TheRetroCritic

When thinking about alien movies in the 80's, what comes to mind? Besides Alien . Spielberg, right? E.T. , Close Encounters Of The Third Kind etc. For me, though, a close second is Mr John Carpenter, who quietly brought us two of the best alien movies to date around about the same time: one was The Thing , the other was Starman . Thinking about it now, the idea of Jeff Bridges as a child-like alien is pretty hilarious. And, indeed, there are silly/cheesy things about Starman, no doubt about it. And yet, it works better as a sci-fi film than either E.T. or Close Encounters...weird, huh? It is a shame that John Carpenter's sci-fi romance is often overlooked, I remember as a kid everything was all about E.T.: I didn't even like E.T.! That whole bit where he turns white and starts dying for half an hour: freaked the hell out of me! Gave me nightmares! Starman however I would just sit and watch no problem: it was funny, sweet, sad, entertaining...I just loved it. Still do!

You never forget your first talking horse movie... Which is a shame because this really is one to forget. Although parts of it are actually so idiotically absurd they actually become almost funny. Just watching a dying talking horse voiced by Burgess Meredith pour his heart out to a talking horse voiced by John Candy while another talking horse watches The Three Stooges on TV with Bobcat Goldthwait...it's brain-damaging stuff but has some kind of entertainment value (the horse kind). Now I have nothing against Goldthwait, he was always a good side character to have around in films like Police Academy or Scrooged but an ENTIRE film of him talking like a stressed-out chihuahua...wow. That was something. I think about halfway through my ears actually defecated. Such a weird mix of people involved as well: you've got Virginia Madsen ( Sideways , Candyman , Highlander 2 ) as the obligatory love interest, Candy, Meredith, Gilbert Gottfried as a last-minute dentist and Danny

  "Hey you guys, we need someone to play a tiny obese evil clown, is John Leguizamo free?". This is the kind of question the producers of 1997 supernatural comic book film Spawn were asking themselves. Who did they originally cast as Spawn then? Danny DeVito? Against all odds, Leguizamo's trippy turn as a Joker-style maniacal clown turns out to be the film's driving force and best asset. Which is not to say there's nothing else appealing about the film: a lot of effects are pretty creative and the whole thing is admittedly entertaining. Unfortunately once you see what Hell looks like you soon forget the good stuff and find yourself wishing you were playing a 90's PC video game instead of watching a film in which entire sequences could have been directly lifted from one of those very games. Like I said, some effects are creative and some do work but that Devil thing and its army of minions all standing around moving like tiny CGI puppets in a sea of fire i

It was somewhat inevitable that the Coen Brothers would end up making a straight-up western, especially after modern-day effort No Country For Old Men . This time we get True Grit, a remake of a John Wayne classic but with an alcoholic Dude and a pipe-smokin’ Matt Damon. Borrowing not much more than the core story from the original, the Coens introduce us to a familiar setting and a very simple plot but add their own spin on it, whether it is through touches of black comedy or dark undertones which few John Wayne films would have been comfortable with. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is the little girl who drags Jeff Bridges' "meanest" US Marshall and Damon's unsure Texas Ranger across the desert to find her father's killer. Steinfeld is great and really steals the show: she is strong-willed, tough, determined, courageous and doesn't take no for an answer. Bridges is always a safe bet and he does well here but his thick accent, grungy voice and constant mumbl

How could a film called Hot Tub Time Machine possibly be any good? By being so damn freakin' fun and gross out silly you forget to ask all the "whys" and "hows" a normal film would warrant, that's how! As silly as I felt in the cinema asking for a ticket for...Hot Tub Time Machine...it was all well worth it. You've got time travel, John Cusack, the 80s, Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover, that little big guy from Sex Drive , huuuuge amounts of random silliness and the line "nobody fucks my mother in the past!", what more could you want? Nothing that's what. Great great fun. 

And you thought John Waters had matured...shame on you. Not since Pink Flamingos has such absurd silliness been put to film in such an anarchic way. What is this 2004 effort like? Lets see, take the disturbing aspect of David Cronenberg's Crash : the idea of getting hurt and henceforth being sexually liberated in some way. Then add the colourful, over-romanticised look of Chocolat . Ok? Got that? Right, now ejaculate on it and you've got yourself A Dirty Shame: a film so filthy it's...filthy. Waters has a talent for getting OTT, ridiculous, disgusting characters to say the dumbest but funniest lines. One example would be: "Isn't it weird that all the men in this neighbourhood have penises?" or of course: "Lets go SEXING!". The film itself is directed in a way that's almost trippy and the whole thing builds up to some of the most entertaining and mind-blowing nonsense you're likely to see. Trees turning into orifices, Davi

John Carpenter makes the very best of an inherently silly idea to create one of the best movie killers ever.  A personal favourite of mine, this "typical" story of boy meets car, car kills people is a lot of fun from start to finish and is probably one of Carpenter's most underrated little gems. Keith Gordon is brilliant as the nerd-turned-rebel and his growing insanity is a delight to witness. Not to mention Robert Prosky's slimy, foul-mouthed mechanic who almost steals the show by being hilariously repulsive. As far as Stephen King film adaptations go, this is one of the good ones. Carpenter's moody score and playful direction creating a slightly tongue-in-cheek but genuinely unnerving slasher movie (without any slashing). Some scenes are just ridiculously awesome like when Christine is set alight and pursues one of the piss-taking bullies down a deserted road or when the car is smashed to pieces and it fixes itself...by itself. All in all,

Ok, how many viking sci-fi film with giant monsters, spaceships and the line "Foxfire!" can you name, right now? OUTLANDER, that's how many! The ever charisma-free James Caviezel stars in this random but pleasantly entertaining and good-looking action adventure which also stars John Hurt as the king of...whatever, vikings. Sophia Myles is the inevitable love interest, like a clone of Keira Knightley from the film King Arthur , Jack Huston offers an unintentional homo-erotic relationship for Caviezel's "Outlander" and Ron Perlman sports a beard and yells a couple of times. It's all very silly but the first half hour is genuinely very entertaining and competently made, especially because the monster is kept hidden from us long enough to build up a fair amount of well-needed suspense. The rest is pretty predictable and feels less focused but is equally fun and miles more worthwhile than dull efforts like Ridley Scott's Robin Hood .

  Slightly disappointing, Hell Comes to Frogtown not only had THE best title (Hell is the main character's name) but also THE best premise. The result is definitely a fun ride but there's a lot of filler and the plot never becomes quite as glorious as the title suggested. This is one of those silly cult 80's movies which could actually benefit from a (CGI free, please) remake. Unfortunately Robert Rodriguez can't do everything. But as it stands, the froggy adventures of badass stud Sam Hell are only humorous, not quite genius. Shame. Roddy Piper, fresh from John Carpenter's excellent They Live , is a great sport here as he is sent to Frogtown to impregnate pretty much any human women he can find. The whole time he is forced to wear metal briefs with a small flap to allow...access. A lot of fun but the version in your head is probably way better.   

John Boorman's mad-fest Zardoz is given the Top Ten treatment...