A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (1973)

Veteran actors Robert Culp and Eli Wallach are two scientists sent to a remote high altitude research station after the previous scientist, Vogel, quit responding to radio calls. Flown in by helicopter, Culp and Wallach find Vogel locked in the radio room with the window open. It was 20 below zero outside. The strange thing is Vogel had the keys to the locked door in his hand.

The pilot leaves and now Culp and Wallach are left alone high up on a mountain with only a few research monkeys locked in cages to keep them company. They settle into a daily routine, but soon strange things start happening...machines turned on, windows open, doors closed, the generator turned off. What the hell's going on around here?!

A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH originally aired as a ABC's "Movie of the Week" on January 30, 1973 and at only 74 minutes it packs in the story.  But even with it's economical storytelling, A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH isn't much more than an extended episode of "The Twilight Zone"...but a really good episode! For a one time watch, it's definitely worth checking out. On a side note: for nearly the entire film I found myself thinking about 1982's THE THING.

Recommended.

[Update 10/31/2022: This has nothing to do with the review, just thought it was interesting.  I'm currently reading an Adrian Monk mystery novel, "Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse" by Lee Goldberg, and one of the characters randomly starts talking about this movie.  Isn't that odd?]

You can see Eli's pants even though he's in the shower.

CREATURE (2011)

Despite not one, not two, but three topless scenes (including one where the woman gets completely naked), CREATURE is not a good film.

A group of annoying douchers, who talk in ways that no human has ever carried on a conversation in real life, are on a road trip through the backwoods when they decide to take a detour to see an old abandoned, haunted shack way off in a swamp. That's a wonderful idea! Naturally, the half human/half alligator creature that lives nearby doesn't take kindly to annoying douchers creeping around in his woods, but oh no! It can't be that simple.  The filmmakers felt it was important to add a stupid twist to the story. How exciting!  You know what? Instead of wasting my time with an unneeded twist, how about you just make a straightforward monster creature movie that's fucking good. I don't want a goddamn twist, I want a goddamn gnarly as fuck monster killing people in awesome ways with lots of blood and gore and excitement and attractive naked women. CREATURE had none of these things. The story took forever to take off and then when the killing finally started...the Creature looked like crap, the special effects sucked, the violence was almost nonexistent and the boss fight at the end it was nonexistent!!! It took place entirely off screen! Have you ever (not) seen anything like that in your life? I couldn't believe it.

Forget it. I'm done. Skip the movie and if you're dumb enough to watch it anyways, I hope you, at least, find it good to laugh at. If you need me, I'll be in my room watching RAWHEAD REX.

Look at the pubes on this motherfucker!

THE WARD (2010)

Set in 1966, the story is about a girl (clue #1: dressed in a hospital gown) who's running through the woods. She comes to a old farmhouse and burns it to the ground. As she's watching it burn some cops roll up and take her back, oops, I mean to a nearby insane asylum. Once inside, the nurse takes her to her room and (clue #2:) erases the name on her room's door (Tammy) and replaces it with a new one, Kristen. If by this point in the film you haven't figured out the twist ending then you're an  idiot and you've obviously missed out on the other 34,000 movies that have been released in the last decade with the same exact twist.

Being a fan of John Carpenter, I had hopes that THE WARD would be atmospheric and awesome, but that just didn't happen. It's not a bad movie, but there is nothing to make it stand out either. It passed the time well enough, but I would never watch it ever again. Months from now the only thing that I'll remember about THE WARD was the three main chicks are all attractive.

Completely unoriginal story. Good acting. Nice pace. Passable direction by Carpenter, but nowhere near what he's capable of. Worth a rent, if you're bored, but that's about it. That said, it was better than Wes Craven's MY SOUL TO TAKE.