This movie is based on a true story. It begins with a couple,Cameron(Holtz) and Janice(Williams) Hooker who give a young girl, Colleen(Timlin) a lift in their car. Little does she know that they are not the nice couple that they claim to be. The husband pulls a gun on her and she is taken to their home. The husband tells her that she must do what he says or she will get hurt. He plans to keep her in the basement. Janice tells him not to have sex with her and he promises not to. He makes a box for her to live in. He comes up with a slavery contract and makes her sign it . He tells her that he is in a company who have slaves and that they will kill her if she tries to escape.
They move to a more remote location and Janice has a baby. Colleen looks after her. The years pass and Colleen is called K and she does everything that she is told. She sees other people but she thinks that she will be killed if she tries to escape so she stays. Janice is jealous of K and she thinks that Cameron wants to have sex with her. Colleen realises that she has been with them for years. She lives in a box under their bed. Cameron decides that he does want to have sex with K. He tells Janice that she had better accept it and so Janice and K become friends. Cameron tells K that she can have a visit home so they both go to see Colleen's family. She doesn't tell them anything and she acts as if everything is okay, believing that her family will be hurt if she tells anyone.
Janice decides to leave. K is left alone with Cameron and he treats her badly. Janice arrives one day when he is not home and gets her out of there. She tells her that all of Cameron's talk about the company was not real and that she was free to leave any time. Colleen is devastated. Janice takes her to a bus station and gets her a ticket home. She calls Cameron and tells him. He breaks down. The movie ends with news that Cameron received 104 years in prison. Janice got immunity in return for testifying against her husband. Colleen went home and lived her life. This movie was strange. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it even stranger. Who decides to put a woman in a box and keep her as a slave? Very weird. The movie is entertaining and it is fascinating to see what actually happened to Colleen. I suppose I did find it hard to understand why she didn't leave but then if you are in a certain situation, it is not easy to leave. She thought that her life was in danger, which seems very naive to me, but people can get taken in by stuff like that. The cast was good and I would recommend this if you like true crime movies. I will give it a 6/10.
So, 1995. It wasn't the best year for horror related movies really, but there were some interesting films and some not so interesting ones, I will begin, as always, with the best of the lot.
Copycat is a thriller mostly, but I am including it here as it is a great movie and one of my favourites. I love the story and the cast are great. This is one to watch if you have not seen it. Seeing Harry Connick Jr. as a serial killer is worth a watch. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. That guy is good looking but here, he is nasty. Seven is another thriller which fits in here too. I never really loved this movie despite all of the praise that has been heaped on it. Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt but Kevin Spacey is good in this. Morgan Freeman is good too. Dolores Claiborne is a Stephen King penned novel which was made into a movie in this year and I did read the book and I enjoyed the movie, but not as much as the book, I have to say. Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in this. Haunted is another novel that I read by James Herbert that was turned into a movie. Again, I liked it, and it starred Aidan Quinn who is a good actor. It is worth a look.
The Mangler is a Tobe Hooper directed horror movie which is based on a short story by Stephen King. It isn't great to be honest. I wanted to like it, but it is mediocre. Ice Cream Man is another one that isn't great either. The Addiction is a vampire movie starring Lili Taylor but I wouldn't count it among my favourites. Lord of Illusions is a Clive Barker directed movie from his short story. It stars Scott Bakula and I liked it. It was pretty good. Night of the Scarecrow is a low budget affair which had me confused as it was like Dark Night of the Scarecrow, another Scarecrow related movie. These scarecrows get around a bit! Vampire in Brooklyn was a Wes Craven directed vampire comedy. It is not really my thing. I am not a huge fan of horror and comedy together so this isn't one that I would re watch.
So, where are we now?The worst movies of 1995. Hmm, there is some competition for this one. Village of the Damned was a remake of the original movie and even though it starred Christopher Reeve. Rumplestiltskin was not good at all. Hideaway which is based on a Dean Koontz novel was not good either. The less said about it , the better. Piranha was a remake of the original and it is bad.
There were plenty of sequels this year. I will begin with Leprechaun 3 which was hilarious. Those movies are so silly but great fun. Candyman 3 was the final in the series of movies and this was probably a good thing. I liked the first one, but the others were not great. Halloween:The Curse of Michael Myers is the sixth movie in the series. It is so so as most of the sequels are. The Howling:New Moon was the seventh film in the series- yes the SEVENTH! Enough said. Rubbish, Witchboard 3:The Possession was released. I haven't seen this one yet but I'm not in a rush to see it. Children of the Corn 3 came out his year and this was just OK. So, 1995 was an okay year for horror. There is nothing very good here other than Copycat and I think that a lot of the films above could be forgotten about. If I have missed anything, let me know.
The movie begins with Riggs(Gibson) and Murtaugh(Glover) working on a case involving South African gold. They are put off the case by a South African diplomat,Arjen Rudd(Joss Ackland) and his sidekick, Pieter Vorstedt(Derrick O' Connor) and Murtaugh gets a bomb in his house and just escapes with his life. The two cops have to look after an irritating witness called Leo Getz(Pesci) instead. The two cops know that Rudd is dodgy and that he has something to do with smuggling but he is a diplomat they can't touch him. Leo gets attacked and it turns out that he has something to do with the South Africans too.
Riggs isn't happy that Rudd seems to be getting away with his shady dealings and he sets out to harass him where he can. He meets Rudd's secretary, Rika van den Haas(Patsy Kensit) and they have a connection. They become close.Vorstedt is on the warpath and he is determined to kill all of the cops on the case. That includes Riggs and Murtaugh. They manage to kidnap Getz and Vorstedt gets Riggs and Rika. He kills her by drowning and he throws Riggs in after her, but he manages to survive. It turns out that Vorstedt was responsible for the death of Riggs' wife as it was meant to be him in the car. This makes Riggs want vengeance and he gets ready to take Rudd and Vorstedt down.
He tells Murtaugh what has happened and his partner agrees to help him no matter what. They go to the house where Leo is being held and they wreak havoc. They get Leo back and then they chase Rudd and Vorstedt who think that they can get away. They end up at the docks and there is a battle between Riggs and Vorstedt which results in Riggs dropping a shipping container on top of him, ending the fight! Riggs gets shot by Rudd but Murtaugh steps in and shoots him dead despite his diplomatic immunity. Murtaugh waits with Riggs as help turns up.
I liked this movie. It was all action and Gibson was great as usual. I liked all of the cast and the story was pretty standard, but good fun. This and the first movie are my favourites. Somehow three and four didn't hit the same heights. Joss Ackland was great as the slimy diplomat who thought that he was above the law. Pesci was great as the really annoying witness who never shuts up! All in all, this film is a great 1980's actioner. I recently watched it after many years and it is still great even after all these years. I will give it an 8/10.
This looks pretty good. I liked the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies. They are good, family friendly fun and of course, Johnny Depp is always great. This will be out next year, around May, so it will be interesting to see how they do with this one. I will be going to see this when it is out! Watch the trailer and see what you think!
The movie begins with a man in a sanitarium who hangs himself. He is buried by two gravediggers who are them attacked by an unknown person. Cut to DeWitt University where the kids are having a party and they are talking about a man called Dickie Cavanaugh who killed his girlfriend. They talk about him being locked away. The dead girl's dad,Jim MavVey(Holbrook) works as security officer on campus. There is a killer on campus and when the mascot of the college team gets killed, the killer takes his outfit.
The rest of the film is pretty much a by the numbers slasher movie. The person in the suit goes around killing the students on campus. They are dropping like flies and MacVey finds out that Dickie has a twin sister who just happens to be working on campus as a cafeteria lady and she has been the one who dressed up as the mascot and kills all of the kids as revenge for her brother or something like that. She has her dead brother, who just happens to be the man who killed himself at the beginning of the film. She has his dead body in a wheelchair inside a freezer if you can believe that. She thinks that he is still alive.
This film was okay. There are no surprises here. It is a standard 80's run of the mill slasher movie. The idea of the mascot being the killer was interesting enough, but after that, I thought that it was mediocre. So, only watch if you enjoy 80's low budget slashers! I will give it a 4/10.
The start of the 90's brought some great movies. On the whole, the 90's were not as good as the 80's for horror, in my opinion but there were some highlights. This year had some great movies and I will look back on them now.
To start with my favourites, I will begin with Flatliners. This film is one of my favourite 90's movies and the cast is great(apart from Julia Roberts). Kiefer Sutherland leads the group of med school students who decide to see if there is anything beyond death. Unfortunately, they bring something back from the dead with them. It is a great, tense movie which I did hear is going to be re made. I hope that this won't happen. Misery is another good movie from this year. I read the book by Stephen King first and I enjoyed it and the movie was entertaining too. I am not a huge Kathy Bates fan in general, but she was good as the psycho fan here. James Caan stars as the author who gets saved by Bates but she is not going to let him go back home...
Another King adaptation was Graveyard Shift(avoid if you don't like rats) and IT which I really enjoyed. I loved the novel too.Of course, that is being remade too. A favourite movie of mine released this year was Arachnophobia. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate spiders. That is why this movie is so scary to me, even though it isn't scary(you know what I mean). That big ass spider at the end made me hide behind my hands, I have to say. Tremors was a good, fun movie released this year starring Kevin Bacon. It is about some sort of weird creatures who are underground. It is not strictly horror, but it is a monster movie, so it is included. Clive Barker's Nightbreed was released too. It is kind of a monster movie, but not one of my favourites. Night of the Living Dead was a remake of the original 1968 movie which is a very good movie. I don't know about this. I am not a huge fan of remakes in general. There are always exceptions, but this isn't one of them.
So, all in all, 1990 was a pretty good year for horror movies and movies in general. I liked a lot of these movies and there are some of my favourite movies here such as Flatliners and Arachnophobia. As always, if you have any movies that you would like to add, let me know.
This episode begins with Eve meeting the guy from the roadhouse, Kevin. He tries to rape her, but she pretends to go along with it and then gets her gun. She shoots him in the leg. He is shocked and she tries to help him. She offers to take him to hospital, but he won't let her. She leaves him there on the side of the road. She cuts off her hair to change her image. Kevin sees a truck coming and he flags it down. Who should it be only Mick. Kevin tells him about Eve. Eve stops at a roadhouse and she talks to the woman behind the counter, Bernadette(Deborah Mailman) and asks her if she has seen anyone with a blue truck. She hasn't.
Eve helps a prison officer who has an epileptic fit. The bikers are looking for Eve too. Hill gets called in to see a dead body hanging from a tree in the outback. It is Kevin. Eve's van breaks down and she has no way of changing her tyre as she left her jack at the roadhouse. Mick turns up at the roadhouse and asks Bernadette about Eve. She says that she hasn't seen her. Mick drives past Eve who realises that it is him, but she is stuck. The prison officer who Eve helped before has another fit and he crashes a van full of convicts. They all die except for one. The bikers are at the roadhouse looking for Eve, Bernadette tells them that she saw a girl and that she had a van. The convict guy gets out of the van and he walks until he comes upon Eve. She helps him and he helps her with her tyre and leaves.
Eve finds a campsite with a rabbit's head on a stick. She gets caught by Kane who knocks her out. She wakes up and realises what has happened. Her dingo gets her her gun and she shoots him dead. Hill shows up at the roadhouse looking for Eve. He gets no information. He finds Kane's dead body. Mick comes back to the roadhouse and he asks about Eve again. The bikers swear vengeance for the death of their pal. Eve goes back to the roadhouse and talks to Bernadette again. She tells her about Mick and where he is heading. He is waiting for Eve and he sees a van and shoots the tyres out and approaches it. Is it Eve? Another great episode with loads happening. Brilliant series so far. Everything is heating up nicely now.
Glover plays cop Roger Murtaugh who is just turning fifty. He just wants a quiet life but he gets a new partner called Martin Riggs(Gibson). Riggs is a suicidal nutcase who lost his wife in a car crash. Nobody wants to work with him. He is a Special Forces guy too. The two are like chalk and cheese and it looks as if their partnership isn't going to last long. Roger gets a call from an army buddy called Michael Hunsaker(Tom Atkins) who needs his help because his daughter jumped off a balcony after being poisoned. She was into prostitution, drugs and dodgy porn movies. He was going to get Roger to help her before she died. There is something funny going on. Murtaugh and Riggs go to talk to her pimp but everything goes wrong and they find a drug lab and have to shoot their way out. There is a witness to Amanda's death but she is blown up in her house before they can get to her.
Riggs looks at the bomb parts and he is sure that it was made by someone in the Special Forces. They confront Hunsaker who tells them that he was part of a group called 'Shadow Company' who were ex-army guys into smuggling drugs . The boss is McAllister(Mitchell Ryan) and his sidekick Mr.Joshua(Busey). It turns out that Hunsaker's daughter was killed as revenge for him trying to get out of the company and talking to a cop. Hunsaker is killed by Mr. Joshua so he won't talk anymore. The company try and take out Riggs but he survives. Murtaugh and Riggs decide to pretend that he is dead to give them an advantage.
Unfortunately, the company kidnaps Murtaugh's daughter and hold her to get Roger to come to them. Riggs and Murtaugh come up with a plan. They show up at the meeting place and Roger meets them. Riggs hides with a gun, but he gets captured. They are all tortured, but they manage to escape as do the villains. McAllister crashes his car so that takes care of him. Joshua is a psycho though and he is heading for Murtaugh's house to get revenge. They stop him and the other cops come, but he tries to shoot them and they kill him.The movie ends on a good note as Riggs visits his wife's grave and makes peace with himself. He spends Christmas with Roger and his family and he gives Roger the bullet that he had been keeping to end his life suggesting that he doesn't feel suicidal anymore.
I love this film. It is the ultimate buddy cop movie with a great cast. Gibson is great as the suicidal cop and I really like his character in this film. He is at his best here and you see that he is crazy after the death of his wife. With the third movie in the series and the fourth, I thought that his character was too watered down and tame. His character in this movie and the second one is very interesting. Glover is good as the veteran cop who just wants to reach his retirement without getting killed. Busey is suitably menacing as the creepy Joshua who doesn't mind burning his hand with a lighter just for fun! All in all, one of my favourite 80's cop movies. I am giving it a 9/10.
The movie begins with a prologue which states that men go to Hudson Bay in boats to get provisions for the winter for their people. The year is 1815 and this time, the men do not come back. Cut to Ginger(Isabelle) and her sister Brigitte(Perkins). They are lost in the wilderness. They look around but cannot see where they are. They stumble upon a campsite at which there is a Native Canadian old lady who tells them that they need to kill the boy or they will kill each other. They don't understand this at all. She gives them pendants. Their horse runs off and then Brigitte gets her leg caught in a trap. Ginger goes back to the camp for help, but the woman has gone. A wolf arrives and behind it is a Native Canadian man called The Hunter(Nathaniel Arcand). Brigitte is scared at first, but he takes her leg out of the trap and puts some herbs on it. He leads Ginger and Brigitte to Fort Bailey where they are allowed in. It is a strange place. There is something very wrong there.
Brigitte is taken to Doc Murphy(Matthew Walker) who puts a leech on her wound. They are assigned a room. They go down to dinner and meet everyone. There is the horrible James(J.R. Bourne), Wallace Rowlands(Tom McCamus) who is in charge at the fort, Reverend Gilbert(Hugh Dillon), who is very pious and irritating, Claude(David La Haye) and a couple of others. The Reverend seems to think that they are sinners and he treats them with suspicion. James treats them with contempt. Wallace is somewhat friendly. At night, Ginger wakes up and she hears crying. She wanders around and finds a boy locked into a room. He bites her. The next morning, she wants to get out of the place. They get caught by James who hits Ginger. Suddenly a werewolf is at the gates trying to get in. All hell breaks loose and the Reverend leads the two girls into a room where the werewolf is. He heads off, leaving them to their fate.
They are trapped but the Hunter helps them. They survive, but Ginger isn't well. She is having visions. She wakes up covered in blood. Brigitte insists on getting her to the doctor. They arrive there and see that one of the group has been bitten and the doctor blows his head off. They decide not to tell him about Ginger's bite. The group of men realise that the men in the boat were killed by werewolves. Ginger is turning into one of them. Wallace finds Ginger's pendant in his son's cell and realises that she has been bitten. He tells Brigitte that his son was also bitten and that he is changing every day. Ginger needs to kill the boy if she is to stop the werewolves. When one of the men is killed, he is holding a lock of Ginger's hair in his hands so the men go to Ginger and take her away. Brigitte talks to Wallace and tells him that if he doesn't save Ginger, she will tell the men about his son. He saves her from death by shooting the doctor.
Ginger looks for Geoffrey and wants to kill him but she softens when she sees him at his mother's grave. The other men find him and they are going to kill him when Wallace decides to do it himself. Ginger and Brigitte have to get out. They go into the woods and find the Hunter and the old woman from earlier on. The woman offers her a chance to see into the future and she accepts. The Hunter tells her that the coming of two sisters had been foreseen. Brigitte has a vision of her killing her own sister. When she awakes from her vision, she finds that the old woman has been killed by Ginger and the Hunter brings her back to the fort.
When Brigitte arrives back, she is captured and she realises that it is a trap to catch Ginger who will come for her. The Reverend is going to burn her as a witch but Wallace stops him and kills him and sets him on fire. Ginger arrives and she is not alone. She has a posse of werewolves with her. She kills the awful James and then unleashes her pals on the fort. The Hunter takes a few of them down but Wallace ends up getting bitten and he kill himself in the house and sets it on fire.The Hunter hands Brigitte his knife and tells her that she has to kill Ginger to end the curse. It looks as if she is going to do it, but then she kills him instead and escapes with Ginger. The movie ends with the two sisters in the woods. They mingle their blood and Brigitte becomes like Ginger.
This movie was entertaining. I liked it more that the second movie in the series. It could have been a stand alone film.The wild setting fit in really well with the story line in that it was bleak and there was a sense of doom as the werewolves were coming closer all of the time. I had an inkling that the ending was going to be as it was and it suited the movie. The cast were good and I liked the Hunter guy in it. This is a fitting end to the Ginger Snaps series. The theme of sisterly love runs throughout these movies and it is touching. This movie and the first one are better than the second one in my opinion. All in all, I recommend this to anyone who likes a good werewolf movie. I will give this one a 6/10.
This episode begins with Eve catching herself in a trap. She meets a dingo and it jumps into her truck. She has to stop at a gas station and she meets some locals who are leering at her. She washes her injured foot. One of the locals, Kev(Matt Levett) tries it on with her and she is saved by a woman truck driver called Ruth(Rachel House) who has a shotgun and she is a bad ass. She offers Eve help and they chat. Eve asks her about a blue truck, but she hasn't seen it. She patches up Eve's foot and heads off. She manages to crash her truck into a police car and a bag of weed is found inside of it. Eve is taken to the local jail where two men are also incarcerated. One of them is a biker called Kane(Richard Cawthorne) and she asks him if he knows a guy with a blue truck.
Hill arrives and tries to get Eve out of the jail, but he can't. She escapes through the window and she makes her way to his motel room. They chat. She is found by the cops in the motel, but she manages to escape again and jumps into a truck which is driven by a pal of Kane who has just been released. She ends up at their house. She looks around and finds a bag of cash and a gun. She is seen but she runs off. They chase her. Hill is also looking for her. Meanwhile, Mick has his eye on two tourists who have broken down. He offers to tow them back to his place where he can fix their car. They are reluctant to accept his offer. To Mick's annoyance, a car full of guys shows up and helps them instead. Mick has to go away without his kill.
Kane is looking for Eve and he asks at a pub if anyone has seen an American girl and that she is looking for a blue truck. Mick happens to be there and he hears this. Eve gets a new van. This was a very good episode. This series is really great, Mick is the psychopath that we know and love and the pace of this show is nice and fast. There are no dull scenes here.
The film begins with a witch being burned at the stake. She curses the local people. Then she arrives back from the dead and kills everyone. She curses their bloodline. It turns out that it is just a film. Lots of people are watching it. The movie was made in the original house where the witch is supposed to have died. James (Nolan) is the filmmaker and he is a descendant of those who killed the witch. His cousin Ann(Courage) attacks him with a sword and then runs off. A pal of James' called Carol(Barber) gets killed by someone lurking in the bushes.
From this point on, the plot is crazy. It has something to do with the witch and the house and people start dropping dead. Anne seems to be possessed by the witch and James wonders what is going on, like I did! Anyway, the movie ends with Anne killing James while she is possessed by the witch and then the house falls apart. Anne dies and the witch laughs....This movie was not great at all. The plot was wafer thin and it just seemed a bit silly.I like these old films despite the sometimes ridiculous plots and to be fair, it wasn't terrible so don't be put off. If you enjoy late 70's Brit horrors, then you will like this. It is Glynis Barber's first role too. I will give it a 4/10.
The film begins with Brigitte(Perkins) injecting herself with monkshood as she was infected in the end of the first movie. She is changing and she is taking notes detailing the changes to her body. She cuts herself to see how quick she is healing. Her sister pops up as a ghost and talks to her. She tells her that the monkshood won't change her back. A male werewolf is coming after her and she can feel it following her. She injects herself again but this time she has a bad reaction to it. A pal of hers finds her and tries to take her to the hospital but gets attacked by the werewolf. She wakes up in a rehab facility. The hospital director is a woman called Alice(Janet Kidder) and she thinks that Brigitte is a drug addict. She tries to escape, but gets caught.
Brigitte gets a piece of broken glass and hides it so that she can check her rate of healing. There is a sleazy guy working in the hospital called Tyler(Eric Johnson) and he offers Brigitte her fix of monkshood for sex. She refuses him. Brigitte doesn't want to talk about herself in group therapy and she tells Alice that if she isn't let out, people will die. She continues her rituals and takes notes about the changes that are happening to her. She is becoming more sexual as she transforms. Ginger appears again. She thinks of suicide but can't do it. She meet a girl called Ghost(Maslany)who is also at the hospital. She figures out what is going on with Brigitte and she wants to help her.
Brigitte fights against her transformation but it is a losing battle. She has to get Tyler to inject her. The werewolf finds out where she is and she knows that she needs to get out. It comes inside and chases them. They manage to set it on fire and escape the place. Ghost takes her to her grandma's house. Her grandma was in the hospital being treated for burns after falling asleep with a cigarette. They hide out there. They call Tyler to get some more monkshood. He shows up with it and they inject Brigitte but she has another bad reaction and Tyler calls Alice for help. Ghost turns out to be very devious when she tells Brigitte that Tyler did something to her. Brigitte locks him outside with the werewolf and he dies.
Brigitte finds out that Ghost is a liar. She was the one who burned her grandma and put her in hospital. The werewolf gets into the house and Brigitte manages to stab it but they stumble into the basement and it impales itself on a spike. Alice is killed by Ghost who turns out to be a psycho. She knocks Brigitte back into the basement and locks her in as she transforms. The movie ends with Ghost drawing a comic strip where she is a superhero with a pet werewolf. She is going to use Brigitte to kill people. The movie ends with her grandma coming home.
This movie was entertaining. Maybe not as good as the original movie, but not too bad. It is dark and a bit gloomy, but that is the nature of this story so I went with it. I wasn't mad about the ending at all. It was too depressing and I thought that it was a total anti-climax after all of the action. I know that the movie is meant to be dark and morbid, but after all that Brigitte went through, being a pet for the irritating Ghost is just silly. All in all, this movie was fine, but nothing great. I will give it a 5/10.
