MOTOR HOME MASSACRE

Posted by guest reviewer Steve Anderson

You know it’s a bad sign when you can spend the first five minutes of a movie watching it, and immediately begin comparing it to any of a dozen other movies, most of which were released before 1990. And it’s an even worse sign when you can spend the rest of those five minutes laughing at its pure cheesiness.

NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES: BATTLEGROUND

TNT’s new Stephen King anthology series, NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES, had me worried.  Nothing has been more damaging to the legacy of Stephen King than Hollywood. To be fair, he’s had a couple movies nominated for Oscars (not the least of of which is THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION).  But seven times out of ten the movies took perfectly good books and destroyed them.  Essentially, other than SHAWSHANK, I’d say only CARRIE, THE SHINING, STAND BY ME, and THE DEAD ZONE came anywhere close to the quality of the original books.  So when a basic cable channel announces it’s producing a series of adaptation of King short stories, there is little reason for optimism.  However, my frown was turned upside down by the first of the series, BATTLEGROUND.  I have one word: wow. As for the rest of the series…well…more to come as new episodes are aired.

FRIDAY THE 13th PART III

FRIDAY THE 13^th PART III should be subtitled: HOW JASON GOT HIS HOCKEY MASK, because really, that’s what it’s best known for. Otherwise, it’s just a standard exercise in 80s cheese horror. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing. Upping the cheese factor is the fact that this was originally released in 3D. Now, I haven’t seen it in its 3D glory, and apparently it’s a blast. As it stands now, it’s basically exactly the film you’d expect it to be, but unfortunately not anything really beyond that.