SCAVENGER HUNT (1979)

A wealthy game inventor, Vincent Price, croaks while playing a frog game and leaves his entire $200 million estate to the person (or persons) who can collect the most points from a list of Scavenger Hunt items he left in his will. The potential beneficiaries (family, servants and a taxi driver) have until 5pm this afternoon to gather the items. Chaos ensues.

As far as IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD knockoffs go, SCAVENGER HUNT is an alright film. You’re not gonna soil your Ewok Underoos with piss from laughing so hard, but you might get a chuckle or two. The most notable thing about the film (thanks to the passage of time) is the cast. From Vincent Price and Arnold Schwarzenegger to Ruth Gordon and Scatman Crothers…this movie has a great cast! I was most impressed by the then 30 year-old Richard Masur playing the spoiled and mentally unwell son of Cloris Leachman. He was a trip. (It’d be a lot of fun to sit down and really analyze the entire cast of this film. Did you know that Carol Wayne, who played Vincent Price’s nurse, died just a few years later of suspicious causes at the age of 42?)

Simple story, impressive cast, interesting Southern California filming locations, quick pace, unfunny but not painfully unfunny humor, an ancient Jack in the Box, numerous vintage cars. Not the funniest movie ever (or even funny at all), but it has a certain charm to it. Worth watching for fans of 1970’s comedies.

CHAW (2009)

[Update 08/11/2024: Need re-watch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Do you know why somebody would rent a movie about a giant killer boar terrorizing a small mountain town? To see a giant killer boar terrorizing a small mountain town. Not to spend well over an hour of the 121-minute running time watching the lame locals about their lame lives and their lame idea on how to kill the giant computer animated boar that’s supposedly terrorizing their hood.

I was happy for the first few minutes then nothing ever happened until I was begging god for it to just end. It eventually did. Zero tits, no gore, boring story, very little blood, completely needless side stories (the police officer's mother, the old folktale about a giant boar), slow pace. Skip it. Watch TREMORS or JAWS again instead. Hell, even RAZORBACK is better.

What is up with that dude's pants?!!

DEATH SPA (1988)

[Update 09/19/2022: Rewatched the film last night. Just deleted the old review and working on fixing the pictures. Will write a new review soon. I hope.  And fix the KILLER WORKOUT review also.]

"...I'm Beta and you're VHS."

THE GREAT BANDIT (1963)

I have no idea what the proper title for this movie is. My DVD has SAMURAI PIRATE printed on it, but the movie itself says THE GREAT BANDIT. But then IMBb and the poster above say THE LOST WORLD OF SINBAD which makes no sense because nobody in the movie was called Sinbad and there wasn't any lost world. I'm going to go what it has onscreen.

Most people only know Toshiro Mifune from his 16 Kurosawa films, but he also made a metric shitload of other movies including this one in which he's a pirate who at the beginning of the movie has his ship destroyed by a storm. He (and his treasure chest) are floating along on a big piece of wood when he's overtaken by the dreaded Black Pirate. The pirates steal his booty and leave him adrift. He wakes up many days later on a beach. A hermit with magical powers has been taking care of him. Toshiro goes to the nearest town where he sees a beautiful princess and learns that the kingdom has been taken over by some asshole. He decides that ain't cool, so he sets off to the castle to get to the bottom of this shit.

There's lots of interesting moments (evil witch turning people into stone, good wizard dude turning himself into a fly so he can spy, Toshiro flying around on a giant hang glider), but over all it got pretty boring pretty quick. Personally I have no desire to ever see it again and I was actually disappointed in it. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of the "Sinbad" movies from the 50's and 70's.

Worth watching, I guess, if you're a huge Mifune fan but don't expect to be impressed.

Takashi Shimura! Onscreen for probably 5 seconds total.