HOUSE 4: The Repossession (1992)

Movie and TV Mistress back again with the final instalment of the HOUSE films.

The Fourth movie is called HOUSE 4: The Repossession and it sees the return of Roger Cobb again played by William Katt. Though William Katt is back as Roger Cobb the character, House and family are completely different to the first movie. The only memory of this film I have is that Roger is a ghost, the movie is not going to be as dark as the third film and promises to be a comedy horror, lets hope so, lets start the final movie.

Well at least the correct title appears at the start and it is called HOUSE 4, we see Kelly Cobb standing on the road outside a huge house and she walks in and joins Roger and his step brother Burke talking about home movies, Burke wants Roger to sell the house. Roger has promised to keep the house in the family and renovate it but Burke won't give up on Roger selling. A random Indian has arrived called Ezra, who parts some wisdom on Kelly and the family saying the spirits will rest because Roger is honouring his Grand Father's agreement.

Everybody drives off, but Ezra goes into the basement and checks on a glowing green hole in the floor, carries out a ceremony. Meanwhile Kelly is driving and asks Roger to explain the agreement, Rogers Grand Father made a blood oath on his wedding day not to sell the house, after explaining everything they have a car crash. Kelly is able to pull Laurel her daughter free but the car blows up with a living Roger stuck in it. Laurel survives but is paralysed. For 1992 you'd think Kelly would get her daughter an up to date wheel chair, but no it's a creepy old wicker type.

They return to the house and put Roger's Ashes on the mantle her Dad tries to persuade her not to stay or fix it up. The house is covered in cob webs everywhere and the furniture is all falling apart. Laurel wants to have a Halloween party at the house and starts talking about her first Halloween and we get our first flashback of this movie. She cuts her hand on a piece of glass in the house and goes to wash it but looks like the slime from Ghostbuster 2 is in her taps. Laurel is stating the obvious I hope she doesn't do that in the entire film. Kelly goes to answer the door but the person has already let themselves in, Verna Klump, who claims to be the house keeper is played by Denny Dillion yet another cast member from Night Court, Richard Moll played Big Ben in HOUSE.

There are strange noises coming from the basement so time to investigate, I wonder will we have any jump scares in this film. No she sees a mouse falls over and sticks her bloody hand in the glowing green hole, hay that’s one way to trick a girl into giving a blood oath. 25 minute in and nothing remotely scary has happened. Kelly's cut has healed in a day, wow that house is magic; this house kind of reminds me on the house in the Munsters and Practical Magic. Kelly has more flashbacks and Laurel looks longingly at girls skipping, but Burke arrives to take the property from her to sell it to a Toxic company.

Finally 33 minutes in and an official jump scare, Roger's Ashes are on the ground, Kelly goes to touch it and a hand pops out and grabs her, then Verna arrives and the Ashes are back on the mantle. Yet another William Katt horror film with that scare. There are strange noises in the basement but this time Al the Plumber pops out. Here comes the most famous part of this film the singing pizza man arrives but its the singing pizza with a face that Kelly kills in the garbage disposal which is so famous and hilarious.

Laurel has yet to see anything creepy and probably thinks her mum is nuts. Time for a shower sequence, you got to fit it in somewhere and she is showered in blood. And the mirror says Get out or Die then she sees a burnt up Roger in the mirror. Now it's getting all creepy Nightmare on Elm street style; must be time to go to Church for Ezma's help and time for Ezma to give the exposition of the film.

OK the script writer wasn't even trying when he came up with the name of the chemical company and owner, they're called Acme Chemical and there is a load of gross our humour from Mr Grosso the owner. The henchmen go into the house in bug and snake masks and attack Laurel telling her to get out, her dog lamp comes to life and attacks them, the house tries to hurt the henchmen but they escape. Laurel ends up in hospital and begs her mum to not go back to the house so Kelly calls Burke and tells him to bring the papers.

Kelly sleeps and the sheets are pulled up around her, when she wakes up she rolls off the bed and the projector starts playing home movies, the bed breaks again and she laughs and of course changes her mind and doesn't sell the house to Burke. The two henchmen arrive with some heavy artillery but it's like a dream, well it turns out to be the house showing her what really happened the night she crashed the car. Kelly speaks to Ezma and he tells her to let it go and just go to the police but she is too angry because Burke’s Henchmen killed Roger.

Verna brings Laurel home and tries to protect her, but is knocked out and the Henchmen, who try to set fire to the house, they are turned into a snake and a bug, with very bad effects which reminds me of Dreamscape and The henchmen freak out and shoot each other and the gasoline keeps pouring out and the heat of a bullet shell ignites it. Laurel is trying to crawl out of the house, but can't and Kelly can't get to her, they choke on the smoke and Kelly wakes up with Roger telling her she needs to go back to save Laurel. The healing spring in the house breaks free puts out the fire and heals Laurel so she can walk again. (That was so predictable from the start.)

Burke is arrested in cliché fashion by Verna Klump who turns out to be FBI and Roger appears one last time as a cop and vanishes to the stars, must be one of the left over powers from his time as The Greatest American Hero.

OK that was not as bad as HOUSE 2 but not as great as the first one. The balance of comedy and horror seemed off, it never really had any scary moments and any attempts at scary were so predictable that you saw it coming a mile off including the ending. The script went through so many rewrites by different writers and the director, which could explain the lack of balance.

William Katt being in this film was an after thought and you can tell, he is just added to tie it to the first most successful film. Though on the upside it was nice to see him back in the film and for the franchise to end on a movie closer in style to the original.

What have I learnt from this series of films, well like any franchise, it is very hard to recreate the success of the first film, Comedy and horror do work well together when the balance is right and that in the 80's it was OK to experiment with styles in horror franchise, just look at Halloween, Evil Dead and even the Alien Franchise. Now the horror films lack comedy and never seem to deviate in style between films, which is why we have 7 Saw movies which are basically the same story over and over again.

I would recommend the first film and if you like that, you should check out the rest just for a laugh, they are definitely good films to watch drunk.

If you like commentaries they have provided them to all but the third film and they are fun but the fourth commentary has the added bonus of having James Cameron being called and giving his opinion on one scene.

Till next time.

HOUSE 3: The Horror Show (1989)

Movie and TV Mistress here with the third instalment of my HOUSE reviews.

I should start by talking about the title of this film, in the UK and as you can see from the cover it is called HOUSE 3 but in the US it is called THE HORROR SHOW and when the credits start the film is just called THE HORROR SHOW even on the British DVD. This has lead to debate online as to whether it is a true third instalment of the HOUSE series.

This is what I believe, it is part of the series, partly because it is called HOUSE 3 and comes in the box-set, but mostly because if you look at the plot it is similar to the first HOUSE film without comedy. It is a haunting brought on by revenge. However I am also aware that according to producers, the fourth film is actually the third movie in the "House" series. Because the unrelated “THE HORROR SHOW" adopted the title "HOUSE 3" in both the UK and Australia.

Sean S Cunningham mentions on the HOUSE 2 commentary that he saw these movies as an anthology of haunted house tales not a series of movies about one house, which explains the differences in styles between each one.

So on with the review, the movie's credits start with a silly home video of the family in the house having a BBQ and playing in the yard, this may be the lightest this movie gets, as this is the darkest movie of the series and stars Lance Henriksen as the cop/father, Brion James as Meat Cleaver Max (in case you can't tell, he's the villain) Dedee Pfieffer as the cop's daughter and Aron Eisenberg as her brother (he used to be in DS9 as Nog the Ferengi kid)

The house in the movie is just a typical big American house, nothing like what’s shown on the cover art. It's the middle of the night and Lance is checking the house and family, I guess there may be our first scare coming already, as he gets his gun. Oh no the front door is open and it's all foggy, I suspect this opening sequence is a dream. All of a sudden a cat jumps out of no where giving us our first Jump scare, I'm always reminded of Ripley's cat in Alien when this type of scare happens. Lance stares at the furnace in the basement smiles and then we are at a location where he and his partner are hunting down the serial killer, I bet his partner is one day from retirement. Anyone for some fried hand or heads for dinner, looks like quite the delicacy.

I may be making all the jokes as this movie is to serious. Oh and I was right his partner didn't make it. Max has hold of a little girl, he cuts her head off but she still screams, Lance wakes up hurting his wife but it's Max in drag who sticks a meat cleaver in his chest and then he wakes up again but has blood on his chest. This seems like Nightmare on Elm Street, which may explain the tag line “You'd rather be on Elm St.” You may be thinking this movie also sounds like another Wes Craven movie called SHOCKER which it really does, even the electrocution scene seems like it belongs in a Craven movie. I thought the horrible electrocution in THE GREEN MILE was bad this is worse.

So Max didn't die straight away he got loads of volts broke his restraints and while on fire told Lance “I'm coming back to tear your world apart” he then promptly dies. A weird professor asks the doctor if there has been any electric impulses or weird activity, but the Doctor says he had 50000 volts put though him and leaves the professor to do his checks, the professor witnesses an Electric spirit leave the body and then we see it in Lance's House fuse box, time for cat jump scare number 2, oh dear no cat, will it return or has Max already killed it?

Lance sees his Psychiatrist who thinks the cut could be a form of stigmata, lance laughs it off and leaves, the Professor warns Lance in the car park but of course he is ignored. We get set ups for later scares including seeing a Halloween mask and instead of finding Max behind the cloths in the basement it's Vinny, Dedee's boyfriend. It's suddenly night and Lance is driving and picturing everything that happened he nearly has a car crash and then talks to Max in the car.

Lots of stuff happening in the rooms in front of mirrors, mirrors in horror movies always make me nervous. Vinny is still in the basement and is going to leave when he hears Dedee's voice telling him what to do, but he can't see her. It's Max he's back and kills Vinny.

Dedee goes to the basement but can't find Vinny, Lance nearly gets some action with the wife but Max calls, killing the mood. Dedee gets her brother to help her look for Vinny. Oh Yay, more creepy music while people sneak around the house, Lance goes to the Basement and shouts at the Furness as it sounds like Max, well I think it sounds like Beetlejuice, I expect him to say “I've come for your daughter” while he talks about her. Dedee comes clean and is grounded next day the family is having a turkey lunch. Now this is the 80's horror movie with twisted images, so I suspect something is inside or is going to come out of the Turkey, because they keep giving us close up's. I was kind of right the turkey changed and had Max's face on it telling Lance that his family was dead.

Next the family are watching some comedy on TV, but Lance see Max doing stand up and can't take it so shoots the TV. He goes to his therapist and says he thinks he's going crazy, he decides to visit the home of Max but the Professor shows up explaining everything including Max being electromagnetic evil and how to kill him.

Dedee gets a phone call from a dead Vinny asking her to go to the basement and surprise, surprise Vinny falls on her. Because Lance was shouting in the Basement when Vinny was last seen he is arrested. Meanwhile the professor still at Max's place records his plans to kill Max but Max kills him. Lance is questioned by Internal Affairs and then Max disguised as an attorney threatens him, Max calls and threatens Dedee and then we have the classic shower scene required in all horror movies, but no scare yet. Ah he's a gentleman he waited till she was dressed and in her room before he attacked her.

Lance escapes the Police station, but meanwhile it's the mothers turn to be scared by following a girl to the basement and the reveal of the dead cat and the girl with a cut throat, Max kisses the mother while making cat noises. Lance arrives to find his son's ears cut off then Dedee can't get out of bed because she is pregnant to Max, while Lance's chest cut is getting worse and opening. It's starting to remind me of Videodrome or any David Cronenberg film with weird images and make up.

Lance falls down the stairs and then wakes up finding his son and daughter are tide up at the dinner table, Dedee has a baby, which Lance takes and goes to smash it but everyone disappears. Lance goes after Max and ends up in the place from the start, the professor's head reminds him what he needs to do and then blows up. Lance catches up with Max and his wife, there is a fight and Lance and his wife get away and electrocute him which makes him real and then Lance shoots up his body in the real world.

The family sell the house and everybody including the cat is back to normal, but what about the Professor?

So that was HOUSE 3 it's definitely a lot creepier and darker then the other two. As I said it owes a lot to Cronenberg and Craven in it's style and format, there really isn't anything you haven't seen in the more successful horror series of the 80's. This movie felt like a bit of a mess and seemed to be making things very complicated with how Max's character worked, there were definitely elements of Freddy Kruger, but so much more in common with SHOCKER the other Craven film, which came out the same year as HOUSE 3 and was the more successful film at the box office. If you would rather see a HOUSE movie try to be scary then this one might be for you, but I still think the first one works the best in it's own way.

Next the return of Roger Cobb (William Katt) in HOUSE 4: The Repossession.

HOUSE 2: The Second Story (1987)

Movie and TV Mistress time for the second story in the HOUSE series.

OK so this is the second movie and we all know the sequels are usually not going to be as good as the first one, but this one though it's an 18 goes all out comedy with subtle horror elements, it's like are you afraid of the dark. Also yet another movie that focus on a Crystal Skull which just adds to how much this movie also disappoints me.

But on with the review the House in this film is different it is a brick mansion but just as big as the first one, it has many different art styles inside. The film starts in the past with a couple giving their baby to another couple, they head back in and hear a noise go to investigate, husband has gun in hand and they find a figure in a room, the husband goes to shoot but is shot by the figure the wife runs but is caught by the figure and he tells her to give him the Skull and she's shot. We then flash forward 25 years and Jesse, played by Arye Gross who used to be in Ellen moves in with his girlfriend the house has been passed down his family.

They explore the dusty house and find an empty pedestal, I guess that’s where the crystal skull goes, the electricity isn't working but the girl can make a phone call... we get a quick history of Jesse's family and he knows the couple killed in the opening were his parents and we see his Great Great grand father. Jesse wakes up in the middle of the night and will something scary happen... No just a collapsible Iron board falls on his head. Jesse's friend and girlfriend arrive next very drunk, yay Amy Yesbeck in another bad 80's sequel, I know she is really funny and I do love her in movies and Wings but I always feel she could do something great.

So we get more history about the Mcguffin Crystal Skull with diamonds in it's eyes, and exposition about the skull and Jesse and his friend go in search and dig up his Great Great Grand father, who buried the Skull with him and is still alive as the skull gives ever lasting life, he wears a hideous mask but looks pretty good for over a hundred and seventy years old. Like I said earlier there really aren’t any scares in this film and 20 minutes in the skull has been found.

Gramps explains more about the house as a temple and protecting the skull, and how it was supposed to make him young again. But he notice's that he is 170 year old zombie who can't die. Charlie Jesse’s friend takes Gramps out for a drive and a drink. I'm board with this film but oh look it's Bill Maher. This movie feels like a lot of exposition and information from Gramps and when he tells a story I’m reminded of an old BT advert. Boring story montage who knew that was possible.

There is a party happening in the house and Charlie forgot to tell Jesse, Jesse bumps into an old flame, Gramps joins the party and the Skull starts doing stuff and lets out a big guy from an ancient time into the party, this movie is reminding me of the second Waxworks movie. Jesse's girlfriend beats him up because of his old flame and Gramps is beaten up by the big guy who then steals the skull and returns to the room he came from which has got a jungle in it. Jesse has to get the Skull back from the stone age guy Charlie tags along and brings weapons.

In the jungle there are some weird creatures and dinosaurs the history of this is stupid the guy is meant to be from the stone age which is well after the dinosaurs, or polished metal swords, but I’m nit picking. The stone age guy is eaten by what looked like a ROUS. And again they get the skull back only to loose it to a pterodactyl. I hate this story so much, why is it even an 18 movie? it might as well be a kids adventure film, Gremlins was scarier then this. I'm only half way though this film and I just want it to end already.

They crash though the jungle into the basement with the skull and baby pterodactyl and weird dog creature that looks like a caterpillar with a dogs face. Jesse chases the baby dino bird around the house and then hide it from his girlfriend and boss who are high on valium Jesse and Charlie get slapped as they find Jesse’s ex girlfriend in the cupboard. So now we're down to 3 guys in the house and some weird creatures.

Looks like the Incas hurt Gramps and took the skull, yay at last John Ratzenberger has arrived as Bill the electrician, Bill has no problem with the fact the house has other time dimensions in it and now we have a Temple of Doom like scene Bill is awesome and is like a real hero in comparison to the other guys. Bill beats them out since he was fighting when they left him, he gives them his card which says Bill Towner Electrician & Adventurer. That section is my favourite part John Ratzenberger can do no wrong why do you think Pixar love him.

The weird group including a virgin Inca girl have dinner and finally the figure from the start turns up to fight Gramps for the skull, he looks a bit like Bubba Ho-Tep, he shoot Gramps and takes the girl and skull to old west and Jesse finds out the bad guy killed his parents so goes after him. Time for a showdown but Jesse can't shoot straight with a pistol, he gets a shotgun. Jesse keeps getting shot how is he still standing and firing, the Police arrive because of the gunfire and Jesse shoots the figures head to bits, then gets the skull back to Gramps, but it's time for Gramps to move on.

The police are still waiting for Jesse to come out but the headless figure gets up and shoots his the sheriff and the police open fire the house is set alight and Jesse gets the creatures and Gramps out by going into the western dimension and stays their with his friend and new Inca girlfriend.

The writer director set out to make a completely different movie from the first, he definitely did that and he was planing on an anthology of haunted house movies. I think I hate this movie because it makes less sense then the first and went down the all out comedy route, which doesn't work very often with horror franchises, the only one I can think of is Army of Darkness. I know it's not meant to be a horror but it is so ridiculous and has to many pointless characters, except for Bill just cause I love his stuff. I would not go out of your way to watch this film unless your having trouble sleeping.

Next HOUSE 3 or THE HORROR SHOW to Americans.

HOUSE (1986)

Movie and TV Mistress here reviewing the first of the HOUSE movies.

Now don't get this confused with House MD, HOUSE is a Horror series that started in 1986, it's about a haunted House, but nothing like Amityville Horror. This is like a lot of the horrors of the 80's a Horror Comedy, well the first one is and well the others are a little different, I’ll explain as I review each one.

So HOUSE opens with very ominous and creepy music and has a quick image of the House that will feature in the series. Think Psycho meets Wisteria Lane. The Director of Photography or editor has used negative images to show the house in a disturbing way, the camera travels all around the house, well it is a character itself and so we need to know more about it and thanks to a delivery boy we get to go inside. There are disturbing pieces of modern art which do seem out of place in an old house, the grocery boy walks up stairs and checks the rooms for Mrs Hooper and finds her in her bedroom, where she has hung herself, that’s one way to get out of tipping the boy or paying your bill.

We are now introduced to Roger Cobb played by William Katz from Perry Mason. Roger is a Horror writer signing his books, he no longer wants to write horror, instead he wants to write about his experience in the Vietnam war. Now I laugh at this moment because Mindy Sterling AKA Frau Farbissina in Austin Powers starts bugging him about his famous ex wife, even back then she was comedy gold.

Roger is pretending he's doing well while on the phone with his ex wife who he still clearly loves but they broke up because of the disappearance of their son. Next we get a random Vietnam type dream with his son playing on a grave and a monster reaching up for him. This film doesn't do subtle mood changes it just jumps between comedy and horror when it feels like, I guess it keeps you on your toes.

Roger is shown round his aunts house where his son disappeared by a funny realtor. We get a flashback to how his son Jim disappeared and it starts to feel a bit like the Shining Mini series, the son was pulled under the water but isn't there when Roger dives in. we're back with the funny realtor and he shoots a harpoon at Roger and they act like nothing happened. Back to flashback and we see why people thought his aunt was crazy she told the police that the House took his son.

Roger tells the realtor he is not selling and he moves in. there is a lot of set up and this part of the movie is like when Ash was alone in the cabin in Evil Dead 2, there are weird noises and creepy stuffed animals and fish. He goes into his aunts old room, this is where I get scared every time I see it, hay I'm a chicken sometimes. His dead Aunt is there and she tells him what happened and then she hangs herself again and disappears. She warns him to leave as the house will trick him, but when does anyone in a haunted house leave when their told...Never.

Yay we finally meet Roger's neighbour George Wendt AKA Norm from Cheers, he tells Roger he's his biggest fan and I start picturing Misery with Norm. Roger escapes to the house to write his novel and we get flashbacks to Vietnam then the TV comes on and he turns it off and his son is on a window and he turns that off with the remote two, stop taking the drugs. He follows the laugh of his son into his aunts room and then says he must be going crazy and walks away he brushes his teeth and changes his mind and checks the closet just before midnight nothing happens and then the clock tolls and he opens the door again and is attacked by a huge monster.

This is before internet but he buys loads of camera's, lights and sound equipment and tests out his plan to capture images of the creature in the closet. He runs out in full army gear and is met by Norm and says he's just writing.

Later that night Norm comes into the house just before midnight saying he brought a midnight snack and he thinks solitude is better with someone else. Roger explains his whole life and why he has all the camera's in his aunts room, Norm thinks he's crazy and making it up and steals Roger’s address book and phone's Sandy Roger's Ex wife about his concerns.

Sandy calls Roger be he is too engrossed in his own flashback to Vietnam; The Vietnam stuff feels strange but it is all set up for later in the movie but I’ll get to that later. Roger's alone and a toy car comes driving in then a huge fish on the wall comes to life and attacks Roger, so just like Ash, he heads to the shed for a shot gun but the garden tools are trying to kill him too. He escapes and trips in the kitchen dropping 2 shells under a table. He shoots the fish and puts a towel over it, all seems well until there is a knock on the bathroom door and the Garden tools are their.

Sandy had said to Norm that she could not come as she had an early morning call but how strange she's here, oh no I was wrong it's an ugly Jessica Rabbit puppet he shoots it and wakes Norm. The House is really playing with Roger now because the monster looks like his wife again, so he hides her body. Norm calls the police and Roger pretends that he's cleaning the gun and that it went off, I have never known police to arrive so quickly, but it is movie world.

The cops find the 2 dropped bullets and startle Roger a couple of times before they finally leave and don't write him up for firing his shotgun. The Dead body of Sandy has disappeared oh no what ever could that mean...he heads to his aunts room and she has walked into the closet or so he thought, no it tricked him and the ugly Jessica Rabbit sounds like Alvin from the chipmunks, he fights her and opens the bathroom door and the garden tools kill and chop her to bits.

We have a great song and montage of him burying parts of the body in the backyard. We're 55 minutes in and we get a new character introduced, another neighbour a hot girl who flirts, meanwhile a dog has dug up the monsters hand, I predict high jinx like Evil Dead 2.

The hot neighbour asks if Roger is ready to play but she means with her son Robert, who has the monsters hand on his back. He chases Robert around and flushes the hand down the toilet and she basically dumps her kid on Roger so she can go out. Yet another Nam flashback showing how crazy his friend Big Ben was and how he died. Robert has disappeared with a couple of creepy looking monsters, Robert seems to be enjoying this game. Ah what directors will do to there own kids in a movie. If this movie was made today this section would not happen.

Roger invites Norm round after the kid is gone and tells him that the ghost in the closet is a giant raccoon and that they are going to kill it and at midnight Roger opens the door and Norm is freaked, but does shoot the harpoon, roger gets caught on the line and is dragged into the other world in the closet which looks just like Vietnam. Ah they are trying to confuse us, is this really happening now or is it a flashback...feels like a flashback but the closet door is still open.

Roger has worked out what’s happening and the movie is showing us, we finally see the whole picture his aunt painted. His son is trapped in the other realm behind the bathroom mirror where a cathulu type monster tries to kill Roger, he ties a rope around the toilet and takes his shot gun and abseils down the bottomless void, he is attacked by a creepy skull faced winged monster that steals his gun, it shoots the rope and Roger falls into water he finds his son in a bamboo cage like a Vietnam prisoner of war, they escape and appear in the pool. It has the typical it's over happy music but we know it's not.

A Decomposing Big Ben turns up and admits he took Roger's son because Roger didn't kill him when he was injured and be was tortured for weeks, Roger runs around the house avoiding Big Ben and tells his son to run to a neighbours house. Big Ben chucks Roger about, but Roger fights back and beats Ben with his own arm which Ben reattaches. During the fight the House has moved to a cliff and Rogers hanging off the edge, but roger pulls Ben off the edge instead. It has to be over right...nope Ben and the house tricked him again, Ben has his son again; we get a labyrinth type ending with Roger saying you have no power over me and blows him up. Sandy finally arrives for real and the house is on fire but Roger and Jim are fine.

True this movie is not as remembered as The Evil Dead and Friday 13^th films but boy is is fun, it is ridiculous, creepy and doesn't make a lot of sense, at times it feels like a series of comedy sketches put between horror but I like it. As I have pointed out a few time in this review, there are a lot of similarities between what happens to Roger and Ash in Evil Dead 2, so if you like your horror cheesy and funny like Evil Dead 2 then check this one out.

Next I'll be reviewing HOUSE 2...

NINE LIVES (2002)

Movie and TV Mistress here with a film called Nine Lives.

If you type the title into IMDB.com there are 9 films with that title and one film with Wesley Snipes called Unstoppable which has the alternate title Nine Lives, but the one that I’m watching is from 2002 and apparently stars Paris Hilton, so my expectations are very low.

Before I review this movie I should explain how I came to this point. I really am enjoying writing reviews of films I know many people have not seen, but a lot of the ones I have reviewed are films I like and though it's nice to read and write a positive review once in awhile, I found I really did like slating some of the terrible films I have seen. I was at a friends and she was getting rid of a lot of her DVD's, we have similar tastes, but she has some films I have not even had the guts to pick up and buy such as this one; so I asked if I could take some from her to review she was more then happy to let me take them off her hands and so we are brought to me sitting down and finally forcing myself to watch a Paris Hilton film.

I have read the very long description on the box which tells you exactly what happens and the cause of the up coming deaths I just hope this is a short film, well at 81minutes it looks like it could be, but time as Einstein says is relative.

So the Movie opens with a girl running though corridors with a knife crying I guess that will be towards the end. Next we have the opening credits with cars driving to a very large estate in Scotland and then it says on screen “Earlier that day” Like we couldn't guess. I don't know if the lighting is bad or if their trying to be stylish in some way.

I can tell Paris is not acting she is basically playing herself as usual. So we have a group of good looking and posh kids I already want to die and it is only 5 minutes in to the film, that’s a Lie when I read the box I wanted them dead.

OK we have couples forming and really bad jump scares that mean nothing, we have a boring scene of them talking about shit around a dinning table. Not even the diner room scene in The Evil Dead was this long and even in Peters Friends I cared more about what was happening between the friends at those dinners then I do right now.

I am now 15 minutes in to the film and I’m yearning for some one to be killed so this film can end, as I write this we see our first possession by an evil spirit but no death. Oh dear there is a creepy book hidden behind a wall, could it be an ancient Sumerian text that was not meant for the living, no it's the history of the house and a guy called Murray. While that's happening we have Paris Hilton Striping for what reason I don't know.

Finally after Tom has read the book it becomes blank and just says I have returned in it, then Tom has no eyes and knocks the birthday boy to the ground. Next we have girls being scared and Paris screaming, Yay Paris is dead.

All the phones in the house even the mobiles are not working wow that’s unlucky, we have more pointless jump scares. The staff are dead, Tom is still missing, the girl with the Birthday boy freaks out thinking he is the killer and runs to the door and surprise surprise in pops eyeless Tom who kills her. He then fights with Birthday boy who kills Tom and is then possessed by the evil spirit of Murray and slices another girl in the stomach and runs.

At last something is happening and I feel that they are trying to emulate Evil Dead and The Thing with the possession and paranoia. The girl (Laura) from the start of the film seems the smartest she's locked herself in a room with a guy and the girl who was cut and won't let anyone in.

I thought the lighting was bad before now the lights in the huge house are all out, well accept the lights plugged into the wall in the study Laura is in, which makes no sense if the fuses have blown. Damien and Pete are looking in the Basement for Birthday boy Tim, Duh Duh Duh, Tim turns up and knocks Damien and Pete out, Damien kills Tim then disappears, Pete wakes up he goes back to the locked room and Andy the guy with Laura lets him into the room. We get another explanation of the history and the Spirit of Murray Possessing people, Laura believes Damien is possessed and is going to kill them.

More lame jump scares as Laura and Pete go in search of Damien and plan to capture him, their plan would have worked if they didn't loose a key. The girl with the sliced stomach is doing well considering no medical treatment.

This is so boring I'm finding it hard to focus on it but after some more jump scares Damien goes outside and jumps though the window into the locked room kills the girl who is dying Andy kills him Girl wakes up with no eyes and Andy kills her again. Now it is between Laura, Pete and Andy to survive when Laura accidentally stabs Andy it is finally at the start of the film and she is locked out begging to be let in then she asks peter to Kill her before Andy dies to break the link. She stabs herself, I hope that’s this over.

The book is back to normal and Pete gives a long monologue about why he survived because he was the only Scottish guy in the group then burns the book. If the police turned up he would probably go to jail for all the murders.

OK this film is a boring and terribly written film. The possession starts with a mistake, the writer/director says a book is found which unleashes the evil spirit but then why is Tom Possessed before he finds the book?

The movie is made up of people explaining the Murray Spirit over and over again with lots of pointless jump scares. As I said earlier I wanted all the posh and boring friends to die within 5 minutes there was nobody I felt connected to or wanted to survive, Paris Hilton was only in this film to bring a name to the project and to die first.

If I want to watch a group of friends on Holiday get killed I'll watch the Original April Fools Day, it was more interesting and scary for the right reasons, and it had Tom F Wilson (Biff Tannan).

That’s my thoughts on this film and now I just have to get rid of it.

GROUND ZERO: DEADLY WAVE (2008)

Movie & TV Mistress here again.

I recently watched a film called Ground Zero: Deadly Wave on SyFy channel, if you try to look this up online the movie comes up as Polar Opposites or Deadly Shift; another one of those made for SyFy movies with multiple titles.

I was in the mood for a dodgy sci fi film and SyFy with it's silly name never seems to let me down, in the middle of the night they aired this film and it stars Charles Shaughnessy from The Nanny and Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire it also has Tracy Nelson aka Stevie from The Father Dowling Mysteries and other familiar faces from TV and movies.

The premise is that a nuclear bomb is exploded in Iran and this sets off a series of Earthquakes and the end of the world by shifting the magnetic poles of the Earth.

So we get the typical bad CGI effects to show the explosions and Earthquakes at the start of the film and that's it really, this surprised me after seeing films like mega-shark and Octoshark which relied so heavily on CGI.

But on with the film. Charles's character is a scientist called David Terran who published a book about his theory of shifting poles, how that also assisted in the death of the dinosaurs and how it may happen again. He was shunned by the scientific community for these theories and has left his wife and lives in the middle of nowhere with his father. His old friend and brother In law, Martin, is also a scientist who observes the atmosphere and satellites. He is the first to witness the effects of the underground nuclear explosion on the atmosphere, with the increase of radiation around the world.

David's ex wife, Jenna, is a doctor working in a chemotherapy clinic, all her patients who have finished chemotherapy and are in remission start falling ill with symptoms like radiation poisoning.

While these three sub-plots are going on we see the white house situation room and government officials trying to work out what they should do in relation to the nuclear bomb test in Iran, as usual in films the government wants to shoot then ask questions, but thanks to the rise in radiation noticed by Martin they delay this and investigate how this might affect there decision. They go to see Martin, he tells them that David knows more about this issue. David has already worked out what’s happening without computers and high tech gear when General Railen and Martin arrive and explains that there are multiple magnetic fields which leads to the poles shift and the Earth will flip over meaning the end of Mankind.

David has resigned himself to dying and that the world will end, when Martin arrives with the general but after some discussion and apologies from Martin they decide to be with Jenna as the world ends. The general does not want to give up on saving the world, but with the satellites down the mobiles and internet are no longer working so she can't contact the president. On the way to Jenna's Clinic they go to Martin's lab which has been destroyed by more Earthquakes, they discover the Earth is trying to stabilise itself but if the American government deploys another bomb to Iran the world will not be able to fix itself.

Everybody gets to Jenna's clinic, there they discover a way of contacting the president situation room with the information and prevent the planed attack on Iran and the world is saved by doing nothing.

I was actually surprised and slightly disappointed because this film wasn't as bad as I had expected, It has likeable characters and good performances from the actors and very little SFX. The let down of the film is the lack of perspective, which though different from other disaster films, it only relies on America being affected by this disaster and to save the world. In a big budget movie like this you would see the rest of the world being affected, if not real it would be on the news but there is never any mention of it. The science in the story seems to make sense, but I think that shows good writing or good acting.

I would not tell people to go out of their way to watch this film but I would say it is one of the better made and performed films shown on the SyFy channel. Hopefully the next film I watch on SyFy will be one of those bad ones I was expecting, but maybe I should stick to watching the Horror channel where I can guarantee a bad film or two.

CRIME TRAVELLER (1997)

Movie and TV Mistress is back.

This review as you can tell by the title is about the very short lived TV series from the BBC called Crime Traveller, it was a detective show which used time travel to solve the cases. The show ran for 1 series in 1997, which was 8 episodes long; due to a new Head of Drama at the BBC the show was not renewed as expected by the cast and crew.

The show focus's on Jeff Slade a CID Detective and the science officer Holly Turner, who work together to solve crimes with Holly's Time Machine. They work under Kate Grisham, with officers Morris and Nicky who'll I discuss later.

Holly's father built a Time Machine in the living room of his flat, think TARDIS Console room with out the bigger on the inside joke. Her father became lost in Time when he did not get back to the machine in time. She has continued to work on the machine and his research in her spear time, while working for the police. She is played By Chloe Annett who famously plays Kristine Kochanski in Red Dwarf.

Holly has worked out several rules of Time Travel, which she continuously explains though out the series, they are:

1. You cannot travel back more then once as you cannot exist in more then two time frames.
2. You cannot change anything in the past, as anything you do when time travelling has already happened.
3. You cannot meet yourself it would create a paradox.
4. You cannot travel to the future, it's not possible to travel to something that hasn't happened.
5. You must get back to the machine before you originally left or you will be stuck in a loop of Infinity.
6. Holly cannot control the length of time the machine will take you back.

The creator Anthony Horowitz does a good job of sticking to these rules but does bend a couple of them as the series progresses, which makes me wonder about what the future could have held in a second series.

Jeff Slade or SLADE! As he is constantly called/shouted, is the best cop in the team played by Michael French who was best known as David Wicks in Eastenders at the time but now as Nick Jordan in Holby City. He is manipulative and very smart, but won't give up on changing the past.

Kate Grisham is in charge, but I get the impression her character is like the stereotypical chief's who are their to just shout at the hero's. She was played by Sue Johnston, she was in Brookside but is most famous for playing Barbara in The Royle Family.

Nicky is fresh out of the academy, posh, very smart, a 1997 walking wikipedia played by Richard Dempsey who I knew growing up as Peter in the BBC kids series The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. His character reminds me of Timothy McGee from NCIS but with out a computer or decent mobile phone.

Lastly the CID team has Morris, he is slow and well comes off as being unable to read or do anything, that said he does work out that at times there are two Slade’s running about. He was played by Paul Trussell who has had bit parts in lots of TV shows and a few British films such as Secrets & Lies.

I remember watching the series when it originally aired in 1997, it felt like this might be the show to finally fill the gap left after the BBC cancelled Doctor Who, but with the bad reception of the Doctor Who Movie the previous year I didn't know what to expect. The series quickly established the characters and how the Time machine would fit into the classic detective show in the first episode and I was hooked every Saturday night. Incidentally in the sixth episode there is an appearance of the Doctor Who Police Box, which was a lovely homage.

It is obvious from the opening music and the style of the show that it is a classic British detective series, the theme sounds like that of Poirot, which creator Anthony Horowitz wrote for and the plots are classics which aren't hard to work out it you have watched any detective shows in your life. That said I feel that it was the characters of Holly and Slade that kept me coming back and I wanted to see if Slade would ever be able to change the past.

Each show would usually start showing the murder/crime and then CID would turn up and try to solve it without any real forensic work done; that’s the one thing that I noticed re-watching the series, with shows like CSI and NCIS and even shows of the time like The Bill, you would expect them to finger print places. Finger prints are mentioned once when Holly's print is found on the glass that her aunt drank from, and by Slade in the first episode when he says to wipe their prints from the room. But what about the rest of their prints left at crime scenes before they arrived and Slade’s own blood left, if the show was set today I think they might be arrested as possible serial killers, just a thought.

Sadly the show does looked dated and it's not the clothes or the hair styles, it's the computers in the station the fact they use huge walkie talkies on sting operations which really stand out and that the one time we see a Mobile phone its bright yellow and has a large aerial, at least it wasn't a brick. I do have to admit that it does seem pointless to get annoyed about these minor issues in a show where they use time travel to solve cases.

I admit I have a soft spot for this show as I am a Time Travel fan, but the time travel doesn't change what the series really was, which was a classic detective series in mould of shows like Poirot, Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder and many others. The series is a cult classic now, which I feel belongs with shows like Manimal, Automan, The 1975 Invisible Man and other short lived Sci Fi Detective shows, why do these shows end so quickly while we still have CSI: Miami?

Well till next time...

SPACED INVADERS (1990)

Hi everybody, it's me again. I know it's been a while, but I've been busy moving back to the UK from Canada and sorting out all the government forms I need to do, so I can live in my home country.

Well on with another cult classic movie from my childhood SPACED INVADERS.

SPACED INVADERS came out in 1990 it is one of the many sci fi comedies of the late 80's and early 90's like RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOS, TREMORS and those CRITTERS films. OK CRITTERS was a serious... I can't finish that without laughing.

Anyway back to SPACED INVADERS, the film was written and directed by Patrick Read Johnson, who wrote the DRAGONHEART films and Directed BABY'S DAY OUT, some may say he went up in the world but I think that's debatable. The film stars a young girl who you will recognise from JURASSIC PARK and TREMORS Ariana Richards, she is dressed up as an Alien from ALIEN which makes me wonder if she went for the part of Newt in ALIENS. Her father in the film is the new town sheriff performed by Douglas Barr, Who I grew up watching in the great 80's TV show THE FALL GUY with Lee Majors. But the real stars of the film are the Martians and a little scout robot.

The movie starts with classic space model shots and then we get the opening exposition by a masked alien telling 5 other masked aliens how bad they are and that they are being sent to the asteroid field and are being given an enforcer drone to make sure they follow the instructions. The drone looks just like the shout at the start of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

Next we are in Big Bean Illinois and are introduced to a dying small town and a new sheriff being held at gun point by an angry farmer, after another bit of exposition we know that a farmer is going to loose his land. Then it's back to space to see what’s happening with the Martians they are about to collide with a sun and the enforcer drone just wants to fight, there is an explosion and it's back to earth and the introduction of Ariana as the sheriff's daughter who is not happy to be in a small town after LA and is getting ready for Halloween.

And at 10 minutes into the film it's hard to know exactly what to make of the story, but don't worry the inciting incident is about to arrive thanks to a radio station deciding to play Orson Welles audio drama of WAR OF THE WORLDS; which was famous for causing panic in America. Now if you know anything about radio waves and sound you know it takes years for it to travel though space, but this is a movie and well it is instantaneous and a small Martian crew who are trying to find the rest of the Martian fleet mistake the radio transmission for real news like the people over 50 years ago did and so they decide to head to Earth.

So the Martians crash land in the angry farmers barn, reminds me of the start of BACK TO THE FUTURE. The Martians take of their masks and we are introduced animatronic big heads with antennas aliens. The pilot sounds like Jack Nicholson and the weapons officer sounds like Cary Grant and the science officer sounds like Dr Strange Love and Pez who wears a red coat sounds like Howard the duck and thinks he is going to die, their captain walks into a road and is hit by a car.

Ariana is at a Halloween party and feeling like and outsider but makes friends with a boy I will call ducky, because he is dressed like a duck for most of the film. Three of the aliens join the Halloween party because the adults think they are kids in costume. Ariana finds their tiny scout robot and works out their real aliens, meanwhile the captain after being scraped off the front of a truck wakes up and makes the attendant into his slave.

The Parent looking after the trick or treating kids kicks out the Martians, ducky and Ariana, and drives off, sure Ariana says she sees her dads car coming but the lady doesn't even wait to make sure the kids are safe and this is why kids go missing.

There are jokes like a deputy sheriff giving the Martian pilot a speeding ticket for going 3000mile per hour, not having plates, lights and wheels while the farmers dog puts new film in the camera for him. And now 40 minutes in the pilot and drone knows the broadcast was not real as it has ended and the sheriff knows Aliens have landed.

With the second act started the Enforcement drone goes after the crew to kill them for this mistake, the towns people are told about the aliens and the sheriff calls them intelligent which the Jack Nicholson one laughs at cause he's the smartest in their crew. While this is happening the captain and his slave are building a giant robot to attack the town.

The aliens destroy a new off ramp for the town and fire a laser at a farm silo and heating up and creating Pop Corn. While Ariana and the small robot team up, ducky and Jack Martian team up and then the three other aliens find out about the ending to WAR OF THE WORLDS and start to panic about germs. The crew get back together and face off against the towns folk by strapping themselves into the D.O.D (Donut Of Destruction) and like so much about this crew the D.O.D doesn't work.

I have to admit as it enters the third act that when describing this film it does seem to be too busy and complicated story and I could point out continuity issues, but I like this movie too much.

At this point the team want to return to space but their ship is broke so with the help of the two kids and the farmer they try to fix it, while the captains slave finishes the Farmzoid which is like a Godzilla size farm equipment to distract the town while the ship heads back to the farm so that the farmer can use the TNT to help the ship lift off.

But just before they can do this the drone turns up again to kill the crew, however while the crew have been fixing the ship it has been counting down to destruction; Ariana explains that if Earth is destroyed that Mars will fall out of orbit and will be destroyed, so the drone agrees to let them get back into space. However, we get the usual evil genius monologue from the drone and the farmer tricks it into holding a lit stick of TNT, blowing up, they help the Martians get back to space.

But because the ship is still too heavy to make it out of the atmosphere they have to lighten the load and so flush the toilet sprinkling green stuff over the farmers field. The next morning the farmer is about to have his farm taken by the bank but thanks to the Alien manure he has giant pea pods.

As I said before I saw this as a child and that I actually like it, the reason being I love Sci Fi movies and Spoofs and this is an excellent spoof, it has so many classic and Sci fi movie references to mention and it never takes it's self seriously which is why it still makes me laugh. Sure the special effects aren't perfect but at least you can see the stuff was real and done in camera rather then on a computer.

I know that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's PAUL was Influenced by classic 70's and 80's Alien films but I think the character of PAUL has some traits similar to the Jack Nicholson Martian and I could see Hollywood remaking it with motion capture of something for the aliens, but I don't know if this film could be improved upon.

I say if you haven't seen it and you like films like RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOS or HOCUS POCAS check this out it's just silly fun.

Kate & Leopold (2001)

Movie and TV Mistress here again with another film review.

This time reviewing a Romantic Comedy with time travel elements staring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman, yes that’s right Wolverine romancing Meg Ryan; if he gets his shirt off what woman could resist.

This is a film which I and many people I know have found and enjoyed on DVD, I don't even remember this coming out at cinemas.

This movie is a romantic time travel story. Leopold is the Duke of Albany in 1876, while Kate is a modern 2001 girl working in market research. Kate's Ex Boyfriend Stuart, who is also a descendant of Leopold, has time travelled back to 1876 and is played by Liev Schreiber; yet again Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are related.

The movie starts in 1876 at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and we have the reason my brother liked this film, the man opening the bridge refers to the structure as an erection and not just once this is a joke repeated throughout the film. So Leopold is their drawing the bridge and he notices Stuart because he is laughing at the word erection and is not used to the old camera flashes so Leo follows Stuart but looses him then goes home to prepare for a party where he has to choose his wife and Stuart turns up there, so Leo chases him back to the bridge and they both fall off the top and they are both brought forward in time to 2001, then we have your classic romantic Meg Ryan film.

The classic formula of romcom's, boy and girl meet they hate each other, they become friends fall in love, then are separated and find each other in the last moments of the film, there is no real deviation from that and if you were paying close attention at the start of the film you will know what happens at the end.

At the first introduction of Meg Ryan at the start of this movie they take a direct jab at her, let me explain. Meg Ryan was married to Dennis Quaid since the 80's and in 2000 the movie Proof Of Life was released with her and Russell Crowe, whom she had an affair with on set, Dennis and Meg divorced, which lead to the public no longer liking her; this may also explain why this did not get a big release like many of Meg's earlier romcom's. Meg Ryan's character and Market research team are doing a preview screening of a bad romcom, she is talking with her team about the actress and they claim she is unlikeable, this is when the actual director James Mangold interjects and says directly to Meg “What you haven't made a mistake in your life you have no flaws, you never slept with the wrong guy?” to which she replies “I'm not the protagonist in a major motion picture.” This is actually an added scene that is only available in the directors cut.

So Kate is a hard business woman who has become cynical about love, while her assistant is all about romance; there is not much to say about her character, its a tested and true character for a romcom.

Hugh Jackman on the other hand shows his sensitive side which is not often shown in films like X-Men and Van Helsing, we see him with a classic British accent and wearing a sort of Mr Darcy outfit for most of the movie, He is romantic and a perfect gentleman what any woman would fall in love with. Leopold is a Duke who does his duty even though he wants to just be an inventor and is amazed by the many new inventions of his time and present day, There are some running jokes in the film such as, such as he is the inventor of the Elevator and named it after his butler Otis and when he is not in the past to invent them they all disappear in 2001.

So they meet because Stuart is Kate’s ex boyfriend who lives in the apartment above her and she still has issues with Stuart, but he is quickly removed from the scene by him falling down an elevator shaft and being sent to hospital and then the mental ward because he claims to be able to time travel by jumping off the top of the Brooklyn Bridge. So as I stated before the film follows the classic arc of a Romcom and ends with Kate taking a leap off the bridge to be with Leopold in 1876.

The movie ignores the fact that Kate dated Stuart who is her own descendant and like Back to the Future the incest story is forgotten because it's time travel and we don't see anything actually happen between Stuart and Kate.

This movie is a well written film with well written characters, including the supporting characters like Breckin Meyer playing Kate’s Brother, also the time travel element makes more sense, then in the film Somewhere In Time. Meg Ryan has done so many of this type of movie, that there is nothing new for her to bring to it, that does not mean she is bad in it, both her and Hugh have a great chemistry and the movie works well, it's a funny romcom just for Hugh Jackman's performance; which is why if you haven't seen it I recommend that you check it out.

RUNAWAY (1984)

Welcome to another Movie and TV Mistress review of a cult classic.

This time I'm looking at Runaway a 1984 film staring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons, yes that’s Magnum PI Vs. the Demon from KISS.

I saw this film as a child and was terrified of the acid spiting robotic spiders in the film (yeah you read that right), for years I didn't know what this was called, I figured it had to have robotic spiders in the title; well I found out the actual title was Runaway, which refers to robots that malfunction, they are called Runaways by the specialized police department that deal with them.  If you watch Community you will have heard of this movie in the episode where the gang watch Kick Puncher as they planed to watch this and they mention the deadly killer spider robots. 

The film is written and directed by Michael Crichton, he is a great writer of sci fi and many of the films he wrote are classics, some are even being remade.  As a director he has made cult classics such as Westworld and Coma nothing as successful as Jurassic Park though.

The film opens with the required 80's computer/robotic music over the opening credits, I swear I've heard this music at the start of another 80's sci fi film. 

During the credits we see footage of Tom Selleck working on 80's computers and circuit boards with his stereo typical black partner called Marvin who I guess is retiring and Tom has a new partner and its a girl who's moving from traffic to computers and robots; yeah cause that’s an obvious move in the force I'm sure they do that all the time, you know a traffic warden just moves to autopsy when they request it.

Anyway they go on a mission to get a runaway agriculture robot on a farm and we find out Tom is afraid of heights, He seemed OK in Magnum PI and Three Men and a Baby. well the girl runs of picks up the robot and gets an electric shock, that'll teach her to be a stupid blond women in a Sci Fi movie.  They shoot the robot and the girl gets covered in dirt from the explosion and the farmers complain that they could have done that themselves.

New partner asks Marvin why Jack (Tom) left the regular force and we get a story about having a criminal get away cause Jack couldn't chase him up a building you know the type of story that foreshadows events that will take place in the third act.  Marvin asks the girl why she's a cop and she says she wanted to be a dancer but hurt her knee then a programmer but hated sitting all day then a nurse and then Police academy wow indecisive or what, make your mind up.

All of a sudden we get the first glimpse of the scary side of robots, a robot has killed two people and a baby is in the house and the robot might kill it next, they send in a flying camera they call a floater it is shot down by the runaway robot, so Jack goes in to the house in a special suit and we have our first image of the evil looking Gene Simmons who looks very tanned.

Jack gets into the house and the press follow even though he's told them to stop filming and the home owner has said the same thing, yes the press never change; the robot shoots the camera guy, it doesn’t like the media either.  The robot shoots 3 more times very close to Jacks head and then Jack shoots it with his laser and turns it off and saves the baby. 

Jack goes home with his partner and the Navigator from Flight of the Navigator is his son, oh boy he is so more annoying then he was in that film, also they have a family robot, which looks like an 80's stereo on wheels.  Bobby (the Navigator) is very curious about what his dad saw and if his dad's partner could be his new mum and if Lois the family robot could go crazy.

They examine the robot that went nuts and there is a non standard micro chip that explodes like mission impossible instructions and Lt. Thaddeus Harris from Police Academy laughs and calls them idiots.  Jack and his partner get called out to another runaway and this one is on a building site time for Tom to deal with his fear of heights, or not cause his partner can do it, besides she's work construction at some point. and yes a woman can flick a switch and turn a robot off, who knew.

They go back to the crime scene from the night before checking evidence and watch the door recorder, basically a camera answering machine for your front door.  Well wouldn't you know it Gene Simmons is the third caller (it's always the third caller or message on machines that’s important in movies.) and he claims to work for Acme Robot repairs (enter your own Looney Tune joke here), the rest of the message has been erased; for a master criminal you'd think he could erase the whole tape, it would only take a magnet as they are classic VHS tapes, I’m just saying.

Well now they know who the bad guy is, meanwhile we see him examining the chips, and we hear his name is Dr Luther and he is buying the non standard chips from the friend of Mr Johnson the guy whose robot attacked his family and well Dr Luther disappears and the guy opens a case of money to find it's just news paper and we get the first of many acid spitting robot spiders that haunted my nightmares as a child. and he is killed the robot also explodes after it kills him setting him on fire.  Mr Johnson see this and runs off.

Jack and his partner are looking for Mr Johnson and find him right away in the next scene at a hotel after a guy at a hot dog stand tells then, as they walk away Dr Luther walks up to the stand, Mr Johnson is not good at going off grid.  Now my next reference will be from a Michael J Fox movie, Mr Johnson runs off and Dr Luther pulls out  "A star Wars looking gun" and fires it form about two blocks away the bullets are heat seeking missile and Jack is chased around by a POV of the bullet like a certain Ash character in the woods, it then remembers it is actually after Mr Johnson and finds him climbing a ladder and hits him.

The next scene has the funniest robot in the film a hoover/Vacuum that is acting as a sniffing dog on the bullet.  They head to Mr Johnson's work Vectrocom, where Indiana's friend and Short Round's dad is a security guard who helps then access Mr Johnson's staff files, but before we can find out anything of importance there is a runaway in the building and Kirstie Alley is being shocked by a security robot.  Jack goes in with out safety gear because Kirstie is attractive, he says it and his partner says he's in love.  He smashes the robot to bits to show how manly he is in front of Kirstie who has all the other micro chips and she spills her guts very quickly to him about Dr Luther and where he is.

The cops are staking out his hotel room and Jack goes in when Luther's girl is asking about her purse, this is when you know a guy directed this scene. Because women do not wrap a towel around their waists, I know this was just so he could have the 80's gratuitous tit shot but please stop it we don't do that, like we don't pillow fight in our lacy bra and panties.

I don't know how Gene does it but he makes a floater come down from the ceiling and gas everybody grabs his gun and a hooker and escapes, does he have mind control of all robots because of the chips or something?  Blond cop is shot and we have some vertigo style shots when Jack looks down the stairs of the tall hotel.  The bullet in the blond cops arm is unexploded and needs to be removed and Jack doesn't trust any robot to do it without blowing her arm off, so he does it himself, what follows reminds me of a level on Trauma Centre on the Wii.  He gets it out and she is safe he then invites her to his for dinner and you know she is expecting something more then what he is offering.  Bobby tells his dad off for swearing on TV and they have a giggle.

Marvin cuts open and examines the bullet and discover it is a heat seeking missile and they explain the reason it only goes after certain people is because we all have different heat signatures, OK lets say it does, but if your running, surly your heat pattern would change, wouldn't it.  next Jack has a psychic look at the bullet and she says that Luther and Jack are brothers in a different life and that they will meet very soon.  Luther calls Jack and can see everything he is doing and say he will not be able to trace the call because he is calling from a mobile phone. Oh the days when cops couldn't trace them and you had to carry a car battery to power the mobile phone, yes it was so mobile you couldn't even put in in a bag or hang it on your belt.

Luther wants his girl, Kirstie and they need to move her but first they debug her which means she has to strip. so they drive off in two police cars and Luther has some goons follow them who have a car which they can open the bottom of and drop a remote control car bomb and Jacks partner uses the laser on top of her car to shoot them but there are too many of them, but they survive when they throw out Kirsties purse.  Jack goes to meet Luther in person, Jack has his girl and Luther has his partner so they have to do a trade then Luther stabs Kirstie in the back and fires his crazy gun at Jack so he can escape.

Jack was able to plant a bug in the Templates of the micro chips that Luthor got, but he's to smart for that and its time for another robot kill, yes the scary robot spider crawls up the wall and drops on the cop stabs her and blows up killing 2 cops.  Luthor dressed as a cop and with a glass eyeball checks Jack's profile and finds out about his son.

Yes it's time for the classic third act, bad guy holds loved one hostage and Jack goes after him alone. It's finally time for Jack to face his fear of heights and save his son, Jack and Luther confront each other at the top of construction site and Jack promises to give the rest of the templates to Luther once his son is safely to the ground, once Bobby is on the lift heading down Luther says his spider robots will kill the first person out of the elevator, and it can't be stopped just as it arrives on the ground Jacks partner arrives and saves Bobby. Luther shoots at Jack who ends up in a lift that won't go down, instead it goes right to the top.

The elevator is broke and needs to be reset from underneath but those damn spider robots start attacking Jack and spraying acid at him he climbs out side the open elevator and knocks one spider robot off which explodes the other one stabs his hand and he falls, luckily he grabs the bottom of the lift resets it and now it's going down but he needs to get into the lift before it reaches the bottom.  As he goes down it stops at the floor with Luther and they fight in the elevator, Jack kicks him off before they reach the bottom and the spider robots attack and kill him.  

Everybody is safe Jack checks Luther's body who gives us the classic jump scare and then the spiders explode.  Jacks partner invites him to dinner and they kiss which seemed unnecessary but hay it's a boy and girl and there needs to be sexual tension,  he credits roll over them kissing under the sparks of the construction site next to a dead body.  All I’m thinking is your son was kidnapped, you might want to check on him and leave the crime scene just a thought.

I have to give it to Michael Crichton at least when dealing with the future he makes it seem like an extension of current technology and not make it unbelievable, every thing in the film though obviously 80's was actually possible, some robots seemed like 80's versions of ones you might have seen in 50's movies.  Gene Simmons is good as the Bad guy Over the top like all bad guys should be, it makes them more fun.  Tom Selleck is his usual subdued self but it works he is a single father who deals with robots, why wouldn't he quite and shy.  I've seen this movie many times since I was a kid and those spider robots still scare me and the jump scare at the end by Gene still works and I jump every time.

The film feels a bit like a John Badham or Lethal Weapon type story with Sci Fi elements it follows the same arc of the buddy cop movie, however, it being from Michael Crichton I feel like there was something more like this was a novel and a lot of the villains story was removed, like why did he have the chips made and what were they for, this is mentioned in passing but not really explored, apart from that this is a fun film with some funny dated robotics.  I say check it out and if your not scared of the killer spiders, I wonder what does scare you.

Horror Remakes Show Too Much!

Today I am talking about the remakes of American Horror films and how they have ruined the killers by showing too much.

Even though I know not to expect much from remakes I still go and see them, I guess I’m a gluten for punishment.  When I see remade horror films, the one thing I've noticed is that they go into too much unnecessary details about the creatures or entity disturbing the victims.

One of the reasons I can't stand the shot for shot remake of PSYCHO, other then Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, is the unnecessary sound effects added to the film; for example the seen where Norman spies on Marion, a sound effect of Norman playing with himself was added, what this did was make the audience laugh and the film was no longer able to scare anyone when I saw it.  Hitchcock did not require this sound effect and anybody who watched the original understands what he was thinking when he spied on her plus the mother part of his personality made it quite clear too so why add the sound effect.

Some of the more recent Horror remakes by Platinum Dunes have chosen to look more closely at the killers or monsters which has ruined them.  I grew up with Mike Myers as a terrifying figure who would not die and just kept coming, sadly the remake decided to focus on his character and find a reason he was like that, which made him just another serial killer; the same is true of the remakes and prequels of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.

I do appreciate that the film makers were trying to re-imagine the original source material, but unfortunately, by exploring the killer/monster's motivation just destroyed what made them scary in the first place. 

I am still scared of Robert Englund's Freddy and the first movie, I find it hard to watch it without taking breaks to calm down from the scares.  However, when I saw the remake I liked that it looked at Freddy's birth as the monster we know but they then went over the top with the Paedophile back ground, we knew that character was a paedophile and we did not need to ever see him make the victims dress in kids cloths and feel them up this again just made him laughable which was more reminiscent of the later Nightmare on Elm Street movies which were more black comedies then horror films. 

I must admit that there are some horror remakes that I have enjoyed, such as My Bloody Valentine & Amityville Horror which have in my opinion done a good job of re-imagining the original premise and making it work for a new generation.  I could go into so much depth about each horror remake that shows too much about the villains but it would be a very long blog, I may come back to this issue again in the future.

Thanks for reading from your Movie and TV Mistress

GLORY DAZE on E4

Movie and TV Mistress series review.

So here is a review of a new TV show which has already been cancelled in the States after only 10 episodes.  Glory Daze is set in 1986 at Hayes University in Indiana and is about a group of Freshman guys who join the Omega Sigma fraternity.

The show starts very strongly with good casting and no over the top outfits or hair like other films and shows that are set in the 80's have done in the past.  We follow five freshman going to mixers at the fraternities at the University so they can decide which they should join.

We have the Asian Computer Geek called Alex Chang he rarely turns up after the first episode as he joins the Asian fraternity because it parties all the time in secret, but he couldn't take it and quit and did not join Omega Sigma. Next we have the young Republican of the group called Jason Wilson he failed to get accepted to his fathers Alma Mmata the Zheta Rho, then their is the Jock called Brian Sommers basically Capitan Awesome, he rarely has his shirt on but he is very intelligent. Then we have the desperate virgin called Eli Feldman, he's small and wants to be the big man on campus and does the craziest things in the show.  Finally we have the heart of the group who we follow called Joel Harrington, he the nice guy in pre med who falls in love with a girl who just happens to be dating the leader of the Omega Sigma called Damon.

If you have seen films like Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds and any other film about university fraternities then you already know these characters and plots, they could have called this show Animal House the TV series, because it is basically the misadventures from that classic John Landis film played out in 46 minute episodes, I know this sounds like I think this is a bad series, it isn't the worst out there, it tries hard and has some great humour, and a lot of referential humour that only people in their 30's or those who have watched a lot of 80's TV and Movies would get.  

I knew when I watched the Pilot back in November that this show was unlikely to get a second series, because I liked it. You see I have this unfortunate knack of liking a show from the start that are doomed, some say it's because I like bad shows, but anyone who has watched Studio 60 knows that was a great show which again I loved from the start.  It appears that the shows which are successful and get picked up are the ones that it takes me a few episodes to get into, this is not always the case but I'd love to know why shows like Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens and Lost stayed on the air for as long as they did. (I did watch all of Lost but I still think that Invasion was a better show and deserved a second series more then Lost deserved 6)

But back to Glory Daze the show is actually a well made and feels like a love letter to the 80's and the films of that decade, when I watched the Pilot it felt like it was from the 80's it was better then the short lived That 80's Show, I also think it spoofs films like Top Gun just as well as Hot Shots did.

The other reasons I think this series failed in the states are that there is already an excellent collage comedy show called Community which is more diverse and spoofs classic films all the time,  also we only follow four white guys we don't know much about the girls or find out what female fraternities are like, perhaps it was to similar to the shows of the 80's which we have moved away from.

Even though the show is only 10 episodes long I do recommend that you watch it, because it is a very well written 80's comedy and especially if you enjoyed the College films of the 80's and Hot Tube Time Machine.  I would go on but I really don't want to spoil the series for all the UK E4 viewers when it starts tonight, so give the show a chance, besides it's only 10 episodes.