Mini-review: Island Of Lost Souls (1932)

Island Of Lost Souls
Directed by Erle C. Kenton

Though '30s horror movies are almost automatically not scary in any way, I can still enjoy them for other reasons. They can be unique, inventive, atmospheric, or many other things. This particular movie is none of the above. I didn't care about almost anything that was going on the entire way through. Laughton and Lugosi both can do far better, the story wasn't all that interesting, and though some of the makeup is cool, that's not enough to get me to care about a movie -- I'm not that crazy.

Mini-review: Blacula (1972)

Blacula
Directed by William Crain

With a title this amazing, this movie should have been so much better. Nowhere near as funny or silly as it ought to have been, a good deal of this movie is actually pretty straight-forward and dry. William Marshall gives a good performance, but this is over-shadowed by the fact that the movie itself is a bit of a joke, and his performance is far too good to belong in a blaxploitation flick. Don't get suckered in by the title; this movie is not particularly fun, funny, or even original at all.

Mini-review: All Hallow's Eve (2013)

All Hallow's Eve
Directed by Damien Leone

An un-creepy attempt at anthology horror done in the same fashion as V/H/S, only this time with little kids and their insanely terrible babysitter watching a mysterious videotape featuring all kinds of horror cliches and a "scary clown" that is neither scary nor a clown (it's totally a mime). There is a lot a movie can do with the anthology set-up, and this movie didn't take advantage of almost any of those things. Totally unimaginative, uninspired, and pretty weak in general.