Watched a few more old horror flicks on You Tube of late. Here are a few thoughts:
The Boogens; good old 80's schlock that would have been packaged in a garish VHS video cover but really is quite tame. I enjoyed it. The actors weren't teenagers, not too bad and the colours of the filming were strong and bright. I particularly liked the remote setting and that quaint aura of the log-cabined American hills.
As a story the Boogens is basically about an underground creature which is disturbed by mining. Yep, its been done before I agree. The action is centred around the mine and an old house with victims of the critter popping up in both.
If you like early 80's backwoods creature films then the Boogens is for you.
The Post: this wasn't a horror film. It was a newspaper film, a sub-genre I like as well, largely as a result of enjoying All The Presidents Men years ago, which I adore. The Post is about the Washington Post too and is set just prior to the Watergate scandal when the Pentagon Papers broke. The film's tension and therefore all its interest lies in the tussle between the Paper's genteel owner and its feisty Editor hell-bent on printing the Government's dirty secrets about the build-up to the Vietnam war.
I enjoyed the Post a lot. Its not got the hypnotic crumb-trail of President's Men but it has a big headline and some decent copy to keep you entertained.
The Awakening: this is a horror flick and stars Charlton Heston, he of the Apes and the Hur. I like old actors like Charlton, that starry generation of Hollywood leads like Newman, Douglas and McQueen, who carried a film by sheer screen presence. The Awakening is no different and it reminds me of the Omen with Gregory Peck holding the action together with his seasoned voice and serious demeanor, just like Heston does.
Essentially a mummy film from 1980, it has similarities with Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, where a beautiful daughter-Queen is at the heart of the cursed family, of which Heston plays the obsessed Father and Professor of Egyptology. The undertones of incest lend it a somewhat seedy feel. I still have half an hour to go. I shall report back.
What flicks have you seen lately readers?
I did see The Awakening, which starred Stephanie Zimbalist, from Remington Steele. I should have the DVD somewhere. I would hardly call Charlton Heston an old actor, as most of his roles were in the 1950s and 1960s. To me, that makes him a fairly modern, post-war actor. To qualify as an old-timer, an actor or actress would have to be from the 1930s or 1940s, pre-WW2, from the Golden Age of Hollywood - at a pinch extending into the 1950s, the last decade of real Hollywood glamour.
ReplyDeleteNever seen Remington Steele Paul. Yes, I suppose there are many older actors than Charlton the Heston but to me he and his peers represent the golden age! ha ha.
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