Fade to Black Movie Review

 

Fade to Black is a 1980 horror movie directed by Vernon Zimmerman and starring Dennis Christoper,Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford and Linda Kerridge.

The tale begins with a young man called Eric Binford(Christopher). He lives with his aunt and he has an obsession with old movies. He works at a film distributors and he is often in trouble at work.  His aunt is called Stella and she tells him that he needs to change his lifestyle. She thinks that he is a loser. A psychologist called Moriarty(Thomerson) is moving into the local police station. He is setting up a programme to help young offenders. Eric makes a bet with a guy at work called Richie(Mickey Rourke). Richie is a bad guy and he always makes fun of Eric. Eric sees a young woman called Marilyn(Kerridge). She looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe and he is fascinated with her. He makes a date with her, but she isn't really that interested in him. She goes out with another guy and she forgets their date. Eric isn't happy.

Aunt Stella gives him grief when he goes home and he ends up pushing her down the stairs in her wheelchair and killing her. He starts to go crazy. He starts to dress up like characters from the movies that he loves. He dresses up as Dracula and he goes into Marilyn's apartment. He sees her in the shower, but he doesn't kill her. He finds a prostitute who had laughed at him previously and he chases her. She falls over and gets impaled on a fence. He bites her neck and sucks the blood from it. Next, he dresses up as Hopalong Cassidy and meets the nasty Richie. He shoots him and kills him. Meanwhile, Moriarty is investigating the murders. Eric meets a filmmaker and he talks to him about his ideas for a movie. The guy tells him that he should call him for a chat about it. Eric is elated. He gets fired from his job.

He heads over to his workplace dressed as The Mummy. He frightens his boss, who has a heart condition. He causes him to have a heart attack and die. Next, he finds out that the filmmaker stole his idea. He goes to get him dressed like gangster Cody Jarrett and he opens fire on him. Moriarty is getting closer to him, along with his helper, policewoman Anne Oshenbull(Gilford). They find out that Stella was not Eric's aunt, but his mother. Eric is dressed up as a prince from the movie The Prince and the Showgirl. He lures Marilyn to meet him by pretending to be a photographer. When she arrives, everything is set up. Moriarty is on the way to find him  before he can do anything to Marilyn.

Eric shoots him in the leg and he grabs Marilyn and runs. They find him at Mann's Chinese Theatre and he takes her up to the roof. He lets her go as he gets ready for his final scene. The police have surrounded the building and he starts to reenact Cody Jarrett's final scene from the movie White Heat.
The cops shoot him and he dies after falling from the roof. This film was pretty good. I am not sure about Christopher's performance, though. I didn't think that it was that great. I liked the premise and the movie references were good. This could have been a lot better, I felt. I did like the nods to other horror movies such as Night of the Living Dead and there were posters from Halloween and Tourist Trap on display which I also liked. All in all, this was an odd film for me. I didn't know if it wanted to be a serious horror movie or a comedy horror movie. I just didn't get it. Anyway, there is enough in this one to keep you entertained and I recommend it overall. I will give it a 5/10.

Crawl Movie Review

Crawl is a 2019 horror movie directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper.

The movie begins with the news that there is a hurricane in Florida. Haley(Scodelario) gets a call from her sister, Beth. She is worried about their dad. Haley calls him, but there is no answer. She goes out to his house to find him. She finds his phone. She decides to look in the cellar and she hears music playing. She sees a bit of blood and becomes worried. She finds her dad, Dave(Pepper). He has been injured. She tries to drag him out of the cellar but it is flooding and an alligator is trying to come in. It tries to get her. She hides from it. Her dad is groggy and he tells her that she should go before she gets hurt. She won't leave him. She wants to get to her phone but the alligator drags her off. She stabs it with something and realises that there are two!

She has been hurt so she hides. The basement is filling up with water. She can see a woman outside who is stealing from a shop. She has a boat. Haley shines a light, hoping that they can see her. One of them does, but he gets munched by more alligators. She and her dad spot the police, but they can't get their attention. They eventually get spotted but the alligators get the cops too. Haley and her father find a safe space but they are going to drown if they don't move soon. Her dad tells her that he will distract them while she makes a run for it. He manages to kill one of them. Haley finds to her dismay that the way out is blocked by the alligators nest. She has to try and crawl out through a pipe. This pipe is also the same way that the alligators got in. Hayley manages to secure a gun from the dead cop and she shoots an alligator. She manages to get into the house.

She goes through the floorboards and pulls the dad out. He is barely alive. They look outside. They are marooned. They need to find a boat. They go outside and they try to get to a boat. They get swept away in a big surge. They have to hang on. Her dad gets attacked by an alligator. It rips his arm off. Hayley gets stuck in the shower. The alligator is outside. She manages to lure it in and she gets out and traps it. Her and her dad go up to the attic and they use a flare to kill the alligator. They get to the roof and they sit up there. A helicopter comes and Haley uses another flare to flag it down.

This film was good. I liked the story a lot. The alligators were scary and it was very tense throughout. There was a lot happening in it and there were no dull moments. I didn't hear much about this film which is a surprise because it is a good creature feature and it deserves more attention. I will give it a  6/10.

You Should Have Left Movie Review

You Should Have Left is a 2020 horror/thriller movie directed by David Koepp and starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried.

The movie begins with a man called Theo(Bacon). He is married to a younger woman called Susie(Seyfried). She is an actress and he was a banker. They have a daughter called Ella. Theo wants them to go for a holiday so they book a house in rural Wales. When they reach the house, it is huge.
It is also out in the middle on nowhere. Lights go on an off by themselves. Ella sees a strange shadow on the wall. We learn that Theo was married before. His wife drowned in the bath. He was accused of her murder and it has caused him a lot of anger issues. Theo goes to the local grocer and he asks him about the house. It is relatively new, but the grocer tells him that there was another house there previously. He seems to know something about it. He gives Theo a triangle to measure the angles inside the house. Theo is amused.

Theo writes all of his thoughts in a journal. When he goes to open it, he sees that someone has written 'you should leave' in it. He wanders around and finds loads of corridors in it. Someone is taking polaroids of him. It turns out to be a bad dream. He decides that they should leave the place. He finds out that Susie has been cheating on him. He tells her to leave for the night and they will talk in the morning. He looks in his journal and finds the words ' you should have left. Now it's too late'. Theo  loses Ella in the house. He runs around looking for her. He eventually discovers her and he tells her that they have to leave the house. They are going to walk. He calls the grocer and asks him for help, but he doesn't help.

Theo and Ella walk through the countryside looking for some help. They end up walking right back to the house again. It looks as if someone is in there. They have to go back into the house again.
Theo sees his dead wife and then he sees himself. Something is happening to time and he sees himself as he was when they first arrived. He talks to a version of himself and things get weird. The next day, Susie shows up and he tells her to take Ella with her and he tells her that he has to stay in the house. He admits that he knew that his wife was drowning and he did nothing to help her so he was responsible for her death. He has to stay in the house as punishment for what he did. They leave and he goes back inside. The movie ends with the house being advertised on the internet.

This film was not very good. It was supposed to be a horror movie, but there were very few scares in it. I thought that it was more like a thriller but even so, the film was light on suspense. I thought that the story could have been so much better and the ending just fell flat for me. I was expecting some big reveal, but nothing good happened. I like Kevin Bacon, but this film was not good and even he couldn't make it better. I usually enjoy haunted house movies, but this wasn't really one of those either. The house was some sort of purgatory or something and I thought that Theo was paying for his past sin by having to stay in the house. That's what I took from it.  Anyway, I felt that this was a poor offering so it is getting a 4/10.