Why do you like these movies?

Sleepy Hollow-Depp is in it.....nice colors....Van Dweeb gets sliced in half by Darth Maul

Brian Yuzna-Always delivers the gore

MS

Monster Squad---Awesome monsters, Steve Wang and Winston work, good story line, and Tom Noonan........really can't beat that!

Sleepy Hollow--- Dircted by Burton, creepy and awesome imagery, nice interpretation of the headless horseman, and gory head chopping!

Lost Boys----SUCKS

With the exception of "Sleepy Hollow", I couldn't agree more with you, BobClark. There's a definite difference between good B-movies ("Blood Feast") and an unwatchable ones ("Dead Heat"). I had thought most horror fans knew the difference, but I guess not. Completely baffling.

How can you bag on Lost Boys. It is the finest processed cheese food. It has both Coreys and Kiefer. The soundtrack is good. It isn't great horror by any means but it's really fun.

???

It's just.......not interesting..........I dunno.....


I wanna see Blood Feast!

I like the following movies because:

1) Sleepy Hollow - Story is a classic. Tim Burtons re-worked version (making Ichabod Crane a detective, the amazing set designs, etc) worked great...to me at least. I absolutely loved it.

2) Deep Rising - I didn't know what to expect when I first saw this movie. But after watching it, I was blown away. This is a fun, over-the-top Horror/Action flick that just clicked with me. Part "Aliens". Part "Die Hard". With some comedy thrown into the mix. The F/X were pretty damn good. Had some decent gore. The creatures were...well... creepy. The bottomline is that "Deep Rising" was simply a lot of fun to watch. I would really like to see a sequel to this one.

Casting Cories Haim and Feldman would in no way entice me to see a horror film they were starring in. When they were kids they were good in "Silver Bullet", "The Final Chapter", and "Stand By Me" respectively, but have become jokes right about the time "The Lost Boys" were released in '88. Keifer is a good actor, but he did a lot of movies back then, most of them awful.

At the time, TLB seemed like a big-buget, pretty-boy fest. Plus, it was released in the late 1980's, when the '60s were back in style, which as a New Wave fan made it even less appealing. To this day I haven't seen the flick, don't want to.

The soundtrack had Echo & the Bunnymen singing The Doors' "People are Strange", if I recall. I think it may have another good song, but I avoided the soundtrack as well.

Well I didn't take it seriously then or now.

AndyL. - Something bugs me about people who say that a movie is bad without having watched it. Now granted I think there are some movies you could do that with pretty safey, but I don't know that this is one of them. It isn't great, but I had fun with it.

Thats like a list of my favourite films!! why do i like them? ummm.. i'm easily pleased? i like that cheese factor and special effect mix of goodness? also, they are just a bit different to 'normal films', don't get me wrong, i do like 'good' movies too.. but man.. dead heat is da bomb! maybe it also has some sort of sentimental value.. i was a kid when i first saw it, and i pored over the monster pics before i saw it.. so.. in summing up.. a combination of the above is the reason why the films rock for me.. *breathes*

Re: Why do you like these movies?

because they just do. how hard it that to understand? everyone has a different opinion and likes different things. are you just joking around? or bored? and decided to put this up for fun.

cause there's nothing wrong with that but if your being serious.
then you really need to step back a little. im just amazed how other people can get riled up about opinions or popular likes.

and no its not nastolgia for me. i liked those fims cause i think they're good and i enjoy them. dont really need to explain why. except for dead heat (never saw it and dont care to) and the only yuzna film i like is ROTLD 3.

I've seen bits and pieces of "The Lost Boys" on cable over the years, and I felt the same way about it right after I saw the trailer for it in '88 - it just didn't appeal to me personally. Guess that's what trailers are for, to give one a preview of the film to see if it's something they want to watch.

I can tell you with 99.999% certainty that I would not want to watch "Dead Heat". It looks like a groaner. "The Monster Squad" at the time looked juvenile and ridiculous - I tried watching five minutes of it on cable and changed the channel faster than greased lightning. Yuzna, except for maybe "Society" has a long way to go to get to Stuart Gordon's level. The only film I may give one latitude on is "Deep Rising", which I haven't seen. I hope it's better than "The Beast", "Tentacles", "Virus", or "Deep Blue Sea". Ah, I doubt it.

HOw can you bash on movies like Deep Rising, Sleepy Hollow and the Lost Boys, I mean sure I was only like 8 when TLB came out but that was fun as F$#(. Deep Rising I didn't see the previews so I went in with no expectations....and I liked it. Sleepy Hollow I won't even waste my time defending this movie, this movie by all means deserves its praise... Reasons: 1. Johnny Depp and 2. Tim Burton

Deep Rising

I don't actually see this as a cheesy B movie. I think Deep Rising is the best American monster movie in years. LOTS of carnage, a great monster, script and cast. AND WTF was on that island!!

Yuzna - ROTLD 3 was the only Yuzna I like. beyond reanimator was a major dissapointment and faust had a guy in a red tick outfit and a monster that shot lasers out of a pentagram on its head. He should stick to producing.

The Lost Boys is watchable today and is just an entertaining little movie. Corey haim is actually good in this

It's amazing that Blood Feast is a standard that other movies are judged by to some.

The 'esthetics' of the B-movie are a fascinating topic to me.

IMO, the "jump the shark" year for horror was 1987. After that, horror films as a popular genre were on the decline. Horror was getting silly, with self-lambasting titles like "C.H.U.D. 2: "Bud the C.H.U.D." Mainstream audiences (young people included) suddenly preferred films like "Home Alone" and "Look Who's Talking" to horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. To this day, we still haven't recovered.

All one has to do is pick up the movie section on a date like today, and compare it to any week in the '70s or early '80s. Back then, there was (thankfully) no escape from genre fare, everything from "Up From the Depths" to "E.T." to "Halloween 2" to "Fright Night". You pick up the movie section today and you see "Barbershop 2", "Catch That Kid"(???), "Cheaper by the Dozen"(????) - I mean - what the? These are TV shows, not movies! Back then we went to see movies because of the nudity and gore! I just checked 2 multiplexes and there were no horror/sci-fi movies at all playing at them!!! This would never have happened in the early '80s!!!

Devo was right; we did de-evolve.

Return Of The Living Dead 3, Society and The Dentist are all fine, fine B movies as is his segment in the wonderful anthology picture Necronomicon.

He's no worse than Tony Randel, Tibor Takacs, Sandor Stern or Anthony Hickox. All solid genre craftsmen. David DeCoteau, now that's scraping the barrel.

Glass houses and all...

Yuzna's heart is in the right place. He tries. With varying degrees of success.

That's because it's NOT trying to be a Hammer film. Those whose minds quickly turn to Hammer are missing the point. It's trying to be a Mario Bava film, namely the wonderful KILL, BABY...KILL, from which it blatantly steals the majority of its plot, characters and visuals. People see the gothic trappings and automatically think Hammer, since that studio's films were more highly visible than Bava's. Pick up KILL, BABY...KILL sometime, and you'll see Bava accomplishing what Burton could only emulate.

Oh, and I'm in perfect agreement with you on LOST BOYS, Bob. I had seen NEAR DARK already and was flummoxed that anyone, ANYONE, could enjoy this cheesefest. It's nostalgia, pure and simple, as the film is poorly written, ineptly shot and laughably acted. There's not one iota of tension in it.

LOST BOYS=Joel Schumacher
Joel Schumacher=SUCK

Pretty much there with you on the rest of `em, too. DEAD HEAT was the ultimate waste of potential. It was the point at which Treat Williams morphed from the celebrated, serious actor who gave the performance of a liftetime in PRINCE OF THE CITY into the schlocky nonperformer who graced us with crapfests like DEEP RISING and the seemingly endless direct to video SUBSTITUTE sequels.

Is there supposed to be? I men I don't want ot come across as an apologist but why compare TLB to ND? That's a bit like comparing Maverick to The Shootist, no?

Well, I like some of the above as well.

As for Yuzna, I think Straxboy summed up my feelings on him perfectly.

--Dead Heat: I just kind of like this movie, I think it's cheesy fun and one of those I dig because I dig the people in it (yeah, even Piscapo.) But I recognize this is a personal view and I wouldn't go around trying to defend this as a great movie.

--Monster Squad: I just remember being really fond of this movie. I haven't seen it in sooo long, and I'm almost afraid to see it again for worry my illusion would be shattered.

--Sleepy Hollow: VERY disappointed the first time I saw it. Now I love it to death. Yes, the story is eh-eh, esp the ending, but the overall mood and amazing sets and Ms. Ricci, the brief bit of Lee, Jones, Gambon and the rest of the fabulous cast just wins me over. This is a movie I really enjoy watching. And I do see the comparisons to Hammer films...yes, it is 'trying' to be a Hammer film (and I agree with you, Bob, it is not), but it does so in a way that to me, doesn't seem like Burton annoyingly trying to copy something, but more as a Burton version of what he loved about Hammer films.

--Deep Rising: Just plain fun. I love Treat Willaims, Kevin J O'Connor, Famke Janson and I just love watching this movie. Harmless monster movie fun.

--The Lost Boys: I can't really say why I love this film, but I do, I fucking love it. I was 14 when it came out (85 right?) and I couldn't see it enough. It's become so engrained in my head, like so many movies I saw and loved as a kid that it's hard for me to even remember what appealed to me so much then, as when I watch it now, it's just plain cool. It's hard to be objective about it. But I think it's a great, fun, movie.

I was never a huge fan of DEEP RISING. It's an alright film but the one thing I loved about it was the opening sequence where the creature is moving around. Don't know why I like it so much. I think it has to do with a real fear I have of underwater horror shit.

Monster Sqaud to me is just a good fun movie. It has more to do with it being a real "childhood favorite". I'm sure teenagers/young adults in the 80's looked at it with the same disdain that I have for the garbage that they are shitting out now.

As for "Dead Heat", I remember thinking it was one of those great "so horrible that it's entertaining" movies. Any buddy cop film with Joe Piscopo or any film with him playing a tough guy is always good laughs. Sadly, DEAD HEAT was really only funny, the first time I saw it then it just sucked.

Well I don't remember how it was billed, I just remember seeing vampires and going, "Cool!" And it was indeed cool.

Well one was a straight horror movie and one wasn't. Straight horror movies rarely do incredibly well at the BO, right?

I disagree. Look at how well JAWS, THE EXORCIST, FINAL DESTINATION, THE RING and the TCM remake did. They pulled in boatloads of cash. Hell, look at the original FRIDAY THE 13th -- it was the film that knocked EMPIRE STRIKES BACK out of its number one spot.

LOST BOYS advertised itself based on its coolness and attempt at new wave chic. And then a bunch of horror nuts marched to the theater only to discover that it was, in actuality, a goofy flick filled with homoerotic undertones and costume and set design apparently put together by Cher's roadcrew.

and Lost Boys had too many dirtbikes


the last movie dirtbikes were cool in was Megaforce

But look at how many horror movies there are that don't make that much. I never said that they don't do well.

But I don't think it did well because it fooled the horror fans. If they had that much pull, where were they for ND?

Near Dark had pretty much zero advertising at the time. I had heard mention of it in Fango, and that was it. Lost Boys had a HUGE ad campaign, with commercials that featured narrators saying things like "Some of the coolest kids in California...are vampires." And the tv spots accented all the vamp action in the flick. I realize that we hardcore horror buffs aren't the majority of the audience, and I wasn't saying that it was the horror buffs that created its success. Joe Average usually only hears about a horror flick when he sees it advertised on tv. Horror flicks are classic date movies, and the advertising was geared toward the teen date crowd, who saw it for the fluff it was and then promptly forgot about it.

I'm amazed that, with the exception of Dead Heat, this is the exactly the same sentiment I have on all these films. Especially Sleepy Hollow. Excellent summaries Dr. Werdegast!

So they made money through good advertising. Shame on them!

Actually not everyone who has seen it has forgotten it. Sorry that ND wasn't a financial success. I haven't seen it yet. I understand that it's a pretty good movie and I'll certainly check it out.

I just don't understand resenting a movie (which Bob seems to be doing here) for overshadowing another movie in a similar vein (yuk yuk yuk) or for being "completely disrespectful to the horror material" whatever that means. I mean these were vampires. They did suck blood, they didn't like sunlight, they hung upside down like bats, they had a cool lair, and ripped throats out. At least they weren't cutesie and they didn't pull any WWF moves. I think all in all other than the fashion they stayed pretty true to the vampire mythos, combining it with teen angst and the fear of change that we all felt at that age. Okay now I'm beginning to sound like an apologist.

By the way, Bob Clark, LOVE your sig line.

Now I've gotta go watch The Survivors again.

"And this is Billy and the Good Old Boys singing `Wes, stick it where the sun don't shine!'"

"You shot my gun! You don't shoot a man's gun! "

"Blasphemy! You'll smoke a turd in hell for that one!"

I'm glad you could process through that. Feel the love course through your veins. I find that listening to Corey Feldman's "Love Left" has helped me embrace my inner Corey.

Re: Why do you like these movies?

Nostalgia is a huge part I think, whether someone is aware of it or not, but there's nothing wrong with that is there?

We're all different people at different times which explains why something is so cool to a 12 year old, but when he hits 25 he may be damned ashamed of some of the shit he supported as a child.

Regarding the above list:

Dead Heat: M'eh. I think it's shclocky fun, not a POS, but I'm not camping Best Buy for the DVD release.

Monster Squad: This is specifically a kids film no matter how you slice it and I think it's ridiculous to try and hold it up to adult genre films (like the others on the list). I loved it the first time I saw and I still love it. I wish I had children or neices/nephews to show this movie too.

Sleepy Hollow: Another one for the "m'eh" category. Style over substance with ultra famous stars. The best thing about this to me are the costumes. I can watch it without cringing but I'd prolly be high and almost everything's fun when you're high...

Deep Rising: C'mon what's not to like? I think we can all agree that when this hit theatres there was no way you could mistake it for anything more than what it is: action packaged with blood, mayhem, monsters, and cheesy jokes. Nuff said, I love this movie.

The Lost Boys: I agree that comparing LB to Near Dark is kinda silly, and to get upset that Lost Boys did so much better than Near Dark is really silly.

They're not similar at all except for the vampire angle. And, as already pointed out, LB had a shitload of marketing power behind it not to mention a "hip" cast that most teenagers were familiar with (I remember when this came out, even my SISTER loved it, you know why she saw it at least 6 times in the theatre? Keifer Sutherland). So there's part of the explanation behind the boatloads of dough LB raked in, but not only that, it's actually a fun, good movie. Sure LB has overacting, oodles of cheese, and melodrama, but it's still really fun, and it doesn't take itself seriously.

Near Dark is obviously superior but I'm gonna guess it probably didn't even see a theatrical release outside the West Coast (someone correct me if I'm wrong there). And so many people remember it now, or seek it out if they haven't seen it yet that it will hardly be forgotten let alone eclipsed by Lost Boys. The fate of Near Dark is in good shape methinks.

Brian YuznaI will also nod my head in agreement with the sentiments on this gent. He's got some good titles: Society we're all in agreement on eh? And I liked Bride of Re-Animator, ROTLD3, and who could forget the writing credits on Honey I Shrunk the Kids? () But he's more miss than hit.

Consider yourself corrected, creech. I saw it firstrun at one of the three theaters in my hometown of Lubbock, Texas. It got a decent release in the South. I was actually sold on it by the poster, which was a still of Paxton torn and bloody after his run-in with Pasdar's Mac truck.

The reason we were comparing the two is due to the fact that both were released within seven months of each other. Near Dark came first in January of `88, and Lost Boys followed in August. ND got dumped by its distributor, when they could've easily hyped up the ALIENS connection with producers and stars. LB got TONS of marketing and made a fortune.

And I'm sorry, but I just don't see much of anything good in LB. You've got the dorkiness of vampirism as a metaphor for peer pressure, complete with a scene where all of the Jason Patric's new friends jump off of a bridge, and thus so must he -- that's what we get from Joel "Mr. Subtlety" Schumacher. You've got the sort of fashions that makes you wonder if the 80s was ever THAT garish. You have ridiculous moments of ignoring or changing vampire rules at the drop of a hat, cookie-cutter dialogue filled with bad one-liners (mostly uttered by the wacky grandpa who shows up with wacky hijinks whenever the action slows), shit, you even have awful camera-work, which is responsible for a ton of annoying Kiefer closeups that destroy any performance he might give and completely rob any tension or horror from the scene where the vamps kill the beach partiers (to the tunes of Aerosmith, if I recall). This isn't funny or tense. It's just annoying.

I'm standing my ground. I didn't like this movie when I was 14, and I don't like it now.

Okay, rant over. Now maybe I should start a post on my currently discovered hate for another "classic" 80s horror flick...Poltergeist.

Heh heh.

I" didn't know what to expect when I first saw this movie. But after watching it, I was blown away. This is a fun, over-the-top Horror/Action flick that just clicked with me. Part "Aliens". Part "Die Hard". With some comedy thrown into the mix. The F/X were pretty damn good. Had some decent gore. The creatures were...well... creepy. The bottomline is that "Deep Rising" was simply a lot of fun to watch. I would really like to see a sequel to this one."
Can't be said much better than that. Any movie that makes Treat Williams look remotely credible these days is surprising enought, but that fact that is was just one of those bad movies that is so fun to watch, and so intentionally campy that I gotta love it.

The Lost Boys was just a fun vampire movie with a solid young cast and some fun humor that makes it hard not to like. It is in IMO not a great movie, but a movie that can be watched many times during the Halloween time of year, or on a lazy Sunday, and still give me a decent time.