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Bloodlines? One of the genuinely better efforts in the series.

I started watching the Dragonheart Pentology. Only saw 1 and 2 now.

Two takes a Marianas Trench sized drop in quality compared to one, and One was no great shakes.

I challenge you to find a better live action film with a dragon as a protagonist/key character. Dragonheart 1 was a major film in its day pushing the CGI of its era somewhat. Sure it look dated now (though not that bad honestly); but for its time it was very top end.


I agree the sequel film took a massive nose dive and I've not seen the others, although the trailers make it look like some of the sequels might actually rise up again somewhat. Certainly film 2 feels more like the B sequel and the others too are the same I think.
Still got to see them one day.

 Overread wrote:
I challenge you to find a better live action film with a dragon as a protagonist/key character. Dragonheart 1 was a major film in its day pushing the CGI of its era somewhat. Sure it look dated now (though not that bad honestly); but for its time it was very top end.


I agree the sequel film took a massive nose dive and I've not seen the others, although the trailers make it look like some of the sequels might actually rise up again somewhat. Certainly film 2 feels more like the B sequel and the others too are the same I think.
Still got to see them one day.

Dragonheart was a De Laurentis production...... that there is B bona fides...... the first one was a mess of a script and production values BUT it did have some named actors and tech for the time. I even recall a big marketing push with toys and Fast Food tie-ins.

I will name one other movie with a Dragon that was not a protagonist but a key character.... Dragonslayer People should check that out if they are into Dragons on film.

The flames for Vermithrax's breath weapon were HAND ANIMATED.

Not content with that, though, the animators ALSO animated the lens-flares for the flames (there are reflections in the "camera glass" for the flames as there would be if they had actually shot real flame with a film camera.

Easier to do these days with cgi and mirroring, but a PITA to do back then, even if there wasn't actually any need to do it - it just makes the scenes look more "real".

Batman, return of the caped crusaders.

Animated films that were a tribute (not parody or satire) of the adam west series.

A lot of us grew up watching batman reruns as a kid, it's old, hokey, campy and still kinda fun. Some of the social and political satire it poked at is still relevant today.

The movies had the voices of adam west in his final role :( , burt ward and julie newmarr.

They realy captured the spirit and style of the old series, but with a bigger budget. We see a "bat rocket" and go to an orbiting space station in the first one, and meet two face who was never on the series in the second.

Hokey kid safe fun, just the thing for the quarantine and family movie night.

I’ll have to check that out; Adam West is still my Batman.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ll have to check that out; Adam West is still my Batman.

have a free sample.
https://youtu.be/hGeQKu8RXDc

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ll have to check that out; Adam West is still my Batman.

2nded!

Also, I watched DragonHeart 3: Sorcerer's Curse. I was disappointed because the quality jumped up so much, that it was better than 1 and 2! How is this possible? It was still a De Laurentis production?

This was a pretty solid film. Kind of made me sad.

One of my favorite B-films that I rewatch is Buckaroo Bonzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. The cast is fantastic, with Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum (being very, very Jeff Goldblum), Clancy Brown, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, Dan Hedaya, and the esteemed John Lithgow as Lord John Worfin. It's the best kind of campy, with a lot of, "of course that's the way things are" moments, and a fun sci-fi plot.

The humor is spot-on, with the aliens having ridiculous surnames (and John Bigbooté being very sensitive about its pronunciation) and a very poor grasp of Earth culture. John Lithgow chews the scenery like nothing I've seen before or since, and it's an AMAZING performance, with an alien mind in the body of an Italian scientist. He misquotes common phrases in a way that makes you wonder if it's his human host's memory was off, or if it's his alien lack of familiarity with it ("Character is what you are in the dark.").

There are also some very famous, quotable lines from the movie that make it seem like the writers were better than they had any right to be, like "No matter where you go, there you are." (If you haven't heard that before, take a week to catch up on your heritage!).

The movie was intended to be the first in a series, but development hell killed the sequel (and a poor box office showing). This may be a blessing, as catching lightning a bottle twice is not easy, and at least this way I can remember it fondly.

Other fun facts:

The rocket car at the beginning is an actual, functioning jet car. The special effects team asked for the budget to make it, and it turns out it was enough to just build the thing for real. I absolutely LOVE that.

The second movie was to also to include Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. Few things make me happier than knowing that.

Mmmm. Lovely. All sorted for the long weekend.

The Beast Must Die
I, Monster
Madhouse
Tales That Witness Madness.

And more from my archive should I blast through the new ones!

I am across a movie I haven't seen and frankly probably won't see, but it deserves mention here in a b movie thread.

One of the titles it was released under was "Tomb of the blind dead" and it was a gimmick movie. They used to do lots of gimmick movies in the 50's thru the 70's. Usually cheap movies with a gimmick that was meant to get people to come to the theater instead of watching tv at home.

Usually it was some sort of in theater gimmick, like having a cardboard coffin stood up in the lobby with a guarantee if you died of fright watching the movie the producers would donate the coffin to your family to save on funeral expenses.

Other movies had things like a paper skeleton hidden in the theater that would pop up with someone pulled a string.

A few had cheap souvenirs that you got with the movie. The movie "blacula" in theaters gave out "Vampire protection kits"
when you bought a ticket.

Which brings me to "tomb of the blind dead". It's gimmick was that the movie was so horrific with scenes of cannibalism and torture you might vomit while watching it.

Hence movie patrons were given a free vomit bag with their ticket.



Frankly when a movie brags about the fact it might make you vomit, that's a little too "extreme" for me.

Hey, if you want to watch it that's fine but I'm probably going to to give it a pass. I looked it up after seeing it on a review site and some of the reviews were ok, but still, a vomit bag? Really? Yuk.

I think I’ve seen that? Trouble with that genre and era, they all kinda blur into one.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think I’ve seen that? Trouble with that genre and era, they all kinda blur into one.

So, did you barf?

EDIT: I was just reminded of another b movie I'll give the rating of "worth watching once" to: "Moon 44". (hey, a lot of movies aren't even worth watching once. )

It's not a great movie, it's a cheap sfifi action movie with pre cgi SFX and some decent acting. It's also a movie R. lee Ermy should have been in but wasn't.

No science, don't bother asking technical questions, but does have some entertainment value. Hardcore violent criminal and tech geek do some bonding and die heroically together at the end. A fair midrange B movie.

I did not barf, so mebbes I’ve not seen it.

I have ordered it and it’s for sequels though!

Here's one you may not have heard of. Ninja bachelor party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMv7Gykp5ds

IIRC it is not vomit inducing, but there maybe some extreme eye violence at one point....... pretty moody cinematography too.
Interestingly enough, the bad guys are Templar zombie knights..... again, I maybe thinking of the wrong movie.

Dragonheart 4
Again, a surprisingly solid flick. Why are 1 and 2 so bad?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I did not barf, so mebbes I’ve not seen it.

I have ordered it and it’s for sequels though!

well, be sure to have a barf bag handy just in case...

Tombs of the Blind Dead (and it’s three sequels) has arrived.

Long weekend ahead, and I might take today as a half day, as I really cannot be arsed with work!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Started Tombs.

15 or so minutes in, we’ve had ominous action, a ‘scene you’re granny would not approve of’. Also, it’s subtitled. Somehow the lack of dodgy dubbing detracts!

Well give us your honest reviews, doc, along with a count of times you either vomited of had to make a toughness test to avoid it.

Meanwhile, here's some more B's to C.....(yuk yuk)

"12 to the moon". Yep it's cheap and monochrome, yet oddly enough had plenty of "color" for a black and white movie. It featured a mixed cast of people (Guess how many? Come on, try!) that was international and interracial. For the day it was made that was pretty progressive.

Basically 12 people from around the world go to the moon and find out they aren't the first beings on it. Really, it was damn good for its time.

"First spaceship on venus" "An eastern bloc movie in not so great color again featuring an international mixed race/gender cast. Not really bad, and acceptable scifi .

"Ikarie xb-1" "Released in america as "journey to the end of the universe" this too is a movie from behind the iron curtain. It's black and white but well made. A bit dry on "action", it's a lot closer to 2001 that star wars.

It mostly deals with day to day life on a starship travelling and relativistic velocities. Has a scene that could be called a slap at the west, but not really that bad. The drama kicks up near the end when people start getting sick and going insane. If you can find a good copy subtitled by someone who knew how to use a spacebar it's good SF.

How would you rate those films on the Solaris scale of pacing, where one is very fast paced and exciting and Solaris is

ghuvdtfe dhn

Uh, I must have passed out for a second. Last thing I remember, I was talking about Solari

sdfghjklnb g

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
How would you rate those films on the Solaris scale of pacing, where one is very fast paced and exciting and Solaris is

ghuvdtfe dhn

Uh, I must have passed out for a second. Last thing I remember, I was talking about Solari

sdfghjklnb g

Normally I get a little tired of snark, but you message was too clever, funny and actually a bit too true to be taken as snark, it was actually amusing instead of annoying.

Out of these, I'd say "Ikarie XB-1" was closest. But even it had more interesting and active bits than Solaris. If solaris is a 10 on your scale, Ikarie XB-1 is maybe a 7, or a 7.5 if you're being critical. Ikarie translates out to Icarus, BTW.

First spaceship on venus has some interesting and surreal color images that at least give it a WTF factor and some of the visuals are amusing enough to get a laugh at. Plus it had a pre star wars kinda cute robot. No more than a 5.

12 to the moon actually had some plot and tension, some drama and enough interesting things happening to keep it from being boring. No more than a 3 on the solaris scale.

Honestly I'd love someone to remaster and do a great job subtitling Ikarie and first spaceship on venus, add in "planet bura" and make a "The stars are red" collection of soviet bloc SF films from behind the old iron curtain. I mean look, the soviet union was bad , but that doesn't make all their films bad. Just like not all movies made by an actor or director who did awful things are bad.

I would love to see a “Stars are Red” collection. Hope to see some of those movies you recommended soon, too.

One of these days I’ll finish Solaris. Unfortunately, I had picked that film for a movie night in college, and my wife was more angry than after I had picked the Dungeons and Dragons movie.

They’re pretty awful to be honest, but in the right way.

Second entry is the best.

Sounds like no barf bag was required.

No. It was more of a steel grating that allowed material to sluice through so it could be collected and exported.

I'll recommend "Frankenstein unbound" as a weird but not bad mix of the Frankenstein mythos and science fiction. It's not a typical frankenstein movie but isn't bad, made on a low budget with high effort, people obvious put real work into this movie instead of throwing piles of case at it. Raul Julia was not an obvious choice to play Dr. Frankenstein, but he pulled it off.

For total trash I watched the following:

The Killer Shrews
Attack of the Giant Leeches
The Flesh Eaters

I will say this. Roger Corman is a genius!

Harbinger down.

Every movie has a story behind it, kid. Not all stories behind all movies are worth knowing, and there are some stories i wish i knew. But harbinger down has a story worth knowing and I'm going to share it with you.

Years ago a studio decided to do a very poor sequel to John Carpenter's "the thing" and got it pretty bad. I'm not sure they even paid attention to the original movie.

One thing they did do right, before ing it up, was to o the movie with practical effects like Carpenter's masterpiece.

Or at least that's what they said they were going to do.

They hired an fx team to do the movies effects with real models and props just like carpenter did. Then at the last minute they weaseled out and and brought in a cgi team to replace them with cgi.

The movie sucked, partially due to the bad story that wasn't consistent with the original, and partly due to not exactly Avatar level cgi.

Well, Amalgamated Dynamics was the company that did the original practical effects. They were not happy at being screwed. They released a bootleg youtube video featuring their effects with animatronics, makeup, prosthetics, etc. The response was so positive they decided to do their own movie and, thru kickstarter, they raised the funding.

They created "harbinger down", an in your face unashamed "the thing" ripoff. They used physical effects, only using digital imagery very rarely to touch up visible wires and such.

Was HD a great movie? Not really. Was it a good movie? Weeeeell, it was a good B movie.

Plus you gotta love the story of a little company of hard working guys shafted by a giant studio, and doing something about it.

I recommend it just for that.

I remember seeing the alien effects they made that the studio cut. Those effects were really fun. I'm glad to hear they got to make a movie.