DVD Collectors Online

Subspecies, a review by GSyren

Title	Subspecies (5-037899-047194)
Director	Ted Nicolaou
Actors	Angus Scrimm, Anders Hove, Irina Movila, Laura Tate, Michelle McBride
Produced	1991 in United States
Runtime	83 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	None
Overview
My thoughts	I have mixed feelings about Subspecies. On the plus side - and this is a big plus for me - it's vampires done right. Radu (Anders Hove) is evil through and through. With his long fingers he looks quite a bit like Nosferatu. And the story itself isn't bad. And they put the Romainian locations to good use. So far, so good. But there are quite a few things on the minus side. Most prominently the subspecies. These small creatures were initially done by actors in red suits. But these sequences were deemed not fantastic enough, so David Allen was tasked with replacing them with puppets. The big problem was that he had no background plates that were shot with this in mind, so he had to use whatever footage from the Romainan shoot that could possibly be used. The result is that the title creatures don't actually do very much, storywise. And the quality of these special effects is variable, to say the least. Then there is Angus Scrimm. Wait, was Scrimm in the picture? Oh, right, he's the vampire king that gets knocked off right at the start of the film. And for that he gets top billing. That doesn't leave a whole lot in the acting department. Oh, Anders is probably a capable actor, but this film doesn't really focus on his acting but more on his looking scary. Which he does. The females look good, and that's fine, but none of them have any particular acting skills. A check of their resumes on IMDb confirm my suspicions. None of them have more than 10 titles to their name. The films generated three direct-to-video sequels. I haven't seen any of them, but I wonder if any of them actually featured the titular subspecies. I rather suspect they didn't. They did feature Anders Hove as the vampire Radu, though. So, in conclusion, a bit of a disappointment, but not without interest. Recommended if you prefer Nosferatu and Christopher Lee's Dracula to True Blood.
My rating	3 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on September 6th, 2013)

Saw V, a review by addicted2dvd

Saw V
Detective Hoffman is seemingly the last person alive to carry on the Jigsaw legacy. But when his secret is threatened, he must go on the hunt to eliminate all loose ends.

My Thoughts:
This is a movie I never seen before. I went into it a bit hesitantly as I heard that the movie series starts to go downhill from this point. Maybe that helped me to enjoy it more then some people do as I still loved every minute of this movie. Of course it could also be because (As I have said many times before) I am more forgiving of horror movies then most people are. The movie is filled with all sorts of torturous devices, blood and gore. It even had a familiar face in it this time. This one has Julie Benz (Angel, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer & Dexter). Though it did take me a few minutes to recognize her since I am not used to seeing her as a brunette. I will admit that I was a little more confused while watching this one (until the end reveal) then I have been with the past movies... but that could be because I was already tired when I decided to watch this movie.



(From Weekend Movie Marathon: 2/6 - 2/8 on February 8th, 2009)

"Friends" Marathon, a review by Rogmeister

Friends: The Complete Second Season continues the zany adventures of Monica, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey and Chandler.

The One With Ross's New Girlfriend--Rachel is dismayed to find Ross bringing a new girlfriend when he returns from a trip to China (and we never did find out if he got that bone    Meanwhile, after Phoebe gives striking new haircuts to Joey and Chandler, Monica convinces Phoebe to give her a haircut as well...too bad Phoebe doesn't know the difference between who Demi Moore is...and who Dudley Moore is!  A fun episode.

The One With The Breast Milk--Monica agrees to go shopping with Julie (Ross's new girlfriend) at Bloomingdale's...which angers Rachel when she finds out.  And Joey dresses up like a cowboy when another such aftershave salesman does well with it at a store Joey works at.  And Ross is repulsed when people taste Carol's breast milk she had left for Ben.

The One Where Heckles DiesThe friends are shocked when eccentric Mr. Heckles ("I could have birds") passes away and leaves all his belongings to Rachel and Monica who lived in the apartment above him.  We get some extra laughs in this when Phoebe and Ross get into it over the belief in evolution.  Chandler winds up getting all worked up over the fact he and Mr. Heckles had so much in common.  Janice puts in another appearance but now she's married and pregnant.  "Oh...my...God..."

The One With Phoebe's Husband--Phoebe's gay husband shows up wanting a divorce.  In a moment where the friends blab some secrets about each other we find that Joey was in a porno movie (but he didn't get naked) and that Chandler has a 3rd nipple.  "Whip it out, whip it out!"  At the end of the episode, we learn that Ross has had sex with Julie (his first since he broke up with his wife" and he celebrates by dancing in the streets to the tune of "Singing in the Rain". 

The One With Five Steaks and an Eggplant--The friends are divided when three of them are put off by the fact that getting together often costs them money they can't afford.  As a result, the three who have money go to a concert while the others play bargain basement games at home.  Monica gets fired at the end of this episode due to accidentally accepting some steaks her employers claim was a kickback.

The One With The Baby On The Bus--This may be may favorite episode of seaso 2 so far.  Ross gets food poisoning from Monica's pie.  "I thought you said this was a key lime pie?"  "No, it's a kiwi lime pie.  That's what makes it so special."  "That's what's going to kill me!  I'm allergic to kiwi..."  While he and Monica go to the hospital, Chandler and Joey take Ross' son Ben out for awhile...and accidentally leave him on the bus.  When they go to reclaim him, there are 3 toddlers at the bus depot.  They decide to flip a coin but what is assigned heads?  Joey says "Heads are for ducks...because ducks have heads" to which Chandler responds "What kind of scary ass clowns came to your birthday?"  At the end, Ross discovers the truth but Chandler grabs the pie and exclaims "Get back, I've got kiwi!  Run, Joey, Run!"  Meanwhile Chryssie Hynde guests as a professional singer hired at Central Perk to replace Phoebe.  This is one of only a few episodes where we see the owner (named Terry, played by Max Wright) of the coffee shop.

 

(From "Friends" Marathon on July 22nd, 2009)