Hilsdong

I really am having a hard time picking any positives out of this CGI riddled drivel apart from the end credits!! I can't find any reason for it apart from a big paycheck for Dwayne and the woman from "Scream" trying to revive her career. To top it all off Dwayne's character has a prosthetic leg and makes all the daredevil and high-rise shenanigans even more ridiculous!! It isn't Die Hard and it isn't Towering Inferno but is a steaming, towering piece of crap that is higher than the 220 floor building featured here. Just woeful!!

I happened to stumble on this feature film version of the TV sitcom on my day off and was not impressed in the slightest! The British film industry seemed to churn out these spin-offs in abundance in the early Seventies and few were really any good! This is a perfect example of why they should of stayed on the small screen. I know it was intended as good old harmless fun but the problem is the humour is strained and it is just not funny!!!! Patrick Cargill stars as the long struggling dad trying to prevent his two teenage daughters from either getting married or moving house, whilst trying to get married himself to his agent (he is an author), so he can provide a mother figure for his kids. And there you have it!!! There's the plot in a nutshell plus throw in your usual clichés like the idiotic, clumsy son-in-law, the accidental milkman, and your token black man which provides plenty of ammo for these tedious stereotyped, racist jokes!!! It is worth pointing out that the director, William G. Stewart went on to later present the quiz show "Fifteen to One". Appropriate, as the odds are much higher against him with this project!! At the end of the movie Cargill looks at the camera and asks "Do You Mind?". Well, yes I do actually because it is 98 minutes of my life that I will not get back!!!

I cannot deny that I really like 'Madhouse'. It was made in 1974 and was a typically British horror film of the time, but it has some great things about it. It doesn't take itself at all seriously, and it throws some old clips from Price's AIP pictures, directed by Roger Corman, in for good measure. There's a great cast in here with old horror stalwart Peter Cushing, "Count Yorga's" Robert Quarry, "Confessions" film's Linda Hayden, "Father Dear Father's" Natasha Pyne, Benny Hill's Jenny Lee Wright and even a cameo from the daddy of talk-show hosts, Michael Parkinson!! Price plays Paul Toombes, a popular horror actor renowned for playing Dr. Death, a character who dresses in a black cloak and big hat and murders people in various bizarre ways. Toombes, though has just recovered from a long-term mental breakdown after his young wife was brutally murdered a dozen years before. He has now been offered more Dr. Death film roles, and coincidentally more murders are occurring with the killer dressed as Dr. Death. Who could it be? Could it be Price, going off the rails again, thinking he is Dr. Death? Or Quarry, the suspicious producer, who never liked Price? Or somebody else.....? Watch and see. Great fun!