dpeart-1

I saw this just before Planet Terror,(the other half of the Grindhouse double bill)at the annual Horrorthon Film Festival which was founded by Edward King and is organised by him and his team that also made the Irish zom-com hit Dead Meat (2004),which I have also reviewed on this site. Only this time the roles are reversed, producer Edward King writes and directs while writer/director Conor McMahon produces this one.

Before the screening, 2001 Maniacs director Tim Sullivan introduced King on stage to introduce his award winning short film. It seems that the man who has programmed Dublin's horror film festival for ten years has turned to comedy. King admitted this before the lights went down which seems to have confused hundreds of die hard horror fans. Having said that, this is an entertaining piece of craziness.

The plot, a black priest without soul is called to perform an exorcism on a white teenage girl who's own soul has been possessed by "soul" ! The Godfather of Soul "James Brown" references are quite priceless here and it is quite obvious that King loves 70's music, Blaxploitation and comedy.

The story is told in three acts which is extremely unusual for such a short film, but it moves in swiftly with great detail, both in narrative and in production design. The dialogue almost sounds like a rap song which is amusing while viewing it.

Everybody is perfectly cast, Marcus Valentine is the John Shaft of priests, Tim Dillard as the rabbi is both affectionate and sincere while Donna Nikolaisen is obviously having a blast as the possessed James Brown-like girl in the bedroom.

All in all, The Blaxorcist is worth seeking out for a good laugh but it's an awful shame that both King and McMahon don't make more films together. Come'on guys !!!

Personally, I adore this movie. It's the perfect fun film that in my opinion did not fit into a decade where the moto was greed is good and patroitic action films as well as teen movies/special effects/chart music and the latest fashions controlled what was being produced out of Hollywood.

I think had "Three Amigos !" come out pre-1984 "Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Back to the Future" it just might have been a much bigger hit. Having said that, it has generated a huge following over the years which brings me to say that, "time always tells !" and period settings in films generally have difficulty finding a young audience, especially in the 80's.

The amount of people that laughed at me for saying back then that Three Amigos ! was a great film and now they all say it's a classic !!! It just wasn't "hip'thing to say back then. The same happened with John Carpenter's The Thing and Blade Runner. So, it was either too late coming out in 1986 when the decade took a drastic turn or it was 20 years ahead of it's time. I think box office wise it was didn't have much of a chance but it's great that audiences of today love it

What I've noticed over the years is that kids who grew up on Three Amigos ! all love it today.

However, there is on thing that I have also noticed is that a lot of women I know don't like the film at all. Maybe its an Amigo guy bonding thing, who knows ?

So now, let us do the Three Amigo salute !!!

Its hard to believe that both comedy actors from this 1985 film have both passed on in the last 20 years and its quite sad watching the film knowing this specially when you see the high energy performances from both Richard Pryor and John Candy. Brewster's Millions is a fun and engaging lightweight comedy from the summer of 1985 which tells the story of Monty Brewster a down on his luck baseball player that dreams of fame and fortune. He then unexpectedly receives an inheritance of 300 million but only if he can spend 30 million in 30 days and not show anything for it. This is the fifth film version of Monty Brewster, actually six if you count Miss Brewster's Millions, same story, different gender).

Overall, the film is entertaining, nothing more, nothing less. It is also a nice introduction in allowing today's younger generation see the great man himself Richard Pryor and what a great talent he was.