Night of the Living Dead - Will's Review

When the dead start to rise and feast on the flesh of the living. A group of survivors haul up in an abandoned farmhouse.

Although the word "zombie" is never uttered on screen (the undead are referred to as "ghouls", Night of the Living Dead gave us the the modern zombie movie; until NOTLD, "zombies" referred to the sometimes undead, often hypnotised or brainwashed living people, used as slaves in Haitian Voodoo. Whereas old-school zombies would usually be present in small numbers, Romero gave us the horde of the undead working independently of a master.

More than the creatures themselves though, NOTLD supplied the blueprint still used in most zombie movies (and AMC's "The Walking Dead") to this day; a group of survivors hauled up in a semi-secure location, with in-fighting being every bit as dangerous as the horde outside.

An American Werewolf in London - Will's Review

2 young American backpackers are attacked in the Yorkshire dales, one of them (Jack) is killed; the other (David) is badly injured and sent to hospital in London. The Dales' Locals cover up the truth behind the savage attack, claiming it was a madman; but when David comes too, the spirit of Jack is on hand to tell him the truth; they were attacked by a werewolf, and only the distraction of the wolf's "bloodline" can rescue his victims from purgatory.

David, naturally, questions his own sanity, rather than simply accepting the visions as fact... But the full moon is in its way.

Carrie - Will's Review

Stephen King spins a great story but film adaptations of his work, while usually entertaining, are veritable in quality to say the least.

In Carry, I think one of his books was captured properly; of course some things were changed, books and movies are different mediums, but none of those changes take anything away from one of Kings most identifiable novels.

Don't Look Now - Will's Review

I can only assume this movie wasn't available on video during the early 80's, or between opening with a child death, featuring a fairly graphic sex scene, and it's "Don't" title, it would surely have found itself on the DPP list.

As well acted as the movie is, the real star of the show though, is the editor, who takes a simple story about a couple's grief and turns it to to an atmospheric, compelling movie, full of scenes from the present intercut wonderfully with flashback (and other) material. Totally this movie is very similar to Possesion; dealing with grief in much the same way that movie dealt with a failing relationship... Only without the rubber monster!

Jaws - Lisa's Review

It seems kind of redundant to be reviewing a movie like Jaws.  Who on earth out there hasn't seen this movie??  Possibly some really young movie fans? but when you do some reading or find out anything about the movie, then you would most definitely watch it.

Jaws was released in the year of my birth.  I was a kid when I watched it thanks to my old dad and his horror fixation.  It is taken from a book by Peter Benchley and as good as I'm sure the book is, I doubt it managed to convey the absolute terror that the movie instilled in everyone over a certain age.  I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't either love or be terrified of this movie,, or both!!  The mere mention of the word Jaws, or even shark, will prompt a rendition of the most simplistic yet most effective musical score in any movie EVER.

Don't Look Now (1973) - Lisa's Review

This is a movie my husband recommended to me when we first got together, so it's just taken me 10 years to get around to it.  Well, truth be told it would probably be another 10 years if I was watching this one for my own viewing pleasure.  Unfortunately the life of a movie review blogger means we must watch dull movies and boring movies as well as the good ones and the great ones.  We also watch movies we otherwise wouldn't have done and find in actual fact we were missing out on a great movie.   I wish I could say this were the case for 'Don't Look Now'.  In my opinion, it most certainly was not.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - Lisa's Review

I watched this one (forcibly) a few years ago as I'm married to a big Romero fan.  Having thankfully forgotten most of it, I was unfortunately forced to sit through it again tonight.  So I would imagine from those few words you can guess what I thought to the movie.  Yup, it sucked.  To be fair I'm not a fan of old zombie movies.  Dawn of the Dead is about as old as I go but that one is a stand out good 'un.  Anyways, I suppose we need a premise of sorts.

We concentrate on a group of people accidentally brought together in a farmhouse when hiding from a hoarde of zombies.  As with most of these movies, there are bad decisions, slightly less bad decisions, dramatic saves, ridiculous deaths, hammy overacting, rubbish effects but in a complete turnaround there is actually a pretty good ending.  I would be surprised if any horror fan hadn't seen this movie or any non horror fan were reading this blog, so there isn't much reason to hide the ending.  If however in a strange twist of fate, you actually haven't seen it and want to... avoid the next paragraph.