An Italian horror directed by Dario Argento, starring Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence and Patrick Bauchau.
A teenage girl starts going to a Swiss boarding school near where murders have been happening. She finds that she can communicate with insects and befriends a nearby scientist who studies insects. With the help of the scientist and her insect friends, she tries to find the murderer.
I have never seen a movie that used music as well as this. Claudio Simonetti's Phenomena song was later covered by Rhapsody of Fire as Queen of Dark Horizons and they also did a cover of Iron Maiden's Flash of the Blade (used in 2 separate scenes!). Obviously, Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli liked this film quite a bit. Another song to mention is Motorhead's Locomotive. I found this film a little slow and dull at times, but I was glad that I kept watching when it finished. The girl is really put through some extreme situations, but is able to call massive clouds of insects when she is in trouble. All of my favorite parts were at the end, so I won't spoil that. I rate this good and would recommend it for metal heads who like horror films.
An Australian American thriller directed by Ted Kotcheff, starring Donald Pleasence.
A school teacher plans to spend his Christmas vacation in Sydney, but loses all of his money by gambling on the way. Stuck in a small town, he is taken in by a rough group of locals.
I think this film deserves special mention because I consider it to be one of the "unsimulated nasties". Other films in this category include Severed Ways (2007 unsimulated defecation) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980 genuine animal slayings). This film depicts a real kangaroo hunt. Although the hunters were licensed and legal, the kangaroos really did get shot and killed on camera. I'm used to watching some nasty stuff, but actually killing kangaroos pushes my boundary. The plot generally depicts a vacation gone wrong and this character's descent from upstanding school teacher to low-life vagabond. The audio was a little bit on the rough side, with too much dynamic range causing some lost dialogue. The video was grainy (what do you expect from 1971 cameras), but exposure and composition were good. I thought that the film's depiction of alcoholism was quite accurate. The main character re-encountering the sheriff was well written. In the beginning, John was just passing through town and the sheriff gets him started with drinking and gambling. In the end, he's worn out from these things and the sheriff buys him beer to cure a hangover. I would recommend this for those who can see past the nastier elements to the good film within or who enjoy those crude bits. I rate it awesome. Watch it!
An American action film directed by John Carpenter, starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes and Harry Dean Stanton.
In the dystopian future (of 1997) New York City has become a walled prison. The president's jet is hijacked and crash landed there. The military police call in a dangerous criminal to rescue the president.
This was pretty cheesy and stereotypical, but not enough to be funny. Some technology jokes include "down view" from the helicopter and one hell of a cell phone. The plot and characters were communicated relatively clearly, but were so stereotypical that I knew everything they were going to do before it happened. Pacing was average/mediocre and the video style was very dark. If you like The Running Man and Rambo, you'll like this. I rate it o.k.
