Tubi Thursday: Berserker (1987)

 A Film that sounds great on paper.

A Film that I've never heard of.

Will I be excited or disappointed?

A Viking Boat rides up to the shore.
(and no, it's not THIS Berserker Film)

A man in a bear mask and cloak emerges!

...and he kills two old people, mostly off-camera.

I think the Couple is a Parody of the one from On Golden Pond, since '80s.

The main Plot kicks in with, say it with me, a bunch of young people going out to the Woods to drink and party.

Even in 1987, this was pretty stock, no?

We also get the Campfire Exposition bit as Nerdy Guy reads a book about the Berserkers, setting up what they are, what they do and setting up the obvious Twist at the end.

After In A Violent Nature, this really stands out.

They hang around at the Cabin (after meeting the Owner- George 'Buck' Flower) for a while.

They eventually wander off for, well, you know, and the Film really drags it out.

After about 10 minutes of wandering, the off-screen Berserker kills two ladies...by rubbing his hand on their faces and making them bloody.

Yeah, that was worth the wait.

More wandering.
More arguing.
More filler.

At the hour mark, the group is split up with the Lead and Nerdy Guy together, as the latter tripped and broke his leg.

Enter- for the first time since the Intro- our Title Character!

Deus Ex Bear (who they have been cutting to randomly since the beginning)!

The two roll around and the wounded killer runs off.

No, really.

The survivors get the Sheriff and shoot him dead, since he conveniently wandered over in a wounded state.

He's killed, but 'respawns' as the Owner!
What a twist!  The End.

What a bloody waste of time.

Bad Slasher Films can be fun if they do a few things.

Have weird Heavies/Killers.
Are amazingly dated.
Feature fun/bloody VFX and prosthetics.

This Film hits the first one...and barely uses him.
The Soundtrack did give me some pleasure, as it almost sounds like a Satire of '80s Soundtracks.
The Film REALLY lacks the later, choosing just to wipe 'blood' on people and then cut to them with slash marks.

It is very easy to make a Film like this fun.
They failed.

At least we get George 'Buck' Flower dressed as a Sea Captain in the Woods of Utah...for some reason.

This Film sounds fun and cheesy, but it just oddly generic.  I'd honestly kill for a Remake of this.

Streaming Standard: Justice League- Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part 2

 After a short break, let's return to the many Earths of the DCAU.

Things looked up...but now they are worse.

That's the DCEU in a nutshell, eh?

Anyhow, let's stop dunking on that and maybe start dunking on this...

The Anti-Matter Waves have returned and the many Earths need guardians.

The Film chooses to focus on a World where its Beacon (the devices that protect them) is in the heart of Gotham City.

That's enough of an excuse to team up Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Huntress, Damian Wayne and Terry McGinnis' Batman, right?

Of course, we can't just tell these things in order.

That's what losers do!

So we follow the prolonged backstory of Kara Danvers aka Supergirl.
We know that she becomes Harbinger, but how did she end up with the Monitor in the first place?

Too straight-forward for you?

Don't worry- we ALSO fall the truncated life story of The Psycho Pirate (aka the DC Villain pretty much only famous for this Story).

He narrates his life story to a dying guy (as you do) before he's pulled in by The Monitor and Harbinger.

The best minds in the Universe(s) work together to combat the Waves.

Sadly, we get Blue Beetle, but NOT Booster Gold.

They are perplexed when the Waves stop hitting normally and we get a 'wave' of shadow creatures attacking instead!

The Monitor tries to keep up with things, while tensions rise on Earth.

Surely the guy whose whole deal is corrupting and controlling people's emotions isn't doing exactly that!
Perish the thought!

Oh, and The Spectre keeps popping up.
That's never good news.

The Shadow Monsters keep increasing as a threat and things only get bigger- literally!

Can the weird homeless guy who is clearly Constantine be of help?
Will they stop fighting each other?

I also have to ask- what animal is Vixen channeling that shoots yellow eye lasers?

To find out the answers to SOME of those questions, stream this one now. 

A Film that has its moments, if we're being completely honest.

It has a bunch of Batman Characters fighting together- great.
It has Superman, Wonder Woman and company too- great.

Sadly, this one really feels like the middle Chapter of a Trilogy in all of the worst ways.

Things sort of move forward, but it is definitely just build up for- is this really a SPOILER- The Anti-Monitor.

These would definitely be those Tie-In Issues of your favorite Book- like say Firestorm- that feature some good action...but you soon realize that it is just wading around for the main bit of story and action.

There's also a prolonged bit that comes the hell out of nowhere suddenly tries to give Kamandi (who did nothing last Film) and Solovar a whole emotional/dramatic Arc.

Cool, but why them?  Why where?  Why with no build-up?  Why did you...oh right, wading.

This one might be the most fun to revisit in the long run, but...that's a low bar for this Series so far.

I will give them points for this sick burn.

A kind of fun Film in parts.  A mostly prolonged bit of setup and distraction in the other 75% of it.

International Streaming Standard: Troll (2022)

 As someone whose parents use his Netflix Account more than he does, I owed it to myself to clear at least one Film out of my Queue.

A Foreign Creature Feature that reminds me of an underrated Found Footage Movie?
You fit the bill!

Before this gets a Sequel this Year, let me finally check out...

The Film begins by introducing us to a young lady and her Dad.

He tells her folk tales about how the Mountains used to be Trolls.

Aw.

20 years later, she's a Paleontologist working on a dig.

Elsewhere, a mining expedition ends in a big explosion and she ends up working the case.

What does she find?

Well, the Title is kind of a giveaway, no?

It turns out to be a Troll and it broke loose when they dug too far into the mountain.

Without a body to prove it, she's...still pretty sure about things.

She goes to get her Father, who has not done well in the last 2 Decades.

He's living alone in the Mountains, has a Ted Kasinski beard and meets people with a shotgun in hand.

They discover that, yep, a Troll is on the loose.

What does the Military do?

Try to destroy it- duh!

As you can guess, it doesn't work.

Otherwise, the Movie would be less than an hour long!

They have to try a few different things as the truth about the Troll is eventually revealed.

To find out what happens, stream it now.

A strong creature feature that had something really great- heart.

This Film gives you everything you're hoping for.

Strong Characters.
A cool Creature.
A solid Plot.
Big moments.

The Plot and Characters really shine as they get little hints of depth that make them feel real.  Likewise, the Plot helps everyone look better here.

Our Heroine is still kind and caring, even if there's a giant 'monster.'

At worst, I'll say that you'll probably guess some of the Plot beats, as the Film plays a bit into some cliches and conventions.

That said, they are conventions because they work, right?

If you haven't yet, check this one out.  There's sure to be more coming...

A Foreign Film that is sure to impress international audiences.  It never breaks the mold, but, hey, it's a nice mold, after all.

Tubi Thursday: The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)

 Let's jump back to the '70s to see a Film that sort of revolutionized the Genre.

Granted- the Genre didn't exist at the time, but still.

It is...

A man shows up at two ladies' apartment with a knife wound.  He asks for help and works his way inside.

He falls over and...

It was a fake.  Womp womp.

He's an Actor and so are they.

They are part of a makeshift troupe (with Stage Actors and some down on their luck Movie Actors) hired to do a Play.

They have to practice and live together for the next week.

Tensions run a bit high with some of them, with the constant practice not making things better.

One couple is conflicted when the guy won't stop looking at another Actress.

That night, there's a scream and one of the Actresses goes missing.

The Police are called, but the body is missing and the Cops think that it was a prank.

They bring in a new Actress and meet up with an old man in town too.

Lots of wandering around though.

Given that it is the '70s, they just needed a talking dog.

A few of them get picked off, but are thought to be missing.

They eventually figure out that there is a connection between this Theater and the old man from earlier.

A practice with the remaining group is interrupted...

...and we get the prolonged explanation via flashback.

The guy was doing Othello, discovered that his wife was cheating on him with his Co-Star and buried the pair alive in the bowels of the Theater.

Wrong Shakespeare, but you do you!

In the aftermath, the Cops arrest him (as they figured things out), we get everything explained and then we're out on a semi-META line.

The End.

A Film that, while not great, was ahead of its time.

If you didn't spot the connection, the Film is similar to many of the early Slasher Films. Those were all whodunnits (before just being versions of a Jason Voorhees killer for a while).

There's a clear throughline from this 1972 Film to, say, 1980's Prowler (especially with the older, revenge driven killer) or 1981's My Bloody Valentine.

This one doesn't have the style or grace of other Films that would define the early Slasher prototypes, of course. 
This isn't Halloween or Blood and Black Lace.

The Pacing is not great here and it is a bit of a test of one's ability to keep interested at times.  It isn't done badly- it is just not done all that excitingly.

The Film had a unique gimmick- as seen on the Poster- with the Flashback bit being in 3-D.  Of course, the digital print is not in 3-D, but you do still get the notice...

A Film that is notable for doing many things that far more famous Films would do later.  If only it did them more interestingly here, this would be less of a Cult Film.

Streaming Standard: Justice League- Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part One

 It's the end of their world(s) as we know it...and I feel fine.

After many years, some good cartoons and many others, the DCAU ended with a bang...or three.  I figured that it would make sense to see how this Series ended before DC's new Film Series (properly) begins.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a huge event in the mid-80s, designed to streamline the continuity.  That was needed when it was made up of multiple timelines and Planets.

There was literally a Planet where WWII never ended.  Yikes.

This is The Flash.
He's the Fastest Man Alive.

He's just run so fast that he's broken out of time.

What does that mean exactly?

Well, simply put, he jumps around the entire Movie between a number of places and times.

One moment, he's on Earth-3 with evil Justice League Members.
The next, he's meeting up to form his own Justice League.

Is this confusing?  Yes.
Is this clever?  Eh...I'll let you decide that.

The team is formed when a robot is released that is far too powerful and dangerous for one (or two or three) of them to take down alone.

During all of this, Flash meets, falls in love with and marries Iris West.

She's pretty chill with all of this.

The whole thing builds up to a wave of matter that seems to be striking all of the different worlds in the DC Multiverse.

Heroes from all over are united by a being known as The Monitor.

This all leads up to a very old Flash (alongside Iris and Amazo's head) building a device that can stop the wave.

He dies peacefully...but there's still two more of these...so guess how well this all works out.

To be continued...

A very experimental attempt to adapt a classic tale...that only sort of works.

Look- Christopher Nolan has done a confusing Film about time travel.

It was Tenet.
It wasn't The Dark Knight.

This whole thing is just needlessly complicated and just kind of confusing.

Does a time-hopping Barry work to flesh out the Story better?  No.
Could you have told this in order?  Yes.

This one has some good action in it- the Amazo fight, for instance- but is just too annoying for me.

Despite how things might look, I'm not a Marvel Fanboy who hates or generally dislikes DC.
I want something like this to be fun, epic and amazing.

It...wasn't.
It had moments, but is otherwise just a build up for two more Animated Films that will hopefully make me feel better than this.

A needless complication for, let's be honest, an already complicated Story.  I wanted to love this so much more.

Impossibly-Cool Cover Art: The Thaw (2009)

 I doubt I'll make an excuse to talk about this one again anytime soon, so why not highlight 2 Posters I found it?

Why not?!?

This first one is very cool, but also highly misleading! 

Neat.

That said, 'From the Makers of The Evil Dead'

That means the 1981 Film, since the Remake came out later.
So, which 'Makers' worked on this one?  Raimi?  Campbell?

NOBODY!
NOT ONE!

You know that I spent way too long checking this, figuring that it would be a Best Boy or a Gaffer.
NOTHING!

*

The next one is pretty cool too, featuring a similar visual...

I like the bleak contrast with the black and white...and then the reddish body in front.

It reminds me of The Thing, which that font choice might be aping a little bit.

That said, great stuff and not really a sell for THIS Movie.
Good Movie though.

Animondo: Suicide Squad Isekai (2024)

 Anime has been in short supply on this site in recent memory.

Let me fix that, with a Review of a very, very weird Show I saw on Hulu...

Amanda Waller has a new assignment for her 'team.'

A Portal to a strange new world has opened.

So, naturally, she sends the worst of the worst criminals in there.

I guess it is more about them being disposable and less about diplomacy.

It turns out that the Kingdom is under conflict.

The Elves are the ruling class, thanks to their magic.

The Monsters- Orcs, Lizardmen and the like- are rebelling...thanks to the help of some outside forces.

What is Ratcatcher I (II is the daughter) doing here?

It turns out that a previous trip into the Portal ended in Colonel Flagg being stuck there and his Squad- which included Ratcatcher and others- messed things up by their presence.

Time for our 'heroes' to take out some bad guys...even if the Elves don't respect them.

Can they stop the magical people in this land?

The presence of other villains- like The Thinker, Killer Croc and Enchantress- is not helping matters!

Of course, it wouldn't be an Anime without a crazy villain.

They've got one.

Crazy power-up sequence?  Check as well.

To find out how things work out (and set up a Season 2), stream it now!

A Show that I grew to like the more it went on.  By the finale, I was hooked...and now I'm out of Episodes.

Dang!

The Show is certainly odd, especially for someone who doesn't watch nearly as much Anime as some people I know.  I've always liked it, but never as much as more traditional American Cartoons.

That said, this one is really fun.

It plays with the Meta aspects here, as Clayface is aware that he's 'acting' in an Isekai Story.  
If you don't know, it means 'Other World' and they all involve a guy (usually) being sent to a strange land...and being super-powerful.

Somehow a normal person is nearly a God, so it is a bit of a power fantasy.

This one works by giving you a very diverse Cast of crazy Characters, making the world even crazier and watching them react.

If you're more of an Anime fan, you may be more numb/used to the silly stuff.  That said, you might also get more of the jokes about Anime Tropes, so...win-win?

A nice win for DC when it comes to this group, because, well, they needed one!

Come for the DC Characters you know (and somewhat like).  Stay for the Japanese insanity and Meta jokes.