***Disturbing iconic slasher about a demented family in rural Texas*** After a van of young people picks up a psycho hitchhiker in east Texas they stumble upon a farm house of crazies, including a burly mute man with a mask made of human-skin. Tobe Hooper’s "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974) is a seminal, iconic slasher that’s genuinely disturbing and horrific because it plays out in a gritty, realistic manner. While some viewers might find a couple of scenes amusing, like Franklin in his wheelchair accidently rolling down the hill and, later, having a hammy fit in the dilapidated building, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a serious, unsettling horror flick. By contrast, Rob Zombie’s homage (or rip-off), “House of 1000 Corpses” (2003), wasn’t disturbing or horrific at all because he opted for an over-the-top, cartoony approach. It was colorful and amusing, yes, but not unsettling or horrifying. Other positives include the rural locations, cool nighttime sequences, e.g. the thorn bush, and the effectively photographed women with no raunch: Teri McMinn (Pam) and Marilyn Burns (Sally). They’re girl-next-door types, but alluring enough. So this is a standout film as far as serious slasher horror goes and I can understand those who give it a high rating, but horror movies are about more than just scaring & troubling the viewer. For me, the last act is overly one-dimensional, focusing too much on the eye-rolling demonic dirtbag family and a girl fleeing & screaming. It’s thoroughly manic, indeed, but also vacuous and uninspiring. The film runs 1 hour, 23 minutes; there’s also an 88 minute unrated version. It was shot in east Texas as follows: Round Rock (house), Bastrop (gas station/BBQ shack), Leander (cemetery) and Watterson (slaughterhouse). The house has since been moved to Kingsland and refurbished as a restaurant. GRADE: B-/C+
It's maybe not fair to appraise a film 50 years after it was made too harshly, but I found this really quite over-rated and annoying. Five travellers pick up an hitch-hiker in their van but quickly discover that he has a penchant for knives and, well he isn't quite the full shilling. Anyway they manage to get shot of him and arrive at a garage that has no petrol near the grave of the grandfather of the wheelchair-bound "Franklin" (Paul A. Partain) and his sister "Sally" (Marilyn Burns) who are travelling with her boyfriend "Jerry" (Allan Danziger) and friends "Kirk" (William Vail) and his girlfriend "Pam" (Teri McMinn). It's the latter two who set of for a swim and never come back. Concerned, "Jerry" goes off in search before, yep - the other two head off into the desert in the dark to see what's what. Pretty early on, we know just what has happened to the first pair and so fully expect the expected... Except, it doesn't quite pan out quite how we might anticipate - else how we could we ever have known about this story? It's all about the last twenty minutes and even then I found it all rather flat and noisy. Way too much of the sense of peril here comes from endless screaming, running about in the bushes in the dark and the behaviour of visitors who just haven't a clue about basic self-preservation. Who would set off into unknown terrain in pitch dark pushing a bloke in a wheelchair after three of their friends had gone missing? Once we meet the perpetrators, again it all just comes across as something that wouldn't look out of place in a Carry On film made in the Hammer House of Horrors - there isn't an hint of menace at any point amongst the faux gore and crescendo hysterics. It's clearly been made on a tiny budget and the production standards reflect that - the continuity is a bit of a joke with wounds that are there then not or windows that self-repair... Nope, perhaps I just wasn't in the mood but I found this really quite disappointing and funny - but not really in a good way.
Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.
Movie Star Rating : 6.1 Read More
Six actors go to a graveyard on a remote island to act out a necromantic ritual. The ritual works, and soon the dead are walking about and chowing down on human flesh.
Movie Star Rating : 5.3 Read More
A woman goes to see a movie to which she appears to have a strange connection.
Movie Star Rating : 0 Read More
John has inherited a castle in Italy and he moves there with his wife Susan and their blind daughter Rebecca. What they don't realize is that there is somebody else in the castle-an abused child left to die in the basement who has now become the castle freak and is out to wreak havoc.
Movie Star Rating : 6.2 Read More
A group of teenage girls heading into the city hook up with a gang of drug-addled ne'er-do-wells and are brutally murdered. The killers find their way to the home of one of their victim's parents, where both father and mother exact a horrible revenge.
Movie Star Rating : 6.5 Read More
An extinct species, the Tasmanian tiger. A long-forgotten legend, “The Pieman” aka Alexander Pearce, who was hanged for cannibalism in 1824. Both had a desperate need to survive; both could have living descendants within the Tasmanian bush. Four hikers venture deep into isolated territory to find one of these legends, but which one will they come upon first?
Movie Star Rating : 5.2 Read More
A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother.
Movie Star Rating : 7.1 Read More
One year after running away from home, Nicole and Jesse are still missing. When Jesse's brother, Tom, returns home from active duty, he sets out with his friends Marilyn and Jared to locate the lost couple. Their search leads them to the stretch of old highway with a mysterious Rest Stop, where they find themselves in the same predicament as Nicole and Jesse: confronting a madman.
Movie Star Rating : 5 Read More
In the late 1920s, Albert Fish, a seemingly benevolent father and grandfather who reared his family by himself after his wife deserted them, turns out to be a serial child molester and murderer. Based on a true story.
Movie Star Rating : 5.8 Read More
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