German (dub) night. I have a few DVDs in my collection which I mistakenly bought, or which are only available with German dub. I watched three of them and since I speak and understand German quite well, this is not a problem for me, although I prefer the original language wherever possible, of course.

Angels of the City - I thought this would be some kind of Bullets, Bombs and Babes film, but I git cheated by the cover. Instead of some hot action with fancy girls and lots of explosions, I got two students who dressed up as hookers for a pledge. They get abducted because of a pimp-war going on, and they end up in the middle of a fiurefight. Frightened, they flee but they are being followed by one of the pimps (the other one died in fight). This goes on for 70% off the movie, then one of the girls gets injured badly and the other one gets police protection. So she dumps her boyfriend and hits on the cop. Then she tells in class about a girl they met on the streets and how she was destroyed by drugs and prostitutiion. Yes, I also didn't understand what that had to do with everything else. The end. Wow, superbad film and not funny bad but bad bad. Avoid.

Violenza in un carcere femminile - my German DVD says this is called Laura I, or Black Emanuelle, but that last title is fraudulous, because this has nothing to do with Black Emanuelle. This title, directed by Bruno Mattei (who is called something completely different in the credits, and then even different from the pseudonym he took himself for this kind of films), is a WIP film and a really tame one. I guess my German DVD was cut to ribbons, because it ran only for 75 minutes and I read that this should be something like 90. The story is simple: Laura Gemser goes to a prison as an undercover reporter to check on rumours about cruelty. She sees gruesome stuff, and has some nasty experiences herself too, like when she gets bitten by rats in solitary (hilarious scene btw). She escapes together with the doctor, but they get caught soon after. However, word got out on the prison so all ends well. Like I said, pretty tame and a really forgettable title in the WIP genre.

Atlantis Inferno - aka I predatori di Atlantide. This was the best experience to watch, as it had an Italian track and German subs. This was one outtrageous film by Ruggero Deodato. A ship going to get a Russian submarine from the bottom of the sea finds a mysterious tablet, and a precolumbian archeaologist is flown in as she has knowledge of everything precolumbian (she goes through a set of pictures which portray different cultures, but hey, who cares). They then get into some sort of disaster, and an island appers out of the sea. Soon they know what this is about: Atlantis, of course! When they hit the island, they meet a futuristic motorgang led by a guy called Crystal Skull. Fights ensue, for a very long time, and in the end the good guys prevail. Lots and lots of good stuff for bad moviefans. Even if you don't know German or Italian, you should see this film! Highly recommende for bad moviefans.

Carnival of Souls - this one is from late 90s, but it looked like late 80s in terms of visual quality. The storyline is rather boring: a girl witnesses her mother being murdered and has nightmares ever since. She also runs her mother's rundown bar together with her sister just because she can't leave it behind. Looking for help she goes to see her shrink, but he claims he never saw her before so she is wodnering if she is going crazy. In the meantime the nightmares continue, until

Spoiler:

she realizes that she can move on with her life

In that sense, this isn't even a horror, but more a drama and a weak one too. For some reason I thought this was a classic, but I guess that was meant for the 1962 film. Avoid this one.

V/H/S/ 2 - a private eye and his assistant move into the house of a missing boy, only to find a bunch of VHS tapes. She starts watching them, while he searches for the boy. First story reminded me a lot of the Eye storyn in Body Bags: a guy gets an implant in his eye to get his visibility back, just to see a lot of ghosts around him. Been there done that, so I wasn't surprised about this one. Next story was about people in a park getting zombified, quite cool, gory and simple. OK. Third story (the longest) was almost the sicckest one, but just when I though it was great, it turned ridiculous. It's about a religious sect, I think it was Indonesian, where the "father" (a f*cked up guy) calls his group to

Spoiler:

mass suicide and then be reborn under the antichrist, which gets born out of one of

the crewmembers doing an interview with the "father". Really gory and sick, I cringed at the

Spoiler:

birth scene

but afterwards when you could see everything it became a bit dumb. It reminded me of Doom the videogame. The last story could have been great but I was annoyed to the brink by the sound: it was just really really noisy! That was so bad that I ffwd the last bit, becauie my neighbours have to get some sleep too. Wraparound ended a bit predictable but also a tad weird. An OK anthology with a good amount of gore.

The Phantom of the Opera - I had already seen several films on this topic. The classic from the 40s, the Brian de Palma musical, the Dario Argento version and now it was time for this one, from 1983 with Maximilian Schell and Jane Seymour. I had read some reviewrs who said that this was the best Phantom film, but it doesn't get the best ratings as far as I can tell. Instead of Paris, where all other Phantom films take place, this one is in Budapest, where a baron Hunyadi is in control of the operahouse. The conductor's wife sings, and he wants her to become a star. On her debut, she is booed at by the crowd, and the conductor rightfully concludes that this is the baron's doing. In a fight to get revenge on the critics, he gets acid on his face, etc, etc the rest is pretty well known I guess. After having lived as the phantom under the operahouse for some years, a new debutant (Maria Gianelli) appears and she looks a lot like the conductor's wife used to. The phantom takes her in but does his jealousy thing too, so he causes her to be scared of him. To complete his revenge, the phantom must kill the baron and keep Maria for himself. It was quite a cast in this film, and the performances were OK. I'm not sure if this one was better than the Argento version (as I'm an Argento fan I'm not 100% neutral on the subject), but it was quite good. Biggest plus was Jane Seymour, of course:



Visitor from the Grave - Hammer House of Horror episode number 6. A very disappointing episode. It was boring to watch, it was very predictable, the acting was below par and I was glad it was over. Need I say more? I sincerely hope the best episodes are still to come, because it looks like it's going downhill. For those interested: a couple in England gets in trouble because the wife shot a friend of the husband. She thinks she sees him all the time, but the husband tries to comfort her and tell her that the guy is really dead. Because she thinks she is going mad (she already had been a patient in a mental institution), she looks for help in the paranormal sector.

Spoiler:

it turns out that it is a scam to take her money off her and when she kills herself it seems like the plan worked, or did it? Really boring "this is horror, oh no, it isn't after all, haha"

Mill of the Stone Women – aka Il mulino delle donne di pietra. Giorgio Ferroni made this gothic film in 1960 and it plays in the Netherlands during the first years of the 20th century. A young artist called Hans von Arnim moves into the home of a famous professor, who lives in a windmill. Apart from teaching art, this professor also has a carroussel with moving statues, which portray infamous killers and victims from the past. When Hans discovers a myserious woman in the mill while other women around him disappear, he starts investigating and finds out that something horrible is going on inside the windmill. Great atmosphere, I think the atmosphere is what made this film: 10/10. Unfortunately, acting is not so great, effects could have been better too (although this was 1960 of course) and the story is not exactly original. Still, I loved this film and I can safely recommend this.

Cut and Run – aka Inferno in Diretta. After the success of Cannibal Holocaust, the producers wanted Ruggero Deodato to make a sequel, but he didn’t feel like it, so he made this film. The Anchor Bay DVD begins with a short interview of Deodato where he tells you this. Then the movie begins, and although there are some simliarities to Cannibal Holocaust, it is definitely not CH2. The plot starts out the same: a man is missing, and his father wants a search party. They end up in the Amazon area, where a drugs war is going on. One of the warring parties is a group of natives led by a few white guys who are pretty insane. Their actions are very violent and in that aspect this film reminds you of CH, but the cruelty is only human vs human, there aren’t any animals involved. Actually the animal footage is very limited, even in parts where it could have been useful or logical. It was fun to notice that the guy who plays the missing man, had lots of personal problems while shooting this film and later ended up acting as Bibleman in the TV series of the same name No real cannibal action in this film, but some great gory moments. “Violence in the jungle” would have been a fitting name for this flick. If you like Italo, go watch this, you’ll like it.

Fiend – bought a bunch of Don Dohler (“the Ed Wood of the 80s” as he was called by some) films lately. I knew his The Alien Factor and his Nightbeast, but hadn’t seen anything else. I remembered the silly looking monsters, but this film doesn’t have such monsters. The “monster” in this one is an alien which takes the shape of a regular guy, but to keep that shape and not deteriorate, he needs life energy which he takes from humans strolling around. He starts to glow red when dloing so, so he can only do it when there is nobody else around. When his neighbour starts to suspect him, he needs more energy to keep in shape as to not arouse more suspicion, but this means more kills, so it gets harder and harder. This was actually quite a boring film, but since it was so bad it also had something to it, just like the Ed Wood films so I agree with the qualification. If you like bad films, then this might not be the best Dohler to pick for your movienight, but if you have seen a few already, you can give this one a spin for sure.

The Unseen - Barbara Bach and Sydney Lassick are crossing swords in this 1982 horror. Bach is a reporter who travels to a Danish founded town to report on the annual festival there. With her are two of her colleagues, and their trip starts off in a bad way, as they can't find any accomodation. In comes Lassick, a somewhat weird but nice man (of the type he can play so well) who offers them a place to stay in his own building, which used to be a hotel but is now a museum. One of the girls doesn't feel too well, so while the other two are out reporting, she finds out about something in the basement, something unseen. This film isn't anything really special, but it's carried by Bach and Lassick. The unseen "monster" is somewhat pitiful, and the ending quite predictable, but I think this is still an OK film to watch.

Skyline - I felt like watching an alien invasion film and that's exactly what I got. A group of friends in LA wake up in the middle of the night because of a series of bright lights. Upon checking it out, one of them looks into the light and gets sucked into it. Now the others start to panick and look for cover. Being up in a penthouse, they have a great view on everything happening around them and what they see worries them much: huge alien ships spawn smaller ships which explore the entire city and when they encounter humans, they do the light sucking thing. Now a pretty cliche thing starts in the plot as the friends start to discuss about options and also trying a few. In the end

Spoiler:

they have to give in to the aliens as they are too powerful

I thought the ending was quite original, only to go totally overboard in the last minute and during the endcredits. Mediocre film, what made it stand out a little was the cgi. Usually I loathe the cgi used in films but in this one it looked beautiful. I read that the cgi cost 10 million while the regular shooting just cost 0,5 and it shows. Nice flick if you want to see a big alien invasion.

The Black Godfather – having watched the blaxploitation documentary recently, I searched for more blaxploitation on amazon and came up with a few titles I was missing in my collection, this being one of them. A cheapo version of Superfly, this film is about JJ, a guy being adopted by the black godfather and moving up in the film to the point where he becomes the new godfather. He wants the other minorities to get out of the black neighbourhood, so he declares war on especially the Italians, who move dope. Lots of gangster stuff like threatening and fighting going on, nothing particularly spectacular, except maybe for the endfight. Many cliches make this a mediocre blaxploitation.

The Divide – I was in doubt if I should buy this or not, but it was so cheap I gave it a shot. It’s nothing horror-ish, although there is stuff in this film that will appeal to horrorfans. Manhattan is under nuclear attack (the film starts when the bomb falls, so you’re right into the middle of it) and a group of people from a tall building take shelter in the basement. When the building collapses on top of their heads, their hope to get rescued is minimized. Tensions start growing when the food supply is depleting, and things get even tougher when soldiers in white suits come in and

Spoiler:

abduct the only present child

. Violence and abuse occur and people get to know each other in an extreme way. Not a new theme, this, but the background story was quite OK. This apocalyptic setting forces the people to stay in the basement, and survival turns them into different creatures. It was an OK watch, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Evil Dead Trap 2 – Aki is a projectionist who really likes her solitude. One night she sees a little boy in the cinema where she is working and she wonders who it is but upon finding out she bumps into a man. A friend of hers, Eimi, wants to end her solitude and tries to engage her with men more often. She however doesnt like this at all, and she often returns home before the date is over. In the evenings, women keep getting killed in the neighbourhood and Eimi reports on it as she is a TV reporter. It doesn’t take lomg before you know who kills those women, but then the film takes some turns and leaves you a bit baffled, I guess this is partially because it is not very logical and partially because it is presented in a very violent way. Not typically Japanese, but still. I was ready for an extreme and over the top ending, because that’s what I got in part one. And while it isn’t standard, it isn’t as weird as in part one so that was a bit of a disappointment. Overall, I liked the turns the movie took, but it was also a bit slow and dragging. Can’t really recommend it.

Die Frau vom Heissen Fluss – aka La mujer de la tierra caliente. Wow, what a boring film. Part of my German dubbed Gemser collection, this one was the least enjoyable of all, and that’s really a bad thing, because the other two films on it aren’t Oscar material either. Tame, lame, boring are the words. The story is simple: Gemser gets into a trailer with Stuart Whitman and they tell each other their life’s stories. While this is an “erotic” film, the nudity is very modest and I counted something like three sexscenes, which is not more than any regular drama. If Gemser was taken out of this film, it would have been a total zero, but she can’t save this load of crap entirely so it is still really bad. Avoid.

Dawn of the Dead – for a very long time I refused to see this, as it was sacrilege to me to make a remake of the original Romero DotD. I had also seen fragments of it with fast running zombies and I loathe them, so I avoided this film for years. Now, more than ten years after it’s release I gave it a try anyway because I had read pretty good reviews of it in the meantime. I must say: it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. The story of the people in the mall is quite cool, interesting subplots with parts of a family, a couple with a pregnant woman and a bunch of security guards who develop character quite nicely. The story with Andy and communicating with him via the drawboards was also quite cool. The ending is a nice variant on the original, and for a remake this is well done. It’s just that I still really, really dislike running zombies, which makes this film worse than it could have been.

Mountaintop Motel Massacre - slow 80s slasher, where the kills come late. A woman running the Mountaintop Motel accidentally kills her daughter and this makes her a very disturbed person. For some reason, she needs to kill the tenants now and she tries at first by dropping vermin in the cabins. One cabin gets a snake, others rats or cockroaches. How cockroaches or rats would ever kill a person is beyond me, but Evelyn (the woman) tries it anyway. Help is sought for the snakebite, but since there is a storm going on, the road is blocked by fallen trees so the motel is cut off from the rest of the world. This gives Evelyn a great opportunity to finally start killing, so she takes her sickle and visits all cabins one by one through holes in the floors. The tenants strat to help each other out, but before the night is over, Evelyn will get her massacre, or will she be stopped in time? Lame story, pretty lame effects too. Acting was subpar by most, only some could deliver. If you like 80s horror, you can pick this one, just be prepared for some 45 minutes of boredom before the fun starts.

Night Visitor – judging by the cover (a woman on a fiery pentagram), I thought it'd be a satanic movie, but it's more a slasher with an occult theme. There are pentagrams, but I felt that they were only for context somehow. The main cahracter of the film is Billy Colton, a guy who always shows up late in school and then tells stories about how he got late. Therefore, almost nobody believes him and this backfires when his hot neighbour gets killed one night. He saw it all happen, but now the police has trouble to believe him. I thought it was pretty funny to have another character in the film playing both the killer and someone else in Billy's life. Billy now has to fight his own image of a storyteller, and keep safe from the killer. Nice 80s flick, atmosphere was spot on. Acting was OK, it must have been fun to play the brother of the killer. The plot is pretty straightforward, no twists or whatever but it isn't needed so no problem there. Fun watch, even though I had expected more satanism.

Red Water – yet another animal/monsterflick with Lou Diamond Phillips, it starts to become habitual. In Louisiana people get terrorised by a sweetwater shark species and it attacks right on the location where some criminals try to find a case with lost money and a team of an oilcompany tries to find a gas source. Of course the woman who is with the oilcompany is the ex-wife of Lou, so we can have a love subplot next to the criminals subplot. It’s all not very special and you must have seen it before, although the sweetwater thing was new back then I believe (Swamp Shark came later). Run of the mill, not bad not good.

Dread - somehow I thought this was a slasher. It's not. It's a film about some students who do a project on fear and they interview people about their deepest fears (the dread from the title). They also find out about each other's fears, but when the project is finished, one of them (Quaid) isn't done with it yet and he wants to take it a step further: he wants the others to experience their fears, to "face the beast" as he calls it. This means real terror, and the question is where the limits are. Acting is good, atmosphere is also good, although the fear is not getting to you until the second part. The terror executed by Quaid is extreme, and so much over the to that it is hard to believe that a sane person could ever do this. That's also the biggest drawback on the film: it wants to make you believe this could happen, but it wants it so bad that it goes overboard in the final scenes. Some other stuff was also a tad annoying, like the fact that they get an A- minus for the project while the film only contains interviews and nothing which elaborates on the subject. Still, this is quite a nice film which shows something about what people can do to each other. I also liked the appearances of Laura Donnelly and Hanne Steen, on whom I can't find any biographical info, which is a tad weird fro a Hollywood actress. Recommended, because it had quite some original ideas.

Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead - this Zombie Bloodbath shows that the director wanted more story in his zombiefilm than in the first film. Well, there is more story, but it isn't a really good one. A group of friends have their car broken down on a desolate road and when they venture into the nearest town, they find out that it is infested with zombies. First they hide out in some house, but it's the same house three criminals chose to run to after their escape from prison. Later, they end up in a diner, which was right in the middle of a stick-up when the zombies came. Nice thoughts, but the acting is so bad that you sincerely hope the characters will die soon. Especially the guys who were doing the stick-up, man, they are bad. They are actually so bad, that the actresses in the background can hardly keep from laughing out loud (which is quite visible, in more than one scene, btw). The actresses must be frirends from the director or something, because they are all a but chubby to say the least, not your everyday Hollywood wannabe starlets. Refreshing idea, but not really appetizing to look at. Gore is OK again, because there is enough of it. Let's hope that the director refrains from getting the effects he overused in this one in the third installment.

The Tenant – Roman Polanski thriller from 1976. The director plays Trelkovsky, a guy looking for an apartment in Paris. He finds one, but he learns on the day the apartment is shown to him that the previous tenant, a young girl named Simone, jumped out of the window and is now hospitalized. Trelkovsky visits her and in the hospital he meets Stella, a friend of her. He starts to become friends and more with Stella, but he also finds out something is a bit off in the apartment building. Apparently his neighbours think he makes a lot of noise while he is being really careful about that. Afraid of losing the apartment, Trelkovsky becomes obsessed with silence and also with Simone. He gets to know her via several people living in or around the apartment building, and he also starts to suspect the owner of the building to scheme against him, with help of the neighbours. Is he really being tricked into leaving the apartment, or is he going mad? Very nice portrayal of a man going downhill for reasons you have to check in the film. Great acting, not in the least by Polanski himself, but also great story and ending. Highly recommended, just keep in mind this is not horror.

The Return - somewhat weird movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who at first was just another teenage star to me, but later on gained some respect from me as she picked not-your-everyday-films to act in (like Southland Tales). And of course she looked gorgeous in I Know What You Did... But OK, on to The Return. Gellar plays Joanna, a troubled girl who moves from place to place but never wants to return to her homestate Texas. When a good opportunity to get a new client arises, she does return anyway. In Texas, she starts seeing things: a woman getting murdered, and she also meets some peole who she seems connectd with somehow, although she doesn't know them. The images of the woman keep haunting her, together with some childhood memories of a strange man stalking her. She tries to solve the puzzel, but on the way she also meets people who don't want her to solve it. 80 minutes runtime felt longer movie pace is quite slow. It was also boring at times and I wondered when it was goinna get interesting. Well, it does so in the final scenes. The ending is clever, but also not really my thing. It reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan films and that is never a good sign. This film was more enjoyable to any of those, though.

Invitation to Hell - collecting all movies from some directors, and Wes Craven is one of them. This made me watch this film, but looking back it wouldn't have been a waste if I hadn't. It's about a family moving into a new home in a typical suburb. The man, Matt Winslow, works on a supersuit which can withstand extreme temperatures and also has some weaponry. At work, he notices that everyone is talking about, and member of, a certain countryclub. He and his family also get persuaded to join, but Matt is unwilling to do so. His wife and kids join anyway, and then Matt starts to see a change in their behaviour. He has to act fast to not lose them permanently. The ending is ridiculous, not only because of the pretty lame effects, but also because of the storyline there: Matt loves his family, and that love conquers all! Bwegh. The "subliminal" message is far from sub-liminal if you catch my drift. Worst Craven film I have seen.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again - nice intro story tells you why this sequel is there, and soon we're off to Egypt where Phibes battles with Biederbeck over the key to the river of eternal youth. Of course, several men have to die first in this battle before the two finally meet each other. A bit dumb subplot with two agents from Scotland Yard complete the film. The effects are OK-ish for the time, especially background shots were obviously being projected in a studio instead of shot outside. This type of film never gets scary, but it has a certain charm over it. Price acts like he usually does, which is great: he is a real personality. Maybe this is something to watch with your kids to let them get acquainted with horror. There is some gore, but it is minor. Nice film, just don't expect anything spectacular.

Basket Case 2 - it has been over four years (and many, many movies) since I saw Basket Case. To complete my Henenlotter collection, I bought a DVD with parts two and three on it and yesterday I watched part two. The story is incredible and over the top, but the monsters are cool and the kills are OK. There isn't any depth in the plot, but it doesn't have to have that, because of the monster action. Some nice late 80s fashion stuff to make the atmosphere OK in my book, and we're done! If you want to have some nice and brainless freak fun, go watch this.

The Attic - not a real horror, more a psychological thriller with a little blood here and there. Louise, a grown up woman, is still living with her wheelchaired father, because he depends on her since her mother is dead. She longs for her missing husband, who disappeared on her wedding day and was never seen again. In the meantime, her father terrorises her, slating her for every little thing, ordering ehr around and never being nice to her. When she loses her job as a librarian, her life turns for the worse, but still she befriends the girl who gets her job. That girl is in the same situation, just with a mother instead of a father and a little brother who suffers from the situation too. Louise helps her to get away and tries to find solace with her pet monkey. When that also disappears, she gets really mad... Great acting, the falling down of Louise is portrayed nicely. It is just that it isn't a real horror that I didn't totally like this film, although the final scenes are quite horrorish. Near the ending I thought of the plot and it turned out to be just like that. It's not a bad movie, it's just that it isn't exactly my kind of movie.

Black Angel – aka Senzo ’45. A late Tinto Brass movie. The cover said it revisited the themes of Salon Kitty, but it does that only slightly. It’s a war drama about a woman falling in love with the wrong person, namely a corrupt SS officer. Her timing is bad too, as the war is about to end in the allies’ favour, therefore not a very suitable situation to be with an SS officer, especially since the woman is married to another man, too. I expected a lot of sleaze, since my previous experiences with Brass movies (Caligula and Salon Kitty), but I only got one scene full of it, and the rest of the film was pretty soft in that department. The scene I’m talking about reminded me of Salo and of Salon Kitty, with lots of sexual acts going on and some explicit showing of genitals (of which the male ones were fake according to some reviews I read afterwards). Nothing really disturbing like in Salo, but sleazy it was for sure. Since the war interests me too, I didn’t find it difficult to sit through this, but I can imagine that the tame imagery and the length (two hours) are too much for some people.

Forever Evil – the film of RedVeil’s avatar. There is only one release of it, and it contains two discs: one with the director’s cut and one with the home video premiers cut. Both are full frame and the director’s cut runs for two hours, and that’s the one I watched. The story is about Dennis, who throws a party at his cabin for the last time as he is about to sell it. His girlfriend, his brother and his girlfriend and another couple attend the party, but soon one of them is found dead. Upon finding out what happened, they die one by one, one even gorier than the other. Dennis is the only survivor, and when he is released from the hospital he goes on a quest to fight the evil power that killed his friends and brother. With him is Reggie, a girl who is also the sole survivor of a massacre. They find out that the killings have something to do with a cult worshiping an ancient god. Together with a policeman who is of course about to retire, they set out to root out the evil threatening the planet. Long parts of the film are quite boring, acting is mwah at best and the effects are there to have a good laugh: 80s B-movie for fun! Recommended for bad moviefans.

Oculus - somewhat new ghostfilm. Usually ghostfilms can scare me if they are good, This one didn't scare me, but this was a really good movie anyway. Tim Russell is about to get released from an institution for the criminally insane. As soon as he gets out, his older sister Kaylie sets out to prove that he was wrongfully committed as he wasn't resposnile for the crimes which happened when they were young kids. Instead, an evil supernatural power housing in a mirror did it. Kaylie has set up the antique mirror in their house, with an elaborate system of cameras and alarms to prove that what she thinks is right. Tim however, thinks that her mind is playing tricks on her and that the mirror is just an object. With flashbacks, you get to see their family history in bits and pieces, and slowly but steadily you will begin to understand what happened in that family, and what role everyone played in it. Even though some of the "tricks" came off as cheap storywriting, this was still a powerful script with a lot of drive and emotion woven into it. There is gore, there is tension and there is drama. It all took some 100 minutes, but it is really worth the watch. Recommended.

Devil Seed – aka The Devil In Me. Alex returns to her former housemates after having cared for her grandmother who is sick with cancer. They have rented a new place, and one of them doesn’t want to sleep in a certain room because it freaks her out. Alex, played by the pretty but also pretty unknown Michelle Argyris, goes to a psychic reading with one of her friends, and after a while she starts to hear noises and see stuff which isn’t there. Her books get replaced while she blinks her eyes. In her notebook weird sigbs appear and after a while, there are also wounds and scratches on her body. Everytime something strange happens, she forgets it entirely and can’t recall a thing about the previous night when she wakes up the next day. This continues and gets worse, and her friends try to get some help for Alex, which climaxes in a former priest trying to exorcise her. An OK possession film, quite subtle for a long time, and a good ending. Acting was also good enough, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. OK film, not a waste of time, but not really a must see either.

Strange Invaders – 80s scifi film. Starting in 1958 when aliens come to Illinois and continuing 25 years later. Charles Bigelow’s ex-wife Margaret Newman is gonna visit her mother who is ill, but she never returns. So Charles is gonna inverstigate where she might have ended up and he travels to Centerville, Illinois. In this strange town he can’t seem to find anyone by the name of Newman, and everyone seems a bit stale. After a while he finds out that all inhabitants of Centerville are actually from outer space. Contacting the authorities doesn’t help him, because they don’t believe in aliens, but when he goes to a tabloid in NY, they pick it up. The aliens however, don’t like this move and are now after him. Nice and a bit cheesy, this film has an all out 80s atmosphere, so so acting and effects which are great at one point and bad at another. I had fun, though, the story is a bit like Body Snatchers, but that didn’t really bother me. If you like old scifi, go see this one.

Stargate - saw some parts of episodes of the TV series of this and didn't like it too much so I avoided everything called "Stargate" from then on. It never occurred to me that there was a movie out with the same title, and when I found this for cheap money, I gave it a chance. I'm glad I did, because this was a fun adventure/scifi flick. Of course it's a little too coincidental that James Spader finds out the secret code in a few days and of course it is overly melodramatic that Kurt Russell wants to die on the mission to outer space because of a personal family drama, but overall this was bearable and the music, the imagery, it gave the film something grand. The effects were really spacey, like they should be in a movie like this. The story is about a space mission to the other end of the unvierse through a stargate. When the soldiers and the scientist get there, they find an alien disguised as an Egyptian, who controls that planet and doesnt want interference from outside. Since the soldiers are there now, the population starts to wonder why they have been working as slaves for years on end. I can see that people have nostalgia about this film when they saw it as a kid. Recommended.

Godzilla's Revenge - it had a been a long while since I had seen a Godzilla film, so yesterday I realised how silly they actually are. They are kid's movies, nothing more. The morale is way too heavy on the thin storyline, the acting is bad and the monsters look ridiculous. Some of the Godzilla films I had enjoyed because if the weirdness and the excessive violence, but this one was really tame and brought nothing new. Maybe being under the influence of certain herbs helps to enjoy these films, but it certainly doesn't make them any better. I have now seen around 25 Godzilla films and a few rip-offs or related films (Gamera, Yongary). One left to go and then I have seen all in my collection. Let's hope it's more enjoyable than this one.