Stevieboy666

"The Mansion. The Madness. The Maniac. No Escape." A man arrives in a small town on Xmas Eve to sell his supposedly empty ancestral home, once used as an asylum. However a maniac is on the run and bodies start piling up. Released in 1972 this is an early example of both a Xmas horror movie and a slasher. With its unknown killer who wears black leather gloves and makes creepy 'phone calls plus point of view (POV) camera shots this looks very much like it influenced the 1974 classic "Black Christmas." There are a few gruesome kills, the soundtrack is creepy and a flashback scene that shows former mental inmates being released from the asylum is surreal. Horror legend Michael Carradine plays a mute character, this means that his distinctive voice is sadly never heard and his role is relatively small. At just over 80 minutes in length the running time felt spot on. I have the British STAX DVD and unfortunately the picture and sound quality is awful, it looks like they used a worn out VHS tape. Changing my TV ratio to 4:3 helped very slightly but sadly I could not enjoy this watch as much as I had hoped for. The film is obviously low budget but it does deserve a far better quality release.

Released for Halloween 2024 I decided to wait until Xmas Eve to watch this sequel as it is a Festive horror movie. And a very enjoyable one it is too, ho, ho, ho! The story continues from part 2 with survivors Sienna and her younger brother Jonathan once again plunged into the twisted nightmare world of Art the Clown. David Howard Thornton once again gives a brilliant performance as Art, this time he has a (sort of) girlfriend in Victoria, she is equally as monstrous as him and excellently played by Samantha Scaffidi. Also in the cast are horror legends Tom Savini and Clint Howard, all be it in minor roles. There is gore galore, in fact I would state that it could be the goriest movie that I have ever seen (and I have seen many). The kills are fantastic and no horrible CGI here. It is also very funny, I laughed out loud many times, not many films can make me do that. Sienna has become something of a Laurie "Halloween" Strode character, I am not entirely convinced by this, and there is also an Elm St supernatural influence too. Personally I prefer Art to just go around killing without all of these extra ideas, my DVD runs 2 hours and although it is shorter than part 2 both films felt too long for a slasher movie. In retrospect I wish I had re-watched part 2 before watching part 3, and indeed I will watch all 3 films again in sequence. Overall I loved this film, it is a great deal of fun, so gloriously over the top and Art has become a modern horror icon. 10/10 for gore, 7/10 for plot. No doubt there will be a part 4 and I look forward to seeing that very much.

Everybody on a day trip to a very secluded tropical beach start to age rapidly. To put this into context a very young girl becomes a teenager, gets pregnant and has a baby, all in the space of a single day! Indeed this particular part of the story was probably the most shocking. Other strange things happen such as deep wounds healing instantly and a woman's tumour suddenly growing from 3cm to much larger. This is an interesting and original idea but unfortunately it is never properly explained and there are gaping plot holes. Some of the acting is fine, some of it is wooden. There are several actors in the cast who don't speak English as their first language so this may explain why they sound stilted, on the other hand it may be because they aren't very good. A few violent scenes help inject a bit of life into proceedings. Director M Night Shyamalan has made some classic movies and needs no introduction to any half serious movie fan, as usual he plays a character in the movie but this is a far cry from the likes of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable". I aged 2 hours watching this but it felt more like 3.