swear to god, guys, the acting in this film is terrible. OK sure, I was sort of expecting bad acting, but I didn't think it was gonna be this fucking bad. And the worst part is that I'm gonna have to deal with this horrible acting for the next hour or so. This is gonna suck, guys.

7 minutes later

By the way, guys, I really need to ask this. Why is it that whenever Satan and his women are talking, they sound like they're in a fucking cave? And I should mention that they're outside inside in a fucking river and yet their voices are echoing as if they were recording their dialogue in a cave! Why? Why the fuck is this a thing?! It probably shouldn't bother me this much, but it totally is. And it's probably gonna continue bugging me until either they drop this whole echoing gimmick or until the movie's finished. Not sure which to say at this point.

5 minutes later

Did I seriously just see some people in blackface at this carnival? Holy shit, I did. Wow, that's...not awkward at all. But then again, I also watched "Coonskin", which funnily enough, parodied that shit, and also came out the same year as this movie did. Go figure.

6 minutes later

Oh, and now I'm seeing someone dressed up in very fancy silver attire. And they're also in blackface, too. Wow, I forgot how weird the 70's were back then. That's definitely something.

5 minutes later

Wow, guys, this film is so fucking cheap that they couldn't even afford some kind of set in which it looks an interrogation room. It was filmed outside of some kind of warehouse unit. That is just...holy shit, this is cheap even for the standards of 1976. I didn't think that was actually even possible.

9 minutes later

OK, I have a big question here that's not going to get answered. Why the hell is this entire scene filmed in black and white? I'm not kidding, guys, this entire scene is being filmed with a filter that is being shot in black and white. Well, I say that, but it looks more dark bluish than anything else. My theory is that it's suppose to resemble the scene being shot at night. And I probably would've believed that if not for the fact that you can see the sunlight in the sky and it also beaming on the ground where the actors are in the shot. I don't know if that's suppose to be the intention, but if it is, then that means that this movie is even cheaper than I imagined. God, what the fuck is wrong with this movie?

10 minutes later

Oh boy, guys, we're actually getting backstory for one of our characters! And unfortunately, it's a character who really doesn't have much of any personality other than being a slave to Satan. God, this film is becoming horrible with each passing minute. Thankfully, there's only about 20 minutes left to go, and I don't think this "controversial" ending is going to change that for me at this point.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Snuff". Let me shut this garbage off here...OK. So...before I get into the movie itself here, I will let you guys know straight up that this movie sucked balls. OK sure, I wasn't expecting anything "good" per se, but I was sort of at least expecting something on a cheesy, so bad it's good sort of exploitation film. But that's not the case here. What I got instead was a cheap, boring exploitation movie that really has no rhyme or reason for it's existence.

Speaking of which, let's start with the ending. Now I said that this movie touted itself on having a very controversial ending that Allan Shackleton added in after he took over the project while it was shelved for 5 years. And while I'm not going to spoil the entire ending here, I am going to summarize it for you guys in a nutshell. The ending basically has nothing to do with the actual movie itself that you've been watching for the last hour and 10 minutes. The only reason why this ending exists is for cheap shock value and nothing else. And no, guys, I'm not joking about that, the last 10 minutes have nothing to do with the film itself. It only exists because Alan Shackleton wanted to put in cheap shock value...just because. And that is bullshit. And also, if you ever buy a physical copy of this movie on DVD or Blu-ray, you'll find 2 of the 3 stock images on the back of the DVD case that'll show the graphic detail of that ending that I wouldn't even try describing for you guys. This ending was shit, and it makes me all the more curious to find out if Michael and Roberta Findlay even signed off on this ending when Alan Shackleton wrote in that sequence. I certainly don't think they would've, because, while this movie was indeed shit, it could not have been the original intention of what the Findlays wanted to add in for it's ending. I could be wrong on that, but I'm sticking by that theory until I hear otherwise.

So anyway, setting aside the awful ending of this film, what about the actual content before that? Well, to put it simply, guys, the writing in this movie makes no fucking sense at all. Which is baffling to me, because this movie was filmed on a $30,000 budget. And yet, when I compare it to other low budget movies like "Redneck Zombies", which only had a $10,000 budget, it had more of a story in it that made more sense than this fucking thing did. Now, you can sorta guess a couple of things like our villain, Satan, who's named isn't pronounced like the devil. It's more pronounced like Se-tan. I don't know why that is, and it's incredibly stupid, but it's not really that important. So anyway, Satan's motivation is that he is into satanic bullshit where he has these beautiful women surrounding him and they're also his slaves, too. One of them named Angelica has a backstory which involves her being raped as a very young girl and has been, according to her, been in a life of bondage. Which, I guess makes sense if she's serving Se-tan since she's nothing more than his fucking slave. And that's the only time that you get a backstory from any character in this movie! You don't get it from anyone else, which makes me question what the original intention was for her, if she even had one to begin with?

And I may as well just talk about the characters in this film now because there's nothing about these characters that'll make you care about them. You have Satan and his girl slaves who are all shallow and worthless. And I'm even including Angelica because, under normal circumstances, I would've said she'd be the only one who has a tragic backstory that you can care about, but her character is just completely one-noted. Maybe the intention was that because she sounds so emotionless that it gives her a reason to sound completely devoid of life, but then I happen to remember that her brother killed her rapist when they were older, and nothing happened to him. So what the hell happened to her brother after he killed her rapist? I would've like to have seen him maybe try and find her and help her escape from her enslavement. But you see, guys, that would be more of an interesting plot for a movie and this one didn't bother to give out any sort of plot that you can follow or even care about because it doesn't make any sense.

Then you have our main character, Terry London, who's an actress that's shooting a film in whatever country this movie is suppose to be made in. And for a main character, she's boring as shit! She has no real defining character traits other than the fact that she's suppose to be pregnant. Which, when I first heard this from Horst, the guy who Terry is seeing behind her other boyfriend's back, I thought it was just an excuse from him to get away from Angelica, who's been staying at her father's mansion. But no, apparently, Terry's been pregnant the entire time. Which, you wouldn't be able to notice that because she doesn't have *anything* resembling a baby bump on her stomach. Now it's possible that she just found out she was pregnant, but still, she's not the first one to announce it. Again, it was the guy she's seeing in secret who announces it and I have no idea how the hell he even found out about her pregnancy because it just comes right out of nowhere! And also, I think I remember Se-tan saying about her baby being the next born to die or something because of, again, satanic bullshit that I can't even care to memorize.

Now this movie also has a pacing problem. First of all, even though the movie is only about 80 minutes long, it kinda feels a bit longer than that. Probably about 20 minutes longer I'd say. And it probably would've helped more if they cut out a mountain of padding in this film that didn't have any reason for existing. An example would be near the beginning where one of the women is wearing an over-sized trench-coat and kills some guy in an airport bathroom. Why? I don't fucking know because the movie *never* brings this scene up again after it's been executed. Also, the women kill about 4 people in one scene, two of which are elderly people, and a young girl. I'll talk about that young girl when I get to acting, believe you me. But again, I have to ask why does this scene exist? I'm guessing they needed supplies for...something, but I don't know what. I don't know what it is exactly, but they never properly explain it and it just comes and goes just like that. I have a feeling that these scenes existed simply to pad out time for the film to actually be a full-length feature to get out in theaters. That's my theory on that at least.

But yeah, guys, to sum it all up, the writing in this film is horrible. Not just because of the horrible ending, but as a whole, it just doesn't make any coherent sense. And you're not gonna care about anything that happens in this movie unless you only wanted to watch it for it being a cheap exploitation film. Which I'll get into more later when I get into recommendations. But for now, I'm gonna talk about the acting next. Oh dear lord, the acting...first of all, I should mention right off the bat that a lot of this acting was dubbed in and dubbed in very poorly. It's very well possible that the actors in this movie didn't speak proper English, so they had to get other actors to dub in their lines, which, again, is really poorly done. Add on to the fact that the acting itself is just absolutely atrocious. There is not a single actor here who I don't even think has even tried to act prior to doing this film. And you can totally hear it from the actors themselves. None of them have any range to their voices. In fact, a couple of the male actors sound like they're over-exaggerating their lines because none of them know how to speak normally. And this also goes for Satan's actor because I still genuinely believe that all of his dialogue was recorded in a cave because every line of his sounds like it was echoing inside of a cave! I don't even know how that's physically possible, but the guy found a way to sound like that, and that just leaves me flabbergasted.

But all of that pales in comparison to the worst actress in this entire movie, which goes to the young girl who's grandmother was killed. Because the way she responds to her killers by shouting "you killed my grandma" was so atrociously awful that you have to look it up for yourself to find out how bad it really is. I would almost say that it's the most laughably bad scene you'll actually get from the acting in this movie because it doesn't sound even remotely natural whatsoever. Now shockingly, there actually is one bit of good acting that I sorta came across, which is the scene involving the carnival. Everyone of those people who were filmed while it was going on was probably some of the best acting you'll get from this movie. And I'm going to assume that it was a real carnival too because I can't imagine them knowing that they were filmed in a movie of this caliber. But that also leans back into the pacing problem I mentioned earlier because every scene involving the carnival goes on for way too long. And it really could've been trimmed down immensely. It wouldn't save the film from being shit, but at least it could've helped the pacing a little bit.

But yeah, guys, the acting in this film is completely atrocious from the entire cast, along with the dubbing being terrible as well. Speaking of which, let's talk about the editing next. Oh dear heavenly fuck the editing...now admittedly, it's really only for one scene that I'm gonna be talking about, but it is so fucking bad that I have to mention this. So, there's a scene where Horst's father is talking with Satan about some really weird shit involving butchers and such, and as the scene is going on, you can see the face of Horst being fed up with Satan's words, which then cuts back to Satan's face as he's still talking. But then, you see Horst holding a pipe in his mouth, which probably wouldn't be that noticeable, except right after it shows another cut of Satan talking, it then cuts back to Horst, who has the same fed up expression on his face...but without the pipe in his mouth! And I probably wouldn't be making a big deal out of this scene if not for the fact that the scene where he's holding a pipe in his mouth...it was directly lifted from a scene that was filmed only a couple of minutes ago from when he was doing the exact same thing, only without Satan talking down to him! Like, how the fuck did someone look at that and thought it looked good?! Holy fucking shit...guys, I've seen my fair of bad editing before, but this is atrocious on a whole new level that I haven't seen in a long time. That was just fucking cheap as shit.

And while we're on the subject, let's talk about the special effects. Now I will grant this movie one thing in which some of the blood effects look okay at best. But the problem with it is that it just looks all the same with the blood splatter and knife kills. OK sure, I'm not expecting anything crazy like what you would see in any of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films, but I was at least expecting something halfway decent here in terms of creative kills. And the only one that has anything like that is the last 10 minutes of the film with it's "controversial ending", which is infuriating to say because that was the only thing that felt, well, "real" for a lack of better term. And while I'm on that, again, without spoiling too much, people who watched that scene thought it was actually real. So much so that they had to get investigators from the New York County District Attorney to investigate this shit to see if it was actually real. And guess what? It wasn't. It was all part of the movie, which it really shouldn't have been because, again, that whole scene only exists to ignite cheap shock value. But I'm gonna try to stop talking about it because I feel like going another rant about it if I do so.

So anyway, the practical effects involving blood is okay for what it is, even if it's all just very samey. Camerawork here is decent for what it is, minus that one horrible edit I already talked about. Lighting here is also decent, save for that one sequence I mentioned where I theorized that they put that black & white filter in there to make it look as if the film was being shot at night. And yeah, I was totally right because Angelica was talking about her backstory during that time. Now I'm going to assume that they couldn't afford any proper lighting to film any of their scenes at night, so they had to resort to a filter in which they would make it look as if it was filmed at night. And again, that probably would've worked if not for the fact that you could see the light from the sun beaming down on them in the background as they were filming their scene. Which makes this movie completely cheaper than it has any right to be. Sound-mixing here is sort of a mixed bag. I already mentioned the moments where Satan's dialogue sounded like it was being recorded in a cave, but other than that, I'll give the sound-mixing here a bit of a pass. The music, however, is complete shit. All of it is from the continuous guitar sounds to everything else sounding completely fucking horrible. There is nothing about it that is going to stick out at you unless you really found it soothing to your ears. Not for me, personally speaking, as it still sounds like shit, but I guess can't judge someone else's taste in music. At least, not to their faces anyway.

So, guys, when it comes down to it, can I recommend "Snuff"? Fuck no! Unless if you are somebody that is really curious about this film, and you really are interested in cheap exploitation films with little to no plot, then there is no reason for you to watch this movie. And the ending itself is only gonna solidify that even more when you find out how completely pointless this movie truly is. It is nothing but cheap shock value, and the rest of the movie is just boring as shit, too. There is almost nothing else about this movie that is redeemable in any way, shape or form. It is a complete waste of 80 minutes and I feel sorry for myself for pissing away the $10 I used to buy this movie. It was obviously a mistake and I know I'm not gonna get that value back when I eventually trade it in. But hey, at least the bright side will be that it will eventually no longer be around my DVD collection once I do trade this thing in. And speaking of my DVD collection, I think I'm gonna go and pick something from that right now just so I can watch something better to get the horrible taste out of my mouth from this movie. And since I mentioned "Coonskin" earlier, I may as well go and watch that next because I need to feel happy after having to deal with this shit for 80 minutes.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Vampires

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 1998. That movie is John Carpenter's "Vampires".

Yes, guys, I'm finally doing another film from John Carpenter. And I'd love to tell guys everything I know about this movie, but really, the only things I can tell you that I know of is that it stars James Woods, as he an a bunch of other vampire hunter mercenaries are tasked to take down vampires. I think that, by itself, is enough for you guys to know what I'm getting myself into here.

Now I'm hoping for this one to be good. And, so far, I've enjoyed the few films I've seen from Mr. Carpenter so far, and I'm hoping this one will be the same. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is actually any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Vampires".

4 minutes later

OK, I have a really dumb question here, and I know it's very trivial to be asking this, but how long were those people sitting in the back of that truck? And I should note that, outside of a few lightbulbs, there's no other light inside the back of that truck. If they were inside there for hours, then I gotta imagine that it would be a *very* uncomfortable ride what with them all packed together in there. Again, I know it's very trivial and bullshit, but it's just something that came to me is all.

11 minutes later

All right, I have another dumb question here. Well, kinda two questions, really, but I'll save the other one for later. So, our team of vampire mercenaries have killed at least 9 vampires from this one house. Which is cool and all, but how does James Woods know which one is the master? He says it's not at this house, which means that this "master" probably has vampires hidden all over wherever the fuck this movie takes place in. I'm just asking, cause, you know, I really am curious.

6 minutes later

So I'm guessing this is suppose to be this "master" that James Woods was referring to earlier, and he just sliced one of the mercenaries nearly in half with his fingers. That's certainly pretty cool. Granted, I'm curious as to how and why he's even here, but I suppose, for now, I'll let the movie try and explain that for itself.

7 minutes later

Wait, so Jack's partner is stealing a car from some passerby that was about to fill his tank with gas. And instead of actually letting him fill up his car first, he instead says "much obliged" and drives away with it. You know, dude, you could've waited first to actually let the poor guy fill up his tank before you take it away. Because I guaran-damn-tee you that they won't get very far. Just saying.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm really liking James Woods character here. He's really funny, but he's actually pretty smart, too, seeing as how he knows more about these vampires than anyone else. Well, maybe his team knew as well, but since they're all dead, I guess that makes hims the sole survivor of this knowledge.

17 minutes later

Well, guys, I think it's safe to say by this point that Jack certainly is not fucking around. He will get his information from people in his own way no matter what secrets they're holding. That is certainly something to know, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Vampires". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, before I talk about the movie itself, I am gonna let you guys know that I did enjoy this movie. Now, do I think it's as good as the other films I've seen from Mr. Carpenter? Not really, no. In fact, I would probably say it's one of his weaker films. Now when I say it's weak, I'm not saying that it's bad. Far from it, it's still a pretty good movie. However, I would say it's almost on par with "Escape from L.A." as one of Carpenter's weaker films. At least to me, it is.

Let's start this review off here by first talking about the writing. Now I did state at the start of this thing that this film was about James Woods leading a team of vampire hunters to track down and kill other vampires. And that does happen, at least in the beginning of the film anyway. Shortly after that, however, most of his team ends up being dead by Valek, the main vampire of this movie, also known as a master, according James Woods character Jack. And without going into too many details here, Valek's main goal is that he wants to find an ancient relic called a "Black Cross" and he wants to use it as part of an exorcism that was used on him that wasn't fully completed 600 years ago so that he can live and walk in the sunlight like humans do. How exactly he does all this I won't spoil, however, I will say that, at times, the story can be a little stupid, such as when Montoya, Jack's partner, gets bitten by Katrina, who ends up getting bitten by Valek way early on, and he never told Jack that he had gotten bitten until right at the very end of the film. Though I don't know if that was intended as a sequel hook or not, which, by the way, this film never got a sequel. Which is a bit of a shame, really, but I'm not gonna harp on that too much.

Now I will say that the story structure here is very similar to a lot of the old Western films that I use to watch as a kid. And watching this movie, you can definitely get that vibe here, as it pretty much plays itself out as a Western film. Only this one has vampires. In fact, now that I think on it, "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" was also a Western film in of itself. And that film was amazing. So I guess maybe the formula for a decent vampire hunter movie would be to have it set as a Western. At least, that's my theory on that anyway. And while I'm still on this subject, like with a lot of Westerns, that means that the pacing here would also be slower, right? Well, seeing as how this is a John Carpenter film, most of his movies that I've seen have had really tight pacing. And for the most part, this movie is no exception. However, if I really had to nitpick the pacing at all, I would say the last 15, maybe 20 minutes or so did show signs of slowing down a little bit. But I'm not gonna ding the pacing here for that alone because the pacing is still very good overall.

Our characters here are very likable. Well, at least in terms of our main characters anyway. Valek, unfortunately, is pretty damn bland as our main villain, and he really doesn't have much of a personality to speak of. Which, for a main villain, that's pretty sad. As for our main protagonists though, Jack is easily the best character in the entire film. Because the guy will shit talk you down and get the information that he needs, but he can also be really funny at times, even when he's shit-talking you. It's great stuff. But then again, he is played by James Woods, though I'll talk more about that when I get to acting. But yeah, same goes for Montoya, even though he can be kinda stupid, especially when he starts to fall for Katrina, even though she's slowly turning into vampire and, well, I kinda already spoiled how that potentially ends. But still, the guy's pretty good in a pinch. And so is Padre, too. He can be kind of annoying when you first meet him, but he does eventually mellow out and start to help out Jack when things really get intense.

Overall, guys, the writing here, while not as strong as it is in other films by John Carpenter, is still pretty good on it's own standards. Which is still a lot better than being shit. And as for the acting, well, it's actually really good. Every actor here turns in a great showing. Especially James Woods. The man is a natural on camera and seems to be having a great time with his role. I'm also going to give special mention to the actress playing Katrina because there's a scene in this movie where she ends up crying, but doesn't physically sob or anything. It's actually really good because, normally, when you have to do crying scenes, a lot of it sounds really fake and terrible. But here, she actually does shed a tear, and it does look very genuine. Granted, it is a small thing, but I do like it when actors have to go the extra mile when putting in small details like that to their acting skills. So yes, guys, the acting here from the entire cast is really good.

Special effects are also mostly really good. A lot of it you see is from the practical effects when it comes to blood. There is a lot of that in this movie, and if you've seen previous efforts from John Carpenter, then you should know what to expect because the blood effects here are fantastic. There is also some usage of CG here as well, and it's mostly decent save for one shot where James Woods is firing his gun at a vampire while on the ground, and he's firing the gun at a downward angle. And at one point, you actually get to see the gun up close, however, when you do so, you only get to see flashing white lights each time the gun goes off, meaning that you never see the gun recoil. And that shot there was horrible. It probably would've been less noticeable if that close up shot didn't exist. But it did, and it was completely terrible. That aside, the effects here for everything else are amazing. Costuming is also really good, too. Makeup effects are also pretty solid as well, as most of them you get to see involves our vampires. The only questionable thing I have to wonder is if the hair on Valek's head is genuine or just a wig. If it's the latter, then I have to ask why? Is it because he wouldn't look scary enough without it? I understand it's a very trivial thing to be commenting on, but still, it's just something that I kinda noticed is all.

So anyway, special effects in this movie are mostly really good. Camerawork here is also good. Lighting is also fine. The sound-mixing here is top notch. And the music here is also pretty good, as it was done by John Carpenter himself. And, again, similar to what I talked about in regards of this thing feeling like a Western, the music also accompanies that, too. At least, in quieter scenes you do. Everything else is sort of a mixed bag when it comes non-Western music, but at least it gets the job done. So you can take that for what it's worth.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Vampires"? If you're a fan of John Carpenter's movies and you also are a fan of vampires, then I would say this film is totally worth checking out. Now again, to me, this film is nowhere near as good as any of his other movies that I've seen beforehand, but it's still pretty entertaining for the most part. I'm not entirely certain if it's gonna improve on repeat viewings for me, but I may end giving this film another viewing or so before I decide whether or not to keep it or trade it in at some point. But still, I did enjoy this movie enough for you guys to recommend. Which is always a big positive to me. Now, I'm gonna go and watch another movie involving vampires, and, well, I do really want to watch "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" again. Because that film is fucking fantastic, and it's that time of the month anyways, so I may as well go see it now as soon I get done here. But anyway, I can totally recommend John Carpenter's "Vampires" to you guys.

And with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Cassidy Red

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Western film from 2017. That movie is "Cassidy Red".

Now, I really don't know a whole lot about this movie, other than the fact that it's a Western. And I seem to be really sporadic when it comes reviewing Westerns for this series because I'm a big fan of them. I grew up with them thanks to stars like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. And yet, I still haven't really covered a whole lot of them. And the few that I *have* covered were not all that great. Mind you, "The Villain" was the only exception out of all this. But outside of that, the few Westerns I've covered for this series were still not that good.

So, I may as well get off my lazy ass and actually start covering another one in the form of "Cassidy Red". Now like I said, I don't really know much about this movie, and that includes the plot. Which I could read on the back of it's DVD case, but I'm not going to do that because I want to go into this as blind as possible, much like almost every other movie I've covered for Reaction & Review. I'm hoping this one will actually be good enough to add to my DVD collection. But I don't really know for certain if that will happen unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Cassidy Red".

2 minutes later

Well, guys, I am willing to say that this opening here, which is all done with 2D animation, looks really cool. Plus, the music here is also really good, too. I'm hoping that this may be a sign of good things to come.

20 minutes later

So the moment that young Cassidy pulls out a gun on Tom, he runs away like a little bitch. I mean, granted, if someone pointed a gun at me if I was unarmed, then I'd probably do the same thing, too. But it kinda makes sense now as to how he became a fucking douchebag sheriff when he's older, and actually had facial hair, too.

3 minutes later

Wait, so Cassidy was the one who, not only gave Jakob his name, but also changed the 'c' in Jacob to a 'k'. Why? OK, I know she said it would be weird because her Dad's name is also named Jacob. But still, why the 'k'? It just seems a little odd to me.

11 minutes later

OK, I have kind of a dumb question here that I want to ask. So, from when Jakob was a teenager, the guy could barely speak. And then when he's slightly older reaching into adulthood, he can suddenly talk like a normal person and speaks perfectly fine. So how is it then that he actually learned how to talk? I'm only asking because it just seems like a really weird time jump from him barely speaking at all to talking normally as an adult. My only theory is that Tom's Dad taught him how to talk after he sorta took him in as Tom's brother. Granted, I understand that this is all trivial and stupid, but I still wanted to ask it because it just seems a little odd to me, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

You know, guys, for as much as I can say about Cassidy's Dad being a self-centered drunk, at least he's still being helpful to his daughter by teaching her how to shoot properly. Which I didn't think could actually be possible, but color me surprised, he really is. So at least he's still being a mindful father to her in his own way.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Cassidy Red". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, I mentioned earlier that the last few Westerns I covered for this series weren't exactly good. I'm talking about films such as "Dead Man's Burden" and "Left For Dead". The latter in which it *really* sucked. So going into this one, I kinda had my expectations set pretty low, just in case this one fell into the same trap as those other movies did. Well thankfully, I'm happy to say that my expectations were surpassed because this movie is rather good. It reminded me as to why I enjoyed Westerns to begin with. Now mind you, it's never going to top the Westerns that I grew up on watching, but I still really enjoyed this movie for what it tried to do, and I'm happy that it's actually pretty good.

Let's just dive right into this one here and talk more about it. Let's start with the writing. Now, our plot of the movie is actually set up as a framing device where some Indian is telling the story of Cassidy Red to this other lady at sort of a rundown bar. And from there, we get our story about Cassidy's revenge on this sheriff named Tom, whom she believed that he had killed her lover Jakob. When that's actually *not* the case, when we see him later in a jail cell, in which Cassidy soon joins him after she failed to kill Tom. And then the movie focus on the backstory leading into all that, which roughly takes about an hour to get into. I'll talk more about pacing in a moment. But anyway, we focus more on our backstory involving Cassidy, Jakob, and Tom, on how they all grew up, how Jakob and Cassidy's relationship bloomed together, and how Jakob gets revenge in his own way by becoming sheriff of the Arizona Territory and using his political power to slowly get them both one at a time and, again, how it all leads up to the present day with them being in jail.

Now I am leaving out some bits of the story here because I honestly don't want to spoil too much here. The writing here is very strong, and what helps it out is that our characters here are fleshed out, they're deep, and you do care about them as the film goes along. Our main lead, Cassidy, is actually rather unique because, unlike modern movies nowadays where they try make all these female leads or characters into Mary-Sues, Cassidy is nothing like that. She has a ton of flaws to her character, such as her not being able to shoot a gun very well, or when she acts on impulse rather than taking the time to think things through. And she slowly improves on all that as proper character development should do. You can even care about Tom who, even though he's suppose to be an evil sheriff, he actually does have his own reasons for keeping both Cassidy and Jakob alive rather just killing them outright. If he did that, then we wouldn't have a movie to begin with. But regardless, he is a rather interesting character, and you can understand his motives, whether you agree with him or not on.

Jakob is, honestly, the only weak character of the trio here because I feel like they sorta cut some corners with him in regards to his character development. As I mentioned earlier, Jakob started off as a teen by barely speaking, and then when he's an adult he can perfectly speak fluent English. Also, he doesn't really go through a whole lot of change through his character, since they kinda take him out of the movie for a bit until we get back to them both in their jail cells. So of the three, Jakob is definitely the weakest character in terms of development. One other thing I want to mention in regards to characters is the Indian I mentioned who's telling this story to the lady. Now I won't spoil anything about him, but they do telegraph who he is about halfway into the film. And while they don't really outright tell you who he is, you, the viewer, if you have been following through his story, then you can probably guess pretty easily as to the identity of this Indian. I figured who he was a little over half an hour into the movie, but I'm not going to spoil it for you guys in case you're interested in checking out this movie for yourself.

Now, if there were any sort of negatives I could give this movie, there are at least a couple I can think of. One, the pacing is a little uneven at times, and that's mainly whenever they cut back to the Indian telling his story to the lady, and you could honestly do without these scenes because it does disrupt the pacing of the story that we could've gotten more out of, rather than cutting back to these scenes, which is about 2 or 3 times that happens. If the movie really wanted to, they could've waited until the very end to do it, which is what they do here, and the movie could've flowed a lot better. The other negative bit I'm going to mention here is that even though this film wants to be a revenge movie, you don't really get that until the last half hour of the film. And also you don't really see much of Cassidy with her trademark red hair, up until mostly the last half hour of the film. Now you do get a bit of it at the beginning, as I mentioned earlier when she tried and failed to kill Tom the first time around. But all of that takes a backseat to the plot involving our characters. Which is both a good and bad thing. The bad thing being that we don't get to see much of our main heroine getting revenge until the last half hour, but the good thing that comes out of it is we get to see our characters develop and grow as the film plays out.

So, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword there. But despite that, the writing here is still really strong, and even with my minor nitpicks, the movie still holds up pretty well, even on a 90 minute runtime. Now as for the acting, well, most of it is actually really solid, though some of it sounds rather hokey, which is coming from both Cassidy's father and the blonde girl, Rowena. Both actors sounds a little flakey when it comes to their acting. More so with Cassidy's father because it sounds like he's trying to ham up his drunk acting, but at times, it doesn't sound rather believable. When he's acting sober, he's pretty good, but his drunk acting could be better. Rowena's actress, I can see she's putting up a southern accent, but it also comes across as a little hokey because she doesn't quite hold that "southern" accent in all the time she's on screen. Now if you asked me to pick which of the two is worse, I couldn't really do that because their acting as a whole, while somewhat flawed, is still pretty decent for the material they had to work with. So I'm not gonna completely ding them for something that I think they could've improved on with a couple of more takes here and there.

So overall, the acting here is still really good. Special effects are mostly decent, with the one lone exception being anytime a shot of blood is splattered out of a dead person's body. Now I am gonna say that when it comes to blood effects, they're really good, and you can tell that they took the time to make sure the practical blood was spot on, which it totally is. However, when it comes to other blood effect I just mentioned, it looks kinda terrible. And that's mainly because it was probably done in CG. Which, as some of you reading my reviews probably know of, I really dislike the usage of CG blood because it just looks terrible over 90% of the time. And you can totally tell that anytime blood splatter throughout their back, it is done in obvious CG. Now I probably shouldn't blame the effects team too much here on this since this movie was probably filmed on a limited budget, they had to make due with what they had to work with. Regardless, though, the CG blood here is probably the worst thing about the special effects.

Costuming here is really good, since it mostly matches how people would wear the sort of outfits you would see in the mid-to-late 1800's. Our sets here are also really good. But then again, a lot of this movie was filmed in Arizona, so I would imagine that they didn't make any changes to it when they were filming the movie. So yeah, the sets and costumes are amazing here. 

Camerawork is also really good. I should also mention that the cinematography in this movie is amazing. For a low budget movie, this is probably one of the films I've seen that has amazing cinematography. But again, this movie was filmed in some area of Arizona, and I'd imagine that you'd get great shots of what Arizona has to offer. Which is mainly how hot the state is, but that's just more of a grievance on my part. Anyway, speaking of, the lighting here is also really good, as most of this movie was filmed outdoors, so they had a great advantage when it came to it's lighting. Sound-mixing here is mixed well. And the score here is great, as it has that tone of how some Westerns operated back in the day with little to no music. Best example I can think of is any of Clint Eastwood's movies, such as any film in the Dollars Trilogy, where you get a lot of music from the guitar, and the score in this film reminded me of what I saw in those movies. Which is always a great thing to hear. So yes, guys, all the technical work here is great.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Cassidy Red"? If you are a fan of Westerns like I am, then I would totally say it's worth checking out. If not, then I obviously can't say much to convince you to watch it. But if you find this film for cheap somewhere on DVD or Blu-ray, then seriously go check it out. It's definitely worth your time, especially if you're, again, a fan of Westerns like I am. And considering how the last several Western films I covered for this series weren't all that good, I'm happy to be able to say that this one does it much better. Granted, it does have a couple of minor problems here and there, but it's certainly not enough from stopping me in watching this movie again. Which, yes, I'm totally gonna be saving this one for myself because I really enjoyed it. I'm happy to be able to say that, too, because the last several films I've watched this month, with an exception or two, I've long since traded in, but this one is definitely going to have a good spot in my DVD collection. Which I'm always happy to say whenever I enjoy a movie that much. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go and watch another Western right now. And you know what? Even though it's kind of a long one, I'm gonna go and watch "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", because it's been quite a long time since I last saw that movie and it definitely deserves a rewatch from me. So I'm gonna go and do that next while I find someplace to put this movie somewhere in my collection.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Shaolin Soccer

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Hong Kong sports comedy from 2001. That movie is "Shaolin Soccer".

Now I do remember seeing ads for this movie a long time ago back when I believe Disney was airing previews for one of or a few of their movies on DVD or VHS. Which was interesting to me because, at the time when I saw the previews for this movie, I had never seen anything like it before. And also, I'm someone who use to play soccer back when I was a kid. So this movie already interested me. Though unfortunately, I never actually got to see it for many years until about a few months ago, I found a copy of this movie at one of my local video stores for about $5 and I was instantly sold on it because, well, I already explained why. So tonight is finally the night I get to see this movie for myself.

Now I can tell you guys a couple of things about this movie before I even push play. First of all, I know this movie was directed by a named Stephen Chow. And I've only seen one film from him beforehand, which was "Kung Fu Hustle". Because that movie looked hilarious as shit back then and I always wanted to see that movie. And after finally watching it, I found out that I wasn't really the biggest fan of that movie. I wasn't sure what turned me off from it, but something about it just didn't sit right with me. Maybe it was the style of comedy that turned me off or something. But then again, this was a long time ago, so I can't really give you guys a straight answer as to why I didn't like it back then.

Now something else about this movie piqued my interest. You see, there are at least two different versions of this movie that is advertised on this DVD. One is the English language version that is about 89 minutes long, while the Chinese version is at least 23 minutes longer, at around an hour and 50 minutes long. And I wasn't sure why at first. That is, until I saw the studio that put this movie out on DVD. The studio goes by the name of Miramax. And Miramax has a very notorious history when it comes to editing their movies. I'm not gonna go too much into detail about it here, however, I will say that, at the very least, they didn't completely cut out the full version from the DVD. Otherwise, I would've been stuck with only one version that has cut out over 20 minutes of footage for their English dub. So yes, I am gonna be watching the Chinese version here because I would like the full the experience for this one.

Now I'm hoping for this film to be good. However, as I have already mentioned, I wasn't a fan of "Kung Fu Hustle", so there is a possibility that I'm not gonna like this film either. I'm certainly hoping that I will like it, hopefully enough for me to add to my DVD collection. But I won't know if I end up liking this movie or not until I start shutting up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Shaolin Soccer".

5 minutes later

Wait, so this soccer player, who, 20 years ago, watched his teammate get his leg kicked in by angry fans after overshooting the goal post, is now not only a coach, but his team is actually called "Team Evil". Now, I'm not a betting man here, but I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that *maybe* they're gonna be the antagonists of this movie. Don't ask me why, exactly, I'm just taking a wild guess here is all.

5 minutes later

So let see if I understand this. If you learn kung fu, it'll help you to avoid completely falling after slipping on a banana peel. I would've never known that. I always thought that if you slip on a banana peel, you just trip and fall. Or if you watch any cartoons that pull this kind of shit, then you would slip and fall in an over-the-top fashion. But I guess if you learn kung fu, you can avoid all that easily. Again, would've never known that.

9 minutes later

OK, so we're now going into a song and dance sequence here. Well, at least the dancing anyway. The singing from before kinda sucked, but now we're now in a dance sequence. Which I didn't think I would actually say about a movie featuring kung fu and soccer, but I'm actually getting it. And it's...rather odd, to say the least. Oh, and it just now stopped. I'm kinda thankful because that music was starting to become shit.

11 minutes later

Well, guys, I am willing to say that, as horrible of a singer as this guy is, at least his kicking skills with a soccer ball are really cool. So, at least it's something of a trade off.

16 minutes later

Did they seriously just repeat the exact same joke about the slightly overweight guy eating an egg out of one of his brother's mouths? They seriously did...I think we get the point that the slightly overweight brother likes to eat food. Granted, it wasn't really that funny to begin with, but for them to repeat the same joke just kinda ruins it a little bit.

6 minutes later

OK, guys, I really do like how they're utilizing the comedy here in which the random chaos that's going on in this soccer game is basically like a war going on where our main kung fu guy, and no I still don't know his name by the way, is crawling with a gun and talking in his walkie-talkie. It actually is a little bit creative, I'll give them that much.

12 minutes later

You know, guys, I would probably believe this potential romance between our main kung fu dude and this girl named Mui, if not for the fact that she hasn't been seen in this movie for nearly an hour since she last appeared on screen. It just seems a little odd for her to be showing up now when she's been gone for nearly half the movie. Just saying.

10 minutes later

OK, I need to say this right now, guys. The makeup on Mui doesn't look too bad, except, she looks as if she's gotten a nose job, and it just looks incredibly off-putting. Maybe it's just me and I probably shouldn't be questioning a woman's choice on how she wants to present herself, but that nose job, if it really is one, looks ugly as shit.

4 minutes later

OK, I need to ask the obvious here. Why is it that only two of the girls are wearing fake mustaches and goatees on their faces? I can overlook them having dreadlocks, but them having fake facial hair, and the fact that the rest of their team seems to look normal just seems really odd to me.

10 minutes later

So Hung, our main villain of the movie, basically just injected his entire team with what I'm going to assume is suppose to be a purple liquid substance of sorts. Don't ask me what it is, I'm not in the field of medicine to know that kind of answer. Best way I can summarize would have to be some type liquid steroids. Which, I guess isn't really that surprising in the sports world, but still, not totally sure what a purple liquid would actually be in this case.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Shaolin Soccer". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, where to even start with this one? Well, I guess I should let you guys know upfront that the movie is just fine the way it is. It isn't great, but it's certainly nowhere near the realms of it being awful either. It's just sort of in the middle here with this one.

Why don't we go ahead and start here by first talking about the writing. Now, way early on, I mentioned the studio that put out this movie, which was Miramax. And I said that they have a notorious history of editing their movies. They did this with "The Thief and The Cobbler", and the history behind the movie is a long one from what I remember. They also tried to do it with Studio Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke", however, Miyazaki put a stop to that when he sent the then head of the studio Harvey Weinstein a present via a katana in which it boldly stated "No cuts, no edits". Or something to that nature. I only heard about it from other people online who were very vocal about any of Ghbili's work being heavily altered without Miyazaki's permission, as it happened with "Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind" which was then called "Warriors of the Wind". I haven't seen "Warriors of the Wind", so I can't judge it, but I do know a little bit about that movie's history as well.

So with this movie also being published by Miramax, there was a chance that this movie would also receive it's own fair share of editing, and sure enough, that is the case here. Now since I chose to watch the original hour and fifty minute Chinese version instead of the 89 minute English dub, I didn't have to worry about anything being cut. However, with that being said, if there is one thing in this movie that I felt like was a pace breaker, it would have to be the scene where the kung fu dude and one of his brothers are singing together at a club of sorts, and that whole scene was incredibly unnecessary. Not just because the scene was unfunny, but also felt like complete filler that didn't need to be here. So if there was any scene that I felt like could've been edited out by Miramax, it would have to be this scene. And if that is the case, then I suppose that would be one thing that Miramax would be justified in editing out. At least, that's how I felt about it anyways.

Now as for the writing itself, I'm gonna let you guys know first hand that this movie is basically just playing itself out as a live-action cartoon. And any attempt of putting logic into this movie is gonna be thrown right out the window because this movie doesn't rely on any sort of logical storytelling whatsoever. Now granted, you could ask if all of the moves that these players do would be considered normal to everyday people in this film, but then again, there's also a scene in this movie where they'll break into song and dance, and that was considered normal up until the bitchy owner of the steamed bun restaurant asked if they were all deranged and told them to stop, which they did. So again, logic and reasoning is not really something that you'll be able to find in this movie. It's more of you, the viewer, in just trying to roll with it. Which, honestly, is the best way for you to enjoy this movie is by accepting all the crazy bullshit that happens here.

And while I'm on this subject, I want to talk about humor next. Now seeing as how this is a sports comedy, I may as well judge on how funny this movie actually is. And I will say that, for the most part, the humor is actually pretty funny. Granted, there are occasions where the jokes will repeat themselves and some of it will fall completely flat. But other times, this movie will rely on physical humor, which is where any of the soccer scenes will kick in because there is stuff that happens in this movie that is completely over the top and goofy that you can't but smile about how ridiculous it is. Such as during the last game, one of our players will kick the ball so hard that, as the ball is flying toward the goalpost, that a CG image of a brightened tiger will show up as it's roaring towards the goal. Or how our main kung fu dude kicks the ball so hard that he has difficulty in trying to control his kicking strength. I could spell out more for you guys, but honestly, it's better for you to see this for yourself just to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Our characters here are decently developed, but I did notice one problem when it comes to our soccer players. Most of them don't have any names. And I was going to include our main character as well, that is, until I looked up his name online and found out his name was actually Sing. I would've never known that because I think his name was called out one time and it never was repeated after that. Which is why I kept calling him "kung fu dude" because that's literally most of his character is that he wants to develop kung fu into a positive aspect for other people in everyday life. His brothers, who are also part of the soccer team, really don't have any actual characters to them outside of having a physical trait of sorts. For example, one of them is a workaholic and wears glasses, one of them works at a club cleaning toilets, one of them cleans dishes, one of them is slightly overweight and eats a lot, which is totally not a horrible stereotype, but whatever. But if you're looking for names for any of these brothers in the movie, well, good fucking luck, because they don't get name dropped at all here.

You also have one of our only female characters named Mui, the one who works at a steamed bun shop with her horribly abusive manager. Her character in this movie centers around her not being beautiful and later develops feelings for Sing. And it probably would've been more interesting if, again, she didn't disappear for almost half of the movie. I'm serious, guys, she disappears a little after 20 minutes into the film and then doesn't reappear on screen again until well over the halfway mark of the movie. Which, to me, feels like the movie forgot about her when it focused on our team of brothers being trained by our coach, Fung, who is out for revenge against his former partner, Hung, after his leg was damaged from missing a goal kick after the game finished. And we also learned that the mob of people who beat down Fung's leg were actually paid off by Hung. Why? Because he's evil, and leads his own soccer team called "Team Evil". I shit you not, that is really the name they're called and it still makes me laugh.

So, once again, the writing here is pretty good. Outside of a few jokes here and there that aren't really funny, the movie still has a lot of humor that will more than guarantee to make you laugh. Our story here is also not built on logic or reasoning, and as long as you go into it knowing this, then you're probably gonna have a great time with it. Now as for the acting, once again, I chose to watch the Chinese version, mainly because I wanted the whole content rather than settling for 89 minutes of it through it's English dub. And I am gonna say that the acting in this movie is actually really good. You can tell by the actors body language and their facial expressions that they were having a blast with this movie and they know it. Which is great to see, but then again, right before the ending credits hit, there was a small take of bloopers that showed, at least to me, that they were having a great time making this movie. No one here phones it in, and everyone puts in 110%. It's great here. Granted, I don't know how the English dub handles this, but I can say that at least the Chinese dub is totally good here.

Special effects in this movie are actually pretty good. This movie was made on a pretty low budget of $10 million dollars. Which, for 2001 standards, I think that's within reasonable standards. And the effects are, once again, pretty good. We have tons of CG, which can be seen as a mixed bag because this thing did come out in 2001. So there might be some things here and there that could be seen as dated. And really, the only bits of CG really boils down to the smaller stuff. Such as when you see Sing practicing his kicks with a soccer ball, and the soccer ball is all done in CG. There's also a bit where you see a CG temple entrance being panned out before it switches over to live-action. It's stuff like that where some of the dated CG can be noticed, especially if you're looking for it like I did. But like I said, most of that is just small stuff. The bigger stuff is when you get to see characters doing things that are physically and naturally impossible. Most of that is from the soccer matches, and that's where the CG really kicks in because that gives the filmmakers a chance to show off what they can do with early 2000's special effects. And this stuff is really cool, both for it's time and still holds up pretty well by today's standards. In fact, I would say that a lot of the effects here look a lot cooler than what you would see from a modern movie within the last, I'd say, 5 years or so. But that's just me personally speaking.

So yeah, the special effects here are pretty cool-looking and are definitely some of the biggest highlights of the film. Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is also really good. Sound-mixing here is fine. The music is mostly decent, outside of a couple of moments. Such as that song and dance sequence I brought up way early on and it kinda sucked. But it didn't suck as much as when you see Sing and one of his brothers singing as a pair of monks, and the song *really* fucking sucks, along with the music. Now to be fair to this one, I do think it was intentional, because the camera will pan to the audience with some of the most dumbfounded looks on their faces as if they can't believe what they're hearing. So, I'm gonna give this one a little bit of a pass here, even though I could rail on it more like I did way early on. And I wouldn't be surprised if Miramax did cut that scene out in the English version because it really is still a pace-breaker that you could remove from the film and you wouldn't be missing a thing.

But anyway, when all is said and done, guys, can I recommend "Shaolin Soccer"? Yes, I can. As long as you go into it knowing what to expect. Mainly that this is a live-action cartoon that relies on its own logic and rules. And if you go into it with your brain turned off, then I think you'll enjoy this greatly. If you're one of those people that really enjoys Stephen Chow's films, then yeah, I would say it's definitely worth watching, if at least just once. And I will say that while I did enjoy watching this movie myself, I'm not totally sure if it's worth rewatching a second time. It kinda brought back some unwanted memories about why I wasn't a fan of "Kung Fu Hustle". Now mind you, while this movie is, at least in my opinion, better than "Kung Fu Hustle", I still don't see myself rewatching it again on multiple viewings, let alone a second time. Now I don't want you to take that as any sort of discouragement from me. I still can recommend the film, despite some of it's noticeable flaws. And if you enjoy it enough to watch it on multiple viewings, then more power to you. It's just, for me, I just can't quite see myself watching it again a second time. Even though it does have an English dub that I haven't seen yet, I still don't think that's enough for me to hold onto my copy of the movie. At least, that's just me, personally speaking. Now, I'm gonna go and watch a different movie. Preferably a comedy film. And you know what? I haven't seen "City Hunter" in a quite a long time and I feel like I'm due to give it another watch. So, I'll go and do that next as soon as I get done with typing this review.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | The Avengers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a spy film from 1998. That movie is "The Avengers".

And in case you clicked on this review thinking that I was gonna review Marvel's "The Avengers", I'm gonna tell you right now that it's not going to happen. The main reason being that I've already seen that movie, so it's ineligible for review. I will say that I did enjoy it. Not as much as a few other Marvel films I've covered and seen on my own time, but it is still an enjoyable film on it's own standards.

Now let's get on back topic for tonight's movie. And in case you're wondering about this version of "The Avengers", it actually started back as a British TV series that ran all the way through the 1960's. And in 1998, Warner Bros. decided to do a film adaptation for this movie, which is what I'm gonna be reviewing tonight. Now, I know this film stars Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, along with Sean Connery. I don't know anything about the nature of their characters, but I hope to find out when I start watching this movie.

Now I'm also aware that this film didn't really do all that well in theaters, and also, people kinda hated this movie, whether they were fans of the show or not. Which would normally spell doom for this movie, however, I also am someone who ended up enjoying movies such as "Super Mario Bros." from 1993, and the "Street Fighter" film with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and neither of those movies were exactly loyal to their source material.

Now admittedly, since I have never seen the TV series this movie is supposed to be based on, I have no idea if this thing is gonna be loyal to it's TV counterpart at all. But whether it's loyal or not doesn't really matter to me here. Because as I've done with countless other adaptations of films based on novels, video games, etc., I really only care if the film is entertaining. And if it is, then this film has already accomplished that feat. However, I won't know for sure it is actually entertaining, or good at all, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Avengers".

17 minutes later

Well, guys, so far, I really don't have a whole lot to say right now because this movie hasn't given me much to work with. I will say, however, that Steed's car looks really cool. I would love to have a model version of that for myself that I can put on display. Other than that, though, this movie's off to a little bit of a slow start. I'm hoping it'll pick up it's pacing soon.

10 minutes later

O...K, I'm gonna ask the obvious here. Why is everyone in this room, including Sean Connery, wearing a bear costume? I guess the reasoning is that they don't want each other to know their secret identities, but still, why the fuck are they all bears? Is there, like, a birthday party or something that they all have to attend to at some point, or is there a bear convention that I'm not aware of? I have so many questions about this scene, guys, and I have a strong feeling that this movie's not going to address any of that.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm just gonna say this right now. I'm hoping that the TV series from the 60's was nowhere near as dull as this movie is. But then again, considering it ran for the entirety of the 60's, it has to at least be partially more interesting than what's shown in this movie. Because this movie is starting to become incredibly dull. I'm hoping maybe the next half of the film will actually be more interesting. But as of this moment, I'm not having much faith in that.

12 minutes later

All right, I have a rather dumb question to ask here. Is there any reason why Colonel Jones is invisible? I mean, okay, sure, the effects involving him are really cool, but I still would like to know how exactly he ended up being invisible. I would like to know this, however, considering we almost have a half an hour left to go, I have a strong feeling that I'm not gonna get an answer to that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Avengers". Let me shut the movie off here...good god. Well, I think it's easy to say that, for me, this movie really kinda sucked. Mind you, it's not truly horrible or anything. But my god, this movie is just so dull, even on the standards of it being a spy film. Which I didn't think was actually possible, but this movie found a way to be as boring as hell.

Let's just start off with the writing here. And as I said earlier, I have never seen the 60's TV show that this movie is supposed to be based on. So I can't really judge this thing on how loyal it is to it's source material. But then again, as I also stated, I don't really care about loyalty to the source material as long as the film is both entertaining and how much it can stand on it's own standards. And unfortunately, this movie doesn't really excel at either one here. This movie isn't very entertaining, and on it's own standards, it's more or less just a knockoff of the 007 series. And not really a good one at that either. Also, even though I haven't seen any of the series from the 60's, I can wager a guess here and say that it holds far better than this movie, which is funny, considering how that series lasted nearly a decade, while this movie underperformed at the box office and didn't get any sequels afterwards. Funny how that works sometimes.

Our story here really doesn't make too much sense, at least until the very end, you learn from our villain, August, that he has developed some kind of weather machine that can basically control the world's weather and that he will control the world now that he has decided to play God with this device, and it's up to our to spy heroes, John Steed and Emma Peel, to stop him and save the world. And I have to ask because, and this is just something that I noticed, why is this the third or fourth movie that I've watched that has some crazed villain controlling the weather? I've seen this done with Mr. Freeze in "Batman & Robin" and I also saw it in that "Recess" movie where the villain in that one wanted to get rid of summer vacation in the most retarded ways possible. And in this one, August is going to control the weather and unless the governments of the world don't surrender to him, he will obliterate their entire continent. So yeah, again, he's basically just trying to play God in this movie, but I still have to ask, what was with writers obsessions in having villains controlling the weather? I'm really sorta curious about that, because it almost seems like a common occurrence to me for some reason.

Now that part isn't really a negative, per se, it's just more so something that I noticed is all. But what *is* a negative here is our characters. The characters in this movie are just boring as shit. Now I can sorta give August a past here since he's basically just a stereotypical mad scientist villain, and he's also played by Sean Connery, however, I'll talk about him later when I cover acting. But as for our two main agents, these are probably some of the most boring agents to appear on screen. We have John Steed who, I swear to god, has to talk in sarcasm most of the time because he really doesn't have any sort of character to him beyond that. I'd say he's almost a discount dollar store version of James Bond, however, that would be a horrible insult to Bond because Bond actually has something resembling a character. Well, depending on the movies, anyways. I haven't read any of the novels from Ian Flemming and less said about the Daniel Craig movies, the better.

So yeah, Steed doesn't really have a character to him, and the same can also be said for Uma Thurman's character Emma Peel. She really has nothing going for her. You find out in the beginning of the movie that she has a doppelganger twin who's working for August. And also, when you do see the two on screen together for the first time, they have different eye colors. Emma has blue eyes, and her twin has brown eyes. I don't know why that is. I guess maybe they wanted to differentiate the two characters in some way. However, there's not really much of a difference beyond that, outside of having different costumes, because neither of them have any sort of character to them. And I don't really recall a point where Emma's twin is a robot or just some kind of super clone that August made on his spare time because he has an obsession with her. I don't know why, maybe he just saw something in her that I didn't. Other than that, though, there's nothing else to either Emma or her twin.

As for other characters, well...what about them? There's nothing there in terms of characters that you're going to care about because they're either not in it for very long, or they're just there as part of August's line of villains. If we're talking about any other protagonists, well, there's Steed's mother, who tries to help get Emma back after she got captured by August. But you don't see much of her again after she gets knocked in the back of the head and Emma gets herself free. And then there's also Colonel James, who's completely invisible. Why is he invisible? I don't fucking know. Maybe Sue Storm had a relative at some point that I didn't know about, which would make more sense than him not having any sort of establishing character at all. And it also doesn't help the fact that he's only in it for about two scenes, and all of it happens in the last half hour of the movie. Which is a shame because I would've loved to known more about him.

In fact, that would be more interesting than what he actually got for this movie because the writing here is boring as shit. It doesn't really make much sense, even when you learn about August's evil plan. OK sure, he has the whole controlling the weather gimmick, but even before that, everything else is either just filler or just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And I may as well just add one more thing to the pile in terms of overall pacing. It's pretty bad. It takes a while for it to get going, and while it's not as awful as some other movies I've seen for this series that had awful pacing, it's still pretty bad despite it being a little over 90 minutes long. So, pacing here is a little bit of an issue. And the writing is, again, dull as hell, and doesn't really have very much going for it.

Now as for the acting, well, I will say that at least the acting here is halfway decent. Special mention will have to go to Sean Connery, because the man was known to be one of the gods of hammy acting for his time. And while this is certainly nowhere near one of his best roles, he still did pretty decently for what was given to him. Then again, this was pretty late into his career, so maybe by this point he just didn't really care as much and just wanted the paycheck that badly. Which, I can't really blame him for, if that's really the case. The acting from the other cast members is okay, except for our main two cast members, who seemed to have just phoned it in. Like I said earlier, John Steed's entire character is just him talking as if he's sarcastic, and that's all he talks in, which is probably the reason why Ralph Fiennes phoned it in as he did here. And as for Uma Thurman, she's pretty much in the same boat as well, Not only is her British accent questionable at best, but also, she and Ralph Fiennes have no chemistry together at all. Neither of them seemed like they wanted to be there and the only reason why they were there is because they needed that paycheck so badly. Which, much like with Sean Connery, I can't necessarily blame them because they could only do so much with a bad script that was given to them. And outside of Sean Connery, no one else here actually tried. So yeah, that's acting for you in a nutshell.

Special effects are actually okay here. For the standards of late 90's CG, this stuff is actually halfway decent. Most of the stuff you'll see involves all the weather towards the latter half of the movie, while other times, you see it being utilized during the chase scene involving our main agents and these killer robot bugs. Some of them are CG, but there a few that were practically made, which is really cool to see. The stunt-work here is also pretty decent. I mean, it's nothing ultimately special, but at least it's halfway decent, which is more than what I could say about the writing, but I'm not gonna harp on that anymore than I already did. Costuming here is also decent, even though the idea of that one scene where some of the cast members, including Connery, were all wearing bear costumes. And I should stress that they were giant teddy bears as well. At the very least, I can say there all a different color. So, I guess that's something.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mixing here is good. And the music is just there, really. There's nothing ultimately nothing special about it, so I'll just mark it off as it existing, and that's pretty much it.

So ultimately, guys, when it comes down to it, can I recommend "The Avengers"? Um, no. I seriously can't recommend this movie because, one, it's boring as hell, two, there are other better spy films you could watch, such as a majority of the James Bond movies, and three, regardless of whether or not this movie was in any way loyal to the source material, it's still a bad movie overall. And not an enjoyable bad movie that you could watch with friends on a bad movie night. No, this one is just bad on a really boring level. If you were one of those people who were a fan of 60's series, then you can just skip this movie altogether as it provides nothing of value to that series. And of course, this has no value for me, personally speaking, so I will happily trade it in the moment that I get that chance. In the meantime, however, I'm gonna go and watch one of my many James Bond movies I have on DVD. I think I'll just go and watch something such as "For Your Eyes Only". Why not? I haven't seen that one in a long time, so I'll go and do that next as soon as I get done typing this review up.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Japanese horror film from 2009. That movie is "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl".

Now, I do know a couple of things about this movie. The first being that it's very similar to other Japanese gore films that I've seen such as "Tokyo Gore Police", for example. Speaking of which, I also know that one of the people who directed this movie also wrote the screenplay for it as well. The person who I'm referring to is Yoshihiro Nishimura. The same man who also directed other films such as "Tokyo Gore Police" and Mutant Girls Squad". Both movies I really enjoyed, and I'm hoping this one will also be of the exact same quality as those two movies. Also, and this is something I just found out recently, Nishimura unfortunately just passed away earlier this year. Which definitely came as a surprise to me, because I didn't even know about it until I did my small amount of research on this film.

So, while it's unfortunate that the man is no longer with us, I'm still going to go into this one hoping that it will be really good. But I won't know if it's actually any good unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl".

4 minutes later

You know, guys, it's been quite a long time since I last watched a Japanese splatter film, and this opening sequence here where blood's just gushing everywhere, especially from creative aspects like skulls from zombie girls, is definitely not shy in showing all of that early. This is certainly awesome. And also, this opening song here isn't too bad either. It's actually sorta catchy.

6 minutes later

You know, guys, in the time I've been to school, I've never experienced a "wrist cutting rally" before. And no, I'm not joking about that either, that's actually a thing in this movie, and my god, it is funny as hell.

5 minutes later

Oh my god...okay, I wasn't gonna comment on this until later, but there's a club known as "Super Dark Girls Club", and there's literally a group of 4 people dressed in blackface and also are wearing outfits that you'd probably imagine what black girls wear, including their hairstyles. I know it's offensive as hell, but shit, this is fucking hilarious, man! I love it.

10 minutes later

You know, guys, it's not often I see a kabuki scientist and a sexy nurse working together to reanimate corpses ala Frankenstein. And the way they're doing it is, well, interesting to say the least. It's very flashy, very odd, but then again, I probably wouldn't expect less from a Japanese film that usually tends to be wacky and creative. And it's definitely both here, I'll say that much.

1 minute later

OK, um...well, it's certainly a fine work of art. Nowhere near what I thought they were making, but at least it's unique-looking.

8 minutes later

So that tiny splotch of blood from that vampire girl's lip earlier apparently has a mind of it's own. Don't ask me how that works, I'm just telling you guys what I'm seeing right now.

11 minutes later

So not only do we have a half human-half mecha sumo wrestler that has a mini turret on it's head, but also, Monami's mother can also produce bloodied-blade skates on her feet. I'm telling you, guys, this movie is extremely creatively with itself and it's something that I probably would never come up with if I were attempting to make this sort of film. It's really quite fascinating.

10 minutes later

I'll say this right now, guys, the level of dark humor the movie is going through is mind-blowing. Mind you, it's really funny, but I didn't think they would be going this far with it. It's really something else, and I'm loving it.

5 minutes later

Holy Shit! All right, well, I can certainly say that I wasn't quite expecting for a head to explode like that. But shit, that was awesome!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Wow, just...where the hell do I even begin with this one? Well, first off, I am gonna say up front that I really enjoyed this movie. In terms of these splatter films, it lives up to those other Japanese splatter movies I've seen beforehand such as "Mutant Girls Squad", "Tokyo Gore Police", and I'll even include "The Machine Girl" because it's also technically a splatterfest as well. Now do I think it's as good as those movies were, in terms of writing? No, not really, and I'll get to why in a second. But still, what I did get here is still really enjoyable.

Let's get into this proper here and first talk about the writing. The writing in this movie is honestly one of the only weak points that it has against it. And it's not necessarily that it's a bad story, it's just that it's not really gonna be the main focus here. But to give you guys a summary version of it: It's essentially a just a teen romance story centered around a guy named Jugon, who ends up falling for a girl by the name of Monami, who just so happens to also be a vampire, and she gives him some chocolate to profess her love to him, which the latter is actually a custom in Japan. But anyway, you have another girl by the name of Keiko, who later ends up turning into a Frankenstein thanks to her Dad, who is the principal of the high school she attends and is also a kabuki scientist. Don't ask why he's a kabuki scientist, it really doesn't matter. And so, it's a battle between Monami and Keiko to see who can win the love of Jugon.

Now as I may have mentioned a couple of times beforehand, I despise teen romance stories. I hated it in "Whisper of the Heart" and I hated it in "Psychic School Wars". And in any other movie, I would've disregarded this movie entirely because of it's premise alone. However, I'm not going to do that here. Why? Because even though it's centered around a premise that I'm not a fan of, what helps elevate it is that the movie is a horror comedy. And not just a regular horror comedy, but also very unapologetic as well. Because this movie delves into the kind of dark comedy that I really do enjoy. The movie has racial stereotypes, Japanese girls in blackface, to even jokes about suicide and wrist cutting. And in terms of the first one, they literally have a Chinese guy with a *ridiculously* long mustache. Which is fucking hilarious as hell, though if they *really* wanted to play up the offensive stereotype, they could've added some buck teeth as well. Just my own personal opinion, really. And I know some people aren't into the overly offensive type of dark humor, but I will say that Mr. Nishimura definitely had a sense of humor that I don't see from many filmmakers anymore. Well, at least the ones in the U.S. anyway.

But setting that part aside, if I had to give any kind of critique about the humor in this film, I would say that it kinda overloads you with all this wacky, goofy, madness that, if you're watching this on your first go, you may not be able to grasp everything at once. Because, like I just said, this movie is a horror comedy, and it sticks with that for the entirety of it's runtime. It rarely ever takes itself seriously as it mostly just focuses on being a full-blown horror comedy. The only "serious" bit that I could find in this movie is when you get to see Monami's backstory about her mother being killed by a vampire hunter, who also happens to be Francis Xavier. Which...sure, let's just roll with it. Although before that, her mother was able to produce blade-looking skates on her feet as she takes on a half-human/half-mecha sumo wrestler. Which, if you couldn't tell by this point, the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. Which, for a movie like this, is a good thing. Because had it played itself with a straight face the entire time, it would've destroyed this movie because it didn't try to have fun with itself.

So, just to give you guys a summarization, the writing in this movie is the weakest point in this film, at least in terms of it's plot. But for everything else such as humor and the special effects more than makes up for all of that. And I'm also going to include the acting. Now, upon starting this film, I was greeted to the Japanese version with English subtitles. And I should note that there is an option for an English dub here, however, I didn't watch it this time because, as I just said, upon pushing play, I got the Japanese audio with English subtitles. And I'm gonna say, guys, that the acting here is laughable. Now when I say it's laughable, I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that most of the actors in this film ham it up a lot here. And it's actually really funny because it seemed like nobody was taking it too seriously. Which, if this were any other film that attempted this, I would've had a different opinion about it. But for this film, it totally works here because everyone in the cast, whether it's the main cast, or the supporting cast, everyone turns in a pretty decent showing, at least for what they had to work with here. So yes, guys, the acting here is hammy and a little bit over the top, but it still totally works for this kind of movie.

Now before I talk the special effects, I want to mention something that I almost never talk about when it comes to me covering movies for this series, which is the previews. And for this particular film, they only show one preview for another Japanese film that is similar to this called "RoboGeisha". Now I covered "RoboGeisha" a long time ago back in the early days of me writing this series, and I do remember the film actually kinda sucking a bit. And when they showed the previews for that movie here, I got another glimpse of the awful special effects that went on in that movie. I mean, the CG was terrible, the blood effects were all digitally done, it was just a really bad movie with really cheap special effects.

Which I can now segue-way into talking about the special effects for this movie because it shows you how much better they pull off the effects here. There is tons and tons of blood splatter, and while there is CG in this movie, it is nowhere *near* as awful as they were in "RoboGeisha". You do have scenes which they show digital blood here, and the effects for it, while very noticeably CG, it's still good enough to where you can view it as it being more believable. At least believable about a movie involving a vampire high school girl and a Frankenstein-esque girl. But still, the effects here are awesome, and some of it is very creative, too. Such as when you see the Frankenstein girl using part of someone's bare feet as a helicopter to fly. And no, I'm joking about that either. That happens in the third act of the film. But anyway, the costuming is also really good, too, as is the makeup effects. Whether it's the kabuki scientist, or custodian janitor being, uh, well, a vampire or zombie of sorts. I don't remember which one, but still, the makeup effects involving him are also pretty good, too.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is also lit very well. Sound-mixing is also good. And the music is also really good, too. There are a couple of songs here that are actually really catchy. I unfortunately don't know the title of these songs, but believe me when I say that they're very catchy and is worth giving a listen to, if at least just once. But yeah, guys, the score here and the soundtrack is really good.

And when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl"? Oh absolutely, guys, this movie is great. Well, I do have to stress that if you're not into these sorts of films where there's just a ton of blood splatter everywhere, then I don't think you should be watching this movie. But if you're looking for a good horror comedy, then I can totally recommend this film to you guys. Again, as long as you can overlook the excessive amounts of blood splatter here. And if you can do that, well, then you have a really good movie. And I'm actually happy myself knowing that I can actually add this one to my DVD collection. I was sorta fearing that it would disappoint me in someway, but I'm thankful that's not the case here. This movie is great, and I'll definitely find a spot for it for my ever growing DVD collection. Speaking of, I'm gonna go and watch "Tokyo Gore Police" right now because this film totally inspired me to go back and rewatch that one again. So I know what I'll be doing as soon I get done with this review.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.