Monday, January 27, 2020

"I Never Saw Such a Fog or Chill as This" - Garden of the Dead (1972) - Film #171


If John Hayes had directed only Grave of the Vampire (1972) and End of the World (1977), he would be considered one of the world's finest auteurs. But he directed additional classics as well, including the early zombie film Garden of the Dead (1972), which we now consider, and which warns the world about the horrific side effects of sniffing formaldehyde.

One wonders what the reviewers of your universe are sniffing when they refuse to accept Garden of the Dead as a classic. Reviewer MetalGeek writes, "It isn't scary, isn't gory, and isn't even silly enough to be considered 'so bad it's good.'" Reviewer gattonero975 writes, "This 'Garden' should definable be left alone and left to dry and die!" Dry and die? How cruel! And reviewer pawned79 writes, "Nothing I can say can possible describe the horror that I felt when I watched this movie." (Perhaps a compliment, though this reviewer's score of 3 out of 10 for the film argues against such an interpretation.)

Read on for a true appreciation of the great John Hayes's atmospheric and innovative zombie film...

Monday, January 20, 2020

"No Good Comes Out of That Lake. Except the Fish I Catch" - Blood Sabbath (1972) - Film #170


One highly entertaining cinematic genre is the metaphysical allegory titled to suggest it is an intense horror film. Blood Sabbath is one of the strongest of this small but high-quality genre.

Reviewer coventry writes, "Not one sequence in the entire movie makes the slightest bit of sense and everything looks so poor it almost becomes pitiful." Reviewer DigitalRevenantX7 writes, "The special effects, when they do appear, are so poor that you end up groaning in disappointment." And reviewer BA_Harrison writes, "it proves to be rather incoherent, and very tedious."

These reviewers are clearly uninterested in subtlety and allegorical meaning. Read on for a more balanced look at 1972's Blood Sabbath...

Monday, January 13, 2020

"The Perfect Place for a Psychotic Investigation" - Nightwish (1988) - Film #169


One of the prime periods of creativity in American film was the middle to late eighties, when filmmakers mined the surrealism introduced in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to great effect. A fine example of surrealism is Bruce R. Cook's Nightwish (1988), which we discuss today.

Some of your universe's critics are not kind to Nightwish. For example, reviewer mrcool1122, under the headline "Worst Movie Ever," writes, "you'll leave this movie feeling alone and taken advantage of, like a puppy who isn't wanted anymore and is left in a box by the side of the road. Blech." Reviewer paul_haakonsen writes, "I managed to endure an hour of the ordeal before I gave up. By then I had simply lost all interest in the movie and the pointless storyline and the random happenings of events that made little sense." And reviewer WisdomsHammer writes, "The overall story was what did me in. I wasn't invested in any of these characters and the ending was so predictable and lackluster that I groaned."

Read on for the truth about Nightwish...

Monday, January 6, 2020

“A Jesus Freak Now Believes in Spacemen” - Heatstroke (2008) - Film #168


How could a movie with alien dinosaurs, D. B. Sweeney, and Danica McKellar fail to be a classic? Of course, that is a rhetorical question, signaling the beginning of our discussion of 2008's Heatstroke, a classic monster movie set in a tropical paradise.

Some of your universe's critics fail to understand classics like Heatstroke. For example, reviewer rob_p writes, "The script was deplorable. Predictable and cliché ridden. The characters were flat and uninteresting. The CGI aliens are appallingly bad." Reviewer kiawa77 writes, "I just kept watching it in order to write a review on it, but I can't even write a decent review because it was really that bad. A terrible, illogical script with a set of wooden actors delivering their lines in a very flat way." And reviewer kiat-2 writes, "The director has cooked up a turkey - the very worst film I've seen for a long time."

Read on...