stevenfallonnyc

Now granted, I'm not the biggest Family Guy fan. I can watch it in very small doses like clips on YouTube, but getting through a whole episode is a struggle. I am however a huge lifelong Star Wars fan, and years after straining to get through the first Family Guy SW parody "Blue Harvest," I tried this out.

What can I say, except it's just painfully unfunny for the most part. Sure, there's a laugh or two (there should when the thing is almost an hour long, especially uncut) but really, it's just not funny.

Some of the typical Family Guy things are here, like some celebrity being present for no reason (like James Caan in this one for example), but that doesn't make something funny. Same with typical juvenile jokes. There has to be some cleverness, and nothing in here is clever.

Even the computer animation is horrible - it doesn't flow well and is uncomfortable to view.

When you take the best three minutes out of a Family Guy episode (well, maybe two minutes) you can get a few laughs but getting through this was just torture. No way I'd make it through the third one in the series so I'm not even going to try.

There are reviewers here actually comparing this film to Hitckcock's work? Now, I've only seen maybe fifteen Hitchcock films, but none of them were nearly as boring as "Road Games" (and they were all, you know, pretty good).

Stacy Keach is the truck driver "Quid" in Australia who gets involved in a proverbial "cat and mouse" game on a long highway with who he suspects is a serial killer who drives a green van. The first half of the film is excruciating as we see long scenes of Stacy playing his annoying harmonica, looking down as people in other vehicles and talking about them to himself, talking to himself in general as he drives (and the conversation is not interesting at all), talking to his dog or dingo or whatever it is when he drives, and strain to be clever and philosophical while doing so. Even the dingo seems real bored - he just kinda seems along for the ride like he's forced to, as opposed to being there because he's Stacy's faithful companion.

It takes quite a while for Jamie Lee Curtis to enter the movie, and after a few minutes of what is supposed to be a clever exchange between her ("Pamela") and Quid, the film attempts to pick up the pace but only manages to look silly, and still be boring.

The best part of the whole movie actually is the second encounter Quid and his truck have with a guy in a car towing a boat, who refuses to get out of Quid's way.

Even a few decent gratuitous shots of Jamie in her tight jeans (no decent 'top' shots) don't make this snore-fest any less dull. As a matter of fact, Jamie isn't even in the film that much at all, but it's definitely the Stacy Keach show without question. It all comes down to the big finale which doesn't make any sense, and after all is resolved, the film goes for one last shock but it comes off as hilarious actually.

Some will want to watch this out of curiosity, like I did, and I feel for those who strain their way through it.

I first caught "Psychomania" very late at night on a local TV station in the 70s, and as a horror/B-movie fan even then I loved it immediately. I think as a kid, it hit upon certain fantasies that kids have (or had back then at least) - living forever, looking cool, riding a motorcycle, dabbling in some occult.

Bike gang leader Tom wants to know the secret to immortality, which evidently his mom and butler know. The main thing is, besides using some talisman, believing you'll come back after committing suicide. After being buried on his bike, Tom returns in a spectacular fashion by riding out of his grave (possibly giving Jim Steinman the inspiration for the concept for the Meat Loaf "Bat Out of Hell" album cover) and takes literally about four seconds to kill someone.

Tom gets everyone in his gang to eventually become immortal like him, except his girlfriend, who doesn't want to die. What's really not discussed is that evidently when you come back, besides immortality, you also gain some kind of super-strength. Two good examples of this would be when Tom drives his bike through a brick wall (his super-strength enabling him to go through the wall) and bending the steel bars of jail cells (off-screen) to break out the rest of the gang (still alive) in jail.

Despite being immortal and having such strength, the gang still do the same stuff when they were alive, like riding on sidewalks and through squares, getting chased by cop cars, terrorizing women by riding through stores, knocking things over that people are carrying etc. One does take it a little further in a striking quick scene with a baby in a carriage. The cops are on their trail since Tom especially makes no effort to hide his face or identity (wearing jackets that say "The Living Dead" on the back also doesn't help).

While a few scenes are on the slow side and drag a bit, there's no doubt that "Psychomania" has earned a spot in the proverbial B-movie hall of fame, a very fun ride into death and violence.