Coventry
Joined Nov 2002
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Ratings5.6K
Coventry's rating
Reviews5.6K
Coventry's rating
The 80s have spawned countless low-budget slashers, and many of them are so terrible that you wonder how anyone even considered investing money in them. When you then bump into a late 80s slasher that apparently remained on the shelf until the 90s before it was released, you are even more wary. Is this slasher so disastrous that producers thought it was too bad to release even in the 80s?
"Trapped Alive" is one of them, but I can immediately reassure everyone: it is not worse than your average 80s slasher, and certainly not after the splendid restoration for BluRay. Of course, it's not good, either. The plot is about two beautiful young ladies who want to go out on Christmas Eve but are taken hostage by three escaped and very dangerous convicts. By avoiding a roadblock, they get stuck in an old abandoned mine, which turns out to be inhabited by a bewildered and cannibalistic monstrosity Talk about bad luck, right?
The script is full of annoying clichés. One of the gangsters - a pretty boy - is actually kind-hearted, the owner of the mine is all too aware of the presence of the creature, the inevitable Stockholm syndrome plot twist, etc. Of course, it also takes way too long before we get to see the monster, BUT ... He is worth the wait! "Trapped Alive" contains quite a bit of unsavory gore and a few wonderfully absurd dialogues. To make the film a bit more appealing, there's a touch of nudity, and the presence of genre veteran Cameron Mitchell (although his scenes are the dullest and most redundant ones). Certainly not mandatory viewing, but worthwhile for slasher fans.
"Trapped Alive" is one of them, but I can immediately reassure everyone: it is not worse than your average 80s slasher, and certainly not after the splendid restoration for BluRay. Of course, it's not good, either. The plot is about two beautiful young ladies who want to go out on Christmas Eve but are taken hostage by three escaped and very dangerous convicts. By avoiding a roadblock, they get stuck in an old abandoned mine, which turns out to be inhabited by a bewildered and cannibalistic monstrosity Talk about bad luck, right?
The script is full of annoying clichés. One of the gangsters - a pretty boy - is actually kind-hearted, the owner of the mine is all too aware of the presence of the creature, the inevitable Stockholm syndrome plot twist, etc. Of course, it also takes way too long before we get to see the monster, BUT ... He is worth the wait! "Trapped Alive" contains quite a bit of unsavory gore and a few wonderfully absurd dialogues. To make the film a bit more appealing, there's a touch of nudity, and the presence of genre veteran Cameron Mitchell (although his scenes are the dullest and most redundant ones). Certainly not mandatory viewing, but worthwhile for slasher fans.
To the person(s) who almost immediately rates my user-comments as "non-useful" as soon as they are published: why? Are you so sad and miserable that only diminishing the work of others brings you joy? Try contributing something yourself, first.
"Mosquito" is not exactly the type of movie I personally would watch proactively, but my buddy was so ecstatic with his purchase of the DVD that his enthusiasm infected me! Oh well, a zero-budgeted and excessively grotesque creature-feature from the mid-90s with giant mosquitoes... How bad can it be?
Answer: very bad, but at the same time very amusing as well! The vast majority of the special effects are terribly bad, but some specific gory moments are brilliant (the popping eyeballs). The background of where the ginormous mutated mosquitoes come from is ridiculous, but also quite effective. When an alien spaceship crashes into a remote swamp, an ordinary mosquito decides to taste some alien blood, and she spontaneously mutates into a mega-specimen with a craving for more and more blood! Fortunately - for the mosquitoes - their swamp is close to a popular camping ground!
A lot of bizarre dialogues and misplaced jokes, a dash of gratuitous nudity, an almost forgotten horror icon - Gunnar Hansen - who refers to his classic role in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with a big grin on his face, and a massive explosion in the finale; What more is needed to have an hour and a half of mindless fun? And, who knows, maybe Steven Spielberg even got his inspiration for the ridiculous scene with the refrigerator in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" from a similar sequence here!
"Mosquito" is not exactly the type of movie I personally would watch proactively, but my buddy was so ecstatic with his purchase of the DVD that his enthusiasm infected me! Oh well, a zero-budgeted and excessively grotesque creature-feature from the mid-90s with giant mosquitoes... How bad can it be?
Answer: very bad, but at the same time very amusing as well! The vast majority of the special effects are terribly bad, but some specific gory moments are brilliant (the popping eyeballs). The background of where the ginormous mutated mosquitoes come from is ridiculous, but also quite effective. When an alien spaceship crashes into a remote swamp, an ordinary mosquito decides to taste some alien blood, and she spontaneously mutates into a mega-specimen with a craving for more and more blood! Fortunately - for the mosquitoes - their swamp is close to a popular camping ground!
A lot of bizarre dialogues and misplaced jokes, a dash of gratuitous nudity, an almost forgotten horror icon - Gunnar Hansen - who refers to his classic role in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with a big grin on his face, and a massive explosion in the finale; What more is needed to have an hour and a half of mindless fun? And, who knows, maybe Steven Spielberg even got his inspiration for the ridiculous scene with the refrigerator in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" from a similar sequence here!
To the person(s) who almost immediately rates my user-comments as "non-useful" as soon as they are published: why? Are you so sad and miserable that only diminishing the work of others brings you joy? Try contributing something yourself, first.
The fun thing about horror or disaster movies that deal with Biblical plagues, raptures, and the overall end of the world is that only a few exist, and that the outbreak of apocalyptic actions is usually quite spectacular. The annoying thing about these kinds of Catholic fright stories is that they are very implausible (unless, of course, if you are a God-fearing Christian) and that there is never a solid explanation about what is going on. Same goes for "The Remaining". The start is promising, when during a wedding suddenly half of the guests drop dead spontaneously while outside everything gets destroyed by earthquakes and meteorite showers. God protects the true believers and the innocent children by killing them first, while the rest of humanity will die too, of course, only slow and a lot more painful. "The Remaining" is a weak film, which doesn't have the courage to genuinely shock. Author/director Casey La Scala also doesn't know what he wants. Part of it is filmed normally, but another large part is filmed in the horribly found-footage style, by a character who continues to operate his handheld camera at the most implausible moments. And, finally, it's immensely irritating how the characters keep whining about useless things like love rivalries when they're all about to die. Hopeless!
The fun thing about horror or disaster movies that deal with Biblical plagues, raptures, and the overall end of the world is that only a few exist, and that the outbreak of apocalyptic actions is usually quite spectacular. The annoying thing about these kinds of Catholic fright stories is that they are very implausible (unless, of course, if you are a God-fearing Christian) and that there is never a solid explanation about what is going on. Same goes for "The Remaining". The start is promising, when during a wedding suddenly half of the guests drop dead spontaneously while outside everything gets destroyed by earthquakes and meteorite showers. God protects the true believers and the innocent children by killing them first, while the rest of humanity will die too, of course, only slow and a lot more painful. "The Remaining" is a weak film, which doesn't have the courage to genuinely shock. Author/director Casey La Scala also doesn't know what he wants. Part of it is filmed normally, but another large part is filmed in the horribly found-footage style, by a character who continues to operate his handheld camera at the most implausible moments. And, finally, it's immensely irritating how the characters keep whining about useless things like love rivalries when they're all about to die. Hopeless!
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