The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955) aka The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes

2 / 5 Nov '09
Tagline: Screaming Terror!
Directed by: David Kramarsky, Lou Place
Written by: Tom Filer
Actors include: Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, Dona Cole
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Length: 75 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:

Apparently before making the film the director came up with this title and an interesting ad to go with. Since they liked it he created the film around the ad and title, but when he showed it to folks they were disappointed. I guess the ad was more interesting than the actual product. It starts out with a bitter evil housewife complaining of jealous feelings for her daughter (they live out in the middle of nowhere near mountains). They have a mute mild pervert living next door (who they feed and are mean to), and a loud noise happens disrupting everything (and breaks the good china!). After the noise nature seems to be attacking (birds, chickens, cows etc)...well by attacking, I mean coming towards! Apparently that requires shooting the animal? I'm sure this spawned many of the later nature gone bad movies, but this really does lack horror nearly entirely despite the situation. Heck the beast doesn't even ever really show up except for in blurry form and it appears he has 2 eyes, and is a tiny plastic thing...and that doesn't happen until the last 3 minutes of the film (though it's voice appears after an hour). Not very rewarding at all unfortunately but still I sat through it so that should count for something?

Availability:  On DVD or watch it for free online here:  http://www.hulu.com/the-beast-with-a-million-eyes

1408 (2007)

3.5 / 5

Tagline: The Dolphin Hotel invites you to stay in any of its stunning rooms. Except one.

Directed By: Mikael Håfström

Written By: Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, Stephen King, Larry Karaszewski

Actors Include: John Cusack, Paul Birchard, Margot Leicester

Genre: Drama, Horror
Length: 112 minutes

Banned:  Nope

 

Review:

I like Stephen King and I like the actors involved in this film, so I went to see this 'un in the theatre. It's not terribly clever (the resolve was a bit disappointing...I'd expected more) actually considering it's based upon a Stephen King thing, but still it manages to be better than so many other modern horror tales. The story is about a man has lost his faith and his Daughter and now works as a disillusioned haunting inspector going from hotel to hotel looking for hauntings. Well he doesn't really believe in ghosts until he winds up at the Dolphin hotel room 1408. Not a bad premise really, sort of an interesting idea only parts of it could/should have been a bit better explained I think. Parts of the evil that attack him seem a bit cliche but I'm sure it's hard to be entirely inventive when dealing with ghosts. It's relatively intense, not much gore but still a few jumpy type moments. Not as good as it could have been, but worth watching none the less.

Availability:  On DVD & Blu-Ray