Godzilla Vs. Biollante is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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I am slowly becoming something of a Godzilla superfan. I’ve always loved that giant, nuclear, lizard monster but I’ve always enjoyed him more or less randomly. I’m still pretty random in my viewing if I’m being honest, but I’m now paying attention to the different versions and eras of the famed beast.

Godzilla vs Biollante is the second film in what is commonly called the Heisei Period of Godzilla films. That’s a sort of reboot of the series in the 1980s. The effects work was updated from the original films and there was a new reliance on Godzilla being a terribly destructive force (at least at first, I think he becomes more friendly in later films).

This one features Godzilla fighting a genetically modified plant (imbued with Godzilla’s own DNA and some psychic powers from a girl). It is a bit of a mess but a lot of fun.

The Criterion Collection also seems fascinated by Godzilla and they’ve done their usual awesome-looking job with this disc.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Moana 2: I quite liked the original film. It had a good story, some great animation, and at least a couple of inescapable earworm songs from Lin Manuel Miranda. The sequel was a huge hit (making over a billion dollars at the box office) but for whatever reason I never got around to watching it. From what I can tell the story is basically the same (Moana has a big adventure on the sea, along for the ride is the demi-god Maui) but there is no Lin Manuel Miranda this time which is disappointing.

Wolfman (2025): Director Leigh Whannell previously helmed a really good adaptation of the old Invisible Man story so it seems like he’d be a great fit for a new wolfman adaptation. But the previews looked dumb and the reviews were bad. Still, I am a horror nerd and I love a good wolfman movie.

The Last of Us – The Complet First Season: A fantastic adaptation of a popular video game finds a man and a teenage girl trying to survive a world full of zombie-like creatures.

The Penguin – The Complete First Season: This series is a continuation of the film The Batman and follows Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell) aka The Penguin as he tries to conquer Gotham.

Forbidden World 4K UHD: Shout Factory presents this Roger Corman-directed Alien rip-off that’s actually pretty good. You can read my Friday Night Horror Movie take on it here.

Deep Blue Sea 4K UHD: Arrow Video presents this silly-sounding film about some genetically mutated sharks that grew super intelligent and, you know, started killing people.

Thirst 4K UHD: Powerhouse Films brings us this 1970s horror film about a descendent of Elizabeth Bathory who is abducted by a blood cult.

Westerns in March – Day of the Outlaw (1959)

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One of the things I love about Westerns is how they deal with taming the wild frontier, and how they depict small societies forming miniature communities. As Europeans settled across the Western United States they formed embryonic societies outside the confines of the Eastern cities. Certainly, they brought with them Western ideas of society (while destroying many of the native cultures around them) but they could literally create their communities in the ways that they saw fit.

The television series Deadwood does an amazing job of bringing forth what I’m talking about.

Obviously, Western movies take a great many liberties with history and the societies that they depict are often in the shape of (what was then) modern ideas, but it is still a fascinating concept.

Day of the Outlaw begins with a man, Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) who helped found and make safe the tiny, isolated community of Bitters, Wyoming. He killed and ran off various outlaws and badmen from the area to make it safe for women and children. He figures that gives him a say in how things are run now.

But while society sometimes needs men like Starrett, it likes to forget them once their jobs are done. Homesteaders have come to town, farmers, and they want to put up barbed wire fences (someday I want to do a study on the use of fences in Westerns) to keep their livestock from running away. Starrett runs cattle across the open land and fences get in his way.

It is this conflict that the film begins. Starrett has come into town to either force the homesteaders to not put up their fences or kill them. It doesn’t help matters that the head homesteader is married to Helen Crane (Tina Louise) whom Starrett loves. Just as the fight is about to happen Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his band of outlaws bust in.

They are on the run from the cavalry but need a place to button down for the night. The men are raring for a good time and figure copious amounts of whiskey and a few turns with the women would be just about right. Bruhn is a tough man, and not opposed to murder when it suits him, but he forbids the men from indulging their basest instincts. Not so much because he has a soft heart for the women but because he knows the men will wind up fighting over the small number of women in this burg, and that’s not good for anybody.

Director Andre de Toth ratchets up the tension as the outlaws grow increasingly impatient and Starrett learns to become the good man. Matters take a turn for the worse as storms blow in making it nearly impossible for anyone to leave.

Cinematographer Russell Harlan fills the screen with wide vistas of the on-location snowy mountains. The stark black-and-white photographer emphasizes the isolation and frozen hardness of everything.

Robert Ryan and Burl Ives are terrific as two hard men sizing each other up in an impossible situation. It all comes to a boil with Starrett leading the men through the mountains in a suicidal trek that he hopes will at least keep the townsfolk safe.

I liked it a lot and I recommend it to one and all.

Trick Or Treat (1986)

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I love me some silly 1980s horror and Trick or Treat is some terrifically silly 1980s horror. Marc Price (of Family Ties fame). He plays a metalhead who accidentally unleashes the ghost of his favorite rocker after he mysteriously dies. At first, the dude helps him prank his bullies but then things (naturally) turn deadly. You can read my full review here.

Westerns in March: A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die (1972)

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This movie is basically a Western version of The Dirty Dozen with James Coburn playing disgraced Col. Pembroke who surrendered Fort Holman to the Confederate Army without a single shot being fired. We’ll eventually find out why, but as the film begins he’s disgraced and considered a coward.

After he breaks out of Fort Holman, where he is being held as a prisoner of war, he makes his way to another Union Fort and makes a deal with its commander. He’ll take a handful of men and retake the fort, reclaiming his good name. The commander figures if Pembroke actually accomplishes this then he’ll get a promotion and if he doesn’t then good riddance. For his team, Pembroke rescues a group of deserters and cutthroats about to be hanged. This includes Eli (Bud Spencer) who he already knows.

As soon as the men are on their way they begin to grumble and plot to ditch Pembroke and regain their freedom. Pembroke has his own reasons for going back (and it isn’t just to clear his name) but he tells the men there is hidden gold and if they succeed then they will all be rich in Mexico.

The Fort is considered impenatrable (which is all the more reason Pembroke is considered a coward for having surrendered so easily) but naturally our heroes find a way in. Telly Savalas plays the new commander. There is a big battle with lots of explosions. Some of our heroes die, but only the ones you don’t really care for.

It is pretty paint-by-numbers and it really does borrow a lot from The Dirty Dozen. The action is well done and it moves along rather quickly. Coburn is good as is Bud Spencer (whom I only know from that Robert Altman take on Popeye). Savalas sometimes attempts a Southern accent, but mostly feels like he’s playing in some other movie. I read somewhere that he wanted to portray the character as gay (which was still a big no-no in 1972) which may account for his odd mannerisms.

All in all it is a decent film, worth watching if you like westerns or Coburn, but still a bit of an oddity.

Westerns in March – Hombre (1967)

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As it is March the 15th and I haven’t written about a single western I’ve clearly been remiss at tackling my Westerns in March theme. My apologies for that. It has been quite a month, but I’m gonna try and make the back half of March full of cowboys.

Westerns have always struggled with their depictions of Native Americans. For decades they were generally depicted as nameless savages out to rape the womenfolk and massacre the men. Even when Hollywood started to be more sympathetic they often chose white actors to portray the Native American characters with more than a few lines.

I had all that in mind when Paul Newman shows up in Hombre with tanned skin, long hair, and dressed like an Apache. My immediate thought was, “Oh no. Not this again.” But Hombre has something different in mind. Newman plays John Russell a white man who was stolen and raised by Apaches. But he was treated well enough that when his real father found him as a teenager and took him home he ran away to join back with his tribe.

As the film begins he is living on a reservation. A Mexican man comes to tell him that his father has died and left him his boarding house. The man suggests that Russell should clean himself up and live a nice life as a white man. He does clean himself up, gets a haircut, and puts on white man clothes (makes himself look like Paul Newman) but he has no intention of living at the boarding house. The lady who runs it, tries to make him a deal, says she’ll still run the house that he won’t have to do anything and he’ll make a nice living. But he decides to sell it. He takes the money and joins a stagecoach out of town.

There are a couple of fancy-pants riders on the coach, one of who used to be the US Indian Agent for the reservation (Fredric March). Since Russell now looks like Paul Newman the Agent (and especially his wife, played by Barbara Rush) takes a shine to him, but once they learn he used to live on the reservation as a native they immediately force him into riding up top with the driver.

There is a lot of that in this film. Paul Newman was one of the most handsome men on the planet, and with his blondish hair and blue eyes, one of the whitest. But the moment anyone finds out his character lived with the Apache they hate him, and they treat him like garbage.

For his part, Russell doesn’t play the Indian with a heart of gold. He’s full of righteous anger. The story inevitably leads them to a situation in which Russell has to save the racist white people but it plays out in unexpected ways. It isn’t a perfect film and I can’t say that all of its racial moralizing works, but it sure is interesting. It is also a fine bit of genre filmmaking as well. I’ve made it sound like more of a morality play than it really is.

That situation I alluded to finds one of the coach riders with a box full of (stolen) cash and some outlaws trying to steal it. The film takes all of that stuff and makes it quite thrilling to watch beyond the fascinating takes on Native Americans and how the white man treated them.

Highly recommended.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

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After the huge success of Alien (1979), a thousand ripoffs were churned out – some good, some not, some with big budgets, some with hardly a budget at all. Galaxy of Terror lies somewhere in between. It is decidedly low-budget, but Roger Corman’s production company New World Pictures knew how to stretch a dollar. It didn’t hurt that a young James Cameron was the production designer (more than a few fans have noticed similarities between this film and Cameron’s Aliens.

The film is better than it has any right to be and boasts an incredible cast of 1980s sort-of stars including Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), a pre-Nightmare on Elm Street Robert Englund, Ray Walston, iconic exploitation maverick Sid Haig and Zalman King who is better known for directing erotica like Wild Orchid and Red Shoe Diaries.

The plot involves a group of people sent on a rescue mission to the planet Morganthus after receiving a distress call. They are sent by someone called the master who is so special his face is obscured by cosmic rays.

After crash landing on the planet (which does look a lot like the planet in Alien – good job James Cameron and crew) they encounter a series of monsters including a giant bug-looking thing that essentially rapes one of the women (bad job Roger Corman who insisted on the scene). But also Robert England fighting a clone of himself.

The plot is utter nonsense, especially the ending which indicates that everything they’ve encountered on that planet was a manifestation of their darkest fears – which upon scrutiny makes no sense whatsoever. The dialogue is bad. The acting is fine, these guys are all pros if not exactly amazing actors. What makes it worth watching is the effects work. The set designs really are quite fantastic for a low-budget picture, and there is lots of gruesome violence.

Venom (1981) Blu-ray Review

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Venom is basically your standard hostage-taking gone wrong thriller by way of The Desperate Hours with a poisonous snake thrown in for good measure. I love it when movies do that – take a pretty basic plot and then add something nutty to make it interesting. This one would be pretty forgettable except it stars Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed as the villains and Sterling Hayden as the good guy. Plus Sarah Miles is the snake doctor.

Anyway, you can read my full review here.

Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe (1964-2008) is the Pick of the Week

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My birthday is coming up and thus I’ve been making lists of things to give to my wife so that she might purchase me gifts. Whenever I have a little bit of spending money or a presents-for-me opportunity I always debate whether I’d like to get a bunch of smaller items or one big (and expensive) thing. Smaller things aren’t as individually exciting, but it is super fun receiving lots of different things. A single expensive item can be amazing, but then it’s all you get.

I still haven’t made my decision for this year’s birthday, and it won’t be this week’s pick (mainly because I’ve never seen any of the films) but I do love big boxed sets of relatively obscure films. Besides all the nonsense going on in the world I still find it magical that someone is releasing a set of goofy-looking horror films from Brazil and they are pulling out all the stops in terms of audio/video quality, extras, and packaging.

You can read all about this set and everything else coming out this week here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Happy Death Day (2017)

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Groundhog Day meets Scream is a good way to describe Happy Death Day. With maybe a touch of Heathers and Clueless. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it has a great lead performance by Jessica Rothe and I thought it was a lot of fun.

Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) wakes up from a night of partying with a hangover and no idea where she is. There is a boy who says his name is Carter (Israel Broussard) but she doesn’t know who he is. Since she’s in his dorm, sleeping in his bed and she’s not wearing any pants she figures she must have slept with him, but she doesn’t remember that either.

He is polite, if perhaps a bit embarrassed by this ordeal (we’ll find out later he did not sleep with her and he does become a romantic interest), but she wants nothing to do with him. She is, in a word, a bitch. A mean girl. She’s rude to everyone. We’ll discover later it is her birthday and the anniversary of her mother’s death and her meanness is in part a way for her to distance herself from her grief. But like her namesake, she needs to grow up.

Her walk of shame takes her across the campus commons. There she will cross paths with a number of memorable things – a weird goth dude stares at her, an eager woman tries to get her to sign a petition, a car alarm goes off, and some sprinklers spray a couple of picnickers. Etc. These are the types of things that will alert her to the fact that she’s reliving the same day over and over again.

The film nearly winks at the audience during this scene. We know what kind of film we’re getting into. It knows we know and welcomes us with a smile.

She’ll then meet our cast of characters who will become suspects in her murder. There’s the sorority Queen Bee, the put-upon roommate, the married doctor she’s sleeping with, etc. Then on her way to a party that evening, someone wearing a weird baby mask (the school’s mascot is apparently a baby!?) stabs her to death.

Bam. She wakes back up in Carter’s room, reliving the same day all over again. Getting murdered no matter what she does. Groundhog Day wasn’t the first film to put its character into a time loop, but it is probably the best and it is certainly the most popular. Many films have taken that premise and installed it into different genres. Slashers tend to be rather cookie-cutter in similarity so it makes perfect sense to apply the Groundhog Day scenario to it.

One of the interesting additions to the story is how her violent deaths begin taking a toll on her body. She’s stabbed numerous times and they begin to leave internal scars even as her life continues to recycle each day.

Happy Death Day relies more on the murder mystery angle than the horror. It isn’t particularly scary and the violence is decidedly PG-13. But it has fun with its premise and Jessica Rothe is wonderful. She nails the bitchiness, the pathos, and ultimately the warmth of the character.

There is a sequel and I sort-of wrote a little bit about it here.

Five Cool Things and R.E.M. Reuniting

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It is time for another five things. This time I’m talking about Porco Rosso, the animated film from Studio Ghibli, a wonderful episode of The Last of Us, Taskmaster my new favorite British Panel Show, a silly 1980s horror film called Trick or Treat, and one of my favorite 1980s movies, Heathers, which I shared with my daughter. Plus R.E.M. got back together for a single song with Michael Shannon. You can read all about it here.