Fade To Black (1980)

4 / 5 Mar '10
Tagline: Meet Eric Binford, the ultimate movie buff. If you know someone like him... run!
Directed by: Vernon Zimmerman
Written by: Vernon Zimmerman
Actors include: Dennis Christopher, Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Action, Thriller, Drama
Length: 102 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
Now this was one heck of an original treat cram packed with various Movie memorabilia and trivia for just about any movie lover. Many of the quotes and characters were things that I know nothing of (not being a Noir fan for the most part) but much of it was entertaining. The story is about movie obsessed geek (kinda like a demented film geek version of Napoleon Dynamite) Eric Binford (brilliantly played by Dennis Christopher) who is a bit socially inept to to his hobbies. He works at a film company but isn't respected, his home life is a crappy too as he has been raised by his nasty abusive Aunt. Life starts looking up when he meets a gorgeous look-alike who actually seems to like him. Being as how she's flighty she forgets their date and stands Eric up which sends him over the edge. Soon he's emulating characters in films and painting his face and he starts believing he is the characters. The main one he becomes is from the film White Heat but he also turns into Bela Lugosi (which is why the face paint on the cover) in Dracula and many more. It really is spot the cultural reference throughout the entire film which is a great deal of fun. This will appeal to a very select few, but those who love nerds getting revenge in violent ways should absolutely love this and the comedy bits are quite funny too. This is something I'll definitely have to watch again to try and soak up even more of it, very well done especially for a rather unknown low key movie. Highly entertaining and definitely recommended, a real treat even though it's maybe technically not the best movie.

Availability:  On DVD

The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

2.5 / 5 Mar '10
Tagline: Deadly Horrors! Dragon Thrills! The First Kung Fu Horror Spectacular!
Directed by: Roy Ward Baker
Written by: Don Houghting
Actors include: Peter Cushing, David Chiang, Julie Ege
Genre: Action, Horror
Length: 83 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
I really didn't care for this, it's Hammer's last vampire picture and it's my least favorite by far. It combines the world of kung fu in with Dracula and I'm afraid the two don't fit together. The film was basically plotless though the spirit of Dracula (made up to look like Christopher Lee's version of Dracula only much cheaper) goes into the spirit of a fighter warlord guy in order to look after 6 other vampires. One of the only good things about this is the fact that Peter Cushing appears as Van Helsing but it's simply not enough to make this interesting. Much of the film is sword fighting group scenes with too much going on at once, and since they didn't bother with character development it's hard to give a hoot. That and it seems that it just keeps repeating over and over again making this film feel ridiculously long even though it really wasn't. It's even more shocking to see that Roy Ward Baker was one of the directors, he is usually on point! Well I should mention that I don't much care for kung fu movies and maybe that is why I really thought this was a bore, but then again maybe this was just lazy?

Availability:  On DVD