Bad Taste (1987)

Once upon a time, Peter Jackson used to make these completely over-the-top horror-gore fests, such as this, his first film effort, about aliens who inhabit human bodies and use them as food. While loaded up with disgusting and repulsive make-up effects, it simply isn't very good. Watch it to be grossed out, not for anything more substantial.

Then he made Lord of the Rings. The End.

2.5 brains held in by a belt out of 5

Army of Darkness (1992)

AKA: Evil Dead 3

The third in the Evil Dead saga, this was also the first movie of the series that I saw. As a standalone film, it's a rollicking fun action-comedy (with traces of horror), but as the third part of a trilogy, it is a brilliant conclusion. Seek out the original ending rather than the re-shot U.S. ending (both are equally satisfying, but the original is oh so tragically wonderful). I've seen this movie so many times, I can quote it from heart, and it never fails to put a smile on my face.

5? "...whoa, whoa, whoa...nobody said anything about 5" out of 5

Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987)

This sequel is one of the funniest films I've ever encountered, and it only gets better and better with time. Bruce Campbell dishes out his best slapstick and one-liners, and you can't help but feel that the whole thing was inspired by old Three Stooges shorts. A horror-comedy for the ages. Leads directly into Army of Darkness, but for about 5 years or so, it just lay there in limbo à la The Empire Strikes Back.

5 eyeballs in the mouth out of 5

The Evil Dead (1981)

The horror classic that started it all for me. Five friends drive to a cabin in the woods and are terrorized by malevolent spirits that they unwittingly release back from the dead. An over-the-top gore fest dripping with blood and cheesy laughs. The last 15 minutes are still some of the best in cinema. The beginning of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's careers, and there couldn't have been a better marriage.

5 Necronomicons out of 5

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Boy with scissors for hands meets girl, falls in love, and is promptly ostracized by society for being different. There's not much else I can say about this. It's simply my favorite movie of all time. Dark, moody, brooding, sad, happy, innocent, inventive, tragic, funny. Contains all the pathos and visual splendor to be found in my heart and my soul. Edward will always be representative of how I feel about the rest of the world...cut off, lonely, and misunderstood.

5 Ice Dances out of 5

Beetlejuice (1988)

This was the movie that made Tim Burton a household name for me. I watched this so many times as a kid, it borders on creepy/psychotic. Michael Keaton is inspired as the "Ghost with the Most" and Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis have great fun as the dead couple who have to deal with the gaudy new family that move into their house. Winona Ryder is equally amazing as the dark, Gothic girl (decades before emo). I love this movie so much, I can't even verbalize it into words. So I'll have to settle for: "It's showtime."

5 Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice's out of 5

Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Greatest Movie Ever Made. Period.

This is the most fun I've ever had with my pants on (and sometimes off). I saw it for the first time when I was a wee lad—and over and over again—and more than two decades later, it still holds up as well as the first time as I saw it. Paul Reubens is maniacal fun, and the pairing of Tim Burton and Danny Elfman was a match made in heaven. Informed so much of my weird, twisted sense of humor as a kid. Still as inventive and funny as ever.

"I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

5 movies within a movie out of 5

A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986)

Dolly the songbird takes herself and her gravity defying assets and hides out in the woods. Things get as silly as the title suggests and it morphs into a kind of Snow White and the Seven Kids scenario, with a real evil witch in the mix. Lee ‘Fall Guy’ Majors rides up on his horse and assumes a handsome Prince role.
I’ll never live this down but I rather enjoyed all the nonsense. Dolly sings some Xmas songs and life goes on as the credits roll. The film equivalent of pocket fluff, it’s inoffensive and throwaway.

2½ wigs and a pretty duck out of 5

SCREAM 3 [1999]

When the scriptwriter of your trilogy doesn't have the time to do the final instalment, you wait till he does have the time. Don't get some schmuck to pen it instead...and that's exactly what happened here.
Scream 3 has some promising elements but in the end it's just plain bad. It loses that perfect balance of horror and satire and comes off as an episode of Scooby-Doo or Abbot & Costello (mansion filled with secret passageways and trapdoors included). Even the new characters are boring and snotty. You just can't wait for them to bite the biscuit.
Such a shame. It left such a bitter taste in my mouth for 12 years.

2 Jay & Silent Bob's? out of 5

SCREAM 2 [1997]

Who'd want to make a sequel? Sequels suck.
Unless you know how to avoid all the obligatory rules and take it step above all that. Scream 2 manages to pull out some brutal punches and makes sure it doesn't fall under the curse of sequel suckage.
With all the survivors from the original returning plus a slew of brand new faces to slice n' dice, (Liev Schreiber and Timothy Olyphant being the new highlights), Scream 2 is just as much fun as the first one.
It does run about 5 minutes too long and has a few slow moments, but the gorier and more vicious murders make up for it. A worthy follow-up.

3½ Robert Rodriguez & Danny Elfman cameos out of 5

SCREAM [1996]

The 60's had Psycho, the 70's had Halloween, the 80's had A Nightmare on Elm Street and the '90's had Scream.
It single-handlely revived the teen slasher flick genre to a whole new generation of blood thirsty teens. While dissecting and poking fun at the rules and faults of all the horror films we've grown up with, it also pays tribute and breaks & follows all those elements as well.
Scriptwriter Kevin Williamson mastered the art of writing teen dialogue and actually makes it sound like real teens and not what Hollywood had portrayed them as before. A highly entertaining & talented cast elevates Scream above the usual slasher flick fare and establishes it's spot as one of the best horror films made.

4 excellent Norman Bates quotes out of 5

SAW III [2006]

What a colossal waste of time.

So-so ending. The rest is juvenille, shallow and lacking any sort of substance. For a film that uses death scenes as it's only selling point it fails completely. One death scene was a might bit interesting and the rest were boring and uninspired. It's like some kid came up with them on an internet forum...and upon investigation, that's exactly what the writers did. They used fanboy's fanfic ideas. Wow. Just wow. Fuck this shit.

1 ___ out of 5

Ichi (2008)

Ichi is a beautiful blind girl with a knack for spilling CGI blood and keeping her sword magically clean in the process. She's a wandering goze (musician), and as she travels across Japan searching for her mentor she's befriended by a troubled samurai and a young boy, despite her best efforts to dissuade them.
It's principally Sori's version of Zatoichi, and more. Being female means Ichi's troubles are often of a different kind, and consequently her temperament is different, but overall it's both respectful and reverential to the spirit of the series. I liked how even though she has no comical Katsu walk the music nevertheless alludes to one. I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel.

3 back-hand single slashes out of 5

The Banquet (2006)

aka:  Legend of the Black Scorpion / aka: Ye yan

The Tang Dynasty Royal court is in disarray following the death of the Emperor, and foul play is never far away.

The Banquet is a lavish historical piece that will either astonish or bore depending on your disposition. It takes much of its aesthetic cues from Zhang Yimou’s wuxia trilogy and adds a tragedy element that leaves you in no doubt as to its Shakespearean influences.

A balletic sequence near the beginning proves yet again that Woo-ping's choreography is as inherently graceful as it is dramatic.

4 swords that make noise in empty air out of 5

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

'Two sisters contend for the affection of King Henry VIII.'

I stole that from IMDB because I’m too uninspired to write anything new. I’m not the ideal target audience for the film, but I gave it a chance anyhow; I’m always pleased to be turned around and have expectations shattered.

The first half hour was really good with interesting camera-work that had me convinced I'd see it through to the end. Then it got repetitive, the same shots were used over and over, the awful golden colour cast offended my eyes, the atmosphere fell into the usual period drama gloom and I got bored.

1 insubstantial character study out of 5