My local library has been screening the classic Universal Monster Movies every Saturday night this month, which is just about the greatest thing any library has ever done (besides, you know, storing all of that knowledge). They kicked off the month with 1941’s The Wolf Man, but I think they saved the best for last—1931’s Dracula (this weekend they’re showing a non-Universal Monster flick).
We’re just one week from Halloween, and it looks like some serendipitous timing for this next filmic installment of Lazy Sunday, as the three films this week are either horror films or “horror-adjacent” in nature. It’s perhaps a bit of an underwhelming example of serendipity, as I now pretty much exclusively watch horror movies on Shudder, but these reviews were from my pre-Shudder days, when I was watching most stuff on Hulu.
Of course, you don’t care about all of that. You just want to read about movie reviews you probably already skimmed through months ago. So, on with the retrospective!
Well, that’s it for this last film retrospective before Halloween. Here’s to a spooky, fun week!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
This week’s Monday Morning Movie Review is a double feature: I’m reviewing the comedy-horror flicks House (1986) and the even goofier sequel House II: The Second Story (1987). While the films share a name and both take place in odd houses, the two storylines are completely independent of one another.
It’s a late Lazy Sunday today. A very long homecoming weekend at school, followed by a Saturday spent at the South Carolina State Fair and a University of South Carolina football game, has me behind on the blog a bit. As soon as I churn this post out, it’s straight to writing comments for report cards. So much for a day of rest.
But I digress. For the first time since Lazy Sunday CXXV, I’m back with more movie review retrospectives. It’s fun (for me, at least) to go back through these movie reviews; I’ve written so many of them, I’ve started forgetting which movies I’ve reviewed!
This week we pick up where we left off ten Sundays ago with another three flicks:
That’s it for this week’s belated Lazy Sunday. Enjoy the rest of this quiet day!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Well, it’s not quite morning, and I’m still playing catch-up after a weekend of indolence and ice cream, but but I’m eking out this Monday “Morning” Movie Review for your daily delectation.
I often review films that I like, or about which I can say something positive. This week’s film, In the Earth (2021), is one that I cannot recommend to most viewers, but one I nevertheless enjoyed.
Today’s Monday Morning Movie Review will be a bit delayed. It was a long drive back from Georgia, and with preparations for the week, I did not have time or energy to craft a compelling movie review.
I’ll also be getting caught up on this weekend’s SubscribeStar Saturday, thought it likely won’t be until midweek.
The tempo of work, lessons, and other obligations have made it difficult to keep up with the blog this weekend, and this week is looking to be a doozy. Rest assured, though, that I’ll get back into the regular schedule as soon as possible.
Happy Monday!
—TPP
Earlier this week I reviewed 1977’s Star Wars, the film that started a craze that is still raging nearly five decades later, despite Disney’s best efforts to destroy the franchise. What I didn’t realize is that nearly a year to the day earlier, I’d written a review of 1981’s The Empire Strikes Back, quite possibly the greatest Star Wars film ever made—and, I would argue, just one of the best films ever set to celluloid.
Naturally, I had to do a throwback to my review of the film, which I think was my first Monday Morning Movie Review. Kind of crazy to think that I’ve been doing regular movie reviews every Monday for a year. It both seems longer and shorter than that.
Well, no need in going any longer. Here is 28 September 2021’s “Monday Morning Movie Review: The Empire Strikes Back“:
The weather here in South Carolina has turned blissfully autumnal, which means we can finally partake in all manner of outdoor activities without dying of heat exposure and dehydration. The humidity has calmed itself to a bearable level, and the mornings and nights are crisp and cool.
One of my enterprising neighbors—and most dogged constituents—took advantage of the cool weather this weekend to test out an inflatable projector screen. He invited me to join his family for a private, driveway screening of the original 1977 Star Wars, later entitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Specifically, he screened the “de-specialized” version, as he called it, so there was none of the clunky 1990s CGI additions of the special editions.
In other words, it’s the way Star Wars was intended… before George Lucas changed his mind and decided to change his own films.
Shudder continues to deliver up the bizarre and unusual, proving it’s well worth the price of admission for the streaming service. This last week saw the service bring the 1985 film The Stuff to the service.
It’s an unusual horror flick that combines elements of consumer protection advocacy, mass media advertising, consumerism, ruthless business tactics, and addiction into a blob of creamy terror.
Indeed, the film is something like The Blob (1958) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) rolled into one: a greedy corporation knowingly sells a dangerous product, which turns out to be a goopy white organism that entire consumes the very people consuming it.
So, essentially, the entire flick is a metaphor for consumerism and corporate greed run amok.
The 1960s were a wild time for Western Civilization, to say the least. Like our present moment, it was a time of cultural upheaval that nearly resulted in civilizational suicide, only for the Silent Majority to rise from its slumber to forestall decline.
Apparently, the 1960s were a bit wild for the Soviets, too, as the Russkies allowed the release of Viy (1967), a Soviet-era horror flick, the first of its kinds to enjoy an official release in the USSR. Shudder is currently streaming the film, and it’s worth your time to check it out, both for the novelty of watching a Soviet horror flick, but also because it’s a fun, surprisingly frightening film.
The Portly Politico 