Reaction & Review | Matango

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a Japanese horror film from 1963. That movie is "Matango".

Now, originally, when I read first read that title on the DVD case, I honestly thought it was called "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People", since it had that surname. Which would've sounded like a really cheesy, goofy, yet sorta awesome title at the same time. Because sometimes, those sorts of names really do catch your eye, especially if you're into these sorts of oddball movies like I am. Sadly though, that's not the case here. Instead, the "Attack of the Mushroom People" name was used to release this movie in the U.S. as a TV film in 1965. Now what's a little strange about this is the fact that there *is* an English dub for it, but nobody knows when it was actually released. I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say *maybe* it was released in between 1963 and 1965. Again, that's just a guess I'm making there, so make of that what you will.

So, setting all that aside, what do I know about tonight's movie? Well, a couple of things. First of all, it was distributed by Toho, the same company that releases all of the Godzilla movies. And the other thing I know about this movie is that it was almost banned in Japan entirely, mainly because the makeup effects on the actors faces supposedly resembled the disfigurements of the victims from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Now, in a way, I can kinda understand the reasoning behind it, because it only happened 18 years ago at the time of this movie's release. And, well, Japan is still very sensitive about that sort of subject for obvious reasons. So, I'm not about to claim that whether or not the decision regarding this reasoning was right or wrong.

Having said that, though, this movie did eventually get released, and I already explained how, so I'm not about to repeat myself there on that front. So, I'm hoping for this movie to be pretty good. I don't know if it will be or not, but that's what this series is here for. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is 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 "Matango".

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I believe I can start off by saying that this English dub here is kinda shit so far. I mean, granted, our dubs weren't really good at all back during those days, but this dub is just kinda proving that, since most of the acting here sounds incredibly wooden. I'm hoping, maybe, that I'll get use to this really wooden acting, but I'm not totally sure if I will.

19 minutes later

All right, guys, now that we're almost a half an hour into the movie, I'm gonna ask this. When exactly does it start to get interesting? I'm asking this, because this thing is becoming incredibly boring so far. I get that the movie is trying to soak you into it's atmosphere. But honestly, it's really not that impressive to look at. And I'm just hoping that, maybe, this movie will start to pick up soon and we can actually get our plot rolling here. As of right now, though, I'm slowly beginning to lose interest.

20 minutes later

Seriously, guys, I want to know, *when* does this movie actually start to get interesting? I have been patient now for quite a while, and my patience is beginning to wear thin on how dis-interesting this movie has become. I'm not sure if the next half of the movie is even going to get any better. I'm hoping it does, but at this rate, I'm beginning to lose hope here.

9 minutes later

Wait wait wait, wait a second here! So, that encounter they had with the unknown creature last night was real. And they all acknowledge that it happened. OK then, so...what *did* happen last night? Because, they showed the creature opening the door, and after that, the scene transitioned to them having breakfast the next morning, as if what happened last night...never actually happened! Did I miss something here? Because that scene made no fucking sense whatsoever, because no one said anything about it up until now. Guys, I'm at the point where I'm not even gonna question this thing anymore because not only has it been boring as shit, but now it's decided to not make any sense. I hope it does soon, but at this point, I really don't think it's going to.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Matango". And thank Christ, this thing is fucking over. Let me shut this garbage off here...OK. Wow, that was...massively disappointing. I don't think I've ever been this disappointed about a movie in a very long time, but this...yeah, this one definitely fits the disappointing category.

So, I guess, without further delay, I may as well get into this review proper by first discussing the writing. Now I will say that the plot here is very simple, in concept anyway. We have a group of people shipwrecked on a mysterious island where it's inhabited by strange-looking mushrooms, and they have to try and survive by looking for food on the island, while also trying to find a way off the island while they're there. And at the same time, they also get to learn more about the true nature of the island and the mushrooms in general. So yeah, like I said, the plot here is pretty simple. OK sure, it's not entirely an original plot, but at least it is easy to understand...for the most part, anyway. I'll get a little more in depth on this later, but I will say that it could've worked, had the script for this thing been written better, and had the story been more interesting.

But that becomes a problem right there, because this movie is just so *painfully* dull, to where almost nothing of interest happens here. The movie tries to build some level of suspense, but like I said, most of it doesn't amount up to anything, and what they do try to build up doesn't really make any sense. And aside from all that, most of the movie is just our characters trying to find food to survive or just them resting inside a ship that they found on the island to make themselves at home, and to be honest with you, guys, it's really boring to watch, because, like I already said, nothing really happens here. Which brings me into another point in which I'll say that the pacing in this movie is just *bad*. This movie has so much padding here that they really could've cut out a lot of it and the film would've flowed better. I'm not saying that it would've been great, but it could've been a much better paced movie.

Speaking of which, let's actually talk about that scene I mentioned earlier that made no sense at all. So, around the halfway point of the film, we see one of these fungus-looking creatures sneaking aboard the ship. One of the crew members in red discovers the creature, and starts to run away from it, reuniting with the other characters. This leads into them fortifying their defenses, and when the creature opens the door, we actually get a first look at it...and then the scene suddenly fades to black, transitioning it into them having breakfast together. Again, I ask, what exactly happened with the prior scene? Was there some sort of fight sequence that I missed? My original thought was that our characters somehow ended up killing the creature, and used it's remains to have their breakfast. Which, thinking about it now, would've been a really stupid idea, considering you don't know where this creature came from to begin with. But during the breakfast, nobody ever brought that up! And then I thought maybe there was a deleted scene in which it never made it to TV broadcast and that I would hope to find it on the DVD extras. But again, that's not the case because, one, there are no extras involving deleted scenes on the DVD. And two, the scene doesn't get mentioned until nearly 10 minutes later! Which, again, begs the question of what exactly happened the night before where they first fully encountered that creature? Sadly, we never get to see that. So really, the scene is left very poorly up to interpretation.

Another thing that this movie fumbles upon is the characters. Now you think that with a movie like this that's centered around our characters trapped on a mysterious island, that you would care about these characters struggles as they try to survive, but unfortunately, this movie doesn't really execute that well at all. Every character here is very shallow and flat, in terms of both personality and depth. In fact, I could barely remember their names, save for Kasai, Yoshida, and Mirei. And even then, their characters are all flat and lifeless. The only traits I could pick up from most of them was that one of them is a singer, AKA Mirei. Yoshida, who I *think* is suppose to be a writer but I honestly don't remember. Kasai, who's just part of the crew. Another one is the skipper, we have our main character, who I honestly don't remember *anything* about him, and another girl who tends to act sickly a lot. And that's it. That is *all* for character depth and personality. None of them give you a reason to care about them, and their motivations, half the time, don't make any sense at all. Which kinda makes sense, considering how the story itself makes little to no sense, despite having a simple premise.

So yeah, guys, writing here is terrible here from every direction that this movie goes into. Now while I'm kinda sorta on the subject, the acting for this dub is terrible as well. I kinda had a feeling that it wasn't going to get any better the moment that I mentioned the dub being kinda shit, and well, unsurprisingly, it didn't get any better. Most of the acting here is very wooden, and any attempts to give out some sort of emotion for these actor's dialogue just comes across as being very stilted and phoned in. Now again, I totally understand that dubs like these back in the day, we didn't care if they were terrible, we just put them out there and leave it at that. But I feel like this dub is probably one of the worser ones out there. I can't even say that this movie's dub is so bad it's laughable, it's just...terrible. Now the good news here is that, if you seriously want to watch this thing, there is an option on the DVD where you can switch it over to the subtitles with it's original Japanese audio. So, at least there's that, and it might make for a somewhat lesser painful experience. Granted, that's not saying a whole lot, but at least it is something.

Special effects here are actually halfway decent. The makeup effects you see here, whether it's that creature I mentioned earlier, or the makeup effects involving the actors being turned into mushrooms, that stuff looked genuinely decent. Now granted, I can't really judge if the criticisms involving the makeup effects are accurate to what I talked about at the beginning of this R&R, but I honestly don't care and I don't feel like it should affect the overall film. I'll just leave at that by, again, stating that the makeup effects are decent. The costumes on the mushroom people look OK too, though admittedly, they're not really in the movie for that long. Which is honestly rather disappointing, considering the title and all. But setting that aside, the sets here involving the island actually look really good. Admittedly, I don't know how much this movie was going for in terms of it's budget, but I'm gonna take an estimated guess and say it was probably on the lower side. So anyway, the special effects, overall, I can say range on being rather decent.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is lit very well. But then again, a lot of this movie was shot outdoors, considering the setting of this movie and all. So there is that. Sound-mix here is mixed pretty well. The score, though, honestly kinda ranges on being forgettable to kinda shit. I say that, because this movie uses quite a bit of synth music, and it's really not the good kind of synth music that's interesting to listen to. Beyond that, I really can't say much else about the music here, so I can probably put that one on the negative side of things.

Overall, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Matango"? Personally no, because I really think this movie is just so poorly written. And I don't really think that, even if you switched it over to the Japanese dub, it will make the movie that much better. That being said, there might just be one way that I could recommend this film to anyone. I'm mostly gonna recommend this thing to stoners. And the reason why I'm targeting them is because this movie tries to go for the psychedelic mindset, when it comes to the mushrooms in this movie. I won't spoil too much about it, but there is a sequence or two involving them. So, stoners, if you're looking for a kind of film that you can get high off of, then knock yourself out with this one. You might honestly really enjoy the movie much better if you were high off your ass. But for everyone else...no. You can just skip this one. There really isn't anything here that will grab your interest, since this movie is mostly boring as shit anyways. Now, as for me, I'm probably gonna go and watch something better. Perhaps maybe I'll just watch something like "Gremlins". It's kind of a weird film, but definitely a classic one, too. So I'm gonna go do that next and hopefully get this movie's memory wiped away from my mind, the sooner the better.

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 | Dead Snow

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 2009. That movie is "Dead Snow".

So, similar to a few other genres of film that I haven't covered in a while, movies about zombies are another one on that list. And there is kind of a reason as to why. The main reason being that I'm still sick and tired of zombies, even after all this time. And I probably should be over that fad by this point, but you should also understand that, in case you weren't around then, zombies were fucking everywhere around the early 2010's. I would say it probably started around 2010, and the fad for them died around the middle of 2014. Mind you, that is just an estimated guess, but my point still stands. Zombies aren't really something that I'm all excited for, especially films involving them.

So, exactly why now am I covering this thing? Well, as much as I'm not really that big a fan of zombie movies, I do enjoy horror comedies, as long as they're funny, anyway. And I've heard a lot of good things about this movie. Now as for what I know about it, all I can tell you is that it involves Nazi zombies. Which sounds pretty cool. I mean, hey, if you're gonna do a zombie film, why not include Nazi's and make them zombies as well? It sounds really promising on paper.

So, I'm hoping for this thing to be as great as from what I've heard about it. Of course, I have been proven wrong before from people who say that a movie's great, and when I eventually watched this supposed great movie...it really wasn't that great. But still, I am holding out hopes for this one on being great. And the only way I'm gonna find out if it is great 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 "Dead Snow".

14 minutes later

So, Martin was suffocating his girlfriend with a pillow...and I'm not totally why he was doing that. I mean, he didn't have any real malicious intent, as he was obviously joking, but I'm still not totally sure why he did that to begin with. I could maybe understand if this was part of his training on wanting to become a doctor, but no, at least not as far as I could see, anyway.

14 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm *really* liking the amount of tension that's being built up in this movie. It's actually doing it in a way in which I honestly can't wait to see what happens next!

8 minutes later

So, all of our characters are messing around with the gold that the movie nerd found. Yet, also earlier, it was Martin who suggested to keep the gold inside the wooden box until Vegarde finds Sara. My guess is that they all got tired of waiting, or they're currently busy being drunk to not care about that rule. Either way, I guess Martin's suggestion didn't really matter much, now did it?

12 minutes later

Well, damn, that kill looked rather brutal, as one of our Nazi zombies crushed the guy's head off like a melon! That was pretty cool, I must say.

11 minutes later

You know, I never thought I'd ever say this about a zombie anything, but that's probably the first and only time I've ever seen someone hanging from a cliff by holding onto a Nazi zombie's intestines as rope. That's actually really creative, and I don't think I would've ever came up with something like that myself.

7 minutes later

OK, that was probably the shittiest-fucking throw I have ever seen in almost any movie ever. That's gotta be a record for something, right? Because, I'm having a hard time trying to think up of any other instance where something like that might've happened, but no, I can't think of anything. So yeah, I can say that was probably the worst throw ever.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Dead Snow" Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, I gotta say that, after finally getting a chance to watch this thing, I'm actually kinda surprised. I had heard good things about it, sure, but I still wanted to lower my expectations a bit, considering that I somewhat hate it when someone hypes up a movie so much to a point where it either doesn't live up to it, or it just flat out sucks. Well, I can say that the movie is actually pretty good for the most part. Mind you, it isn't a great movie, but I will get into all of that in a second here.

Right now, though, I may as well just start things off by talking about the writing here. And the first thing I want to talk about is the movie's humor. Now, as I said earlier, this thing is suppose to be a horror comedy about Nazi zombies. And I'm totally cool with that, as long as you do something interesting with it while also being funny at the same time. And it certainly does have it's hilarious moments. However, I feel as if this movie doesn't really lean too much into the comedy here. Now let me reiterate again by stating that the movie *is* certainly really funny. But most of the comedy in this movie doesn't really kick in up until the last half hour of the movie or so. For the most part, the movie tries to play it up as straight as possible. Now perhaps maybe I'm somehow misinterpreting in someway. Maybe it's because that it's trying to play itself up as being straight up that it somehow makes the whole movie even funnier. Which, it *could* be possible, and perhaps maybe if I watch this thing a second or third time, I might be able to see more of the comedy that's missing here. But as it is, most of that is, like I already said, regulated into the last half hour of the film. Which is a bit too long, if you ask me.

Speaking of which, let's get into the second problem that this movie suffers from, which is the pacing. This movie has a bit of a slow boil going on. And for, like, the first 40 minutes or so, nothing really much happens here. We got about a couple of kills here and there, but they're very spaced out. We also get exposition about the Nazi's from this old guy who appears one time in the movie, and completely disappears afterwards to never be seen again. And aside from that, most of that is just our characters messing around inside their cabin. Which isn't really all that interesting to be perfectly honest here. And the fact it took a little over 40 minutes for the movie to get interesting is what sorta dampers the film a bit. Now I will say that after the first 40 minutes goes on by, the movie actually does start to really pick up from there. It's just you have to have a bit of patience with the first 40 minutes of film if you want to get into the more interesting stuff afterwards.

Our characters aren't really all that interesting, personality wise. I honestly couldn't even remember half of the characters names, because most of them are that forgettable. The only one that I can remember by name is Martin, who's also the only character I can remember as well, since he's the guy who wants to become a doctor. The only quirk though is that he's afraid of blood. Which is sorta laughable, because later on in the film, you can see that his entire face is almost covered in blood. Which makes the whole thing about him fearing blood rather irrelevant. But then again, from a narrative perspective, I think it kinda makes sense, considering the whole Nazi zombies and everything going on. So, I can at least grant that to his character. Our Nazi zombies are also devoid of personality, but then again, they *are* Nazi zombies, so I can give them a pass on this one.

Overall, guys, the writing here is pretty good, when it wants to get going. It's just certain things here and there, such as the pacing being a bit slow, and the comedy not really happening until the last half hour so of the movie, that ultimately stops it from being great. But with that said, let's actually get into the acting here. Now, I do have to confess something. Originally, I first started watching the movie with it's original Norwegian dub, however, I did notice on the back of the DVD case that it does have the option to watch it with an English dub. So, I opted to watch that instead, because I wasn't really all that interested in watching it in it's original language. And I will say that the dub here is halfway decent. There are a couple of instances of phoned in acting that happen, mostly from whoever they got to dub over Martin's dialogue here. That said, though, he still did an OK job with the material that he was given to work with. Everyone else did a pretty good job, too. Now while I obviously can't judge the Norwegian acting here, since I watched very little of it before I switched to the English dub, I can tell from their body language that they looked like they had a lot of fun in this movie, so I can at least grant them that. Overall, guys, the English dub is OK for what it is, though the option for the original Norwegian dub is also available too, just in case.

Special effects here are great, especially for low budget standards. The blood effects are great, along with the gore here as well. There are small instances of CG blood used as well, however, given that it closely resembles the practical blood effects, you won't really notice them all that much, if at all. So, this is one of those rare instances where I can accept the CG blood for what it is. The makeup effects on our Nazi zombies all look great, along with the costuming as well. All of it here is great, and given the low budget, they definitely used it to their advantage here.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is great. But then again, most of this movie took place outdoors, so I would expect the lighting here to be great just based on that fact alone. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music here actually consists of Norwegian rock music. Now obviously, I haven't really listened to a whole lot of Norwegian rock music. In fact, this is my first time hearing it in this movie. But I will say that it actually does sound pretty good. Maybe I'll give the soundtrack more of a listen to at some point, but I can, again, say that what is hear is pretty good, so I can give the music here a plus for this movie.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Dead Snow"? Yes, I most certainly can. If, once again, provided that you're able to overlook the somewhat slow pacing of the first 40 minutes or so, along with the comedy portion of the movie not happening until the last half hour or so as well. But other than that, this is a rather good effort. I'm probably gonna be watching this again at some point. I don't know if it's something I would watch as a yearly tradition around Christmas time, but it is still definitely worth checking out, if at least once. So yeah, I can totally recommend "Dead Snow" to you guys. It's not a great horror comedy, but still worth checking out in my book. And speaking of horror comedies, I'm gonna go and re-pop in my copy of "Dead & Breakfast", since that, to me, is a great horror comedy involving zombies.

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 | Azumi

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Japanese action film from 2003. That movie is "Azumi".

Now, I honestly don't really know a whole lot about this movie, other than a couple of things. For starters, this movie is apparently a live action adaptation of a manga series with the same name. Now I obviously have never read it. But then again, upon doing the small amount of research for this movie, I just found out about that information. And, much like I've done with many other adaptation films for this series, I am not even gonna bother comparing to it's manga counterpart. I really only care if it can stand or fall on it's own standards.

Now, one other thing that I discovered about this movie is what I read on the back of the DVD case. Not so much about the plot or anything, but a caption that I found on the very top of it. It says that this movie is from the director of "Versus" and also the producer for "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust". Now while I haven't seen "Versus" yet, I *have* seen "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust". And for those of you who might already know, I love that movie. So, there is a chance here that this movie could be really great.

That said, I'm not totally sure what to expect from this movie. Like I said, I'm hoping for it to be really good, but then again, it could also find a way to really suck. I'm hoping that it doesn't suck, but still, it could be a possibility. But there's really only one way for me to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out for myself 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 "Azumi".

18 minutes later

You know, guys, it's kinda messed up to know that this old guy raised these kids up to become would-be assassins, just so he can order them to kill each other in order to prove that they can succeed in their mission. I sorta get the method behind his reasoning, but it *is* still kinda fucked up to go through with this sort of ordeal, you know what I mean?

2 minutes later

So, not only did half of these kids get killed off, but they also burned their entire home down before leaving. OK, I said that I sorta understood the master's methods behind his students killing each other, but why burn your house down afterwards? I know he said that they were going to leave the mountain, but why go to the effort of burning down your entire home? It just seems kinda stupid to me, but hey, who am I to judge the master's way of thinking?

9 minutes later

OK, guys, I just learned something new today. If you throw a big enough rock into a river of water, you'll be able to catch a lot of fish by having them splash out of the water all at once. I'm not totally sure how practical that is among fishing, but at least it's sort of an interesting method, to say the least.

15 minutes later

So, the warlord that our heroes assassinated was actually a fucking body double? That is sorta cool to know, but what I'm curious about now is how exactly did they go to the effort of getting that body double? Did they just find somebody who mostly resembled what the warlord looked like, or was it just something like one of those ninjitsu abilities where they make some sort of substitute doll in his place? I understand it's kind of a trivial point and all, but it is something that I'm a little curious about.

17 minutes later

OK, that's certainly weird. I wouldn't expect one of these bandits to say "give me a second" before suddenly collapsing after getting stabbed to death. Kinda funny, but still rather odd to me, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

You know, guys, this fight scene here is pretty cool and everything. And I would probably like this fight scene more if the background of the sky didn't keep changing from between night and day. It's becoming a little bit distracting here, which is a shame because, like I said, this fight scene is really well done. I just wish I could focus on that more than the changing of the sky between shots here, you know? 

20 minutes later

Sorry if I'm not saying a whole lot here, guys, I'm kinda getting immersed myself into the story here. It's been rather good so far, minus a couple of hiccups here and there, which I'll talk about more when I get into the review for this thing.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Azumi". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...all right. So, where do I begin here? Well, as I kinda already mentioned earlier, I said that the movie was rather good as I began immersing myself into this movie's story. And for the most part, I really enjoyed this thing. Mind you, the film does have a couple of problems here and there, but I still rather liked it overall.

So with that said, let's get into the review proper here by first discussing the writing. Now, earlier this year, I reviewed a couple of martial arts films known as "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion" and "The Bloody Fists". And the reason why I'm bringing them up is because this movie is kinda sorta similar to those movies, in which it's trying to tell some kind of compelling story while also blending in it's action scenes as well. But the difference between this movie and those two films is that the latter two failed to get out some kind of story that made little to no sense whatsoever. Now, I can't be entirely too harsh on those movies because, like I mentioned in both of those reviews, it's possible that there might've been some sort of an issue with the translation of dubbing those movies into English. But still, my point is that, with what was given to us in those movies, neither one of them were successful in telling any sort of story that tried to be interesting or entertaining, aside from their fight choreography being really solid.

Which then brings me to "Azumi". Now, while the movie doesn't necessarily have a lot of over-the-top action scenes, I will say that the story here is solid enough to where you could follow it while also being immersed into the action scenes as well. A lot of it is just a bunch of sword fighting, but it is still really cool to see, as you watch our main characters go up against ninjas, samurais, and bandits along the way. I guess I'm probably jumping ahead here a bit by talking about the fight choreography rather than the story here, but again, I am gonna say that the fight choreography is rather solid. And I guess since I've already jumped ahead here, I'm also gonna say that the special effects are pretty good for the most part. There's a lot of blood pouring in this movie from all of the kills here, and most of it is great. There are also a couple of instances of CG, such fire, explosions, and a couple of blood effects here and there. And while some of that looked a little cheap, the practical effects definitely more than make up of what little CG is used here. And the costuming here is really good, too, as it fits that style of very early Japan. So, there is that.

But I should probably go back to the writing, since I sorta skipped ahead a bit there. The story is essentially a coming of age for Azumi. Where she gets taken in by her master as a little girl after she loses her mother in, admittedly, a very vague way. She then gets raised up with her adopted brothers as they are all equally trained under their master, who all eventually grow up to become trained assassins. And their mission is given to them from their master, who says that they must kill the warlords who are trying to start up a war that may possibly happen soon. And it's from here where we get a little more insight of Azumi's character, where she starts to question stuff like whether or not the people they are killing are actually bad people. Or when one of their comrades is slowly dying from a poisoning, she's wondering why if it's OK to senselessly kill warlords but not to save the life of someone who's on the verge of dying. Now granted, the dying assassin kinda hid that fact from his master, probably because he didn't want them to worry. But still, it does change Azumi's character a bit after she shortly leaves the group, along with another one of the brothers named Hyuga.

And it's here where I can say that our characters here are very well developed. Mind you, not all of the assassin brothers don't get that much development, unlike Azumi. The only exception to this is the one I just mentioned by name, Hyuga. He actually ends up falling for a girl named Yai, who is a traveling performer, and also joins Azumi for a little bit. She actually ends up playing a bit of a role too, where she tries to teach Azumi to speak and act like more like a girl. She also attempts Azumi to retire the sword as well, though that ends up getting cut short when they get ambushed by bandits after one of them is attempting to rape Yai. So, on a character growth level, Azumi is easily the best developed. You have a reason to care about her as she goes along her journey of what she must do and where she ends up as an assassin. And it's really good stuff here.

Now like I said earlier, the film does have a couple of problems, minus some of the dated CG and all. First of all, the main villain is kind of a weak character, as he's mostly just an androgynous, cartoonish villain. At least, that's the kind of vibe I got out of him anyway. Secondly, the pacing is a little bit on the slow side. The movie is roughly about 2 hours long, and there were a couple of moments near the end where it could've actually ended, but still kept on going. But I still think it's worth the 2 hours of it's runtime. There is one other issue that I'll get into a little bit later on, but I will say that the film does try to inject some humor into itself, while trying to space out the dramatic scenes that happen quite a bit in this movie. Granted, this film is ultimately more of a drama, but there is enough of a breathing space to where the movie isn't totally drowned by it's dramatic moments.

So overall, guys, the writing here is really good for the most part, and I would say it's one of the better action films I've seen from an Asian country in quite a while. And as for the acting, well, I have to go by off the English dub that I opted to watch. And I will say that the dub here, at least on a voice acting level, is pretty good, but there is something that I noticed which could be more of a distracting issue. Now it may just be me that noticed this, but for some reason, some of the dialogue is about a second late whenever a character is about to talk or finished talking. I noticed this, because it happened pretty early on in the film, and it's quite noticeable throughout a good portion of the movie. Now mind you, it doesn't ultimately ruin it, but it could potentially distract you, especially if you're someone who watches English dubs. Now with that said, there is an option to where you could watch it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles. So if you're not a fan of dubs, the option to switch it over to the subtitles is there. But overall, guys, the acting here is pretty decent for what it is, despite some minor syncing issues.

I need to talk about editing for a moment. Now I talked about this way early on, but it bears repeating. There's a fight scene that goes on in this movie between two guys, and it's honestly a pretty decent fight, too. However, the biggest downside to all this is the time of day that they're suppose to be fighting in. See, before the fight happens, there's a scene that takes place during the night. But as soon as the fight starts up, you'll get to see them clashing swords while the sky changes from between night and day. Now this would've sorta made sense *if* they were fighting for days upon end for some stupid reason. But no, it was really just a case of poor editing, because you'll get to see glimpses of a grey sky in some shots, along with some shots of the sunlight, and then nightfall. And all of this is mixed together really poorly, because none of it was consistent. Not only that, but also with the grey sky that shows up when they're fighting, I couldn't tell you if it was taking place while the sun was going up or if it was going down. I don't know, but it was a rather distracting moment of the film that you'll definitely notice for yourself, especially if you end up looking for it like I did.

But otherwise, guys, camerawork here is pretty good. Though admittedly, there is one shot of the movie during the final fight, where we get to see the camera go around the two actors in a vertical fashion, and while the shot looked cool at first, it is a bit disorienting, too. So just be wary of that shot when it happens. Lighting here is lit really well, as most of the entire movie was shot outdoors. Sound-mix here is really good, and the score is also really good, too. So, technically speaking, the movie here looks and sounds great.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Azumi"? Oh yes, certainly, guys. It is a really solid movie. I, myself, wasn't totally sure if I would like it or not, but it wound up almost kinda surprising me a bit. If you, yourself, are a fan of action movies featuring ninjas and whatnot, then you'll most definitely find something to like here. Now I should also mention that this movie apparently has a sequel as well, and I may actually try to track down the sequel somewhere and cover it for this series. But as for this film, well, like I already said, I can definitely recommend this movie to you guys. And if you're someone that's only seen action movies made in the U.S., and you want to see something a little bit different outside of it, then this movie is certainly worth checking out, if at least once. And as for me, well, I did like it enough to hold onto my DVD collection, so I'll probably watch it again at some point. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch something else. And you know what? It's been almost a year, but I kinda want to go and rewatch my copy of "The Great Yokai War" again. I want to see if that movie still holds up, seeing as how it's almost been a year since I covered it. So yeah, that's what I'm gonna go do next once I get done uploading this review.

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 | Phantasm: Ravager

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're finally finishing the "Phantasm" series, as I'm taking a look at the fifth and final entry that came out in 2016. That movie is "Phantasm: Ravager".

I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you, guys, I'm kinda happy that this is the last "Phantasm" film that I have to cover here, because these movies have ranged on being ridiculously average. It's not that they're bad movies or anything, it's just that, ever since that first movie, each one has ranged on being consistent with more and more problems that I've come across throughout my journey on covering these movies. Especially that 4th movie, which is easily the weakest entry of the entire franchise. If you want to know more about my thoughts on that one, well, I covered it a couple of weeks ago, so it should be really easy to find.

But anyway, shameless plugging aside, I actually kinda broke my protocol here and dug up a little bit of information on this movie. I didn't do that for the previous films, because I wanted to go into them as blind as possible. And while I'm still going into this movie blindly, I wanted to actually find out a little bit about what I was getting myself into here. And part of the reason why I wanted to do so was mainly because this thing came out in 2016. 18 years after the ending of the 4th movie, they made another sequel, AKA this one. And I am both curious and concerned about this movie for a variety of different reasons that I'm gonna try to condense here.

For starters, I'm mostly concerned about the fact that this thing is even another sequel at all. As I mentioned in my previous review for "Phantasm IV: Oblivion", when it comes to horror movie sequels, they usually start to decline in quality, as it did for that movie. And what's even more concerning is the fact that you wait almost 2 decades to make *another* sequel. Now yes, I understand that Don Coscarelli, the guy's who written and directed all of the previous "Phantasm" movies, has been wanting to do a fifth sequel to this series and he had to go through a lot of hurdles in order to get this movie made, but it still makes me concerned about the overall quality of this movie. That said, though, I'm am curious as to what you can do with a sequel for a movie series like this with modern technology.

Which brings me to one other thing that I wanted to talk about before I watch the movie. Now, as I've just stated already, Don Coscarelli has been the writer and director for all of the previous "Phantasm" films. And while he is credited as a writer for this fifth entry, he's not directing it this time. The director, this time, goes by a man named David Hartman, who also co-wrote the movie with Coscarelli. And I'd love to tell you more about what I know about this guy, but unfortunately, from what little information that was I able to find on him, there really isn't much to say about him. In fact, most of his directing credit comes from animation. He's directed quite a number of cartoon shows, most of which I've never even heard of, aside from "Jackie Chan Adventures" and "Godzilla: The Series". So, to take someone who's focus is mostly centered around animation to directing a sequel to a horror movie series is a rather strange choice to make. And I don't know if this was done deliberately or not.

Now, I probably shouldn't judge too harshly. I've not even watched the movie yet, and it's possible that maybe a fresh face is what is needed for this film series. Granted, I understand it's the final entry and all, but it could still impress me. So anyway, with that overly long introduction out of the way, it's finally time for me to see if this movie is any good at all. And the only way I'm gonna find out 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 "Phantasm: Ravager".

18 minutes later

All right, guys, I know it's still a bit early in the film, but I think now might be the time to mention this. So far, the acting here, mainly from our returning cast members, such as Reggie and Mike, has been really good so far. And then I come across this red-haired woman named Dawn, and her acting is fucking terrible. Just thought I'd let you guys know now, so that way I don't have to mention it again later. At least, until I cover the acting for the overall review, but still. I'm hoping, maybe, that her acting will get better as the film goes along. But right now, I'm not having any hopes of that happening.

7 minutes later

Well, after being missed from the previous movie, the metal sphere is back again, and it apparently killed the worst actress in the entire movie. I guess that does answer my question on whether or not her acting would improve or not, so at least I can toss that point out of the way pretty quickly.

4 minutes later

O...K...well, holy shit, that's actually a first for this series! I've seen these things kill many humans throughout these movies, but this is the first time I've ever seen a metal sphere kill a horse in that fashion. That's actually...really fucked up. And I feel really sorry for that poor horse, too.

20 minutes later

Oh...well, never mind, Dawn is actually still alive...admittedly, while I'm not sure if her acting will improve here or not, I am curious as to how she's actually alive at all. Oh, and apparently, her name is actually Jane now. I'm gonna honest, guys, I'm a little bit lost here, but at least I am interested to see where else this movie's gonna go.

9 minutes later

So, I'm now getting a first look at this new hellish world by the Tall Man. And I gotta say, despite some questionable CG, it does actually look kinda cool! I'll get more into the special effects a little bit later on when I eventually cover this thing, but again, this new world by the Tall Man does look pretty cool, I will say that much.

3 minutes later

And apparently, we also have a new metal sphere as well. Although this one's more red, given that it causes someone's head to explode the moment it makes contact with it. I will say, though, that it still looked really cool, so at least there's that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Phantasm: Ravager". Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, before I give out my initial thoughts on this movie, I am gonna start by saying that the way that this movie decided to conclude itself, it gave me the impression that it was setting itself up for another sequel. Which, honestly, I would've been on board with that. Yeah, my overall opinions on these movies have been somewhat mixed, but I still would've like to have seen what they could've done with another movie. Now granted, I don't think it's ever going to happen, and I'll get to why later when I cover acting. But still, I think they could've done something else, had they decided to go forward with another movie. At least, I think so, anyway.

But anyways, let's actually get into the movie itself here. And as usual, I'm gonna start with the writing. Now, I'm gonna start off by talking about something I hinted at, but never really went into full detail on. So, way back when I reviewed the 3rd movie, I mentioned a horrible theory that I had when I was watching that movie, and it was about a certain line Jody mentioned to Reggie, saying that he shouldn't believe everything that he sees. And I wanted to hold off on discussing that theory until after I finished watching all of the movies in this series. Well, now that I have finished watching them, I believe it's now time for me to tell you guys what that horrible theory was. Essentially, my theory was that this entire movie series was just a dream made up in Reggie's mind. And I feared that he was going to end up in some kind of mental hospital all this time while of this was playing in his head. Now the latter part doesn't isn't really the issue, but more so of the whole thing just being a dream. Which, if that were the case, then it would've made this a waste of fucking time. Because, you had 5 movies to play with, and had they decided to end it with "oh, it was all a dream", then I would've been royally pissed, because I really despise it when movies pull this sort of shit. 

Now, believe it or not, they actually kinda do play with that theory, to a degree. Because, in this movie, Reggie is being told that he has dementia from Mike, who apparently looks a little bit different with the glasses and is a little bit of a nerd as well. But anyway, he tells Reggie that he's been treated at this mental hospital for some time, while Reggie believes that none of this is real, and that the Tall Man is manipulating him in some way. And throughout this movie, it plays with Reggie's mind on what's actually real and what isn't. And this honestly is something that you'll either be really interested in, or you're gonna be totally lost here. Because they play up this angle of the movie a lot, and it's to a certain point where it does this a little too much, in which it tries to mess up your mind, much like it's doing with Reggie. Which, in a way, it does work, seeing as how it wants to work in being a psychological horror movie, but again, it could've dialed this back a little bit.

In terms of characters, there's really honestly not a lot to say about the new characters here, because all of them are pretty flat and one dimensional. The only ones that are even worth mentioning at all are Reggie and the Tall Man. Reggie, I've kinda already talked about, but I wanted to bring up the Tall Man as well, because it sorta encapsulates the ongoing saga between Reggie and him, and why he has let Reggie live all this time when he could've killed him at any point. I won't go too deep into spoilers here regarding everything they've said, but I will say that it is really good stuff. And despite all the hell that Reggie has gone through against the Tall Man and his reanimated corpses, he's still pushing on the fight until he saves Mike and Jody. So, character depth wise, Reggie has it the best here. Especially when compared to the 2 previous films in the series where his character sorta regressed, and it was almost to a point where I even mentioned that I didn't think Coscarelli had any idea on what to do with Reggie's character anymore. Well thankfully, I was proven wrong here, as Reggie definitely had the best development here in this final entry.

So, writing wise, it's certainly better than what was in the 4th movie, which I still stand as the weakest entry of the entire franchise. This movie, although certainly nowhere near as interesting as the first 3 movies were, it still has enough here to make you see where it goes and how it ends. Admittedly, I don't consider this a true ending, but again, it'll just reiterate on what I already talked about earlier, so I'll leave it that. Now with that said, let's get into the acting. And before I talk about the main point of the acting, I will get the only bad actor out of the way here, and it's the same actress who plays Dawn in this movie, which also happens to be her first real name too. But anyway, to put it simply, guys, her acting is fucking terrible. And it's mainly because she sounds very one-noted and sounds very flat with her delivery. And that also goes for when she's playing as Jane. There's no real changes in her voice, other than that she sounds like a generic soldier agent, if that makes any sense at all. But yeah, guys, the acting from her is by far the worst of the entire casting here.

That said, though, let's actually talk about the rest of the acting, which is nothing but positives. When it comes to our recurring cast, all of them do a really good job with their given material. Admittedly, Bill Thornbury, who plays Jody, really only has like, a couple of lines here and there, so it wasn't enough for me to give my full thoughts on his acting, but it's still kinda nice to see him here again. A. Michael Baldwin as Mike pulls off a pretty good showing here. Reggie Bannister as, well...Reggie, probably pulls off one of the best performances he has given out since the first movie, which is actually saying something, given that he was given a much better script to work with.

And that, of course, leaves me with the best actor in the entire movie, which is, unsurprisingly, Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man. The very fact that this man, despite almost being in his 90's, can still pull it off is fucking amazing to see! Regardless of how I felt about the writing in these particular movies, he has always held this character together ever since his first appearance in 1979. And the fact that he can still pull it off 37 years later is, again, absolutely astonishing to see. And as much as I would've loved to have seen where he can take the Tall Man character in a potential sequel, that's not going to happen. Why? Well, simply put, this was one of the last films Angus Scrimm had a part in before passing away, which was also the same year that this movie came out in. Now, of course, you could potentially find someone else to play the Tall Man, however, they would never be able to replace the charm and tenacity that Angus Scrimm brought to the character. It's just personal bias, really. But with that said, the rest of the acting, minus the actress playing Dawn, did a great job here. So, kudos to the entire cast here for putting on such good performances here.

So now, let's, unfortunately, get into the special effects. Now I say unfortunately, because this is quite easily the worst part of the entire movie. And why is that? Well because, for the past 4 movies, I have praised the special effects from top to bottom about how great they've always been. And even though the first movie had some cheap-looking goofy effects, there was still a lot of charm and thought put into those effects, which is why I can't be too harsh with how they looked back then. This movie, however, I have to be harsh here, because most of the effects in this movie are fucking horrible. And I'm talking about everything involving CG, green screen effects, the digital effects in the guns looking like shit, explosions, just about everything involving those effects look horrible. Now before I sound contradictory, yes, I did say that I really liked the hellish world that was created by the Tall Man. But after really getting a chance to talk about it, the effects for that world still looked really bad what with everything I just said about it.

The only bright spot in the special effects are the practical effects, which are mainly used around the beginning, with the best highlight being the horse kill. But everything else...no, it's still fucking terrible. And yes, I am aware that this movie was made on a low budget. However, I must also stress that the other "Phantasm" movies were also made on low budgets. And, barring the first movie, the effects in those movies looked great for what they had to work with. This movie, on the other hand, almost felt like a Sy-Fy Channel Original Movie. Which is pretty fucking sad, considering the low quality those movies usually have. So yeah, unfortunately, the special effects here are mostly fucking terrible.

But otherwise, guys, the camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is lit perfectly fine. The sound-mix is also fine. And the music here, at least in terms of it's score anyway is pretty much up to par with how the previous 4 movies sounded. So, at least we have that in terms of it's consistency. It's not great, but it's still pretty good.

So, with all that said, guys, am I able to recommend "Phantasm: Ravager"? I'm gonna say yes, as long as if you've followed the previous 4 films in this series and you liked them enough to check out this fifth entry. For myself, personally speaking, it's certainly better than the 4th movie, but it's not quite saying a whole lot, considering how the other films range on being somewhat average for me. Still though, I can recommend it to fans of the "Phantasm" series. And on that note, I should probably give out my final thoughts on the "Phantasm" series as a whole package. Well...it's certainly a really interesting series of movies. Especially ones where they didn't go down the route of churning out a sequel almost every year just to make a quick buck. That said, however, all of these movies, even the first one, didn't entirely 'wow' me. And because of that, I'm probably never going to be watching these particular movies again unless I had some morbid curiosity for some reason. So yeah, I did enjoy watching these movies once, but sadly, I just don't see myself ever watching them again, unless, you know, morbid curiosity and everything. But if you enjoyed them more than I did, then that's awesome. More power to you if loved these movies. I myself, unfortunately, didn't. But I would've never known for myself what these movies were like until I covered them for this series. So, I can at least say that they were worth the time for me.

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 | I Spit On Your Grave

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an exploitation film from 1978. That movie is "I Spit On Your Grave".

Now, if you're not familiar with this movie, it's considered by many people to be one of the most famous exploitation films to ever exist, for better or for worse. I say this, because this movie's plot is centered around something pretty damn heavy. So, I'm not gonna sugarcoat anything when I tell you that the plot to this thing is essentially about a woman, who gets horribly raped and tortured by a group of savage men, and she sets out for revenge against her rapists who left her for dead.

I'm gonna tell you, guys, the reason why I wanted to watch this was simply because of it's premise alone. I really have a soft spot for revenge films. Granted, I understand that my track record with revenge movies for this series hasn't exactly been stellar, however, I still have hopes of this thing being great. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this thing is 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 "I Spit On Your Grave".

14 minutes later

You know, guys, what I find rather eerie about this movie so far? It's the fact that there's no music playing in this movie. OK sure, we had one of the guys playing a little bit of the harmonica, but aside from that, there's nothing resembling a score for this movie at all, so far. And I find that it's going to make that particular moment of the movie all the more chilling once we get to it. I've got a feeling about that.

19 minutes later

Guys, I've heard from people who have seen this movie that it's a very hard watch to get through. And from what I'm seeing myself right now, yeah...they weren't kidding about that. This is very hard to watch. And yet, despite that, I *can't* take my eyes away from it. That's how powerful this movie is!

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I would feel relieved by the fact that Matthew spared her life the way he did. But to be perfectly honest with you, guys, any sympathy I may have had for him, prior to that, is completely gone by the moment that he took part in the rape. And I'm not gonna be satisfied until he's fucking dead.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a legitimate question here. So, now these guys are talking about how it's been 2 weeks since these guys raped and "killed" Jennifer. And I want to emphasize that point, because they're at some sort of restaurant talking about all this, while other people are around as well! Don't you think that if anyone of them overheard them talking about this, that they would report them to the police? I don't know, it's just something that I was sorta thinking about, you know?

16 minutes later

Well, that's certainly a way to take him out. Not totally sure brutally hanging him would be my first choice, but you know what? It's still totally effective, so I'll take what I can get.

13 minutes later

You know, guys, I was gonna question why Jennifer was taking the methodical route on killing this guy. But you know what? It was *totally* worth it in the end. That one was fucking satisfying!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "I Spit On Your Grave". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Holy shit, what a movie...it's not often I ever get to say that, but it was definitely worth seeing after all this time.

Let me start off by saying that, going into this thing, I knew what to expect from it. Not just from what I've heard about it, but from seeing a trailer of this thing from way back when. For me, personally, this was the kind of movie that I was going to like. Because, like I said earlier, I have a soft spot for revenge movies, and I've never had a chance to see this one before until now. And I've heard a lot of things about it, both positive and negatively. Things such as how it's one of the most controversial films to be ever made for it's time, or how it supposedly "glorifies" rape. Which, if you read up on why the director of this movie, Meir Zarchi, wanted to make this movie, that's not the case at all. And quite frankly, if Zarchi had chickened out and made it differently than how he originally wanted to make it, then it would've completely destroyed this movie entirely. Now, I get that this is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, I can assure you on that. However, I am happy that Zarchi got to make the movie in his own vision, and I can safely say that the final product most definitely delivers. At least, to me it does.

Anyway, let's get into the writing here. Now admittedly, there really isn't a whole lot of writing here, other than what I've already touched upon to you guys. So instead, I actually want to touch upon the characters in this movie. And I want start off with our main character, Jennifer Hills. Now admittedly, she does start off kinda sorta bland at first, as she's just trying to write her first novel at a summer home she's staying at. But after she goes through the whole rape ordeal by her attackers, she gets emotionally destroyed, to which she later gets her revenge on her rapists. And the whole thing makes her feel almost...numb afterwards. Which is a scary thought, but it's rather understandable. Because she was raped at least 3 or 4 times throughout the whole movie. I couldn't even begin to imagine the kind of pain that she went through. And it makes you care about her, because you *want* to see her getting revenge on the ruthless savages that had their way with her.

Speaking of which, I want touch upon one of the rapists in this movie, which would be Matthew. See, Matthew in this movie is kinda the nerd of the group. He reveals later on to the other would-be rapists that he has never been laid before and how he made friends with Jennifer, who just moved into her summer home. And I believe it's from this motivation in which these guys start their little raping crusade on Jennifer, because they did it for him, and that they want to see him lose his virginity by raping our leading lady. Now the first time that they do this, Matthew actually develops something of a conscious and let's her go. Yes, he was partially responsible for holding her down on a couple of occasions while she was being raped, but I think he genuinely felt really bad about it and didn't want to go any further on it.

But it was at the moment that Jennifer made it back to her summer home in which her rapists were lying in wait for her that began to change Matthew. And mind you, at this point, Jennifer is completely drained both physically and mentally. Which is where they finally give Matthew the encouragement that he needed to go through with the horrible act. Which he does, however, in very slight defense of him, he doesn't goes entirely all the way, like how the other two rapists did earlier on. That said, I still hold that after that moment that he puts his body on top of her, any ounce of sympathy that I may have had for him completely disappeared after that. Because *he* took part in it, he went through it, and is ultimately no better than the rest of his psychopathic friends. Now granted, he doesn't actually kill her, like his friends told him to do so, but still, my point about him still stands.

Now admittedly, this movie does have a couple of problems, the controversial rape scenes not counting. One of those problems I'll get into a little later on, but one of the problems that this movie kinda suffers from is it's pacing. I say "kinda", because the pacing is a little bit uneven at times. Because the first hour of the movie, it sets up our main character, our rapists, and the setting, along with the controversial rape scenes. All of that takes place within the first hour of the movie. The latter 40 minutes or so is essentially Jennifer slowly getting her revenge on her captors. And the reason why she does it slowly is because her method of killing them is more on the methodical side of things rather than going for the quick kill. Which, admittedly, could be seen as more of a potential lapse in logic. But you have to understand that it had only been 2 weeks since the horrible incident that took place, and she's still at her summer home. So I imagined that she had been taking her time on how deal her revenge against her rapists, while also trying recuperate on dealing with her emotional pain and suffering.

That said, I do like how this movie took it's time, rather than quickly rushing into things and getting her revenge over and done with. Though admittedly, the ending is a little anti-climatic, but other than that, the rest of the pacing is rather good, too. Other than that, guys, the writing here is great. It really sucks you in it's story from the moment it kicks off. Even during the very raw moments of the film, whether it's the rape scenes themselves or the revenge bit in the latter half of the movie, it still keeps your interest and doesn't let up on it. Now I understand that this kind of movie is not going to be for everyone, however, I'll get into all that later when I get to recommendations. But I will summarize my thoughts here by stating, again, that the writing here is great.

Acting here is kind of a mixed bag though. Our actors playing the rapists kinda ham it a little bit, with the guy playing Matthew, who definitely sounds rather goofy with his performance, being the most hammy of the bunch. It's not great, but at least it is decent enough for what they had to work with. The best actress, by far though, would have to go to Camille Keaton as our main star. She nails this performance down perfectly. Even during the horrible rape scenes, she still gives out a 110% here. She makes it sound very believable and it makes her performance stand out in an incredible way. She was perfect for this role, and I commend her the most for taking on such a role like this. The rest of the acting is kinda weak, but it's still serviceable enough to make the film work in their favor.

Special effects in this movie are actually pretty good. Now mind you, this film was made on a ridiculously low budget. It was only made for $80,000, but they still made that budget work for the most part. The makeup effects here are decent, the blood and gore effects are pretty good, as well. It's not great, and I've seen better practical effects done in other low budget films, but I'd still say that they were pretty good, overall.

Our camerawork here is really good for low budget standards. The lighting is pretty good here, too. The sound-mix, though, is admittedly one of the only other issues that this movie kinda suffers from. And I'm mainly talking about a few scenes here and there in which some of the acting sounds kinda muffled. It's hard to hear what they are saying at times, and it also kinda hurts some scenes that are shot outdoors, because the background noise will come into effect by drowning out some of the actor's dialogue. It probably would've helped some things if they had gotten a boom mic to help pick up what the actors were saying in those bits. Again, I understand this thing was made on a low budget, but I'm pretty sure, even by late 1970's standards, that boom mics probably didn't cost that much to get. Now admittedly, I don't have the figures for it, so you'll just have to take what I said about that with a grain of salt. Still though, my criticisms still stand on this issue.

Last thing I want to cover is the music. Well, more specifically, the lack of music. Because this movie is one of those rare instances where it does not have any kind of music, both in score and soundtrack. Now again, there is some bits of music here, such as where one of our rapists is playing a harmonica or there is someone playing an organ at a church, but there is no overall score here. Which actually helps this movie, because, as I've made mention before, the lack of music is what sometimes helps enhance a movie's atmosphere. And this movie is definitely no exception. Throughout the first half hour of the movie, I couldn't help but feel that there is something here that felt rather eerie about it. And my hunch was right, because it eventually led up to the rape scenes. And it makes the film's atmosphere that much more eerie and suspenseful, because if they had any kind of music playing during those rape scenes, I feel like it would've destroyed the movie's atmosphere. Which makes me dread on how exactly the remake from 2010 handled it. I'm probably never going to watch it simply because of the possibility that they'll never do this movie justice. So, setting aside that topic, the lack of music here is fantastic, in which they don't really utilize any score at all here.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "I Spit On Your Grave"? Yes, I definitely can. But, I obviously have to put in a warning here that you have to go into it knowing what to expect. This movie is definitely *not* for the faint of heart. So if you have a weakness to this sort of subject being played out, then you're obviously not gonna want to watch this thing. This movie is very raw with it's subject and is not gonna shy away from it at all. And if you're someone who is strong enough to handle this kind of subject, then you're most likely gonna enjoy this movie. As for myself, I really enjoyed this thing immensely. Yes, it's a very uncomfortable film, but like I said, it knows what it wants to be, and I knew what to expect going into it. As a revenge movie, it's probably one of the best ones I've ever seen. Granted, that may not be saying a whole lot, given the track record it has going for this series, but it's still a great movie, and I will probably watch it again at some point. For now though, I'm gonna go watch something else, maybe something a little bit more light-hearted after watching this thing. I don't know, maybe I'll watch something like "Kiki's Delivery Service". It's been a little while since I last saw it, so I'm gonna go do that next after 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 | Phantasm IV: Oblivion

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're continuing the "Phantasm" series by taking a look at the fourth entry that came out in 1998. That movie is "Phantasm IV: Oblivion".

Now, if I had to summarize my overall thoughts on the "Phantasm" series up till this point, I would say that they have been really interesting. Mind you, when I say that, I am not saying that they're great movies or anything, but I still do enjoy them and I still want to see where they go with this series.

That said, though, I do need to confess something. I've noticed that with each movie that we've gone through, the quality of the writing in these movie has been slowly declining. Now again, I am not saying that these movies have been bad or anything, in fact, I was still able to recommend the two prior movies if you enjoyed the first one. It's just that I've been noticing more and more issues when it comes to the writing in these particular movies, and I fear that I may find more issues here once I start watching this fourth movie.

Now I'm hoping that I'm wrong here. I would love for this 4th movie to exceed my expectations and be amazing. However, I also have to keep in mind that when it comes to sequels, preferably horror movie sequels, they usually start to really go down in quality by the 4th entry. A great example would be the 4th "Wishmaster" movie, AKA "Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled". That film was so bad that it pretty much killed that entire franchise. Thankfully, at least with the "Phantasm" series, it did get a 5th movie, however, I'll get more into that after I get through this one first.

So with all this in mind, I'm hoping for this one to be really good. And the only way I am gonna find out if this thing is 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 "Phantasm IV: Oblivion".

13 minutes later

OK, I have a question about something. So, Reggie is now on his own while Jody is now telling him that he should continue looking for Mike. That's fine and everything, but what exactly happened to Tim? The kid that was with Reggie in the previous movie. Did he actually end up getting killed by the Tall Man or something? Based on the ending of the previous movie, it *seems* like that might be the case, but it's still very vague, given that all of these movies have had these cliffhanger endings where the characters still lived in the sequels. I'm hoping that it gets explained at some point, but it just seems kinda messed up to leave Tim's status the way it is now, you know what I mean?

8 minutes later

OK well, that was kinda messed up. I've never seen one of these reanimated corpses spill out their yellow blood into Reggie's mouth like that. I'm not even sure if I should even call it blood at this point, but still, it was definitely messed up. And I definitely would not want someone's yellow blood being splurged into my mouth like that.

13 minutes later

All right, I have a big question here, and it's something I've been wondering about for a while now. So, up until this point, we've been seeing scenes of Mike as a young boy again. And it seems like this is the same actor that was in the first movie. So my question is that are all these scenes that we've been seeing are all deleted scenes from the first movie? I'm asking this, because I genuinely don't believe that they hired new actors to play Mike, Jody, or even the Tall Man for these particular scenes. I genuinely believe that they were just using scenes that didn't make the cut from the first movie and tried to implement them in this movie somehow. So it makes me curious as to how many scenes there were that they filmed, but originally never made the cut? I'm really curious about that now.

20 minutes later

So, guys, I was hoping I wouldn't have to ask this, especially now that we're on the 4th entry of this series, but is anything interesting gonna happen in this movie? Because, I'm gonna tell you, guys, right now, the pacing in this movie has become rather glacial. And it's sad for me to ask this because the previous "Phantasm" movies, for all the flaws that they've had, still made me interested to see where they were gonna go. But this one is not really doing it for me for some reason. I'm hoping the next half hour or so will get more interesting, but as of right now, the pacing in this movie is slowly starting to kill it for me.

6 minutes later

Well...that's certainly creative-looking. I didn't think I'd get to see metal sphere boobs on a woman in a "Phantasm" movie, but I did. And...well, again, it's certainly creative. I'll say that much.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Phantasm IV: Oblivion". Let me go ahead shut the movie off here...OK. Hmm...well, I called it. I said earlier that I kept finding more problems with the writing in these "Phantasm" movies, and I feared that I would find more of those problems if I watched this movie. And yeah, I did. I was hoping not to, but just based on what I watched, I can easily say that this is, by far, the weakest entry in the entire "Phantasm" series. Gosh, this was just massively disappointing.

Let's just get into this by talking about the movie itself. I'm gonna start with writing. And I want to start off by confirming something I had asked earlier, in which if this movie was actually using deleted footage that never made it in the first movie. And that is actually true. Now admittedly, I don't know how much old footage was used in this movie, because I wasn't able to find any information on that. But regardless, they were able to use it in a way to fill in gaps and to also correlate with how the movie is being written here. And I will say that it does kinda work, to a degree. However, the problem is that it feels like it almost overtakes about half of the entire movie. And what we have here that isn't old unused footage feels like it really doesn't go much of anywhere. I'll get more into this in a second, but to me, it just feels like the movie doesn't really feel like a direct sequel. It just feels more like an in-between prequel/sequel movie that mostly just tries to fill in gaps that may feel somewhat unnecessary. Again, I do like how they were able to use unused footage that never made it into the first movie, but I feel like it doesn't really advance much of the actual story that we got here.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the actual story we got here for this movie. Now, setting aside unused footage and everything, the story here really is kind of a rehash of what was pulled off in the previous movie. Once again, Mike is on his own, as he tries to outwit the Tall Man in order to not become one of his victims. And to do this, he actually is able to travel through these dimension poles in Death Valley, and is able to travel back in time to the past to where he comes across the Tall Man before he became evil. And he actually had a name too, in which he was called Jebediah Morningside. In which it's here, we're finally able to get more of a backstory on the guy himself. Which is admittedly cool to see, however, I feel like, being that we're on the fourth entry now, it just feels like a situation of too little too late. I would have love to seen more of this within the first or second movie. Though to be fair, they did kinda scratched the surface of that in the first movie. But to have it here now, at this juncture of the franchise, seems like a bit of desperation to me. Now mind you, the backstory for the Tall Man is perfectly fine and all. It just feels like, to me anyway, that they could've pulled this off a bit more sooner is what I'm trying to get at.

Now since I just finished talking about the Tall Man's backstory, let's actually get more into the characters. Mike really hasn't changed all that much, apart from acting somewhat monotone throughout the movie. Although to be fair, I can kinda understand his position, seeing as how long he's been being chased and all. And as for Reggie, well, his character honestly feels like it serves no purpose in this movie whatsoever. And I'm not kidding about that either, guys, because they are rehashing the same kind of shit they did in the second movie with him, in which it's basically just another road trip featuring mainly him. Well, he does end up meeting a woman named Jennifer here, but she really plays almost no part in this movie. And I feel like if you cut her out of the movie entirely, you wouldn't be missing a thing with her around. But aside from her, Reggie, like I said, just does the same kind of shit here. And it's to a point where I feel like Don Coscarelli, who also wrote this movie, has no idea on what to do with Reggie at all. I feel like he's only here because he's Mike's friend and guardian. But aside from that, any advancements on his character is completely non-existent here.

And that brings me to one of the biggest problems with this movie as a whole, which would be the film's pacing. This thing feels incredibly slow. In fact, I'd say it's much slower here than the how second movie was. At least there, when that movie picked up, it picked up pretty quickly and got interesting again. Here though, there's very few bits of interest that happen in this movie, to which it ends up becoming boring. I'd never thought I'd say that about a "Phantasm" film, but this thing almost felt fucking boring to watch! And mind you, the movie's only about 90 minutes long, but it honestly felt it went on for almost 2 hours long instead. And it brings me back to the unused footage, because I feel like, when this movie was being made, they didn't have enough original footage to fill in the necessary material to make it a feature length film, so they had to fill in enough of what wasn't used in the first movie and insert here so that they could get enough material in order to make the film feel feature length. Now mind you, this is just me theorizing here, so I could be totally wrong about that part. But that's what it felt like to me when watching this movie, it just felt longer than it should of been.

So yeah, guys, the writing here has definitely gone down in quality. Now that being said, I hesitate to call this a "bad" movie, it's just not all that impressive with it's lackluster writing. That being said, though, I can say that the acting is still rather good for the most part. Everybody here worked with what they could work with. Mind you now, the acting isn't great, aside from Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm still putting on great performances. But still though, I wouldn't say that the acting from the rest of the cast was awful or anything, it was just decent for most part.

Special effects are also pretty good, too. This is one thing I can definitely say about the special effects is that, barring the first film, they've always stayed consistent with each movie and I'm glad to see that same amount of consistency here. There is one bit of usage for CG in this movie, and that is at the very beginning of the movie where you get to see a bunch of metal spheres flying in one large group together. It's pretty good stuff, even by the standards of 1998. The practical effects are also good, too. Sadly, there isn't any killing involving a metal sphere here, which is actually really disappointing when you really think about it, but the effects involving them still look good. So I can at least say that much.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is lit very well. The sound-mix here is perfectly fine. And the score here is also decent, too. It's nothing special, but still very atmospheric when it wants to be.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Phantasm IV: Oblivion"? Um...well, if you've followed the previous 3 movies, and you enjoyed them, then you'll probably find something to like here as well. However, I personally wasn't able to find much enjoyment out of this 4th installment. I really wanted to be proven wrong and hope that this movie was gonna be amazing. But sometimes, you can be totally right on your first assumption. This movie's quality in writing definitely declined, and I personally don't see myself ever watching this one again. It's just ultimately forgetful, and very disappointing, too. And I have no idea what the fuck they're gonna do for the fifth movie, especially considering the year it came out in. However, I'll get to all that when I eventually cover it in a couple of weeks. For now, though, I'm gonna go do something better. Perhaps I'll just go and watch something like "Wicked City". Why not? I haven't seen that in over a year and a half, so I'm gonna go do that next once I get done typing this review up.

Anyways, 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 | Simon Sez

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out an action flick from 1999. That movie is "Simon Sez".

No, guys, you are not mis-seeing things, this is an action film starring Dennis Rodman. I'll get more into him in a second. But first things first, that title sounds *incredibly* stupid. I don't know if it's meant to mean something, or if it's just some idiotic attempt to pluralize the letter Z to make it sound "edgy" and "cool". And if it's the latter, then it fails miserably at it.

Now, skipping past the stupid title, let's get back into talking about our film's star here. I don't really know anything about the movie, plot wise, other than the fact that it stars Mr. Rodman here. And the only other film I can recall ever seeing him in was when he teamed up with Jean-Claude Van Damme in "Double Team". And for the record, "Double Team" really kinda sucked. So you'll forgive me if I'm going into this one with very low standards, considering Rodman is flying solo here.

I have no idea if this thing is going to be any good at all. I have strong doubts that it's probably not going to be, but maybe, just maybe, Dennis Rodman could actually surprise me here somehow. Again, my doubts on that are incredibly low here, but there *is* that slight chance that it could be sorta interesting. Really though, the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is interesting 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 "Simon Sez".

10 minutes later

Guys, I'm just gonna state this right now. Even though these two dipshit buddies of Simon have barely been on screen for about a few minutes now, I'm already beginning to get annoyed by them real quick. I'm hoping maybe that we'll get to see less of them as the movie goes on. But right now, these two idiots have already left a negative impression on me.

7 minutes later

So, guys, I may just have to rescind my statement from earlier, because I have just found the most annoying character in this entire movie. Nick Miranda. This guy is becoming aggravating with each passing minute that he's been on screen, and it's becoming very tiresome, very quick. And the more that this guy gets screen time, the more that I just want him to fucking die! I have a sneaking suspicion that he won't die, but god damn it, I gotta have a little bit of faith here in the hopes that it does happen.

19 minutes later

OK, I have a legitimate question here. So, Simon's car has the ability to lean right, meaning that it'll just drive on the right two wheels of it's side. Now I normally wouldn't care about this, seeing as it's just an action film, but is it normal for a car to lean like that while driving? I could maybe understand if it did that for like, a few seconds or so before falling back on all fours, but it's *still* going at only two wheels! You would think that the damn thing would've just tipped over by now, but no, it's still somehow able to keep going like that. Well, *was*, but now it's finally back on all fours. Still though, you can only suspend your disbelief for so long before you start question it's intelligence.

10 minutes later

So, guys, we're now being treated to...I guess, it's suppose to be a mixture of a sex scene and a soft-core porno flick between Simon and this chick. I can't really tell what it's suppose to be, because the lights are flickering and the music is shit on top of it. Granted, the woman that Simon is supposedly banging is sexy as hell. But sadly, I don't really give a fuck about this scene, so...go figure, I guess.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, it's kinda funny that the only character in this movie that I sorta like is our villain, Ashton. Why? Because he acts a little bit cartoonishly, but not to the point where he becomes ridiculously annoying. Unlike our supporting characters, who are all ridiculously annoying. That is kinda sad to admit when the only character that is even likable at all is the one villain who you're not suppose to be rooting for. That's just classy, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Simon Sez". Thank god it's over. Let me this garbage movie off here...OK. Christ almighty, that was terrible...well, where the hell do I even start here? I knew, going into this movie, that it was gonna suck. Except I didn't think it was going to suck this badly. Sure, I had low expectations from the start, but this movie didn't even meet those standards! That's how bad it really is.

Let's just go ahead and get right into this thing. Let's start off with the writing. And I'm not gonna spend too much time on the writing here, because well, it's an action film, and most people don't really care about that kind of thing when it comes to this genre of film. Which is funny, because the story here is incredibly bare bones. Essentially, our main character, Simon, is an Interpol agent who gets tasked with rescuing a girl from an arms dealer named Ashton, who, in exchange, wants a disc that contains secrets to a weapon that'll be used to destroy shit. And joining him on this little adventure is his painfully annoying partner, Nick, who I'll talk more about in a moment. His two, almost equally, annoying friends who assist mostly as his tech support, his hot ex-girlfriend who's accent I can't determine if it's either French or Russian, and the kidnapped girl's boyfriend, whose name I don't fucking remember because he is just that forgettable. So yeah, story wise, this movie is doing nothing new or different, and it's something we've seen done many times beforehand in plenty of other action movies.

I may as well just stop side-stepping the issue here and start talking about the characters. Now, there are 3 types of personalities you're gonna find in this movie. You are either gonna be painfully annoying, such as Simon's two friends or Nick. You are gonna be personality free and boring as shit, such as the case with Simon himself. Or you're just gonna be fucking forgettable, such as the case with the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl or Simon's ex-girlfriend. All of these characters don't have any depth or range of likability to them whatsoever. The worst of this has to go Nick Miranda. The best way I can summarize this character is if you had that one friend who *really* wants to hang out with you, wants to have a good time, and is suppose to be the life of the party. But in actuality, that friend is just being ridiculously annoying and that you just want to spend some time by yourself. That is honestly the nicest way I can describe Dane Cook's character in this movie. He essentially likes to chew up the scenery when he's on screen, but he does it in a way where it's not charming in the slightest. That is how much his character in this movie sucks.

And again, the only character who actually seemed somewhat likable was our main villain, Ashton. Like I said before, he ranges on being a bit cartoony, but at the very least, he has something resembling charm to his character. Mind you, his character in this movie is not really good either, but he doesn't tread the path on becoming painfully annoying, unlike Nick, who just doesn't know when to shut the fuck up at times. While I'm kinda on the subject here, the movie also tries to be a comedy. And I'm gonna tell you right now that the comedy in this thing fails miserably because none of this shit is funny at all. I didn't laugh when Dane Cook was making those stupid-looking faces the first time he goes against Simon's ex-girlfriend, nor did I get a laugh out of Simon's two idiotic friends. Nothing about the humor here works. Most of it comes from Dane Cook's character, Nick, but like I said, all of it is unfunny, especially coming from him. I don't care if his character is suppose to be inept, it still made me despise him every time he showed up on screen. Which, unsurprisingly, makes him the worst character of this entire movie.

Now since I've been mostly focusing on the characters here, let's actually talk about the acting next. Most of the acting here sucks. The worst actor by far, would have to be our main star Dennis Rodman. Which really shouldn't come as a shock to nobody, considering Rodman's "illustrious filmography" and all, but the reason why he's the worst one here is mainly because his acting borders on being wooden and he honestly sounds really fucking bored, too. Which, I'm not totally sure if that's how he naturally sounds when attempting to act, but regardless, he easily phones in the worst performance. Second place would have to go Dane Cook's character, Nick, for all of the reasons that I explained already. Nobody here really tried very much. But then again, there is only so much you can do when given a script that is this fucking poor to begin with.

Special effects in this movie suck balls. But before I comment on why, I will grant the movie two things. The fight choreography was halfway decent, and the squib work on the guns were OK, too. That's it. Those are the *only* two positives I can grant this movie as a whole. But getting back to the shitty special effects, I was originally not gonna comment on this one very much, because the only things that I happened to notice were a mechanical CG fly and bee that were used to serve as spy cameras made by Simon's two friends. And if it were just those two instances, then I would've said that the CG on them isn't all that amazing, even by the standards 1999. But that's when we get towards the very end of the movie, in which Simon is escaping from a building, and the building explodes. And what comes afterwards is when we get to see the fire effects as Simon is walking away from the burning building. To put it simply, guys, the fire effects during that scene are *horrible*! Like, this is genuinely some of the worst-looking CG fire I have ever seen in any movie in a long time. I don't care if this was made on a low budget, there is no excuse to have CG fire that looks this fucking bad! So much so that, that one scene made me push the special effects into becoming shit as a whole.

Let's talk about editing next. Oh yes, guys, the editing in this movie is horrible. The best example of how bad the editing is in this movie is during a scene in the third act, where one of Simon's friends, who was also the fat Caucasian monk, trembles over a bridge after a fight scene and is holding on for dear life. Simon goes over to rescue him after getting involved in a shootout with Ashton's men, and it's here where we get to see the failures of the editing come into play. So as Simon is running over towards him, you get to see a wider shot of the fat guy holding onto the bridge railing. And as this shot happens, you get to notice the size difference of the actor that's suppose to be holding onto the railing, because it shows the guy looking incredibly skinny. And again, I would like to remind you guys that the actor is fat. So, when you show a skinny-looking guy trying to disguise himself as a fat guy, it kinda makes you question why exactly didn't they hire a stunt double to try and match the size of how the fat one looked? I understand that it would be kinda difficult for someone who is obviously overweight to try and hold onto a bridge railing for so long, but you could've possibly filmed it in a way to where the overweight actor doesn't have anything to fear from falling. So for them to just say "fuck it" and hire an obviously skinny stunt double to, in no way, look like the same overweight actor, just comes off as incredibly lazy on the filmmakers part.

Camerawork here is OK for what it is. The lighting here is mostly fine, save for that one scene I mentioned earlier where Simon and his ex-girlfriend were banging each other. Sound-mix here is mixed fine, and the music here is shit. At times, it tries to go for techno music, and the techno music here sucks. But then again, techno music isn't really that good anyways, so it's whatever really. The rest of the music that isn't techno is incredibly forgetful, too. So really, you're not missing here when it comes to this movie's music.

So overall, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Simon Sez"? No. Fuck no. This movie is garbage on just about every conceivable level. There is nothing about this thing that I could consider worth watching, unless if you're someone who really likes these kind of shitty action movies with little to no plot whatsoever. And if that *is* your thing, then you might something here that you'll really like. But as for myself, well...no. I am never gonna be watching this stupid thing ever again. Because, one, I like to have most of my action movies have something resembling substance. And secondly, I'm hoping and praying that I *never* have to watch another movie starring Dennis Rodman in anything else. This movie proved, to me, that the man cannot act, if just by the viewings of both this and "Double Team" are anything to go by. So yeah, guys, I'm done talking about this movie. Right now, I just want to go watch something different. Perhaps maybe I'll watch the 1993 "Judge Dredd" movie starring Sylvester Stallone. While that is kinda stupid as well, at least there's something resembling substance in that thing. So that's what I'm gonna go do next after I get done typing this review up.

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.