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IT: CHAPTER TWO - VLOG REVIEW

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Flooding your eyes with reviews this Halloween month as I attempt to post one horror vlog a day... every day. Starting with my review of IT: Chapter Two .

THE LITTLE REVIEW: IT - PODCAST

We review IT on episode 77 of The Big Rewind .

IT - REVIEW

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A convenient 27 years after the memorable miniseries, we are finally treated to a movie adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel IT with Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd taking on the role of creepy killer clown Pennywise made iconic by Tim Curry back in the day. The film focuses on the child characters, a group of seven friends who are each terrorised by random sightings of Pennywise years after the latter abducted a child called Georgie by luring him into the sewers. Georgie's older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) has been trying to find him ever since and this becomes his and his friends' main goal. Unfortunately, particularly dangerous bullies, crappy lives at home and specific fears brought up by Pennywise get in the way of their mission. Like an ingenuous mix of Stand By Me and The Goonies with some  Stranger Things thrown in, IT is both an effective coming-of-age story with a group of very different but equally likeable kids at its heart and a supernatural horror film every

IS IT SCARY?

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I talk about... IT . The movie, that is.

VULGAR - VIDEO REVIEW

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Here's the video version of my Vulgar review.

QUICK CHANGE - VIDEO REVIEW

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Here's the video version of my Quick Change review.

QUICK CHANGE - REVIEW

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There's the Bill Murray films everyone knows and then there's Quick Change , a comedy from 1990 co-directed by and starring the actor as a bank robber trying to get to the airport with his girlfriend and brother only to find that New York is not the easiest place to manoeuvre through. The film was critically lauded upon its release but it wasn't a big box-office hit so people tend to forget about it entirely. Which is a shame since this is probably one of Bill Murray's very best performances and movies. We first meet him dressed up like a clown holding a bunch of balloons as he enters a bank and holds a group of people hostage at gunpoint. After robbing the place, he escapes and reunites with his partners in crime as they set off with the loot towards the airport. Unfortunately for Grimm (Murray), Phyllis (Geena Davis) and Loomis (Randy Quaid) they keep getting delayed in increasingly frustrating ways whether it's Phil Hartman confusing them for burglars, gett

SPAWN - REVIEW

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1997 was not a great year for superhero movies: not only did we get Batman & Robin but we also got Spawn and, although the latter was much more interesting and original than the former, it received some pretty rough feedback from critics and audiences alike. Based on the dark supernatural comic-books, Spawn sees special forces soldier Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) get double-crossed by Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), the head of the agency who sent him on his latest mission. Simmons is burned alive and left for dead leaving him not only horribly disfigured but undead as a short trip down to Hell dooms him to eventually lead the Devil's army. In retrospect, attempting to tell this story on a $40M budget was somewhat over-ambitious seeing as the film was not only packed with special effects but builds up to a climax set in Hell with Spawn fighting a demon. Michael Jai White does a solid job as Spawn and it's pretty refreshing to see a film with an African-American superh

OCTOPUSSY - REVIEW

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Remember back when it was totally ok to call your Bond film Octopussy for absolutely no reason? This was the early 80's, when Roger Moore was still James Bond despite being a little too old for the role and 007 movies each doing pretty much exactly the same thing without any real surprises. Oh sure Bond went to space and got an extra nipple at some point, but essentially the formula stagnated and/or went downhill after that. Octopussy preceded A View To A Kill , Moore's last Bond flick, and it tends to be remembered more for its racy title than for its content. In a nutshell: the film's plot is irrelevant. Something about the Soviet Union trying to setup a war through a women-led circus somehow, and jewellery... This'll hurt less if you don't think about it. A lot happens in this movie but so much of it is either random or completely irrelevant, you could be forgiven for thinking this is more of a clip show from other Roger Moore Bond movies rather than its

ZOMBIE WOMEN OF SATAN - REVIEW

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How do you make a good zombie movie? For one thing, not having a circus dwarf take a shit in the woods for 10 minutes half-way through your film is a good bloody start! Also, repeating awful jokes again and again doesn't help, as does making your film for £6.95. To be fair, for such a low budget this is pretty ambitious stuff and some of it works albeit on a very (VERY) trashy level. Made in the UK, Zombie Women of Satan aspires to be a Troma-style Grindhouse gore-fest but falls way short in that it has no real style or at least some good jokes. Instead we've got a lot of terrible actors trying to be funny and 90% of the time failing to do so. Thankfully though, this is quickly followed by ridiculous gore: the film's one saving grace. The practical gore effects are actually not too bad considering the no budget nature of the film. Also, the idea of burlesque performers fighting zombies is not too bad and there are quite a few genuinely unpleasant, disturbing moments.