Archive for the ‘American Films’ Category
Hehehehe!!! Yep…. I can just hear Carolyn now…. “Miyuki? Where in heck did you manage to find another killer pig movie?”
Surprisingly…. for an American made horror film that’s nearly 2 years old, your Favorite Catgirl only managed to run across this on on it’s Region 2 UK DVD release just a week or so ago. I’ve been unable to confirm it was even ever released here in the good ol’ US of A… but it’s certainly found it’s way everywhere else lately, from Germany, the UK, and even in a Region 3 release in Thailand.
Our synopsis goes like this: “When rugged country boy John takes his city raised friends on a weekend trip back to his deceased uncle’s remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical “guys getaway with guns” – despite the presence of John’s sexy girlfriend Brooks. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the marijuana filled hills of Northern California, they find a wilderness laced with rednecks, lots of high powered weaponry, and a killer cult of machete toting hippie beauties, only to learn the awful truth about his late uncle’s death and the truth behind the local legend of “The Ripper” — a murderous 3000 pound man-eating wild boar!”
Now Neko’s seen killer Aussie piggies….. killer Korean pork on a rampage….. so am I ready for some good ol’ American “Pig-foot” action? More importantly…. is Carolyn? (Hehehehe!! At least this one is in English….)
Since all you gentle visitors here at the Litterbox probably are “Killer Pig movie” fans too, you best not waste any more time them. Let’s “Read On”, shall we?
Well… it’s finally out! “Bitch Slap” is here at last…. Your Favorite Catgirl Princess has been awaiting this one for such a looonnng time I had begun to think it would never reach DVD. Sometimes that’s a bad thing…. usually telling one that a film was just sooooo darn bad it would never have made back it’s money in a Theatrical release. Then there a few of those fun lil’ gems that have such a niche audience that Direct-to-DVD is just the way to go. Hopefully this is such a film….
Synopsis? Do we really need one? No, not really, but here it goes… “Three sexy “Bad Girls” travel to a remote desert hideaway to steal $200 million in diamonds from a ruthless underworld kingpin and things quickly spiral out of their control. Allegiances get switched, truths get revealed, criminals are unmasked and nothing (or nobody) is quite what it seems as the fate of the world is precariously balanced upon the fates of this trio of sexy femme fatales.”
Made by two of the people involved with the wacky and super silly “Hercules” and “Xena, Warrior Princess” TV shows (as well as many of the same cast and crew), this one looked to be a fun little slice of naughty fun just the way Neko likes them. Not only that…. but it let me tell my sweet Carolyn that I finally had an honest to goodness English dialog movie for us to watch together…. (However, I might just have neglected to tell her the title….. Thank goodness she loves me… Hehehehe!!)
I’m expecting some gratuitous violence… some over-the-top bad girl combat… crazy villains that seriously need to be slapped, and all the exploitation goodies that can be crammed into a single movie. Will I get my wish?
Guess we’ll all have to “Read On” to find out…..
Another nostalgia filled trip back to the days of your Favorite Catgirl’s misspent youth and the Saturday morning movies that warped my lil’ mind, gives us a look this time out at 1953′s utterly “craptastic” “Robot Monster”.
Even if you haven’t seen this one you probably know it…. it’s that one with an alien gorilla/ robot wearing a space helmet with TV rabbit ears on top. Yep… that silly alien!!
Our synopsis? Well this one goes sorta like this: “While on an afternoon picnic excursion with his mother and two sisters, a young boy named Johnny meets a pair of archeologists who are recording the primitive paintings a nearby cave.
After having a rather nasty fall, he is knocked unconscious and has a weird dream in which the Earth has been totally conquered and most of humanity killed by a freaky alien “gorilla-bot” called the Ro-Man, using the deadly “calcinator death ray”. Apparently he and his family and the two scientists are the only survivors thanks to a secret inoculation serum. They try to survive and avoid capture and horrible death at the hands of Ro-Man, who, despite his alien origins, falls for Johnny’s sexy scientist sister Alice. Will humanity somehow defeat the unfathomably unstoppable Ro-man in his clumsy monkey suit and space helmet, or are we all…. doomed?”
Hehehe!! This one completely redefines the idea of low budget film making and the very idea that the ludicrous alien Ro-man is still so well known while many other characters, better imagined and better realized, have faded from memory, speaks volumes about it’s charm. Little Miyuki was never fooled by Ro-man…. but boy, did she ever eat this one up as a wee impressionable girl. Certainly it’s a guilty pleasure for many of you gentle visitors as well…. so let’s all get nostalgic together and take another look at this unabashedly “craptacular” 50′s classic!!
One of my new Christmas presents, “9″ quickly made it’s way to the top of my “To Watch” pile this last weekend…. (actually I suspect Carolyn might have moved it there so we would watch it instead of “Paku Kuntilanak” last Saturday…. such a naughty, naughty girl!!) and so after an evening’s viewing I’m ready to weigh in with my impressions on it.
Our Synopsis goes like this: “In the retro futuristic post-apocalyptic ruins of a deserted city, a small group of brave little robotic puppets led by a recently awakened “9″, battle evil machines for the right to rule over the lost world of Mankind…. Who will win this curious struggle and ultimately control the new world?”
Although produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov…. much of this film lies squarely on the shoulders of Shane Acker, creator of the imaginative short film upon which this one was based. I’d seen the Trailer of course, but this one turned out to be one of those films that just never made it to my lil’ town… so now that it’s newly out on DVD, I guess it’s time for your Favorite Catgirl to fix that particular lil’ oversight.
So… let’s all “Read On” and find out how this one ranks up, shall we?
Now and again somebody thinks fondly of me and brings this lil’ Catgirl the present of a movie…. sometimes they’re surprisingly good, sometimes amazingly baaaaad… but always welcomed… Recently, my sweet Carolyn bought me this one…. fresh from the “sale bin” at our local Video rental store…. brand spanking new and never even watched!! (However, after watching it, I’ve now come to understand why…. Hehehehe!!) It’s not every special person that would do that… especially knowing she’d have to also cuddle up on the couch and watch it too….. It’s little gestures like this that tell me how much she truly loves silly lil’ me…. and judging by this “craptastic” DVD, she must just love me oodles and oodles!!
Our synopsis goes sorta like this…. “A mad scientist named Dr Arana (Jackie Coogan) is creating giant spiders and dwarves in his lab on Zarpa Mesa in Mexico. He wants to create a master race of superwomen by injecting his female subjects with spider venom.”
Now this certainly sounds like a reasonable and well thought out plan for world domination…. and to think some might call Dr. Arana mad…… So, how’s it all gonna work?
Badly, my first guess would be, but to find out for certain, we’ll all just have to “Read On” to find out!!
Ahhh, Vincent Price…. now there’s a memory from my childhood. Of all the actors I remember from all those old movies, he stands out in my mind the most clearly. Always so smooth, sophisticated and so, so classy, whether playing the hero, or the villain, he always left such a vivid presence on my mind. This film, one of the many Poe adaptations by Roger Corman has to be undoubtedly his best, “The Masque of the Red Death”, from 1964.
Loosely inspired by Poe’s writings, our synopsis for it reads: “Death and Debauchery reign in the castle of Prince Prospero (played by Vincent Price), and when it reigns… it pours! Prospero has only once excuse for his diabolical deeds–the devil made him do it! But when a mysterious, uninvited guest crashes his pad during a masquerade ball, there’ll be hell to pay as the party atmosphere turns into a danse macabre!”
Mmmmm…. now this one’s a real gem and has a warm place in my many early film memories so how could it not be a “Lil’ Kitten Classic”? I’ve seen it many times since my first encounter as a child on afternoon TV, and it’s always one of those films I can find time to watch over and over. That alone tells this Catgirl it’s got to be something special to hold such power after all these years.
But, of course you all want to know more…. so let’s all “Read On”!!
Halloween fast approaches us and so it’s time for another holiday themed “Lil Kitten Classic” review… this time out it’s the spooky 1942 classic “Cat People”.
Now I know you are all wondering… “Miyuki? You really mean you haven’t ever done a review for this one? How is that even possible?” It does sound somewhat silly for your Favorite horror movie lovin’ Catgirl Princess to have somehow missed this particular classic film here at the ol’ Litterbox, but we can fix that up right now, now can’t we!
Our synopsis goes like this: “Architect Oliver Reed falls in love with beautiful Irena Dubrovna and they duly marry. But Irena refuses to give herself to Oliver, believing that there is something evil inside herself. She tells him of her Serbian ancestors who were reputed to be able to transform into cats when angered.
As Oliver’s frustration and unhappiness grows, he seeks consolation in the arms of co-worker Alice Moore. But a series of near-attacks on the two of them leave him wondering if Irena has not become jealously deranged or if maybe her Serbian legends are true and that she is turning into a cat person to avenge herself on them.”
Oooooh! Mysterious girls from the Balkans that can turn themselves into man eating panthers!! I don’t remember exactly when lil’ Miyuki first encountered this one, but I do remember it was a truly creepy, truly different sort of horror movie and that I liked it a lot even way back then.
Does it still hold up today? I guess we’ll have to give it another watch and find out. Let’s go!
Well…. as I sorta expected, I’ve slipped waaay behind my schedule of reviews for this month, but I’m still in there tryin’ my best! This time out, it’s another look at the sort of film that made lil’ ol’ me such a happy, goofy, wee lil’ girl back in the day, with this “Lil’ Kitten Classics” look at the classic 1958 Scifi horror combo “The Blob”.
Our synopsis reads like this: “Teenagers Steve Andrews (played by Steve McQueen) and his girlfriend Jane Martin (played by Aneta Corsaut) are making out and watching the stars when they see a large meteor fall to Earth nearby so they go in search of it. Before they find it an old man discovers the meteor and the weird jelly creature contained within. It attaches itself to his arm, and by the time the two kids find him the creature is already dissolving him away. They take him to a local doctor for help, but when the monster grows out of control and absorbs both the old man as well as the doctor and his loyal nurse, the kids find themselves unable to convince the local authorities that their peaceful little town is now in deadly peril from…. the Blob!!”
Gooey space monsters that look like cherry jello? As well as the great Steve McQueen in his first starring role? Yep… you just know that this lil’ Catgirl totally ate this one up as a kid. So what’s the big deal about this one? Let’s all “Read On” and see what gives it such memorable class.
Day 5…. and we’re off to Korea for a live action remake of a Japanese anime classic, “Blood, The Last Vampire”…. and another story about Japanese schoolgirls doing what apparently they do best….. kicking serious supernatural butt.
Our quick synopsis goes like this here: “Demons have infested the earth. And only one warrior stands against them between the dark and the light: Saya, a 400-year-old half human-half vampire samurai girl who preys on those who feast on human blood.
Raised by a man named Kato, she works loosely with a shadowy society known as the Council while following her own personal quest to seek out Onigen, the original Mother of all Vampires. Saya is dispatched to an American military base at Yokota, where the vampires have infiltrated the base and are gathering their strength there for an evil purpose. Normally a loner, Saya forms an unlikely friendship with a young girl named Alice, daughter of the base commander, that she rescued from the undead. She finds that Onigen is finally close at hand and so now, after 400 years, Saya’s final hunt is about to begin.”
This one served as part two of my “Schoolgirl Horror Movie Theme Night”…. and I was hoping for a big smashing vampire stomping good time to end my evening… The anime it’s based on was great, if a wee bit short, so was this one going to answer all my expectations or was it gonna fail miserably? Guess if you want to know more you’ll just have to “Read On” and find out!!
Another of the weird lil’ films that this Catgirl watched endlessly on her Saturday mornings back when I was nothing but a wee lil’ kitten. This one had it all…. romance, exotic south seas adventure, lost civilizations…. an evil Cobra Queen…. and Sabu!!
Our synopsis reads: “Upon discovering his fiance Tollea (played by Maria Montez) has been kidnapped, Ramu (played by Jon Hall) and his friend Kado (played by Sabu) set out for a Pacific isle where all strangers are to be killed on arrival and the inhabitants, who are frequently sacrificed to an angry volcano god, worship the cobra. The island is ruled over by Tollea’s evil twin Naja (again… Maria Montez), the “Cobra Woman”, who, besides having designs on her handsome new prisoner Ramu, also desires to eliminate any romantic competition from her sister.”
Oooohhh!! Identical twins! You just know with a tried and true plot element like this that we’re in for some nifty “mistaken identity” fun….. and with a fanatical island of snake worshipping natives and a volcano god needing some virgin sacrifice this one’s got classic pulp goodness written all over it.
So…. having whetted your appetite for classic old school pulp adventure let’s dive in and see if the years have been kind to my memories of this one, shall we?