Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  Spooks & Creeps (2004) When I do these film reviews, I try to research a little about the films, to give you all some fun facts and information about the films, however once in a while a film comes along, where I can find very little information, one example of a film like this is the 2004 horror anthology film Spooks & Creeps.  Honestly it is more fair to call it a horror short collection.   Spooks & Creeps is a collection of six short horror films, which vary in length, and some feature some pretty big actors.  The short films in the collection are: 1. Freak Show, directed by Marcus Wagner and stars Alice Cooper. 2. Desserts, directed by Jeff Stark, stars Ewan McGregor 3. Doppelganger, directed by Michael Horowitz and Gareth Smith, starring Rebecca Gayheart and Timothy Olyphant. 4. A Fate Foretold, directed by Rick Nahmias, starring Grace Zabriskie 5. Reducing Stanley, directed by Mike Harvkey 6. Holiday On The Moon, directed by Sam Bozzo starring Matthew Glave.  Stando

Tales From Earthsea (2006)  Many animators had approached Ursula K Le Guin to turn her popular Earthsea novels into animated films, including Hayao Miyazaki, but because of the crap that Disney was putting out, and Le Guin associating that with animated films, she refused every animator's proposal to animate her novels.  But after Miyazaki won an Oscar for Spirited Away, she became aware of his films, and started watching them, and then in 2003 Ursula K Le Guin contacted Studio Ghibli to give Hayao Miyazaki approval to adapt her Earthsea novels to animated film.  However Hayao Miyazaki was busy directing Howl's Moving Castle, Studio Ghibli assigned Hayao's son Goro Miyazaki to direct the film. Goro Miyazaki had not previously directed a film, and was kind of shoved into the job.  Tales From Earthsea was the resulting film, which would use characters from Le Guin's books, but would tell a story that was more inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's graphic novel The Journey Of S

  Cursed (2005) It's sad when a film has everything it needs to be an amazing film, but because of the terrible industry executives constantly interrupting and demanding changes, they took what had potential to be a great film, and turned it into a terrible film.  Cursed from 2005, was looking to be a great film with Wes Craven directing and a screenplay by Kevin Williamson the same due that created Scream as well as special effects genius Rick Baker, and with a cast featuring Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg, and a decent size budget, it had all of the makings of a great film.  However, Dimension Films exec Bob Weinstein kept interrupting production of the film demanding, changes.  With 90% of the original version filmed, they had to start over with a new script, ultimately the film would take about two years to complete, and it would rack up an outrageous budget of between $35-75 million.   Cursed in its final form was either a PG-13 or R rated film (which version you got depe

  Slaughtered (2010) I love a good gory slasher film from Australia, a nation that has been consistently good in providing low budget gore-filled slashers.  Slaughtered is a low budget film from Kate Grover, who it seemed decided to go down to her local pub with some friends and, some local barflys and make a gruesome slasher film.  The film doesn't feature great acting, but the gore is good, and the film keeps the viewer guessing on whose killing off the patrons and staff of the bar.  But who is the masked murderer who is brutally slaying the staff and patrons, and who will survive, and where the hell are those cops that were supposedly called? Slaughtered was written, produced, and directed Kate Grover.  Ben Lucas and Sue Brown helped with production of the film.  Kate filmed Slaughtered at her local pub in Australia, but after the film wrapped she moved to the UK, which caused post production to be much harder and costly than she expected, driving to total budget of the film to

  The Dead Outside (2008) One of the things I love about independent horror films is that magical moment when you discover a true diamond in the rough, to me that is exactly what I found when I discovered  The Dead Outside, a gem of an independent horror film from Scotland.   This disorienting atmospheric horror film, has three active characters (all others are either flash backs, nightmares, or zombies).  The film tells the story of Daniel who is driving down a desolate road in rural Scotland, when his car runs out of gas.  We find out that there is a global pandemic going on, where the infected go mad and are little more than zombies who kill the non infected.  Daniel makes his way to an isolated farmhouse, where he finds safety, and gets some sleep on the couch.  But he is awoken by a beautiful young woman with a shotgun pointed at him, who we find out lives in the farmhouse alone, we also find out that she is immune to the virus that is causing the pandemic.  Daniel suggests to her

  Immortality (AKA The Wisdom Of Crocodiles) (1998) So when I write these reviews, after I watch the film, I spend time researching the film, before writing the article, some films are hard to find much information about them.   This next film should be relatively easy to find information about with a cast that include Jude Law and Timothy Spall, however this film seems to be a little obscure for some reason.  The film I am reviewing is Immortality or as it is known in most countries outside of the US it is known as The Wisdom Of Crocodiles.  This is a british film, released in 1998 in the UK, and 2000 in the US.  Some sources erroneously claim that the film is based on the book of the same name by Paul Hoffman, but the truth is that Hoffman's novel The Wisdom Of Crocodiles was published in 2000 and was based on his own screenplay of this film, it would also be his first novel that he would publish.   The film is about a vampire, who needs to feed off not only the blood but the emo

  Blindness (2008) The first time I watched this next film, was about three years ago when an ex-girlfriend introduced it to me.  Blindness released in 2008, is an amazing horror film about a global pandemic, that causes the infected to go blind, and only see a milky whiteness.  Early on in the pandemic, when it is found that it is contagious, the government take the infected to a facility, where they are contained, but they are more like prisoners than patients, as there is no staff to clean, and take care of them.  Thankfully the wife of an eye doctor who is infected, pretends that she infected so that she can stay with him, and she uses her sight to help care for the others, but is soon overwhelmed as the facility continues to fill, with not enough resources.  The facility is split into wards, and soon an opportunist takes charge of ward 3 and his group takes all of the food, and forces the other wards to pay his for food rations, and when they run out of valuables, he demands their

  They (2002) Many people use film review sites like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb, for advice for films to watch, using their ratings as a marker of how good a film is or isn't.  Yes, if you use that you will generally find a good film to watch, and avoid some stinkers, however you need to take in consideration that critics, and viewer reviews are nothing more than a person making a judgement on films, using their own personal thoughts and tastes to make that judgement, and if you look for only highly rated films, you are going to miss out on a lot of amazing lesser known films.  The horror genre is a genre that has largely been dismissed by the stuffy film critics, and there are a lot of hidden gems in the genre, that were totally dismissed by the critics, and bombed in the box office.  One film that really caught my eye when I watched it last night was the 2002 film They, which Wes Craven was an executive producer for.  The concept of the film isn't entirely original, but it was s

Adventures In Southern Maine  I've been feeling really depressed recently, maybe it is just that winter has started to get to me, and I am getting a bit of cabin fever going on, but I decided today that I really just needed to get out and go for a drive, I mean sure why not, there was snow forcasted for the day, and I love driving in snow, and I just wanted to get out and explore a bit.   So I just picked a direction and away I went. The first location that I stumbled upon purely by accident was in North Berwick Maine, found the mill that was used as the Shoe Factory in the 1995 film Jumanji.  The building was instantly recognizable when I drove past it, so I had to stop and get a photo to share with you all.  My next stop was a nice walk on the beach in a high wind and snow at the Ogunquit Beach in Ogunquit Maine.  Ogunquit has been in a few films including being the home of Frannie played by Molly Ringwald in Stephen King's The Stand miniseries.   It was honestly really peace

  Ritual (2002) Sometimes I wonder, why the hell I watch such terrible films, don't get me wrong, I do like most of what I review, but once in a while I come across something that is such a load of shit that I wish I could bury it in the sand like a cat when it finished taking a nasty dump.  That is the case with Ritual from 2002, AKA Tales From The Crypt Presents: Ritual.   This film is based on the 1943 film I Walked With A Zombie, and honestly go watch that instead of wasting your time on this crap.  So the film is about a doctor who has her license to practice medicine in New York suspended for 2 years, in the meantime she takes a job in Jamaica working for a wealthy white plantation owners.  Paul Claybourne hires Alice to be his brother Wesley's personal doctor.  He has contracted a mysterious disease, and he thinks that he is a zombie.  She tries to discover the truth behind his mysterious disease, she his helped and hindered by various people on the island as she discove

Stand By Me (1986) Fans of this next film, might want to argue that it is set and filmed in Oregon, which of the film itself is true, however, I will explain in detail not only why this is a Maine, movie but will tie together the real and fictional locations of Stephen King's original story, which takes place in the Midcoast region of Maine.   The film I am talking about is Stand By Me from 1986, which is based on Stephen King's novella The Body, published in his collection Different Seasons, which is also where Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil where both published.   In The Body Stephen King mentions many real-life places, where if you are familiar with the area as well as his works you will be able to relatively easily find them on a map.  Stand By Me is a story about four friends who learn the location of a missing by named Ray Brower, from Chamberlain Maine (fans of Stephen King will recognize that as the setting for Carrie).  They set off from thei