J*A*S*M

Interesting. The first time around, I liked the second Phantasm a lot more than the first. Now I’ve watched both of them again a day apart and I feel that I was unfair to the first and that my memories of the second were too rosy. Either way, you can see the bigger budget in the second one: there’s more blood, more dwarves and more flying balls. The story is also bigger in scope, which I didn’t particularly like, the small town setting of the first one was better – and actually, the story of the second one is more fun when it moves to a new small town (and it makes you quickly forget all that driving around). Nice, atmospheric and fun horror. If only the story made a bit more sense, the characters acted more logically and the actors were better. But that’s too much to ask.

Probably the best vampire movie I’ve ever seen. I thought it would be boring, but that wasn’t the case at all. The quality of the performances and the amazing narration drew me into the story in an almost unexpected way. And on top of that, the film has an interesting idea.

A nice gothic fairytale. The visuals are impressive, but the story falters a bit (final explanations by villains are something I really hate).

I approached this film with some prejudice, either because of the director, whose previous movie was utter crap, or because of the poster, which is a cheap and cringe rip-off of Maniac’s awesome poster. And I was right! Gutterballs is not worth shit. If I ever get my hands on the creative team, I swear to God something really ugly will happen to them. The film tries to recreate the atmosphere of the 80s, but without any success – it can’t hold a candle even to the weaker representatives of the era. It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve never seen a more insufferable bunch of characters in film, in particular the kid, whose vocabulary was limited to “shit”, “bitch” and “fuck”, giving Gutterballs a good chance of reaching the top of the ranking of the most vulgar films in history – it was really terrible. Don’t let yourselves be fooled by the positive rating on IMDb (7.8/10), it must be the votes of the cast and all the members of the staff (either that, or there’s something I didn’t “get”).

The first King’s film adaptation turned out to be quite good, great, in fact (which is something you can’t say about most adaptations of his books, but let’s be happy with the few good ones – and when the stars align, they can be great). For most of its runtime, Carrie is a drama rather than horror, but the tension escalates with every minute and and it keeps you expecting something unpleasant coming. The story is quite predictable (and it must have been so even in the 70s), but that’s well compensated by the psychology of the characters – the mother is especially good. PS: At least one and a half stars go to Sissy Spacek, she’s great in the role.

A pretty bad experience. This film is awful crap that doesn’t offer anything interesting. It’s a great example of how decent visuals (at least for a movie without ambitions) can be killed by a stupid and boring script. A message for all horror creators: ghost stories are no longer as cool as they were a few years ago, please stop making so many of them!

Superb film, flawless horror. There’s no need to praise the details, the rating speaks for itself (I actually don’t know what I would reproach). This film didn’t feel as old as it really is – time has left a deeper mark in much younger films – The Exorcist could meet even the stricter standards of today.

Yeah, I quite liked Phantasm the second time around. Without any doubt, the best thing about the film is the atmosphere (one of the best horror theme songs ever) and the character of the Tall Man. What is terrible, on the other hand, is the behaviour of the characters (it’s impossible not to root of the Tall Man); Mike, the protagonist, was especially irritating. Yeah, and the performances are also very weak. And yet, for some reason, it worked on me as a nice horror spectacle. Weak four.

The first half is an incredibly good, hilarious and stylish gangster/road movie. Unfortunately, the quality drops considerably in the second half (and I thought that more horror part would like better). The best for me was Tarantino as Richie, and the worst was the frantic action in the bar, which was weirdly directed and quite boring in spite of all the blood. The last shot is funny :)

I couldn’t appreciate it even after a second time. It has an interestingly poetic horror atmosphere and nice visuals, but that’s all. It’s on the border of funny and cringe, originality and nonsense, but leaning rather towards the more negative side. I don’t like films where any stupid thing can happen because it will be justified by something even more stupid later, without ever showing any hints of sense.