Halloween (1978): He's Still Bringing It Home

Halloween (1978) - Having murdered his older sister on Halloween night in 1963, Michael Myers has been sitting in a mental institution, not saying a word for 15 years but  staring blankly into a wall. Waiting ever so patiently for this night when he will return to Haddonfield to finish what he started.

Halloween set in motion what would become the formula duplicated to a fault in hundreds of movies to follow. There have been knife wielding killers before, even masked killers in many of the Italian giallo movies as a staple and in some American horror movies of old. But on this Halloween night in 1978, the American slasher as we know it was born; patiently stalking his would-be victims until the moment is just right and springing on them in a spree of bloody carnage.

Michael Myers is a mysterious character. Even though everybody by now knows who he is, the only thing known about him is that at the age of 6 he killed his sister, 15 years later he return to the same town to kill again, and yet nobody knows why. Perhaps Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) has the answer in referring to Michael Myers simply as evil. Evil simply does not need a reason to do what it does, and that may be key to why Halloween worked so well then and continues to work so well for new and old audiences alike.

Pumped up with a tempestuous soundtrack, Halloween works at various levels. The music claws at the chalkboard of your nerves to get your heart beating faster. Then it kicks into high gear to get your heart racing as the tension on the screen crawls up your neck. Composition of light, shadow and music combine with skillfully controlled direction, bringing naturally developed characters into the arms of a faceless evil while the timbre of the audience rises to a scream.

I give it 5 Daggers. Halloween is simply a classic with high rewatchability.

Availability

DVD and Blu-ray

Escape from New York (1981): Outdated but Still Fun

Escape from New York (1981) - En route to New York for a critical broadcast, the president's plane is hijacked forcing him to escape via a pod while the plane crashes down in Manhattan. Unfortunately the president's escape pod also comes down in New York City, now a prison of sorts, and with him is a critical message for the broadcast essential to world peace.

In order to save the president, a deal is struck with a convict, an ex-special forces soldier named Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). He has 24 hours to rescue the president and the message he carries or, as a special incentive to complete his mission, implanted explosives will rupture the arteries in his neck ensuring immediate death.

Escape from New York takes place in the not too distant future of 1997. Well, that was in 1981 when the movie was released, and now it is 20 years in our past. I'm wondering how New Yorkers are feeling about the representation of their city now? Of course the year the movie takes place can be easily overlooked and enjoyed for what it is, but the part that has always bugged me about the movie is this message the president carries is on a cassette tape. I realize the plot of the movie, and the way it ends, hinges on this one element, but it just seems silly to me.

Escape from New York is not entirely original. The main character of Snake Plissken is basically a retread of any of a number of gunslingers from any of a number of Italian westerns. He is a loner, rude, self-centered caring only for himself without a concern for others, and not a particularly chatty fellow. Of course I'm talking about Snake Plissken; didn't mean to confuse you thinking I was still talking about the Italian western gunslinger.

This movie comes at the end of better than a decade rife with post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows including Planet of the Apes, Damnation Alley, Ark II and many others. A post-apocalyptic world, a prison city, and a prison escape are not original to this movie, nor are most of the other elements of this movie culled from blaxploitation movies of the 70s, the aforementioned westerns and prison escape movies.

What Escape from New York does have is a well paced story, more interesting supporting characters than the main character, fantastic art direction, and of course the strength of John Carpenter's direction and composition. Despite its unsympathetic main character and incredibly silly premise it does work and is a lot of fun, in a Saturday morning cartoon sort of way.

I give it 3 Daggers simply for being a fun movie that is well put together.

Availability

Blu-ray and DVD

My Name is Nobody (1973): Bullets, Barfights & Buffoonery

My Name is Nobody (1973) - Riding off into the sunset of his life, Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) is only looking to retire peacefully from gunfighting. But the old west doesn't forget so easily and tagging along, much to his annoyance at times, is his number one fan, Nobody (Terence Hill).

Seemingly out of nowhere comes this stranger only calling himself Nobody. He has Jack at a disadvantage being he knows all about Jack, but Jack, nor anybody else, knows anything about him. He tells Jack all about his, Jack's, exploits as a gunfighter, how Jack is a legendary gunfighter, but not a LEGEND. In order to do that, Nobody says Jack will have to take on 150 men at once: the Wild Bunch.

The character of Nobody in this movie is about like a 7 year old who suddenly grows up but is still a 7 year old at heart believing in good guys and bad guys and heroes. He likes to be seen, even if some don't share his enthusiasm, and worships the ground Jack walks on, wishing he were walking on that same ground.

Taking Hill's energetic performance from the Trinity films, Fonda's experience from playing characters in westerns many times, and the flavor so traditionally pumped into Italian westerns and the end result is a fantastic story rife with boyhood fantasies of gunslingers. My Name is Nobody turns the traditional western on its ear as a successful comedy, then uprights it again being as good as any western ever made, and yet offering something so unique.

I give it 5 Daggers. Not only is it supremely entertaining, it is also eminently rewatchable.

Availability

Blu-ray and DVD

Video Trash: The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)

Released to UK theaters in 1972 and US theaters in 1974, The Flesh & Blood Show was a gimmick film with a 3D flashback segment in black&white, even though the film was in color. It was released in a VHS Big Box by Monterey Home Video with the very same movie poster for the film used as the cover, but the 3D segment is just a black&white segment, not in 3D, on the VHS home video release.

The Flesh & Blood Show was directed by Pete Walker (House of Whipcord, Frightmare, House of the Long Shadows) and featured Luan Peters and Robin Askwith. There are some bits of nudity in the movie, enough to get a 13 year old excited but not much beyond that.

The plot concerns a theater group rehearsing a play and looking for a place to rehearse and put on the show. They re-open an abandoned theater, shut down after a double murder there 30 years ago, but are soon stalked by a gloved killer knocking off the troupe members one by one.

Availability

Redemption Blu-ray 

Pete Walker Quadruple Feature DVD 

The Bad News Bears (1976): Not Holding Up Well

The Bad News Bears (1976) - Oh what a time it was in the 1970s to be a kid acting like you were all grown up, and you had a movie that treated you the same way. Times do change and a movie that seemed fun then is a little scary now.

Walter Matthau stars as a former minor league baseball player, and current alcoholic; apparently beer tastes even better when you pour hard liquor in it. Surviving as a pool cleaner he is given the opportunity to coach a misfit little league team while being illegally paid for it under the table. Adding to the cast is Tatum O'Neal as a girl pitcher with a rocket arm and Jackie Earle Haley as a juvenile delinquent with amazing athletic skills the rest of the team of misfits lacks.

What sets The Bad News Bears apart from any other little league movie is these kids acted like major league players with wanton swearing, fighting, spitting and even consuming alcoholic beverages. For the time, and probably for many parents still today, it was funny seeing kids behave this way. Certainly for a lot of kids it was what they would like to get away with; not exactly a movie filled with role models.

Most uncomfortable with The Bad News Bears is the way the kids are treated, and often brutally, by the adults in the movie. From slapping to outright hitting, to giving them beer. For the time it was made some critics praised it for its brutal honesty. Brutal it is in its treatment of children, but it's still funny and entertaining if you can and are willing to look past that.

I give it 3 Daggers for its entertainment value, but I would not recommend it.

Fantom Kiler (1998): Extreme Misogynistic Erotic Horror

It seems fitting to start off with my first review on this blog with the movie that is the source of my pseudonym, The Fantom Reeler.

Fantom Kiler (1998) - Directed by Roman Nowicki and starring a bevy of people I have no idea who they are. I will be sharing no screen captures because I just can't find much that can be shared and keep this blog at a maximum of a PG-13 rating. Heck, I'm not too sure I could keep an R-rating with images from this movie. It is clearly X-rated.

A killer wearing a white mask, with the appearance of bandages fully covering his face, goes about killing women in a Polish city. Naturally the police are stumped about his identity, because it's in the script, and for that matter so is the audience.

Fantom Kiler takes extreme liberties with naked women and excessive violence. Who knew a woman's clothes could fall off so easily as though they were made of tissue paper? Atmospheric this is, and I'm not talking about all the naked flesh. The killer seems to find the right place to do his misdeeds where there happens to be a graveyard, rising fog, and of course at night.

You don't have to ask if this movie is misogynistic, it is right up front with that even from the DVD cover. If it was just women getting naked, no I would not call that misogynistic, but it goes beyond that in not only portraying women as slutty, just because they're women, but as somehow deserving what happens to them. Of course the movie does hide behind the excuse that this is the view of the person responsible for the killings, because in a way we're seeing this through his eyes.

Now you may think I'm trashing this movie. True, it is prurient trash to an extreme, but that's its audience and it succeeds in being the sleaze it aims to be and something that will keep your teenage son from coming out of his room for a week for lack of the ability to walk straight.

It's not quite porn, but if you are wanting sleaze without apologies for how it is presented, this delivers. If you are looking for something that is also sensitive to its subject matter, avoid this because you will be offended.

I give it 3 Daggers purely for succeeding at being an entertaining sleaze fest. Do keep in mind that this is in Polish with subtitles; though I don't think you'll be spending much time reading if this appeals to you.

Welcome

Welcome to yet another in the glut of movie review blogs littering the internet. I go by the pseudonym The Fantom Reeler, or just Fantom Reeler if you prefer. I'm another person who loves movies and writing about the ones I watch; nothing to get excited about here. Every one of us to some degree are movie lovers. Some have a special movie night once a week, some like me will serial watch movies. If you find my reviews to your liking, just bookmark this blog and give me a follow on Twitter to keep up with my reviews. If you are a reviewer too, give me a shout on Twitter and I'll keep up with you.