JENNIFER'S BODY (2009)

[Update 11/23/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely.]

As somebody with a weakness for high school horror movies I kinda enjoyed this film. The vibe was fresh and likable, but I was really disappointed that the violence is non-existent. Outside of a few cuss words, there's nothing that hasn't already been done better on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". No guts getting ripped out, no pregnant woman getting stabbed through the stomach with a forklift, no orgies ending in a massive axe massacre, no sex demons with dicks for fingers swallowing peoples souls then pissing the souls out through their dickfingers. Heck. I would figure the whole point in making a movie would to be to go balls out and be as violent as possible. But I guess filmmakers were more interested in making a quick buck instead of going out on a limb and maybe creating something unique and great. But at least give us some tits goddamn it!!!

That said I still enjoyed it, mainly because I really liked the idea of a small mountain town with a hot high school girl as a demon. There's so many cool ways the story could go. I just love thinking about it. It could be like a mixture of "Twin Peaks" with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". How badass would that be?! What if the human chick remained friends with the demon chick? That would be cool and you could take that in all kinds of directions.

Anyway, it's worth a rent, but don't expect anything imaginative or amazing just a mildly entertaining, non-threatening, time killer.

T-MEN (1947)

"Did you ever spend 10 nights in a Turkish bath looking for a man?"

People often never ask me "What film would be a good starting point if I wanted to learn about film noir?", but if they did, I would point them towards 1947's T-MEN.  It's a great film that kinda creeps up on you at just how good it is.

The film is presented in a semi-documentary style complete with a narrator.  The story is about a counterfeiting gang based in Los Angeles.  The Treasury Department has been after them for awhile, but the only clue they have is there's a connection with a gang in Detroit.  They send in two undercover T-men to infiltrate the gang.  

A lot of noirs have all kinds of crazy twists, double-crosses and sometimes even triple-crosses that are sometime hard to follow.  T-MEN has none of that.  It's very straightforward and a lot of fun to watch over and over.  Strong direction by Anthony Mann, amazing cinematography by John Alton, great acting, fast pace, impressive cast.  T-MEN is just a solid movie that should be in every classic movie lovers film collection.  Highly recommended.

N-GIRLS VS. VAMPIRES (1999)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

It says Takashi Miike on the credits, but you wouldn't know it just from watching it...all three fucking hours of it!!!! 

The story idea is pretty exciting: some teenage girls find out that a local modeling agency is run by vampires...vampires that only feed on the blood of virgins! That, plus Takashi Miike should equal awesome, but it isn't. It's pretty much terrible. First off, it's a TV movie(!) and secondly, there's giant chunks of time wasted on these girls just babbling on about God only knows what. It was torture.

There's no violence, the special effects are painfully horrible, zero tits, very little cussing and the performances by the actors are all shitty. The only saving grace of the entire disaster is there's numerous scenes shot out on busy city sidewalks and you can see pedestrians staring at the camera and just acting confused. I found that kinda funny, but not funny enough to enjoy this turd. Skip it. I would say for hardcore Miike fans only, but I am a hardcore Miike fan and I found this entire movie to be rubbish. Skip it.

Crew visible in reflection.