Expelled Grey Matter

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy was the last movie the duo made with Universal and the next-to-last feature overall.  The duo was getting older and the age of the screwball comedy had pretty much passed.  In fact, this entire movie, despite being quite entertaining, feels like something one would see from a decade prior.  Along with going back to the well frequently to parody the old monster films it was clear by this point that everyone involved was just phoning it in.  Pete Patterson (Bud Abbott) and Freddie Franklin (Lou Costello) are two Americans living in Egypt.  They overhear a conversation with a Dr. Zoomer (Kurt Katch) that he has found the legendary mummy Klaris (Eddie Parker) and needs help transporting him back to the United States.  The doctor has also found a medallion on Klaris that would lead him to a treasure trove.  The problem is that Klaris is still alive and is worshipped by a cult led by Semu (Richard Deacon) who sends his henc...

Diminishing returns on the movies where Abbott and Costello meet different Universal monsters was a given.  After all, by the time Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  was made the duo had made over 25 films for Universal and were obviously trying to wind things down.  Most of the jokes had become routine.  However, if one thing had been learned from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein , it was that the horror elements must balance out the comedic.   There is a monster on the loose in London who is killing random people.  Reporter Bruce Adams (Craig Stevens) is trying to get the scoop.  While doing so he meets a beautiful suffragette named Vicky (Helen Westcott) who is also a performer in a music hall.  Vicky happens to be the ward of Dr. Jekyll (Boris Karloff) who, along with his assistant Batley (John Dierkes), is experimenting with bringing out the different sides of human beings.  He secretly wishes to marry Vicky and ...

At the end of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein  there is a throwaway joke where they meet the Invisible Man, voiced by an uncredited Vincent Price.  He had previously played the role in The Invisible Man Returns   and the scene hinted at which direction the next Abbott and Costello movie would go.  Instead, they went for more of a whodunnit with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff  and then produced a number of more typical comedies with the duo.  However, when they did get back to meeting the Universal monsters, it was the Invisible Man that came next.  Like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein being a direct sequel to the previous monster films this is also a continuance of the original The Invisible Man   from 1933.  Bud Alexander (Bud Abbott) and Lou Francis (Lou Costello) have just graduated from detective school and are eager to get their first case.  That comes in the form of boxer Tommy Nelson (Arthur...

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein , despite Bud Abbott's reservations, turned out to be a grand success.  It brought back Lon Chaney Jr. as Lawrence Talbot, aka the Wolf Man, as well as Bela Lugosi as Dracula.  It also managed to give all three of the most popular Universal monsters a proper ending rather than the silly films they had turned into.  Ironically, they did this while being intentionally funny. The one thing that was missing was Boris Karloff.  Glenn Strange, who had played the Monster in House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein , returned as the creature.  Meanwhile, Karloff agreed to promote the film as long as he was not forced to watch it, which is a shame because it is one of the best old-time horror comedies made.  Seeing that formula was successful he agreed to a bit part in the next one which, though only having some horror elements on the surface, still was quite entertaining. Freddie Phillips (Lou Costello) is a bellhop at a pre...

After finding out a little more about this somewhat forgotten '90s horror flick I find it hard to have a solid opinion.  The reason is that, like so many similar movies, the film that is available is little more than a shadow of what it was supposed to be.  Of the 112 minutes that director David Nutter intended only 84 ever reached the screen and MGM, the studio and distributor, has never allowed the original cut to be released despite the fact that it exists.  Many films, especially the Friday the 13th  films, have had large swaths sliced out of them to avoid dreaded X or NC-17 ratings, but Disturbing Behavior is one of those in which the studio just grabbed it and cut it into a barely comprehensive mess. Steve Clark (James Marsden) and his family move to the small town of Cradle Bay after his older brother Allen (Ethan Embry) commits suicide.  Steve soon befriends a couple of stoners named Gavin (Nick Stahl) and U.V. (Chad Donella) and becomes attracted to a g...

By the late 1940s the Universal horror films had turned from artful, stylish gothic horror to little more than cheap b-movies.  It appeared that things may get back on track with The Wolf Man .  However, despite that movie's success, it never received a proper sequel.  While the subsequent movies featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as Lawrence Talbot were fun they concentrated on what kids wanted to see, which was Frankenstein's monster and Dracula duking it out with our hairy-handed gent.  That is among the reasons that Bud Abbott was not too happy when presented with the script for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein .  At the time the team of him and Lou Costello was one of the biggest comedy acts around, with a number of hit films, not to mention popularity on radio and live shows.  What sold Abbott on it was a big paycheck and a director, Charles Barton, that had frequently worked with the duo in the past.  Little did they know it would become one of the b...

Video games do not typically make for prestige movies.  There have been some impressive adaptations - the recent Fallout television series being an example - but for the most part these franchises have rightfully gone to schlock directors as the studios, both on the movie and video game side, were more interested in making a quick buck.  Notably, the original Resident Evil movie was handled by Paul W.S. Anderson, a director who built most of his career on the cult film Event Horizon .  His movies are usually good looking but hollow, and the original Resident Evil series played more like a vanity project for his wife Milla Jovovich.  Despite this I found most of that series to be quite entertaining, particularly Resident Evil: Extinction  which brought in another classic b-movie director, Russell Mulcahy.   Despite the worldwide phenomena that the video game series is I have never played Resident Evil or any of its sequels, spinoffs or reboots.  T...

It is such a typical Hollywood ego trip that screenwriters would think that the Biblical apocalypse - complete with the apocryphal Rapture - would occur in Los Angeles.  That is probably a good part of the joke that Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg were trying to make with This Is the End .  They co-directed and co-wrote, along with Jason Stone, a scenario in which a number of Hollywood celebrities get caught up in the chaos of the end times and, in typical Hollywood fashion, make it all about themselves.  Jay Baruchel comes to Los Angeles to meet his friend Seth Rogen and hang out for a weekend.  Against his better judgment he lets Rogen talk him into going to a party thrown by James Franco.  As Baruchel doesn't really like Franco, Jonah Hill or many of the guests he becomes uncomfortable and starts talking about going back to Rogen's house on his own.  While at a convenience store the earth suddenly shakes and several people are lifted into heaven by blue lig...

I am quite vocal about my dislike of modern comedies.  I have a few exceptions but, by and large, comedy died around 2000.  I would like to say it has nothing to do with political correctness but, in a way, it does.  Directors like the Farelly Brothers went out of their way to rebel against PC trends of the time, reveling in being offensive.  It worked briefly with movies like Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary , but eventually it became routine.  Most comedies since have tried to wring humor from old playground jokes. It should be no surprise that, given my general enjoyment of the movies I review on this site, that most modern comedy I like combines elements from other genres.  That brings me to Pineapple Express , a stoner comedy from Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow.  In some ways it plays a bit like Up in Smoke , with two not-so-bright potheads stumbling through different situations, combined with the good old trope of the main characters ...

In the last few years I have become friends with a number of artists and musicians in the towns of Superior and Miami, Arizona.  One person that gets talked about, although I have never met him, is Cory Busboom.  He bought the town of Hayden to use as a filming site and has multiple properties with cars that are used in local films.  He is also into suspension, where metal hooks are placed through the skin and a person is lifted off the ground, often being swung around while being barely held aloft by their own skin.  Enter musician, filmmaker and actor Michael Jason Allen, aka Jason Mysteria.  He has been making feature films and music videos for over a decade in Arizona and obviously something about the suspension culture intrigued him as he decided to do a retro slasher film as a tribute to the subculture.  Don (John Minch) is the leader of an adult rehabilitation group.  To celebrate his latest class's graduation he takes them to a remote town in A...

I remember Lisa Frankenstein being promoted prior to it coming out.  A local group that presents cult movies was offering preview passes and, as usual, I had something happening on whatever day it was happening.  It didn't really phase me much as it didn't seem the sort of movie I would want to watch anyway.  It seemed like another cult film that wanted to force the supposed cult-ness of the production on audiences that were hoping for something new and entertaining.  To top it off it was PG-13.   Fast forward a couple years and this movie has become a genuine cult hit.  It has an '80s aesthetic, a Tim Burton-style romantic plot and has plenty of nods to Heathers .  Despite all that, and despite a number of flaws, it still manages to be its own thing.  Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is slowly coming back to normality after her mother was killed by a psychotic killer.  Now living with her father Dale (Joe Chrest) and stepmother Janet (Car...

I'm sure there was a lot of pressure on Lamberto Bava to be like his dad but, with his frequent collaborations with Dario Argento, he went in a quite different direction.  The Church and Demons  are his most popular, supernatural features that combine all of his influences, from Mario Bava to Lucio Fulce.  Before those, however, his first couple of films fell clearly within the giallo realm.   Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) is a film composer working on the soundtrack to a horror film directed by Sandra (Anny Papa).  She puts him up in a large rural villa to do his work, hoping that the atmosphere will influence him, while withholding the last few parts of her movie.  The owner of the villa is a playboy named Tony (Michele Soavi) who has to spend most of his time away in Kuwait.   Bruno soon gets to work and is interrupted by a woman named Katia (Valeria Cavelli), who is murdered a short time later by an unknown person.  Bruno finds clues af...

A major frustration with many Stephen King adaptations is that, due to copyright or other issues, the interconnectiveness of the stories never shines through.  Even a story like Hearts in Atlantis , which was integral in introducing Ted Brautigan, a character that would figure heavily in the last few Dark Tower  books, got adapted in a way to where it left the important parts out and concentrated on the coming-of-age story.  After ignoring all the connections for so long I was surprised to find out that an adaptation of The Dark Tower series was a thing. Then came the bad news.  The movie is only 95 minutes, hardly the time needed to encapsulate eight books' worth of material, even if it skipped some of the parts that felt more like wheel-spinning on King's part or the awful decision of including himself as a character in the last couple tomes.  It also did what too many movies do these days and race swapped Roland Deschain, who in the books is obviously modeled...

Shaw Brothers, one of the most famous movie studios in Hong Kong, was known for their grand martial arts epics and period dramas.  However, they occasionally branched off into stranger realms.  Influenced by Ultraman and many other Japanese films director Shan Hua and writer Kuang Ni came up with a kitschy, hilarious and often fun sci-fi film of their own. When a series of disasters begin to strike the world Professor Liu Ying-Te (Hsieh Wang) uses his advance scientific laboratory to investigate.  It doesn't take long before the source of the problems reveals itself: the Glacier Queen (Terry Liu), Demon Princess Elizebub, has gathered a number of creatures from the ice age to wreak havoc upon human civilization in an effort to reclaim the surface world.  In order to combat this threat Professor Liu recruits one of his best agents, Lei Ma (Danny Lee), to undergo an experimental procedure.  The result is that, when needed, Lei Ma turns into Super Infra-Man, a cybo...

A major problem with many of the Godzilla films from any era is, though the series may begin strong, it quickly devolves into trying to walk a fine line of presenting a cool monster story while still keeping it family friendly.  The modern-day versions have worked best when the stories went into darker territory and allowed the terror that permeated the original Godzilla to come through.   Surprisingly the Millenium Era of Godzilla understood this.  There was no grand plan except for a few of the movies made to have multiple chapters.  Instead, each entry presented Godzilla in a different manner, and both Godzilla 2000: Millennium and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus  were partially successful.  The issue was often that Toho didn't give the directors and special effects crews decent budgets, thus resulting in some impressive miniature work but often horrible CGI.  Because of that the feeling of watching an epic monster movie didn't surface until Godzilla...

Sam Raimi, except for the premiere episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead , had backed away from directing after the disastrous flop  Oz the Great and Powerful .  It was the best decision at the time as that movie had little of what made Raimi great, either as a classic horror director or as the director of one of the best superhero films of all time.  It was a tired piece of work-for-hire Hollywood pablum that would cause anyone to question their career choices. Despite his reluctance to get behind the camera again he was talked into directing a Marvel film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness .  Despite being a latter-day Marvel production it was a solid fantasy flick and was recognizably a Sam Raimi film despite all its flaws.  Although it had a mixed reception it got him interested in directing again and, lo and behold, we got Send Help in early 2026.  Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is the hardworking head of the strategy and planning department of her com...

They were not the first movies that actor and director José Mojica Marins made, but they were the first horror films in Brazil.  Because of that Zé do Caixão, or Coffin Joe as he is known to English speakers, became a nationwide phenomena.   At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul and This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse became hits despite their low budget and the public was hungry for more.  Unfortunately there was a wait of over 40 years for a true sequel, but that didn't keep Coffin Joe from popping up here and there. In this case it's the first movie after the two in the series.  The Strange World of Coffin Joe is an anthology film, directed by Marins and featuring him in the last segment, with a voiceover at the beginning.  The two previous films owed a lot to British and Italian horror of the time, and during the late 1960s many of the major European studios were releasing anthologies.  With the military junta looking the other way as long as film...

Although many Stephen King books dwell on cosmic terrors and monsters that are often quite human, there have been a number of his books that dwelt on more traditional horror material.  He got vampires and werewolves out of his way early in his career, and there have been plenty of ghosts, but it wasn't until 2006 that he decided to enter the realm of zombies, despite being friends and often a collaborator with George A. Romero.  When it came time to do zombies King decided not to go with the traditional but instead added a healthy dose of technological fear.  For Cell  he pulled from movies such as 28 Days Later and added a hefty dose of Richard Matheson's  I Am Legend on top of it.  What he created still had many of the apocalyptic tropes that surround these stories, but it was something purely him.  It was also relatively short and pulpy.  It was one of the late-career novels that pulled King out of the mire of overlong epics he had been churnin...