The Black Waters Of Echo's Pond was first screened at festivals in 2008 and received a brief and limited theatrical run in 2009 and sat on the shelf with no home video release until last month when Anchor Bay finally released it. I bought the Blu-ray and finally had my chance to watch it as the clock struck midnight to roll the calendar over to October. Well, it had a cool idea, some great prop and set design and when the effects were practical they were cool too. The rest sucked. The acting was terrible, the writing was a total mess and the film suffered from it. It was entertaining in spots but for every moment of entertainment there were 2 or 3 groan inducing moments.
Following up that disappointment before I turned in for the night was Cannibal Campout. This 1988 shot-on-video backwoods slasher type film was actually pretty entertaining. Was it good? No. But it did have some decently done effects and laughs. It was an enjoyable way to end the night.
Cannibal Campout was part of a set of SOV horror films and shared a disc with Captives, also from 1988. This one wasn't as entertaining. It felt about 20 minutes too long even with its brief 80 minute run time and it just took forever to get anywhere. The payoff just wasn't worth the effort.
It was time to bust out a proven winner, something I've seen many times and love- Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. This is possibly my favorite horror anthology of all time. IT features 3 very different stories, each featuring Bava's signature direction and beautiful photography. If you've never seen it you are doing yourself a disservice as this could easily make any top horror movie list out there.
While eating dinner I threw on The Haunted Casino, a Full Moon film. Full Moon is hit or miss with me, I love some of the movies and I can't stand some of the movies... it makes perfect sense that this one falls right in the middle. It was okay. It pointlessly features Sid Haig and Michael Berryman as vengeful spirits but they don't do much.
The final movie of the day was a Stephen King adaptation, The Night Flier. I'd never seen this one before and I think it was pretty decent, which not all King adaptations have the ability to say. I would've liked to have seen it as a miniseries though and have a chance to expand on some parts, such as the visions the reporter was having. It just seems like a shrunk down version of what it could have been.
Today's Rundown
Black Waters Of Echo's Pond - 4.5/10
Cannibal Campout - 5/10
Captives - 3/10
Black Sabbath - 9.5/10
Haunted Casino - 4.5/10
The Night Flier - 5.5/10
2 comments:
Sounds like you picked quite the films to kick off your 100 movie challenge!!!
I'm having the annual problem of too many crappy movies haha!
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