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Frankenstein Island (1981)
Hollywood Superstar, Melvin the Dog
If you're someone who takes comfort in watching campy films from the 70's and early 80's, when the film just looked a certain way, then this weird romp is for you.
Granted, the story line is absurd and is all over the place, but that's fine, because on the plus side, there are dozens of beautiful bikini babes (who are sadly now all in their 60's and 70's) , a gaggle of misfit heroes, John Carradine's floating head shouting 'the power' over and over, and of course, the adorable actor Melvin the dog who starred as, Melvin the dog.
I'm not even going to try explaining the plot because it really seems to serve as background for this crazy film. I discovered this film via Rifftrax, so that could be why I took to it more, but even without their commentary, it's a fun film. Easily the worst 'monster' of any Frankenstein film, actor James Webb steals every scene he's in by flailing around like a kid who had his hat pulled down over his eyes. Grandma Boobies, I mean, Sheila Frankenstein, played by camp-queen Katherine Victor, makes quite an entrance into this film. Clearly the budget was very low. Fight scenes are stretched out too. When 'the monster' comes in to turn over a table, he seems almost like he's trying to make sure none of the rented set pieces actually fall and break.
Overall, like I said, it's a fun campy watch if that is your thing. I was a child when this came out and grew up watching cheesy films like this all the time, so for that comforting factor and the retro feels, I give it a 5 out of 10 and a hearty recommendation.
House of Darkness (2022)
Justin Had an Hour and a Half to Spare One Weekend
If 'Vampire Feminism' were a genre, then this mess of a film would be the only movie in the entire catalog.
The question you have to ask yourself when reviewing a film is, 'Did it entertain me?" And the answer to that question after watching "House of Darkness" is..... no.
This movie is more or less Justin Long rambling on for an hour and a half like a guy trying to talk himself out of a speeding ticket. He is supposed to be this drunk, machismo "typical guy" who drives a woman home from a bar - a women who asked HIM for a ride, who then invited HIM to come inside and who then served HIM several more drinks before pulling HIS pants down, (but he is supposed to be the "aggressive" one #EyeRoll). He is clearly harmless from the start and never once forces himself on her, and in my opinion Justin Long is just too much of a 'nice guy' actor to fit this role.
Anyone old enough to watch an R rated film will know she is a vampire the second she says her name, so there's no surprise there. The only surprise is that this film was ever greenlit. Ten minutes in and this chick is throwing out dozens of creepy red flags (and takes like 30 minutes to 'fix a drink') to the point where 99 out of 100 men in Justin's position would have probably gotten out of there ASAP. I know I would. But apparently our main character really, really wants to get laid by this nothing special woman, so he semi-reluctantly plays along. Then her 'sister' shows up, and when she says her name, that seals the vampire deal. Honestly I'm surprised they didn't have a pet bat named 'Vlad' fly through the living room.
The entire film is uneventful dialogue, 95% of which comes from Justin. I'm not saying that abundant dialogue makes a bad film. Tarantino films are drenched in dialogue, but his films are actually entertaining. But with this film, it seems like the characters are sort of making it up as they go. You can see Justin is really trying to carry this catastrophe on his shoulders, but this flick just can't be helped.
It also takes place in real time, which is why I gave this the title that I did. I feel like maybe he was friends with someone involved in making this and did them a favor by talking on camera for 88 minutes. It doesn't appear that there was much of any real direction, the cinematography is very poor, the lighting is very poor, the set is very poor (they're supposed to be 'way in the middle of nowhere' yet when up on the roof there appears to be city lights just a couple minutes away?) and worst of all, the writing is very, very, very poor. Neil LaBute?? More like Neil LaBreen.
I'm really trying to think of something nice about this film but there's just nothing here. I would have rather spent an hour and a half watching trailers of better movies, which is to say, trailers of any other movies. It's as if the writer/director never actually slept with a female, so he set out to make films that make all men look like misogynistic sleaze bags so maybe women might think he is 'different' and give him some action. Lame. And here I thought Justin Long would never make a worse movie than 'Tusk'.
Moonhaven (2022)
Nope
Remember those filler episodes of Star Trek TNG where the crew would beam down to some strange planet inhabited with a closed-minded, ignorant human or human-type society (see TNG Episode "Angel One") that all dressed in lame "futuristic" clothing that was nothing more than basic geometrical cloth gowns and the men were clueless peons ruled by some power hungry, often female dork? Or there would be a society of people living under ridiculous rules and were like ignorant children who didn't know any better (see TNG episode "Justice')? Enter 'Moonhaven'.
The Pilot....is about a Pilot. I am only reviewing the pilot episode because that's all I can stand.
We open to a flyover of a cliché CGI city that I suspect is supposed to tug at the strings of Blade Runner fans, but the buildings are so dark and muddy that the entire scene looks like something a 5th grader made for a school project. We also get a voice explaining how the humans have messed up the Earth and destroyed the climate and so on and so forth. I had to check to make sure I didn't lean on the remote and change the TV to MSNBC.
The story itself starts off with a clearly bitter, lonely, 'independent wo-man' character that could basically be switched out for nearly any character ever played by Michelle Rodriguez. She is an ex war pilot now moon taxi driver (and smuggler) who is tasked with transporting the closest looking to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actress the casting director could find (seriously, search 'Amara Karan' and tell me I'm wrong) to the moon, because she is another strong, independent wo-man whom the future of humanity is depending on to survive. Her task is to go up to the moon, (where some AI has managed to terraform the land into a livable habitat for humans in a ridiculous short amount of time), and inform yet another strong, independent wo-man who is currently in charge of the 'council' that controls this new moon society, which is basically a commune of clueless numnuts who take a pill every time something makes them feel sad which will literally erase the sad feeling from their brain, because of course they would. They are the 3rd generation of people to be born on the moon, "Mooners", and yet they have zero idea how human society functions or how to actually solve problems using their brains. They are all implanted with a tracking device at the base of their spine so that Google....sorry...the "A I" (stupidly named IO, which is actually a moon of Jupiter). And the 'police' that live in this moon commune aren't actually police, but instead are just idiots in pajamas who show up at someone's house when something hurts their feelings and they, I sheet you not, do a dance to help them feel better then offer them a pill to erase the pain of the memory. And if you were wondering if the annoying hobbit cop was romantically involved with a male of a different race, then remember that this is a woke show.
Like Star Trek, the writers throw in a lot of "futuristic" tech that I assume is supposed to impress the viewer, but unlike Star Trek, what I've seen so far in Moonhaven is rather senseless and lame. First off, on their trip up to the moon, the AOC looking woman and her bodyguard have to go into this sort of deep cryosleep, when even with 20th century technology it only takes about 3 days to get to the moon from Earth. Why? And when dollar store Michelle Rodriguez is landing the ship, she pulls out these two metal rings, like those you could buy in a magic shop, attached to absolutely nothing, and awkwardly moves them around to guide the bad CGI ship into some water. Why? It was like a child sitting on his front step with his hands in the air pretending to fly a fighter jet. The actress did the best she could with the scene, but there's only so much the cast can do with this horribly bland and laughably ignorant dialogue. I imagine she was thinking 'man, I hope my friends don't see this show'.
I won't 'spoil' anything else because some things are so bad they have to be seen to be believed. If a bunch of Greenpeace hippies who nobody has ever swiped right got together and decided to barely mask their agenda under the dim guise of senseless science fiction and gathered up a bunch of diverse B-grade actors and the most annoying hobbit to act it out, they would create Moonhaven, and create Moonhaven they did. It's interesting how the man who produced the 'interesting' 90's sitcom 'Dinosaurs', which sees it's final episode with the dinosaurs talking about how they ruined the climate before all dying because of it, has found his way here, 30 years later, producing this nonsense.
You'll see that a lot of people are giving this show a 10, but I can promise you that they are doing so for all the wrong reasons, and we really have reached a sad point in entertainment. They will praise a show simply based on the diversity of it's cast and disregard the rest. I imagine that many of those people have already said my review was not helpful just because it was not a 7 or higher and didn't even bother to read it. We have hit a point in time where any show or movie that has poor acting, poor writing, poor musical score, poor anything, and even poor everything, is apparently not allowed to be disliked If the majority of the cast is not white. It is quite pathetic. To all of the wokesters out there, the entire cast of this show could be switched out with 200 albinos that have spent the past 20 years living underground and the show would still be weak. If this thing were made 30 years ago, Mystery Science Theater would have riffed on, but in 2022 it's regarded as amazing by an entire generation that is just as ignorant and purposely-kept-stupid as the "Mooners" on this show. It's perfectly alright to dislike a bad film or TV show just for thinking it is a bad film or TV show. It's called an opinion and it's time people be allowed to have them again.
Breeders (1997)
A Decent Dose of Sci-Fi Camp - RIP Space Girl ♥
I first came across this title via Riff Trax. Typically I turn away from the Riff Trax that don't have Mike and the guys, but this film looked interesting so I kept it on. Honestly, it is good 90's sci-fi fun. A sci-fi on a budget that you would expect to find on the old sci-fi channel. The special effects aren't ground breaking, but they exceed those found in typical cheesy sci-fi flicks. They are far superior to those in "Ice Spiders", for example, which was released nine years after "Breeders". The first scene with the character vaguely named "space girl", I was mesmerized. Who was this beauty and where else could I see her? How sad and angry I was to find out that just one year after this film was released, in 1998, the actress who played Space Girl , Kadamba Simmons, was brutally murdered in London by a former Israeli solider that she had been dating for three months. She had met up with him in order to break off the relationship, at which point he strangled her to death, then hung her by the neck using a leather strap in order to make it look like she committed suicide. I was glad at least to see that the SOB received a life sentence, but then further searching online showed me that he was actually released after just 15 years. Horrible. I felt bad with the Riff's on the film now. It made the scene with Space Girl fighting for her life with the character of Louise a bit unsettling. The writing isn't the best and the plot has a lot of things left unexplained, but the acting itself is pretty solid. The beyond beautiful deceased actress makes good of her screen time, and the male lead Todd Jensen is also a decent actor. Much better than most of the guys I have seen on the sci-fi chan originals. He seems the type that you would find in one of those Hallmark holiday movies. There is a dab of gratuitous nudity and there seems to be a "chill in the air" in some scenes with the ladies, but it's nothing that would corrupt a teenager, so you can watch this one with your teens. I'm just sorry that we never got to see what else would have become of this young actress, taken from the world far too soon.
The Guardians of Justice (2022)
Woah, What is Going on Here (with these lame scores)??
I was shocKed to see such a low overall rating of this title on IMDB. I suspect that the majority of reviewers are perhaps not the viewers that this show was intended for. Yes, it is dark, both in lighting and in storytelling. Yes the story is a bit loose around the edges at times. Yes it has a clashing of styles. But newsflash - that is exactly what makes this title so fun to watch. If you like comic books of the golden age - If you like comic style shows based going back to West and Ward's show (I believe it was called "KaPow!! Welcome to the 60's!!" or, something...) to modern graphic novel adaptations by Snyder - If you like live action mixed with cartoon animation mixed with CGI mixed with stop motion claymation mixed with some special effects that are purposely made to look like something from a straight to VHS in 1984 - if you like flashback cuts in the style of Kill Bill - if you like that sound from the Silverhawks theme song - if you like 80's style cyberpunk gleam with dope retrowave tunes - if you like beat'em up video games during the Genesis era - if you liked watching DDP mix it up with Henning and Savage - if you like tongues in cheeks and fists in faces - then you owe it to yourself to watch this series. Add in a great mixed bag of a celebrity cast, including some cameos that will often have to going 'wait, is that so & so ??' . The scenes are often broken up into quick jump cuts, so don't get up to refill your cup with what you thought was the fine coffee you normally drink that has secretly been replaced with Folgers crystals without pausing it, because you can miss a lot looking away from the screen for even a second. And this show has everything - superheroes, terrorists, fighting, explosions, health bars, Chaz Bono, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll (the only thing missing is Dan Cortese. Series 2, I'm talking to you). The 30 minute per episode runtime goes by almost as fast as Motion Blur, so just sit down and binge watch through season one of a show like nothing you have seen before.
Nine Perfect Strangers (2021)
Nine Far From Perfect Strangers
Well that was 6 hours and 28 minutes I'll never get back.
If you're up to episode 2 or 3 and you're reading this review, expecting the show will "get better eventually", or for some huge surprise reveal at the end that makes the long wait worth it, then save yourself the time, because there is none. It is talking, followed by more talking, between characters you really care nothing about, that goes absolutely nowhere. I actually found myself disliking every single character more and more with each episode and was hoping it would end with them all drinking poisoned kool-aid like some whacked out cult.
Honestly, I can't imagine how empty someone's life is that they could possibly be so entertained listening to ficticious people talk about theirs. You may as well just eaves drop strangers on a bus or train and call it a "show".
So here's a spoiler alert - this series is terrible.