Tag Archives: movie reviews

October 2, 2016 · 8:06 pm

PONTYPOOL (2008): A ZOMBIE FILM THAT’S UNIQUE

pontypool

Pontypool

Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues! If you’re like me you’re bored with all of the zombie and pseudo-zombie films and tv shows that seem to come out every few months. Pontypool is at least a zombie film that defies the formula.

PONTYPOOL (2008) – Pontypool is based on the novel by Tony Burgess and is set in a small town in Ontario. The best way to describe this original and thought-provoking movie would be by saying “If PBS decided to do a zombie film I think it would go something like this …”

The movie stars Stephen McHattie who portrays Grant Mazzy, a former shock jock from America. He’s currently languishing on a small station in the backwoods of Canada after his provocative antics got him fired one too many times from radio stations in the States.

pontypool-2He tries to liven up his boring gig on local radio by suggesting some unorthodox public behavior to his listeners and is as surprised as his female producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) when people around the area begin taking him up on the suggestion. As reports continue to come into the tiny radio station it soon becomes apparent that the population isn’t just extremely receptive to suggestion, many of them have become living zombies with a desire to kill anyone not similarly stricken.  Continue reading →

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September 17, 2016 · 4:30 pm

BATWOMAN (1968) MOVIE REVIEW

This time around the subject is the 1968 Mexican film Batwoman (La Mujer Murcielago).

Batwoman 1For starters this should NOT be confused with the Jerry Warren film The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman, but often is because Warren was the stateside distributor for plenty of Mexican films in the 50s and 60s. This movie is purely a Luchadora film with Batwoman being a wrestler as well as a seasoned crime fighter.   

It’s not quite fair to call this a “bad” film, but it is a bit of a weird one. In my view it’s much tighter and more entertaining than most of the El Santo movies from Mexico. And I’m not just saying that because of how incredibly sexy the star Maura Monti is. She has an arresting (see what I did there) figure that’s perfect for her version of the Batwoman outfit: a bikini, boots, mask and cape. 

Batwoman 2Like the Turkish movie Three Dev Adam, which features Spider-Man, Captain America and El Santo, this little honey did not pay for character rights but slipped under the radar long ago thanks to its south-of-the- border origins. Maura Monti has a certain screen presence that was lacking in other Luchadora flicks like Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy. And this movie is nowhere near the embarrassment that Halle Berry’s Catwoman was. Continue reading →

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September 10, 2016 · 5:33 pm

ZUMA (1985) & DAUGHTER OF ZUMA (1987)

 Readers have requested that I review Zuma, but I already did long ago, along with its sequel so here it is again. To see if I’ve already reviewed a movie you are curious about click HERE

ZUMA (1985) – Category: Enjoyably bad movie elevated by its obscurity value      

There’s an old saying that goes “Once you have a big green bald guy with pythons growing out of his neck you never go back.” Or something to that effect. This monstrous figure is Zuma himself, the Freddy Krueger of the Philippines in the 1980s. Big, muscular and green like the Hulk, bald like Mr Clean and with pythons growing out of his neck like the late Michael Jackson. (Disclaimer: The preceding remark is probably not true)

Originally a comic book character in the Philippines, Zuma took the film industry of the islands by storm with his debut film in 1985 and a sequel in 1987. Copies of these films have been Continue reading →

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September 7, 2016 · 11:02 pm

BAD MOVIES FOR BACK TO SCHOOL TIME

What better way to mark the return of the school year than with the absurdity of those over-the- top Juvenile Delinquent films of the 1950s and 1960s? 

high-school-caesarHIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) – John Ashley, who was about as menacing as Ned Flanders, plays a bitter rich teenage punk who runs illegal operations at his high school like a junior version of organized crime. The title is a reference to Little Caesar, the gangster movie with Edward G Robinson.

Ashley’s JD character peddles the answers to exams, rigs school elections and bilks money from his classmates. All of this is played so seriously you will die laughing. There’s also the obligatory Drag Race and OF COURSE someone dies while drag racing. My Bad Movie page has a full-length review of this one if you’re interested.

shake-rattle-and-rockSHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – In this hilarious movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950’s. Not only does one particularly irrational city ban rock music completely but it puts the local rock DJ on trial!

They hold him accountable for the vandalism and other JD activities that hit the town because, by their logic, the “wild” music he played CAUSED the teenagers to commit their crimes. This is Continue reading →

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August 13, 2016 · 8:05 pm

SON OF THE BLACK MASS: SWORD OF ADVENTURE (1964)

Sword of Adventure 2Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the Son of the Black Mass  Samurai films from Japan. In the previous installment I reviewed the first of the films to star Raizo Ichikawa, the man who made the character his own even though there were three films made with the figure before Ichikawa and two after his death in 1969.

The title character was Kyoshiro Nemuri – a red-haired Samurai, the offspring of a Japanese woman and the insane Portugese Christian Missionary who raped her. That madman was dabbling in Satanism and so Nemuri was conceived during a Black Mass, hence the title of the novels and the subsequent film series. Continue reading →

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July 31, 2016 · 9:59 pm

WESTERN-THEMED HORROR FILMS

Frontierado is Friday, August 5th!

For a change of pace I’ll give a brief synopsis of western-flavored horror flicks. In keeping with my blog’s theme of covering out of the way topics I won’t be examining movies that are too well known, like Billy the Kid vs Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter or The Terror of Tiny Town. Ditto for more recent movies like Sundown and Billy The Kid In Hell. As for West World and Welcome to Blood City, those are more science fiction than horror, so they aren’t included either.  

BLACK NOON (1971) – Roy Thinnes stars as an old west preacher who falls in with a coven of witches in the town of Melas (Salem spelled backwards of course). The witches tempt Thinnes into thinking he’s a prophet and healer, then use his vanity against him and his wife during their dark ritual of the Black Noon, which takes place during a mid-day eclipse.

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1974) –  A medical student and his hippy friends try to renovate a dude ranch haunted by the Headless Horseman. No, it’s not the figure from the Washington Irving tale, but an old-west gunslinger who was unjustly hanged, losing his head in the process. The Horseman now roams the dude ranch by night looking for victims to frighten. SPOILER: The Continue reading →

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July 27, 2016 · 11:14 pm

BLU-RAY RELEASE OF THE BURQA (2013)

NOW ON BLU-RAY IT’S ONE OF 2013’s MOST CONTROVERSIAL MOVIES! 

The Burqa: A heroic woman fighting Muslim Apartheid and defending women's rights.

The Burqa: A heroic woman fighting Muslim Apartheid and defending women’s rights.

THE BURQA (2013) – The Burqa was THE action film of the year 2013. This movie had a daring premise, incredible stuntwork plus more killings and blood squibs than any three Quentin Tarantino movies put together. There was also an unforgettable performance by the lead actress, whose name is STILL being kept a secret over fears of violent reprisals from Islamist terrorist groups.

The film was set in 2013 Iraq. Our heroine,  known only as “The Burqa” emerges from the desert sands, clad in the outfit she is named for and with automatic weapons strapped to each of her sashaying thighs. Like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and John Garko’s Holy Ghost, both from Spaghetti Westerns, the Burqa is an unstoppable gunslinger who litters the land with her fallen foemen.

The audience first meets the title figure when she saves a teenage Muslim girl from being raped and killed by Islamist fanatics for daring to dress in western clothing and to advocate abortion rights. Countless Continue reading →

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June 19, 2016 · 4:55 pm

FATHER’S DAY (2011) – A CULT CLASSIC

Father's DayFATHER’S DAY (2011) – I DEMAND A TEAM-UP OF AHAB FROM FATHER’S DAY AND ASH WILLIAMS FROM THE EVIL DEAD FILMS (and television series).

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system right off the bat. Ahab, the eye-patch sporting hero of the Astron 6 horror film Father’s Day is in my opinion the one true successor to Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams. And considering how unfair the ending of this movie is for Ahab and his two sidekicks a case could even be made for them replacing Ash as the most royally screwed character in the history of gore-soaked horror comedies.     

It’s difficult to review this dark, grotesque gem without resorting to a series of catch phrases like “Goes where Dead Alive and similar movies failed to go” or “What Grindhouse hath wrought” or even “Twink and Walnut: They’re NOT Muppets!” Let me start with a more practical line: Do not watch this movie if you can not handle the most offensive violence, concepts, gore and deranged sexuality imaginable.  Continue reading →

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June 1, 2016 · 1:03 am

MANIAC (1934): MOVIE REVIEW

Maniac 1934No, it’s not either version of the splatter film Maniac, it’s the 1934 bad movie classic. I got an e-mail requesting I review it but since I did already – in 2010 in fact, here is an “encore” version. For more bad movie reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/ 

MANIAC (1934) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following        An actor on the run from the law falls in with a mad scientist, Dr Meierschultz. He becomes an accomplice in the good doctor’s dark experiments involving the reanimation of a dead woman (whose corpse he and Meierschultz steal from a morgue) and the transplantation of Continue reading →

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April 25, 2016 · 9:22 pm

WAVELENGTH (1983): MICRO-REVIEW

WavelengthWAVELENGTH (1983) – This is an unjustly neglected science fiction film that stars Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie and Keenan Wynn in a very unconventional love triangle: both Carradine and Currie are fighting over Wynn. (I’m kidding!)

Robert Carradine plays a moody musician suffering a career lull, Cherie Currie portrays a groupie who becomes a bona fide romantic partner for him and Keenan Wynn barks and snarls in his usual “grouch with a heart of gold” manner. Cherie’s sensitive mind is open to alien brain-waves calling to her from a nearby (seemingly) abandoned government installation. Carradine and his neighbor Wynn help her try to find out what’s going on. Continue reading →

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