Some movies become so ingrained in the cultural collective that we almost forget they're a movie. Like, my friend had never seen Highlander and knew next to nothing about it, but even he had heard, "There can only be one." But Highlander is indeed a movie, and one I hadn't seen in something like two decades, so I figured it was time to rewatch it. And it was totally worth it, if no other reason than I got to see goth biker Mr. Clancy Brown. You can see it, but I'm swooning.
sexual assault
BIG FUCKING CONTENT WARNING!!!
Devour (2005)
Even with Movie Night taking a hiatus and then back with a relaxed schedule for a while, I still watch a lot of movies in a year. I don't mean that so much as a brag, but as a defense in this case. Devour is a psychological horror film starring Mr. Jensen "Dean Winchester" Ackles, and its poster caught my eye enough that I put it on for Movie Night. Simple enough, right? Well, turns out we had watched it back in 2018 and none of us remembered a single detail about it. Not the best look!
Twisted Pair (2018)
I honestly don't know what to say about this movie. Neil Breen is an auteur with a specific vision on the merging of humanity and advanced technology, and he wants to share that vision with us. Doesn't matter that he's an awful filmmaker and his movies are utterly incomprehensible, I guess.
Fire City: End of Days (2015)
I honestly don't remember how Fire City: End of Days came up on my radar. The director's done stuff, but nothing that would make him stand out as a director. The writers have done little else. And none of the actors are really big names or in really big things. But I was still drawn to the film, mostly because it looked like it had some cool looking monsters. And it did! But basically nothing else worth watching.
Hellraiser: Deader (2005)
There's something about franchises--particularly big horror franchises--where it sure seems like each one has a film that just refuses to stick in my head. I wrote about Children of the Corn: The Gathering just last year, but even then I still only remember the barest of details without looking at the post. Something about a fever...? In that same vein, was it Leprechaun 2 or Leprechaun 3 where he was at a pawn shop? And A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is just a total blank to me. The point being I've seen all 10 Hellraiser films before, but had no memory of what the hell Hellraiser: Deader was about. But now I've rewatched it and can safely say that I'll most likely forget every detail of this boring movie--again--by next month, if not next week.
Tag (2015)
Tag caught my attention the first time I read a summary of it and thought, "Holy shit, are they fucking serious?" Before I get to what made my jaw drop, I want to specify which Tag this actually is. It's not 2018's Tag about grown men playing a game of tag. It's not 1982's Tag: The Assassination Game with Linda Hamilton. It's not even 2015's Japanese Tag where heads explode. No, this is 2015's American Tag--or 2012, or 2014, or 2016 depending on which site you check--where McLovin gets sucked into one man's plan to spread HIV to as many people as possible.
Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)
I honestly didn't plan on this being a mini-event week. I started with 1966's Django, then found out about 2017's biography Django about musician Django Reinhardt, who the western gunslinger is named after. Then I went down a rabbit hole of all the unofficial sequels that had "Django" in the title and noticed Sukiyaki Western Django, an English language Japanese western by... Mr. Takashi Miike? The same Mr. Takashi Miike responsible for Ichi the Killer, Audition, Visitor Q, and The Happiness of the Katakuris? Well shit, I guess I have to watch it! And so here we are. No more "Django" movies next week, I promise.
Beethoven’s 2nd (1993)
I'm back with more Beethoven movies! Yes, the franchise with fewer films than Air Bud and Air Buddies (14) continues on with its first sequel. I imagine this was made because the first Beethoven made back 8 times its budget, and money talks. As we get further into the franchise I'm going to start assuming that "a desire for money" is the main motivator behind ideas like "Beethoven, but The Prince and the Pauper" or "Beethoven, but with Christmas magic." But those are future reviews; today we're going to talk about the one with an attempted sexual assault and a sexual abuser!
Haunting Me (2007)
I want you to know that there are times when I go above and beyond for this blog. Netflix has the Oh My Ghost films, a Thailand horror/comedy series starring a group of aging kathoeys--kind of like drag queens, kind of like trans women, kind of a third gender option... Similar to "baklâ" in the Philippines, which I talked about in the ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh post. But I wasn't satisfied with those films, because there's a piece missing. Oh My Ghost is marketed as the first of four films, but it's actually the second of something like six. The first is Haunting Me, AKA Hor Taew Tak, translated to something like Taew's Dormitory is Broken. But Netflix doesn't have Hor Taew Tak, so I spent far too much time searching before finding it on AsianCrush. Let's hope that's a trustworthy website, cause we're continuing Pride Month by taking about haunted ladyboys from Thailand!
The Mummy’s Kiss: 2nd Dynasty (2006)
If I say that this was a highly requested movie, would you believe me? It's an obvious lie, of course, but it sounds better than admitting I wanted to watch this. Long story short, back in April of 2020 when we didn't realize how long the quarantine was going to be, Mummy Mondays was put on indefinite hold along with my friends' Movie Night. I watched several movies with mummies in the Mondays that followed, and one of them was The Mummy's Kiss, a lesbian porn with mummies and a flimsy plot. Well, there was a sequel made, so that's where we are now. Yup, this is definitely something people wanted to see and not my grim curiosity in action!