Escape From New York (1981)

4 / 5 Apr '10
Tagline: The world's greatest leader is a hostage in the most dangerous place on Earth. Now only the deadliest man alive can save him.
Directed by: John Carpenter
Written by: John Carpenter, Nick Castle
Actors include: Kurt Russell, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Van Cleef
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
Length: 99 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
This was a rather entertaining dystopic flick that takes place in the future: 1997. Well luckily for us 1997 looked nothing like this film, here they have New York City as a maximum security prison full of thugs. When Airforce One is taken over, the current president (the very British Donald Pleasance) escapes in his pod (just like the Simpsons of course) lands in New York City. One of the biggest thugs The Duke (Isaac Hayes) takes the President hostage and offers them a finger of his in order to get attention and have their demands met. Kurt Russell plays the eye patched hero Snake who is also kind of a bad guy but they make an offer for him to safely return the President. It has some exciting chase sequences and some really impressive shots of New York and some colorful characters and a cast of impressive actors too. This isn't my favorite from John Carpenter and I actually expected it to be a little more thrilling than it was. Still it was quite enjoyable and a fair bit of fun, definitely has classic moments and is quite iconic.

Availability:  On DVD & Blu-Ray

Willard (1971)

3.5 / 5
Tagline: Where your nightmares end...WILLARD begins.

Directed by: Daniel Mann

Written by: Gilbert Ralston
Actors include: Bruce Davison, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Borgnine
Genre: Horror, Drama
Length: 95 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:

There is something wonderfully campy about this even though very little happens for a long time. Willard is a poor sad sack, he lives with his Mother and keeps to himself, he's also pushed around at his job by his boss Mr. Martin (played perfectly wickedly by Ernest Borgnine). Thing is, Willard is kind of a lazy jerk who has it coming to him which makes it a little hard to take his side, but eventually when things are pushed quite far I started to sympathize a tad. See Willard is pretty miserable and when Mother dies he's left with anger issues and only rats for friends. He starts putting them in his basement and before long it's filled with the yappy little rodents. Oddly enough he has a lady friend at work (who was hired to help him catch up at work) and they start to be slightly romantic but the basement full of rats is a slight hindrance. He doesn't seem to mind so much and even takes to bringing rats Socrates and Ben to work with him...until Mr. Martin kills Socrates! It's not a very effective "horror" film, but it is a rather compellingly strange drama about a Man who is losing it and his rat friends. At least there is some revenge here and although it's a bit dull at first it really does pick up. Not the classic I'd hoped it would be yet somehow still charming in a weird sort of way.

Availability:  Never on DVD

The Devil's Rain (1975)

3.5 / 5 Feb '10
Tagline: Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture
Directed by: Robert Fuest
Written by: James Ashton, Gabe Essoe
Actors include: Ernest Borgnine, Tom Skerritt, William Shatner
Genre: Horror
Length: 86 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
This one is sort of a mixed bag, on the plus side we have Ernest Borgnine as one of the leads of the erm church of the devil. On the con side, the plot is pretty ridiculous, a group of Satanists who have something called "the devil's rain" in a jar (which causes them to melt if broken?). William Shatner plays Mark Preston, a curious fellow investigating what happened to his Mom who turned up dead with blackened eye holes. See it seems that most of the worshippers have blackened eye holes (which is dark glass of some kind hiding the eyes, sort of a cool effect) after joining the cult. The film was overseen by real life Satanic cult leader Anton LaVey which is kinda neat I suppose, perhaps that means some of the rituals are based in fact who knows? The effects are reasonably impressive, especially for something that feels so low budget, and this film also marks the debut appearance of John Travolta (though blink and you will miss him). As far as Satanism movies go, this isn't my favorite but it's still a reasonable offering, I just think the end goes on for way too long. Worth a viewing for fans of trash and devil related films, probably not as bad as it's reputation would suggest.

Availability:  On DVD