The Unseen and its cast has some of that good weird, twisted old black and white horror movie quality to them, but the horror presented here looks just plain unintentionally comical.
Category: Horror
#393 Brainstorm (1983)
Brainstorm has an very interesting concept and some great visuals for the movie of the early 80s, but ultimately fails to fully follow through its superbly promising premise.
#385 Mutant aka Forbidden World (1982)
Mutant, a 1982 Alien ripoff replaces the alien with a fatter one and throws in some tits, and at times seems to work, but the lack of originality and inspiration soon get the best of it.
#379 The Boogens (1981)
Like so many horror movies of the eighties, The Boogens feels like an amateurish monster film done with ’us too’ motive and is outshadowed by better executed films of the era.
#375 Death Spa (1989)
Cheesy, but not enough so to entertain, Death Spa is a collection of gruesome kills and nekkid tits, and the scenes between feel like fillers to make it to the 90 minute mark.
#365 Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
Sequel to the 1979 original, Amityville 2 takes some scary and disturbing turns right from the start, but the exorcism that follows feels copy pasted from elsewhere.
#360 Wolfen (1981)
A mediocre horror film spiked with some native american pseudo mysticism, Wolfen’s most interesting asset is the beast eye video effect, later perfected by Predator (1987) .
#344 Blood Diner (1987)
Blood Diner tries its best to be bad – a cult bad – movie that on the other hand deserves credit for trying, but on the other, just doesn’t seem to quite work out at all.
#329 Xmas 2015: Gremlins (1984)
Similarly to the Goonies, Ghostbusters and E.T, the wonderful, the amazing, christmassy Gremlins grew to be a pop culture phenomenon much bigger than the movie itself.
#324 Xmas 2015: Christmas Evil aka You Better Watch Out (1980)
Mistreated workplace outcast punishes bad adults in an outdated horror film that tries some black humor aspect but ends up unsatisfactory in almost every possible way.
#314 Near Dark (1987)
The another one of 1987’s great vampire movies, Near Dark is loaded with mood, thrills and style and was an apparent influence to Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
#277 Halloween 2015: The Shining (1980)
Iconic, idolised and imitated of almost every scene it features, Kubrick’s horror classic featuring Jack Nicholson in one of his most memorable roles, The Shining is a piece of thriller and horror art and leaves very little or nothing to be improved.
#276 Halloween 2015: Pet Sematary (1989)
Pet Sematary is the first of the Stephen King’s novels I’ve read at the tender age of 14 and after that I was totally addicted to King’s scary stories for afterwards. Granted, nothing ever came close to the chills I got out of this particular novel – King himself has said that this is the only one of his writings that genuinely scares him.
After The Shining, Pet Sematary is the second best filmatisation of King’s works and Mary Lambert does her very best to cram the whole book under two hours. The story is well told, but due to time limit feels rushed and no real relationship with the characters is established.
Similarly to The Shining, Pet Sematary is thematically so heavy that it makes for a distressing movie experience at times (although it gets a little lighter towards the end as it turns from devastating tragedy into ‘just’ a scary movie), but if a movie is able to provide such a thrill, it really can’t be dubbed nothing short of a triumph.
80s-o-meter: 90%
Total: 91%
#275 Halloween 2015: Poltergeist III (1988)
While the third and the last part is patchy and uneven, Poltergeist III does make up for its heavily cut budget with an very imaginative use of camera and smoke & mirror tricks, but only partly so.
#274 Halloween 2015: Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
The inevitable sequel doesn’t bring much new to the table and its strengths are in the professional production quality and special effects rather than the story.
#273 Halloween 2015: Poltergeist (1982)
Spielberg’s vision of a scary movie, Poltergeist is a full of adventure-like magic and responsible in making an entire generation of kids terrified of their TV sets.
#272 Halloween 2015: Night of the Demons (1988)
A centerfold right out of Fangoria magazine, Night of the Demons is gory, ruthless, sexist and utter nonsense. In other words: Heaps of fun, and 100% eighties!
#271 Halloween 2015: Bride of Re-Animator (1989)
Bride of Re-Animator misses its chance of amp up the humour and the uncanny twisted atmosphere that made the first part great, and ends up a mediocre zombie movie.
#270 Halloween 2015: Re-Animator (1985)
A modern day Frankenstein story, Re-Animator is a hilariously awful horror comedy package oozing black comedy and wrapped around in amazing tension and atmosphere.
#269 Halloween 2015: Bad Dreams (1988)
Don’t mind the concept which at first seems to be a blatant Nightmare on the Elm Street rip-off, as Bad Dreams has a few nice game changing jacks up its sleeve.