PROJECT: METALBEAST (1995)

For a movie about an 7 foot tall metal-skinned werewolf bringin’ a ruckus…there sure is a lot of talking going on.  The film starts out well enough with some CIA dudes on a mission in Hungary to collect werewolf blood.  The first guy distracts the monster by placing his neck in the werewolf’s gaping mouth full of nasty, big, pointy teeth while the other CIA dude shoots the creature with silver bullets.  There’s no indication if he hits the wolfman in the nards or not, but I like to believe so.  Once back stateside, some scientists at a Top-Secret facility try to use the werewolf blood to make a super soldier.  Good news is they succeed!  Bad news is this mother woke up grumpy as fuck (Grrrrr.) and immediately starts killing the wookalar piss out of everybody.   It’s mildly entertaining in a low-budget, early 1990’s horror movie kind of way.

I could probably toss in some Barry Bostwick ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW jokes or make some lame quips about a "metal" werewolf who is really into metal music, but I'm not feeling it.  The movie is mildly interesting in an nostalgic way for older viewers and that's about it.  The "metalbeast" looks cool, but isn't on screen enough.  The rest of the characters are forgettable and boring.  The dialogue is nothing.  It just sounds like "burrr, buuurrrr, burrrrr..." after awhile.  Zero nudity, very little blood, zero gore, dumb ending, boring direction.  Watch it if you want, but don't blame me if you fall asleep.

IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK (1935)

[Update 05/16/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

This movie is a disaster! With a title like IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK I was expecting all kinds of funny skits about a woman who's hired to be a cook but can't cook! Now that could have been comedy gold, but "Noooo!" this turkey has nothing to do with cooking! Instead it's just a forced love story about two people who, as far as I can tell, have nothing in common. Wealthy automobile executive Herbert Marshall gets in a big argument with his board of directors so he goes for a walk to cool down. While sitting on a park bench he meets unemployed Jean Arthur. She's looking through the Help Wanted classifieds and the only thing she can find is a position for a cook and butler/husband and wife. She talks Herbert into trying out for the job and they get hired on the spot! In my opinion that is a wonderful set up for some screwball excitement and in the hands of somebody like Howard Hawks, Frank Capra or Preston Sturges this movie would have been a sidesplitter, but we're not so lucky. Instead of going the over the top screwball route IYCOC is just a clusterfucked mess.

The biggest problem is the script. It sucks. There's nothing remotely funny at all. If I didn't already know this was a comedy I would have just mistaken it for a badly written drama. My second biggest complaint is Herbert Marshall. I liked him in stuff like THE FLY and FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, but in this one he has the screen presence of an antique lamp. Terrible.

I have a few other complaints but they're not worth listing. Just take my word for it: this movie is a bore.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1977)

I remember, when I was a kid, seeing the VHS tape for this film at the local Hastings and it scared the shit out of me. I have no idea why, but that cover combined with the title THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN was just horrifying. I mean, shit, if this guy was so terrifying that the entire fucking town was scared of him, then there's nothing that a little kid like me could do to protect myself!  Turns out my fears were for nothing, because this movie can barely even be categorized horror.  It's more of a crime thriller.

One quite evening in the small Texas town of Texarkana, a dude with a sack over his head attacks two teenagers at a local make-out spot: he beats the shit out of both of them.  He also leaves bite marks on the female. The local cops are dumbfounded, so they call in the Texas Rangers. The attacks continue and it turns out the Rangers are about as useless as the local police. Eventually, the guy kills five folks and then simply disappears. Yawn.

In the right hands, that story could be made into something suspenseful and engaging, but sadly it appears that everybody involved with this turkey had no clue as how to make a good movie. The weirdest thing was how the tone of the movie kept changing from scene to scene. In one scene it's trying to be serious and then 15 seconds later there's some "Dukes of Hazzard" hijinks going on.  There's even a cop car flying in slow motion into a pond!

Lame acting and even lamer script. Also, some of the night scenes were so dark that I could barely even tell what was going on.  Skip it.

[Update 09/26/2016: Just watched the 2014 "meta-sequel" (that shares the same title) and it's so underwhelming that I'm not even going to waste my time writing a review.  The story is set "one year ago" and has some dude who looks just like the dork in the original movie going around semi-copycatting the kills from the original film.  Lame kills, zero gore, zero suspense, horrible lighting, slow pace, stupid ending, zero scares.  The whole thing was a waste of time.  I wished I had never watched it.]

THE GATE II: TRESPASSERS (1990)

[Update 11/13/2018: Sweet Lord this review is terrible. I'll update it when I can.]

The original film was OK, in a PG-rated 80's horror kind of way, but Part 2 is just boring. The nerdy neighbor kid from part 1 is the main character now and he's been studying up on witchcraft. When his father gets fired for being drunk at work, the nerd kid casts a spell that's suppose to grant him a wish. His wish is granted and his dad gets his job back, but during the incantation some demons slipped through.

Low-budget demon hijinks ensue, but it's all pretty tame. I've seen 10 times more violence in a episode of "Tales from the Crypt". The best thing about the original was there was a slumber party and an interesting cast of characters, but in this one it's just this dork kid and this one neighborhood chick who is just there for no reason. Skip it.

Part 1 - The Gate (1987)