Starring Vincent Price, Donald Pleasance and John Carradine this is an anthology film that has 3 short films about cross bread monster creatures and the interlinking story has some musical interludes. This film is strange, I thought that it would be a horror film but did not know that much about it but with Vincent Price I was looking forward to it. It is based upon the stories of R Chetwynd-Hayes who I learned all about listening to Hypnobobs episode 18.
This film is aimed at children and I will be honest and say that I was not aware of this as I watched it and I was very disappointed as it was not what I thought it was going to be. So if you watch it go in knowing it is aimed at a younger audience. The first story is about a vampire and the squad lead by Donald Pleasance who come to get him. The second story gets a bit creepy about a couple that try to rob a creature who whistles and the final story is about a film director that goes to find a location for his film and he finds trouble. The surrounding story is an enjoyable part with Vincent Price and John Carradine, however weirdly there is a musical segment between every story and there are 4 songs played out in full.
Overall this film is not great perhaps it will be better with better set expectations, however it is worth seeing if you like anthologies or enjoy seeing horror from the eighties aimed at a younger audience this is a low 3 stars from me.
Film of 2012 #64
The John Carpenter film starring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, New York has been walled off as a maximum security prison and the inmates are allowed to run free. A Terrorist takes Airforce One and crashes the plane and the President is played by Donald Pleasence ejects and lands in New York and the army have to get him out. So they use Snake as the best at what he does to go in and get him out. He meets Ernest Borgnine as the Cabbie and runs into Isaac Hayes who is the Duke of New York and the person who runs the city. Lee Van Cleef as Hauk and Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie round out the cast from this 80's cult favourite.
Scored by John Carpenter this film is another of his very strong 80's films with a strong cast and interesting story, even if it is a bit contrived. This film looks at a society where criminal actions and violence reach such a peak that it becomes viable and acceptbale to shut off New York and turn it into a prison and as plot point in a film it is good as it gives you a famous city to run around and you can make up your own rules as anything goes. There is some interesting thoughts on how far people would go to survive with some of the lower class criminals running around the sewers eating people and others trying to make some form of living by doing what would be considered a normal job, such as Cabbie. This falls into the Action genre with some social commentary but really it is about the fight scenes and the chase scenes and the desperation of Snake trying to get the president. There is also another story with the problem being there is a threat to the whole world safety based on what the president has in his brief case.
I really enjoy this film with Kurt Russell totally over acting in the role of Snake and really playing the bad-ass. The score and direction from Carpenter paint a really dark and scary future and there is very little light in the story, I would say this is a 4 star recommend if you enjoy anything that Carpenter has done in the past.
