The Addams Family (1991)

WGBW, Uncle Buffalo is back. I know I constantly apologize for tha lack of delays but it is tha second greatest day of tha year, and I wouldn't forget about this.

1) Despite 24 year old Buff's earlier thoughts, this movie is definitely running laps around tha second movie. Tha first one obvi started it all, it avoided that wretched gremlin from tha second, and they play golf most of tha movie.

2) To be honest, this whole movie freaked me out for the better part of my childhood. Obvi, not as much as Child's Play 2, but really pretty close. I mean, there is a fucking hand that can be anywhere that just randomly messes with you; tha Lurch guy could put a beating on anyone; and two really creepy children and tha spooky uncle.

3) FWIW, this movie was also tight because it was tha start of Christina Ricci's acting career. She has never really been in anything tight (except for that one ep of tha Good Wife obvi), but she is pretty top notch.

4) This movie always has a special place in my <3 due to its constant airtime over tha Halloween season. It also had a fucking pinball machine that was in every arcade lol.

Super pumped tw.

A-

Freaks

1) I know this is considered a "classic", but the main reason I wanted to review it is Meadow's boyfriend in Season 3 of tha Sopranos says it's supposed to be an all time great horror movie. Unfortunately (and despite the 1 hour length of it), this movie is pretty boring. The only other carnival -esque horror movie that I am terribly familiar with is tha hit movie The Funhouse, which is running laps around this ish.

2) I mean, this isn't really a movie that is scary in terms of some rando members of the public being taken out at a circus. This is just some sideshow people picking on some turd people that work in other departments. How is anyone supposed to be spooked by that?

3) And how hard would it be to make this movie scary? As I'm sure some of you long time followers will remember- me, doggles, milhouse, and NPJ went to a haunted house one time our freshman year of college and some Darth Vader lookalike chased me out of tha haunted house for like 3 blocks through downtown KCMO. How hard would it have been for them to hone in on some rando civilian?

4) It befuddles me that this movie was so graphic and scary that it was banned and restricted in a bunch of places. Nothing to write home about here,

D

Eraserhead

I don't even know where to begin.

1) So I tuned into this one because it is in the Criterion Collection. Now it makes me think that this is just a bunch of hipster movies that all tha cool kids think are really important and metaphysical (lol).

2) The first ten minutes is literally just flashing to this dude laying with his mouth open and some creature swimming around back to this deformed guy looking out the window. If you have to re-read that sentence to understand it all you are not alone.

3) And what was the plot? So he goes and gets convinced that he is tha father of his ladyfriend's mom's kid? And then the kid is actually some deformed creature who he starts having nightmares about and then starts TKO'ing tha thing? It doesn't make any sense. 

4) The loud, incessant, and irrelevant music really reminded me of tha turd movie Eyes Wide Shut. There's another movie that rivaled this one in the bad movies hall of fame. 

 How this got to the criterion collection is beyond comprehension.

F

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

1) So I'm tuning into one of these "Classic" movies. For you new blog fans, these are older horror movies that sort of set tha foundation for tha horror genre. Despite my general disdain for old crappy movies, most of them that I have reviewed have decent grades. Not here.

2) Initially, I'm confused that there is no dialogue.  I'm LITERALLY rewinding it trying to figure out what is going on. Then it hits me: there is no dialogue. Oh great, another movie with subtitles. I fucking love these.....not.

3) I know I've been on my soapbox before, but back in the day, couldn't people just go check out picture books from the library? Or read comic strips? Literally this has to be disheartening for everyone involved: I mean, the actors are acting but having to pause so some dumbass on a typewriter can flash on the screen what they are thinking.

4) Besides all of that, the story doesn't make that much sense. If you think every person has an evil counterpart, why would you drink tha kool-aid in tha first place? Maybe if everyone had a muscular counterpart or something, but this is just non-sensical.

At least it had some good quotes. Oh wait no it didn't. smh

D

Son of Dracula (1943)

1) These mid 20th century movies are growing on me (well sort of). Maybe it's because the plots are pretty easy to understand and the length of the movies accommodates my ADD.

2) That being said I still don't know why it's titled "Son of Dracula." I don't remember him popping a kid out in the original, but I guess I didn't see the Dracula's Daughter one either so maybe I am just out of the loop.

3) That was some crazy weird soap opera love triangle stuff going on here. I mean, the chick ditches her boyfriend for Alucard (which is Dracula spelled backwards lol), but only to become immortal so she can then turn the bf into a vampire and TKO the actual dracula. And then at tha end she gets crossed by her bf. You give someone the gift of immortality and they take it out on you by destroying your coffin smh...

4) I guess this was the first Dracula movie to ever show a person transforming into a bat. Must've been wild in 1943 lol.

B-

The Blob (1958)

1) Now I know what most of you are thinking: Where have I heard of this movie before? If you answered "I saw it on the hit TV show Friends" then you'd be correct. You see it in tha video store on the One Where Monica and Richard are Just Friends (Season 4 obvi).

2) That being said, hats off to Buff for reviewing these classic movies from tha 50s that are part of tha Criterion Collection.

3) I actually thought it was pretty solid. It's like these people start seeing some blob/virus thing take over some dude and then it just grows and grows and keeps on consuming people. The real problem is the bigger it gets, the less scary it actually is. I mean, if you're driving down tha rode and see a gigantic pulsating red blob just inhaling everything just turn the fucking car around. Really not rocket science.

4) And did I just miss the boat on why the blob is afraid of tha cold?  Is the end of the movie just them dropping the blob off in some cold place out in tha middle of nowhere? #LOL. Might as well have just thrown it in one of those giant freezers or something.

Not bad for being so old,

C+

The Wolf Man (1941)

1) Buff went back to 1941 tonight bw. I'm obvi not wild about these old movies, but the one thing about them that does appeal to me is that they are well under my 90 minute attention span. (Also, Hutchy, our dog, really was tuning into the hairy wolf guy. He kept barking thinking some other dog was in the house lol.)

2) Really a pretty solid movie for it being so old. It's a pretty simple story. Guy roles into town, tries to court this lady, gets bit by a werewolf, and then becomes one. Now he knows he's a werewolf and is trying to leave before making it rain on everyone. It's obvi where An American Werewolf in London got its vibe from.

3) In all reality it probably had to be pretty hard to get bit by the werewolf in the first place. Like in the remakes or in Red Riding Hood, the wolf is actually pretty fast. But here it's just like some giant guy in a gorilla suit stumbling around trying to get you.  I'll bet even Jon laced up in his track suit could escape the guy.

4) Overall it was pretty clutch through and through. Short, to the point, had fog, and explained the basic background requirements associated with werewolves. Definitely a good introductory movie for fans new to tha genre.

B

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

1) A lot of hoopla before the plot actually develops. It seems like they spend the first 30 minutes of the movie just driving around in a car or in a hospital. Kind of boring lol.

2) It was kinda tight though. I'm not wild about alien-esque horror movies but this one was good. It's kind of the weird part about my movie taste is that I really like all the old Unsolved Mysteries that involve UFO sightings and stuff. I even used to have a book about them but for some reason I'm not overtly wild about horror movies with Aliens. 

3) I know I've mentioned this before, but boy howdy did they smoke ciggies back in the day.  The surgeon general definitely didn't issue a warning before most of these movies.

4) How tight was it when that kid just ran away when he didn't want to go to school? School sucks. That kid rules. Also the line "maybe we should have a drink." #tellmeaboutitlol.

Pretty solid for an old movie,

B

Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

1) I'm kinda confused how they are not totally sure of who wrecked all the havoc in the first place. I mean, didn't people see this gigantic monster running around this huge city? I get they couldn't tweet what was going on at the time to alert the others, but really this doesn't seem to be that hard to figure out. He's not bigfoot.

2) I dunno what's going on with these older classic movies. But it seems like no monster/villain ever just pops out of nowhere. In The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and Frankenstein all involve these scientists that are just curiously creating these supermonsters to wreck havoc on the world. At least in this one the guy has made an oxygen destroyer instead of just creating the monster himself.

3) And what a crazy thing to just start investigating in. I mean, who sits around and just decides to develop some formula that sucks the oxygen up out of you? Did he get a license from the government for this? Seems like some risky experimenting.

4) It's hard to be too scared of this at the end of the day. Living in Kansas kind of insulates me from having to fear oceanesque creatures that could make it rain on small town KS. Then again, I did get nervous that the guy jumping out of space the other day might just land through the Cone. Never say never.

C-

The Invisible Man (1933)

1) Obvi reminds me of the underrated movie Hollow Man. Only this ones some 60 years earlier lol.

2) If this really happened it would obviously be one of the scariest things that has ever happened. Where would you hide from this guy? My first thought was just to go hang out in your car and feel around until you made sure it was clear and then get the hell out of town. But what if he's just hanging on to the top of your car or something? Really no where to run. 

3) For all the perks of being invisible, the guy does have some good talking points about the drawbacks of it. Walking down the stairs would  be hard as hell since you can't look at your feet. I'm sure kickboxing, dancing, and a variety of other habits would have to go out the door as well.


4) The ending was a little ho-hum. I'm always for the horror movies that leave at least a little bit of a cliff hanger. It's too bad that they just showed him ultimately getting TKO'd and returning to normal. Doesn't really leave much room for a sequel.

B-

Creature from the Black Lagoon

1) This would give me the willies even if there wasn't a giant creature that was hanging out in the Amazon. When I was in Vegas, Leslie dragged me to this aqarium thing where all the sharks and stuff were swimming around in the walls and stuff. Scared the hell out of me. This whole movie is them just hanging out around all these creepy fishes and what not. Scary enough for me.

2) That being said, there's a pretty simple solution to this whole mess. If you quit dicking around by the water you really wouldn't have a problem with this thing. When he's on land he moves at less than a mile an hour and sticks out his gigantic claws so you could see him coming from a mile away. Why they keep investigating while everyone keeps getting TKO'd kind of befuddles me.

3) I mean these people keep dying and they hypothesize that the Creature might just be a 'mosquito that they can shoe away'? HELLO MCFLY.

4) For you Dawson's Creek fans out there, you'll remember that this movie got repped a lot in the Pilot episode lol.

Meh,

D+

The Mummy (1932)

1) Trying to gii with some of the classic movies that I've never seen before. Most of these aren't too bad because even though they're in black and white and what not, they are only like an hour long which is right up my alley.

2) It's kinda wild that the mummy guy doesn't even look like a mummy for a wreck of the movie. I dressed up like a mummy a few years ago (which was dumb- toilet paper doesn't stay wrapped around you for very long lol) but I never actually knew how little time that guy actually rocked the outfit in the movie.

3) Seems like I've been watching a bunch of movies lately that involve someone reading some scroll or poem that just ends up wrecking havoc on everyone. It's always one of those situations where everyone wants to read it because they don't think anything could go wrong but then it does. Reason 3234378 not to read any ancient history books in some other language.

4) It was really tight when they first woke the mummy up. That one guy goes crazy and then just laughs about how the mummy is going on a walk. It's pretty tight the Mummy is on #teamwalk.

C+

Nosferatu

1) We watched this because it was on that jitsu 'great movies' list, but I know all the horror fans always say that it's one of the ones that started the horror genre so I guess it was good to watch.

2) Obvi the silent/black and white genre hasn't been great (I'll try to quit sounding like a broken record about this stuff), but this one was a little more jitsu because they had these subtitles on during the whole movie.

But they weren't really subtitles since it was silent, it was just like a commentary about what was going on during the movie. Come to think of it, this movie was just like one giant animated story book.

3) The other problem with the subtitles is that they were in some super old font that was hard to read. They should've put it in Century Gothic (@cormatt). And it was going way too fast to keep up with. I know my reading comprehension skills are below average, but even Alan had trouble keeping up with it.

4) The Nosferatu guy was pretty fucking spooky, especially given how old the movie is. I guess I kind of wonder why those people keep hanging out with the creepy dude who keeps lunging at blood, but to each their own.

Given that they couldn't add sound/color to it, still a solid movie given how old it is.

B-

Casablanca

Smh,

1) Obvi it's in black and white which is a downer. I guess I knew this getting into the movie but it still doesn't help.

2) A lot of things don't make sense about this movie. Now I'm no history major (obvi) but I thought this movie was about all the French people getting away. Why are they speaking English? And why aren't they more scared of the Nazis? There's this one scene where everyone's drinking in the bar and there's a shoot out with a bunch of Nazi's running around. Then everyone just chills a few minutes later. It's like, "hey there were just gun shots and the people taking over Europe are here, why don't we GTF out of here?"

3) I guess the ending was sort of stupid too. I mean, who throws in the towel on their long lost love to let her go run around with some other dude when she's all about you? It really reminded me of Season 3 of Friends when Chandler throws in the towel on Janice. FWIW I guess it was better in the end.

4) Also, why on earth did Alan just have this sitting in his backpack? You know how you always plan in case of a fire? And there's like a list of your prized possessions you'd be sure to grab? Well Alan has Casablanca in his must have list smh.

Off to a poor start,

D-

When Harry Met Sally

1) One of the best RomComs of all time. It's not even just me this time, I think it's pretty universal that this is a sick movie.

2) It's got one of the sickest girly quotes of all time when Harry says

"And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. "

You can see it at the 1:00 mark here.

3) It's a little too depressing at some points. Like the 15 minutes before the sick ending it's depressing watching him sit around and getting blown off by her. Maybe it's due to my hatred for the bad endings (see the Break Up), but I'm glad it didn't TKO the movie.

4) The intermission scenes with the couples talking about their relationships was ho-hum. I don't really know what sparked that but I could live without it.

Despite the small setbacks, it was a sick movie.

A-

Frankenstein (1931)

1) It was probably the best black and white movie I've seen. It's only 71 minutes long so my ADD couldn't get the best of me. It also got to the point right out of the gate so I didn't have time to get confused about what was going down.

2) The monster's got his ups and downs. When he moans it sounds like a 4 year old, and he got sad when he threw that girl in the water, which doesn't seem very monster like.

3) He also seems dumb (obvi I get that he just got resurrected or whatever), but other serial killers seem to learn well. I mean, he had a hard time figuring out what the fire was. Michael Myers was locked up in a mental institution for 20 years and then managed to drive a car without taking driver's ed. He even made his way back to Haddonfield without a map, but the monster couldn't figure out how to open an unlocked door. Some serious jitsu.

4) I'm sure it was still scary back in the day. He's super giant, pretty creepy looking, and can choke people out. I mean, I get it.

Best black and white so far, but my lack of fanfare for the real old movies keeps it from climbing too far up the totem pole.

B-

Rosemary's Baby

I don't get what all the fuss about this was.

1) It wasn't scary. There wasn't any part where somebody jumps out at you and really nothing creepy happens. The spookiest part is where she has that dream about her and the devil making love, but even then it was more weird than scary.

2) The plot doesn't even seem scary. Maybe if I was a middle aged girl it would seem scarier.

3) Seems like other movies ran with the plot much better (the old and new omen were sick, probably post about that soon). I think the Omen was spooky because the antichrist was born and then he wrecked havoc on the world. Just hard to be scared of someone not born. Then again I've been scared by dumber stuff #lol.

Maybe it's just some jitsu part in me that's not wild about pre 1970 horror movies.

D+

Psycho

1) I hate black and white movies and I don't know why, but I could sit through this one. It gets kind of long in the beginning explaining why she's trying to steal all the money and stuff but it gets better later.

2) The shower killing scene is obvi good, but the rest of the kills are pretty fake looking and jitsu. I get that it was 1960 but you think they could make it rain better than this.

3) The psycho was pretty good- it would be hard to figure out that he was his mother if you hadn't seen it before.

I know it's a classic but it'd be hard for me to watch it again.

C