DVD Collectors Online

The House by the Cemetery, a review by Jimmy

Title : The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Overview
A young family moves from their cramped New York City apartment to a spacious new home in New England. But this is no ordinary house in the country: the previous owner was the deranged Dr. Freudstein, whose monstrous human experiments have left a legacy of bloody mayhem. Now, someone -- or something -- is alive in the basement, and home sweet home is about to become a horrific hell on earth.

My Impression
Not one of the best Fulci's film. The film had a good start but the story take a turn in the nothing department for most of the running time, untill the end when finally we get some great Fulci's effect. It's evident that the ghost movie isn't one of my favorite horror genre, so for me 2/3 of this movie is boring. Sure the dubbing doesn't help at all, the boy's voice is so annoying (why take an adult to do a whining girly voice like that?). Not that the movie is that bad, but for a Fulci's movie this isn't really impressing.

Rating :



(From Jimmy's 2009 Horror Marathon on October 7th, 2009)

Excalibur, a review by Eric

Excalibur




Summary:My Thoughts: To my defense for what I'm about to write I must remind everyone that I am not a fan of fantasy movies.  I do enjoy true masterpieces like LOTR but it's not a genre I am particularly fond of.  I totally hated the first 20 minutes of that movie, to me it was preposterous and I actually laughed a few times at what I thought was gonna be 2.5 hours of complete ridicule.

The first battle scene however caught my interest.  There you see men fighting with swords in their armors but unlike what we're used to in movies they're not all gracious and impressive in their movements.  On the contrary they are slow to move and react, they are always out of balance and falling after hitting an adversary because the weight of their armors and weapons pull them forward.  I really liked that because it look real, in the 13th century these armors were probably extremely heavy and knights must have had limited movements because of them.  From that point on I stopped lauging at it and decided to give it a chance.

Although I would probably not watch this again I have to say that I liked it, I found some parts of it pretty annoying and long but other parts totally kept my attention.  Especially when Helen Mirren comes into the picture.  The movie is made in a style that resembles a theater piece but I found most (if not all) the other actors and actresses to be poor at it.  Mirren however does a great performance and her character is credible, most of her scenes made me feel like I was watching a play.  She does exactly as it's supposed to be done, with this "lyrical" way of saying things that you would expect from a Shakespeare play.

As I have never read any writings about Arthur I cannot say whether this movie is close to the actual legend or not but it covers all I know of it including the sword in the stone, the query for the grail, Merlin and Morgana (Mirren) and the final battle with his own son.

I must however question the choice of some of the scores.  It it mostly well suited but in most of the scenes where you see Arthur and the Knights riding their horses on their way to battle they chose Carl Orf's Carmina Burana.  That really bothered me as I find it totally out of place both geographically and in its significance.

Carmina Burana are mostly drinking and dancing songs written in German, French, Latin and some English by the Goliards, a group of clergy, in protest to the growing contradictions in the church like the failures of the crusades and the financial abuses.  In my mind there is absolutely no relation whatsoever between those songs and an army of Knights riding to battle to defend their King which they believe was made such by God.

My score: , I'm sure most people who like the Fantasy genre would give it a

(From Eric's DVD watching. on June 1st, 2008)

"Battlestar Galactica" Marathon (1978-2009), a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: After many yahren, the Galactica has finally discovered Earth. But Earth isn't the save heaven they had hoped for. They are technologically inferior and wouldn't survive a Cylon attack. Adama decides to send small teams down there to speed up Earth's development while he leads the fleet away from Earth since they are still followed by the Cylons. Troy (who was called Boxey when he was a child) and Dillon are being send to a country called "United States of America" where they want to meet with a leading nuclear scientist. And the local TV reporter Jamie Hamilton becomes their "tour guide".

My Opinion: And once again Los Angeles was destroyed by aliens - even though it was only a simulation. I liked this first episode of the series, it showed promise. To bad the bridge sets seemed to be destroyed. The new bridge looked far inferior to the old one, but I liked to see Colonel Boomer again. I had forgotten that another recurring character (besides Adama) from the old show reappeared in this show. I also like the new two-seated Vipers because I like Jamie and that gives her the chance to ride along.

Synopsis:My Opinion: The whole plot doesn't make much sense. Even if he could change the past, 36 years are clearly not enough to catapult Earth's technology forward in a way that it would be of any use in 1980. And even though the Nazis were the most advanced in regards to rocket science at this point in time I think it's very unlikely that the "Master Race" would be very open-minded towards a truly superior alien race.

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon can successfully sabotage the start of the V2 and it explodes shortly after launch. Xaviar is accused of being a spy and gets arrested but can escape, returns to his Viper and travels back to his own time. Jamie, Dillon and Troy follow him but lose his trail. After they successfully returned Jamie to California a new problem arises: The cloaking field has deactivated and made the Vipers visible. They are now in the hand of the US military and they need to get them back.

My Opinion: Even if the V2 test had worked (btw: the V2 tests started in 1942, in 1944 they were already mass-produced in slave labour), one year later a nuclear bomb over Europe would have still ended the war.
Also: They won't kill german soldiers because that would change the future but they free an entire train of Jews who were about to be brought to Auschwitz. Don't get me wrong: I don't critizise the break-out but then they might as well shoot the Germans.

Synopsis: After the Cylons have attacked and destroyed the fleet's school ship, Dillon and Troy have to evacuate 12 of the children down to Earth. There they disguise themselves as boy (and girl) scouts. Due to the higher gravity and the denser atmosphere in the fleet the children are stronger and faster as normal children of Earth. But that doesn't protect them from Earth's diseases and especially not from water that is poisoned by a chemical plant.

My Opinion: C'mon, gimme a break! Kids that jump 30 foot high? How high can Troy and Dillon jump? The Empire States Building? It's always a good idea to critizise how we treat our environment, but to shift the focus in a Sci-Fi show from their main protagonists to a bunch of kids who (of course) do childish things isn't a good idea.

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon have to care for three of their children who are very ill. But that's not their only problem. The military is after them because they detected the landing of the shuttle. The police is after them because they are accused of bank robbery. And the local workers are after them because they threaten the chemical plant.

My Opinion: And now a real "flying saucer", too. This ship looks nothing like a ship from the colonies. Why would they use such a design? No, these two episodes didn't work for me at all.

(From "Battlestar Galactica" Marathon (1978-2009) on April 19th, 2009)