Jun 4, 2025

That's Not The Right Way To Eat Cantalope


Bring Her Back
A24 (2025)
I've seen a lot of horror movies in my life and think that I have a pretty high threshold for getting creeped out, but... damn!

Jun 3, 2025

The Storm Is Breaking, Or So It Seems


Boys And Girls
Bryan Ferry (1985)
The first studio album released by Bryan Ferry after the members of Roxy Music went their separate ways was released forty years ago today.  It remains his most successful solo album to this day, and it includes Slave To Love, which is one of the highest charting singles of his career.  I love that song, but my favorite is the next song on the album.  It features Nile Rodgers of Chic on guitar, and it's one of those tracks that's best played while driving through the rain on a city street at night.  It's called Don't Stop The Dance.
Mama says truth is all that matters
Lying and deceiving is sin
Drifting through a world that's torn and tattered
Every thought I have don't mean a thing

Don't stop, don't stop the dance
No more music, don't stop the dance

Mama says love is all that matters
Beauty should be deeper than your skin
Living for the moment, lips and lashes
Will I ever find my way again?

Don't stop, don't stop the dance
No more music, don't stop the dance

Mama says only stormy weather
Don't know why there's no sun in the sky
Footsteps in the dark come together
Got to keep on moving or I'll die

Don't stop, don't stop the dance
No more music, don't stop the dance

Jun 2, 2025

You're Waiting For A Bus That You Hope Never Comes


One of the best things about going to the Mahoning Drive-In Theater is the fact that it has introduced me to classic films that I have never heard of before, and probably would have never gotten to see at all (let alone on the big screen) if they hadn't included it in their lineup.  The 1981 Michael Mann neo-noir heist crime drama Thief is a perfect example of this.


The lot chickens are getting pretty comfortable around people.  Colonel posed for this picture at the front gate, and both he and Sanders ate edamame out of my hand.  I looked it up before I fed it to them, and it's perfect safe for them to eat.  I'm going to have to pick up a small bag of chicken feed to keep in the car.


This film has to go into my top five movies that the Mahoning Drive-In Theater has introduced me to because it's a classic in every sense of the word.  Thief stars James Caan as Frank, an ex-con who spent over a decade in prison since he was 18, but has since been released and become a safecracker and a jewel thief who operates a car dealership and a bar as a front for his main source of income.  Circumstances put him in a position to meet a crime lord named Leo who wants to hire him to do jobs directly for him.  Frank agrees, but only for one particularly large score, the earnings of which he plans to use to set up his ideal life with his wife and retire from his life as a professional thief.

Thief is a brilliant film.  The scenes of Frank driving at night through the streets of 1981 Chicago to the score of Tangerine Dream are incredible.  James Caan gives one of the best performances of a criminal that I've ever seen.  The supporting cast are also fantastic.  Jim Belushi plays Frank's partner Barry to perfection.  Tuesday Weld, who I know best from her role as Thalia Menninger from Dobie Gillis, is outstanding as Frank's love interest.  Robert Prosky, who I remember for his role as Grandpa Fred in Gremlins 2 and as the owner of the garage where Arnie fixes his haunted '58 Plymouth Fury in Christine, is excellent as the mob boss with a face that you're just aching to punch.

This movie is a masterpiece, and I'm thrilled that I got to see it for the first time on the big screen at the drive-in.  I can't say that I went into this screening completely cold because they played the trailer quite a few times in the weeks leading up to this show, but it thankfully didn't give away enough to spoil too much of the story.  Thief is available to stream for free on Tubi.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it for the next time that you're in the mood for a crime drama, because it doesn't get any better than this.

Jun 1, 2025

Without Further Ado, Here's Keanu


Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
This weekend at the drive-in was two nights of double features starring one of my favorite actors, Keanu Reeves.  Friday night was dedicated to his sci-fi flicks while Saturday highlighted two of his most popular action films.


The first movie of the weekend was my favorite Keanu Reeves film, the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix.  I was obsessed with this movie after I saw it for the first time on home video, and although I missed it during its first run in theaters, I managed to catch it on the big screen last April for its 25th anniversary.

I've written about this movie a few times before so I don't have too much to say about it, but it's still one of my favorite science fiction movies ever made.  I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it before, but I strongly suggest skipping over the sequels.  There's a few decent ideas in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, but it's a huge drop off from the first film, and while The Matrix Resurrections started off strong, it devolved into an absolute mess after about the first twenty minutes.  The Animatrix is very good, but aside from that, I'd suggest sticking with the original and letting your imagination take over from there.


The second half of the double feature on Friday night was the 1995 sci-fi flick Johnny Mnemonic.  This has been on my watchlist for many years, and unfortunately, it still is.  It can be difficult for me to stay awake on Friday nights at the drive-in because I wake up at 5:00 am for work.  I can usually make it through the second movie with no problem as long as I'm sitting outside, but it started raining during The Matrix and it started coming down even heavier for Johnny Mnemonic.  The kiss of death was the fact that it was about 45 degrees and I had to turn the heat on in the car.  I don't think I could have stayed awake if I had an intravenous drip of Red Bull.

It looks like a pretty interesting movie from what I saw in the first 15-20 minutes.  I'm pretty bummed out that I ended up sleeping through it because I can't imagine it'll come back to the drive-in any time soon.




Our friend Wayne (left) promised Kate that he was going to show up on Saturday in "full fish" after she commented on his fish flip flops.  Unfortunately, Kate wasn't feeling well so she didn't get to see this outfit in person, but we did send her a photo.

Tom and Jen (right) may have the record for the most raffle wins at the Mahoning, so I had to snap a picture of the two of them performing the ritual of using the light on their cell phone to see if they had the winning ticket.  They didn't win this time.


Saturday night kicked off with an action film that was released in the summer of 1991, Point Break.  I've never watched this movie before, and didn't even know what it was about or who else was it it besides Keanu Reeves, so I was going into this screening with a totally blank slate, which is my favorite way to see a movie for the first time.

The action movie genre falls into kind of a weird place with me.  When I hear that a new action movie is being released, or when somebody recommends one to me, I'm usually not all that interested in it.  However, when I do manage to sit down and watch an action movie with no distractions, I usually end up loving it.  You would think after this happening numerous times that I'd realize that I really enjoy a good action flick and that I'd make more of an effort to check them out, but I don't seem to be able to clear this mental roadblock.  The new Mission Impossible movie is in theaters right now and I have no interest in going to see it (nor have I ever watched any of the other movies in the franchise) despite the fact that I'd probably like it.

Point Break was no exception to this pattern.  I loved every minute of it!  The concept of the Ex Presidents gang who rob banks in 90 seconds without ever touching the safe was brilliant.  Keanu Reeves was excellent as always, as was Gary Busey, Patrick Swayze, and Lori Petty, all of whom I had no idea were even in this movie if that tells you how little knowledge I had about it going into this screening.  On a brief side note, Lori Petty is one of my favorite actresses of all time.  She's incredible in everything I've ever seen her in.


The final movie of the King Keanu weekend was the 1994 action blockbuster Speed.  I saw this movie for the first time when it was still on the new release wall at Blockbuster Video, and I don't think I've ever seen it since.  It didn't really make too much of an impression on me.  I thought it was pretty good when I first saw it, but the countless pop culture references and parodies that it inspired, and the ridiculous sequel on a cruise ship that was released three years later have tainted my memories of this film a bit.

Seeing Speed on the big screen at the Mahoning served as a reminder of why this film was such a hit.  It's a damn good action flick that keeps the audience engaged from start to finish.  The only thing that I found schlocky was the last scene where the subway track is unfinished.  I mean, come on!  He's in another vehicle with a road that's incomplete?!  Still, this is a very enjoyable movie, but if I'm being honest, Point Break was my favorite of the two films by a wide margin.
 

And that's a wrap on King Keanu.  The folks at the Mahoning suggested that this may come back as an annual or semi-annual event.  There's enough content in the Keanu Reeves filmography to keep this going for years without showing the same movie twice, so I hope they do bring it back next year.

May 31, 2025

May Movie Wrap Up


These are the movies that I got to see for the first time in May 2025 that I haven't already written about.
Watched on May 5th, 2025
This movie premiered in theaters in the United States on March 14th of this year, but you'd never know it if you were living in Northeast PA.  I never saw a trailer for it.  My local Regal Cinema didn't screen it.  I had no idea that this movie even existed.  I'm not sure how that's even possible in 2025 with businesses advertising on everything from streaming platforms, to social media, to the little screen on the gas pump when I'm fueling up.

Director Steven Soderbergh has gone public with his frustrations that his "mid-level budget, star-driven movie can't seem to get people over the age of 25 years old to come out to theatres", but I think his wrath would be better directed at the marketing team that was hired to promote this film.  Pal, I'm 44 years old and between Regal Unlimited and the Mahoning, I go out to theaters to see over 200 films a year.  If your marketing team couldn't reach me, I guarantee you that the average potential moviegoer has absolutely no clue that your movie exists at all.

It really is a shame too because this was a damn good spy thriller.  My wife found it while browsing through Peacock to find something to watch and we both enjoyed it quite a bit.  But... yeah, Steven... you're selling me a product here, not the other way around.  It's your job to find me and sell it to me.  Plenty of other filmmakers have worked with people who found ways to connect with an audience.  If the studio or the marketing team aren't up to the challenge, cut them loose.  Adapt or get left behind.

Watched on May 5th, 2025
This is another movie that we found on Peacock and it absolutely blew me away.  The story begins in the English countryside in the years leading up to World War II.  Sisters Thom and Mars Hanbury were orphaned at a young age, but are now young adults who live together and take care of each other.  Thom is a genius who invents a device called Lola which allows the sisters to receive over-the-air broadcasts from the future.  This allows experience music from the future, like David Bowie and The Kinks, but it as Great Britain enters World War II, it also allows them to see news broadcasts of the aftermath of German air strikes before they happen.

I don't want to say any more than I already have, but this is a film that is absolute worth your time.  It does an excellent job of exploring the concepts of time travel and parallel dimensions, and it really pulls you into the world of the story that is being told.

Most of the plot descriptions that I've come across for Lola refer to it as a found footage movie, but don't let that dissuade you if you're not into that sort of thing.  I'm not a big fan of found footage either, but it's used in a manner that is very creative and goes hand-in-hand with the plot.  This one gets my highest recommendation.
Watched on May 12th, 2025
There was a period of time in the mid 2000's when movies about magicians seemed like they were Hollywood's flavor of the week, but I never managed to catch any of them.  To this day, I've still not seen The Prestige, The Illusionist, or The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and I was only vaguely aware that Now You See Me existed.

This is a fun popcorn movie, but it's not the kind of thing that I would recommend to everyone.  If you're the type to pick a film apart for inconsistencies and plot twists that defy logic at times, this movie will probably drive you crazy.  However, if you're able to switch off your critical brain and just enjoy a movie for what it is, this is an enjoyable experience.  I'm going to have to see if I can find the sequel.

Watched on May 14th, 2025
My friend Mike recommended this movie to me.  He recommends a lot of movies to me, but I don't remember him ever being as enthusiastic as he was when he praised this 1957 film and told me that I had to check it out.  He was absolutely right.  It's so incredible that I can't believe that it's not more well known than it is.

A Face In The Crowd stars Andy Griffith in a role that could not be more different than the roles on The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock that made him famous.  He plays a drunken drifter named Larry Rhodes who is discovered by a radio show host named Marcia.  He is unexpectedly very charismatic and Marcia is inspired to fight for him to have his own radio show for the man who she has given the moniker "Lonesome Rhodes" to play guitar, tell stories, and share his views on the world.  This leads Rhodes down a path in which he becomes highly popular, influential, and dangerously powerful, and he becomes more unhinged with each passing day.

This movie is fascinating and I highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in motion pictures at all.  It feels like a voice from the past warning us about the ways that a narcissistic con artists can rally the angry and ignorant masses with bluster and bullshit in their rise to power.  Sounds oddly familiar to what we're living through today. 


Clown In A Cornfield 
Watched on May 14th, 2025
I'm kind of played out on the idea of clowns being used as monsters in horror films.  It's a trope that has been done to death in horror films like the Terrifier series, the Killjoy series, the Camp Blood series, the book, mini-series, and feature films for Stephen King's It, House Of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, 3 From Hell, and one-off films like Killer Klowns From Outer Space and Carnival Of Souls, and many others.  Letterboxd has a Clown Movie Master List that has over 600 films that feature clowns, and the overwhelming majority of them are horror films.  I honestly wonder if kids in elementary school in 2025 have any concept of clowns as entertainers, or anything other than a monster in a scary story.

I went to see this solely because my friend Tom told me that he enjoyed the book that the film is based on.  He and I have pretty similar tastes, but I was still kind of skeptical walking into the theater to see this.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Clown In A Cornfield is a pretty damn good slasher flick.  It's mostly set in the present day, but it feels very much like the kind of horror flick that I would have brough home from a rental shop in the late 80's or early 90's.
Watched on May 19th, 2025
The Final Destination films are my favorite horror franchise of the 21st century.  Some movies in the series are better than others, but all of them are enjoyable, and the rules of how fate hunts down the people who have cheated death are consistent.  Bloodlines is no exception.  In fact, I think it's one of the best movies in the series.

This movie takes the lore of the Final Destination series in an interesting new direction.  It explores the possibility of a large group of people who cheat death.  Fate goes after the survivors in order of how they would have died if they hadn't cheated death, so if the group of people is large enough, the rest of the survivors would have time to grow older, have children and grandchildren, and generate an extensive branch of their family tree of people who wouldn't have existed if they had died at the moment that fate intended.  Would these people be safe, or would fate come for them to correct the mistake when their parent or grandparent cheated death.

I don't want to spoil the plot, but I will say that it has one of the coolest disaster scenes in the beginning of the film, and a very awesome story about how all of those people cheated death and how their lives played out afterward.  It also features the last on-screen appearance of the great Tony Todd before his passing on November 6th of last year.


Cooties
Watched on May 20th, 2025
This is one of those movies that is so dumb that it can't help but to be fun.  It's the story of a zombie outbreak in an elementary school that is caused by one girl eating an infected chicken nugget.  Everybody in this movie, including its star Elijah Wood, are way over-the-top for most of its runtime.  It's available to watch for free on Tubi, and it's the perfect movie to laugh at with a group of friends over pizza and beer.
Watched on May 20th, 2025
Most of the reviews that I've come across for the 2016 movie Passengers have ripped it apart.  Frankly, I think they all have a screw loose because I found this to be one of the most interesting and well made science fiction films in recent memory.  A lot of the bad press that I've read about this movie seems to be fans and critics passing a morality judgment on Chris Pratt's character and, for some reason, lashing out against the film as a whole because of it, which I find to be asinine.  You're not supposed to think he did the right thing.  You're supposed to examine the grey area, and maybe have an honest moment of self-reflection and ask if you would have done the same thing.

This is the story of a man who is awakened too early from suspended animation to find that he is alone in a spaceship on which he will die of old age before it gets to its destination.  The explanation of who these people are, where they're going, and how this ship is being financed are fascinating and left me wanting to know more about the world and human society outside of this ship.

Passengers is available to stream on Amazon Prime.  Do yourself a favor and skip the bullshit opinions from people who forgot that good storytelling is not all about taking every opportunity to virtue signal to the world what wonderful people we all think we are.  Watch this movie and judge for yourself.


Drive In
Watched on May 21st, 2025
Finally, we have the 2000 indie slasher Drive In.  My friend Bill has been telling me about this movie for months.  He found an old copy of this on VHS at Goodwill for 25 cents, marked down from 47¢, and he went out and bought a VCR just so he could see it.  The premise is that the mentally challenged son of the drive-in manager has seen so many horror movies on the big screen that he goes on a killing spree.  It's very low-budget, but it's not one of those movies that's deliberately bad in the hopes of being labeled "so bad it's good".  It's a sincere attempt at a horror movie, with acting performances that could best be described as amateurs doing their best, and it's not terrible for what it is.  Just don't go into it expecting to see a Hollywood blockbuster.

May 30, 2025

The Battle Of Cadillac Heights


2025 Patreon Screening #2
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
The second Patreon screening of the year was a very pleasant surprise.  The clues that we were given in the preshow was that it was going to be a 90's sci-fi flick on 35mm, and the music that Mark placed (which often hides clues to the night's movie) had several references to the police and Detroit.  All of the signs pointed to a very popular action sci-fi franchise which had two films released in the 90's, but I quickly dismissed those as possibilities.  There's no way they were going to show that on a Patreon night, right?  Right?

This was one of my favorite Patreon screenings yet!

May 29, 2025

They Have The High Ground


Obi-Wan Pierogi
Kraków, Poland

May 28, 2025

Still Pullin' It


This truck was probably headed out of Harry's U-Pull It in West Hazleton.  I can't say I've ever seen the Red M&M holding a machine gun before.

Melts in your mouth, not in your hand

May 27, 2025

Face Down In Cabo, Kissin' The Ground


Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus
PepsiCo (2025)
This new version of Mountain Dew is blend of orange, lime, and tropical citrus punch, and thankfully they're making it in Zero Sugar as well.  It's pretty good.  In fact, I like this better than regular Mountain Dew or Baja Blast.


They're advertising this soda as "the perfect pairing with Doritos".  I'm going to have to take their word for that.  I love Doritos, but I'm really trying to make more healthy choices with food, and diet soda is about as far as I'm going to go into junk food for the foreseeable future.

May 26, 2025

The Dead Walk The Earth In Lehighton And Wind Gap


Zombiefest XI
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
The 2025 season at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater kicked off six weeks ago, but Memorial Day Weekend is viewed by many as the unofficial start of the season because it's the first of the major annual events on the calendar that draws in an audience from across the country.

Zombiefest I - Memorial Day Weekend 2015

Zombiefest is a partnership between the Mahoning and Exhumed Films which celebrates the undead on the big screen.  This is the oldest of the annual events at the drive-in, dating back to Memorial Day Weekend 2015 when they screened nine zombie classics on 35mm.  The films shown for the first Zombiefest were Day Of The Dead, Messiah Of Evil, House By The Cemetery, Demons, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, One Dark Night, City Of The Walking Dead, Two Evil Eyes, and Revenge Of The Dead.  This was six years before we discovered the Mahoning in 2021 and seven years before our first trip to Zombiefest in 2022.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern
Show poster designed by Jason Cortez

For the first time in its eleven year history, Zombiefest took place at two venues across four nights with a total of twelve films screened for fans in attendance.  This included a single feature on Thursday night and a triple feature on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights at the Mahoning, along with a double feature matinee at The Gap on Saturday afternoon.
 

There were a lot of cool things that could be won in the raffle for each of the nights of Zombiefest XI, but my favorite of the lot was this print done in the style of a 1985 Topps card that was on the table for Friday night.


Actor Thom Mathews was on the lot to meet fans, sign autographs, and take pictures with fans on Friday night.  He's best known to horror fans as Tommy Jarvis in Friday The 13th: Part VI, Freddy in Return Of The Living Dead, and Joey in Return Of The Living Dead: Part Two.  I'm trying to be a little more careful with money with the costs of everything going through the roof, so I didn't get anything from his table, but in retrospect, I wish that I had.  If I had a copy of Return Of The Living Dead on VHS for him to sign, I probably would have asked him to sign it because it's one of my favorite horror movies of all time.

The first night of Zombiefest XI is an anthology horror classic that was last shown at the Mahoning on Night Two of Zombiefest X - Creepshow.

I've written about this movie last year so I won't labor the point too much, but the short version that the movie is made up of five short stores.  I love The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill and Something To Tide You Over, and I like The Crate.  The last story of the film, They're Creeping Up On You, is alright... not great, but not terrible.  However, the first story in the movie, Father's Day, plays out like a bad soap opera with some comic book effects thrown in and a pretty dull horror twist at the end.  Overall, this movie is absolutely worth watching if you're a horror fan, but skip ahead after the opening credits to the start of The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill.

There was a secret feature after the first movie that I really wish I could have stayed for, but I had work on Friday morning and there was no way I was going to be able to stay awake for all three movies on Friday night if I didn't get some sleep.


Return Of The Living Dead / Re-Animator / Waxwork

Friday night of Zombiefest XI kicked off with three horror movies from the 1980's.  The first and second are two of my favorite horror flicks from any decade, and the third is one that I was seeing for the first time.


Return Of The Living Dead has a permanent spot in my top five favorite horror movies of all time.  It's one of the first horror flicks that I remember seeing when I was a kid.  I saw it at the Mahoning once before at a Tunnel Vision Tuesday screening near the end of the 2023 season and it was one of my favorite nights of the season.

This movie exists because of a disagreement between Night Of The Living Dead co-writers George A Romero and John Russo on the direction that should be taken in the sequels.  This resulted in two different film series that branch off of the 1968 film.  The first sequel series to begin was George A Romero's sequels beginning with 1978's Dawn Of The Dead, followed by Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead, Diary Of The Dead, and Survival Of The Dead.  John Russo's sequels began in 1985 with Return Of The Living Dead, followed by Part Two in 1988, Part Three in 1993, and two films from 2005 that were made for television: Necropolis and Rave To The Grave.  Both of these series have a pretty dramatic drop in quality for the sequels made in the 2000's, but the ones released in the 70's, 80's, and 90's are all almost universally beloved as horror classics by weirdos like me who obsess over such things.  However, the Romero and Russo sequels go in very different directions; Romero's are heavy on gritty realism and social commentary, and Russo's have more of a punk rock vibe to them.

For as much as I enjoy and respect the Romero sequels, if the Mahoning asked me to choose if they should dedicate a weekend to his sequels or the Russo sequels, I would choose the latter.  The first three Return Of The Living Dead movies are among the most fun horror movies I've ever watched, and they fit right at home at a drive-in theater on a weekend dedicated to zombie flicks, and the cream of the crop is the one that kicked off Night Two of Zombiefest XI.


Re-Animator is a horror classic that I haven't seen too many times in my life.  I saw it for the first time when I worked at Blowout Video when I was a teenager and brought it home as one of my free rentals.  It was produced by Brian Yuzna who we got to meet three years ago on the last night of Zombiefest VIII.  He was one of my favorite guests that I've ever gotten to meet at the Mahoning.

This is the story of a medical student named Herbert West who developed a reagent that can be used to bring the dead back to life, but it has side-effects similar to those who comes back to life in Pet Sematary.  It also leads to a conflict with Herbert's professor, but I'll spoil the story if I say too much about that.  Let's just say that there's a very memorable and disturbing scene at the end that gives a whole new meaning to the expression "giving head".  The uncut version of the film can be streamed on Amazon Prime, and if you're a fan of horror movies who hasn't seen it yet, I strongly recommend it.
 

The last movie from Friday night was the 1988 horror comedy film Waxwork.  I had never seen or heard of this one before, but it was definitely interesting.  The story is that a wax museum has suddenly opened in what appears to be a residential neighborhood.  This museum is a bit like the castle in Super Mario 64, but instead of paintings on the wall that warp the player into one of the levels, the wax displays unexpectedly warp the guests of the museum into another world where the characters have come to life.  When a person dies in one of these worlds, they return to the museum as one of the wax figurines.

This movie became another victim of my Friday night curse at the Mahoning.  I have to wake up early for work on Friday morning, so if they're playing a triple feature, the chances of me remaining awake and alert for the final film are pretty slim.  I was slipping in and out of sleep for all but the first ten or fifteen minutes of Waxwork.  I'm not sure how much of it I ended up sleeping through, but the parts of the story that I missed while dozing off combined with the general lack of brain function after being awake for nearly 20 hours kept me from enjoying this film as much as I'm sure I would have under other circumstances.  From what I could tell, it's a pretty corny horror comedy and it was interesting enough to make me want to circle back and give it a second watch, but that's about all I can say about it at the moment.



The third day of Zombiefest XI was dedicated to Italian zombie films.  It kicked off at The Gap Theatre in Wind Gap on Saturday afternoon with my favorite Italian horror movie of all time, followed by an Italian horror from the 60's that I've never seen before.
 

The first movie on Saturday was the 1985 Lamberto Bava classic, Demons.  I saw this for the first time six years ago during the original 24 hour marathon of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and instantly fell in love with it.  It's one of those horror movies that starts off wild and just keeps topping itself every ten minutes.  Just when you think that this movie cannot possibly get any crazier, there's a moment that no one seeing this movie for the first time would ever expect.  I'm deliberately saying as little about this movie as possible because if you haven't seen it before, the absolute best way to see it is to go in completely cold.  Don't look up the trailer.  Don't read any of the reviews.  Don't even read the description on the DVD box or the streaming service.  Speaking of which, this movie is available to stream on a wide variety of services, including Tubi.  Click the link, press play, and sit back and enjoy the wildest ride you'll ever take in a zombie film.
 

Next up was the 1965 Italian classic Terror Creatures From The Grave.  I had never seen or heard of this movie before, and I'm very glad that I went into the theater knowing nothing at all about this movie other than the title.

There are few experiences as satisfying to me as seeing a classic film on the big screen with absolutely no prior knowledge about what I'm about to see.  There's no opinions from friends, family, or critics to pollute the waters.  There's no expectations based on knowing who directed it and who appears in the film.  There's just you and the story being told on the screen.  It is without question my favorite way to see a movie.  If you haven't seen it before and you want to go into the experience the same way that I did, stop reading this and click here to stream it for free on Tubi.

This movie is the story of an attorney who was summoned to appear at an estate that was built on grounds where people who deliberately spread the black plague were put to death.  When he arrives, he learned that the person who summoned him had died a year before the letter that he received was sent.  The story plays out like a gothic horror blended with a detective story, and although it has several moments of unintentional comedy, it was an excellent film that held my attention from start to finish.



The Italian zombie films continued at the Mahoning when the sun went down with three movies that I got to see for the first time.
 

The third movie of the day, and the first at the Mahoning, was the 1980 film Nightmare City, which was released in the United States in 1983 under the title City Of The Walking Dead.

This film begins with a television reporter named Dean Miller going to the airport to interview Professor Hagenback (which I initially misheard as Professor Häagen-Dazs) about a radioactive waste spill at a nuclear power plant.  An unmarked plane unexpectedly arrives and lands at the airport while he's waiting for the professor.  This instantly becomes a security concern prompting the authorities to circle the plane after it has landed and demand those on board to come out.  The reporter and his cameraman quickly follow in the hopes to catch this breaking development.  The first person out of the plane is Professor Hagenback, but he and the other occupants of the aircraft have turned into psychotic irradiated mutants who are impervious to bullets (except for a shot in the head) and who attack, kill, and drink the blood of whoever they set their sights on.  Unlike most zombie films, these are not dumb creatures who stumble around mindlessly.  They can run, jump, climb, open doors, use weapons, plan their attacks, and basically do anything that they could have done before they were transformed into these creatures.  However, like most other zombie films, the victims of these creatures soon come back to life and join the horde as they take over the city.

This movie was a hell of a lot of fun, culminating in a scene in which our hero climbs up the steep incline of a roller coaster at a closed amusement part while tossing grenades down at the zombies below.  However, the ending of the film had myself and everyone within earshot groaning as loud as the zombie mutants in the film.  You can rent it on YouTube for 99 cents, and if you want to have a zombie film marathon with things that you may not have seen before, this would be a good addition to the night.
 

Burial Ground was the next movie to hit the screen.  I had never seen or heard of it before, but this was the movie out of the Zombiefest XI lineup that my friends on the lot who had seen it had me hyped up for.  I was told that there's a scene towards the end of the film that I'll never forget and... man... they weren't lying.  This may have been the most creepy depiction between a mother and son on film that I've ever seen.  I don't want to say too much more, but if you enjoy highly disturbing horror films, you can see this one for free on Tubi.
 

The final movie of Saturday night was the only one shown that day that wasn't Italian; the 1981 horror flick Night Of The Zombies.  This is the story of an American chemical warfare battalion who were missing in action in the Bavarian Alps during the Second World War.  Soldiers are sent by the CIA to investigate reports that these soldiers have been turned into flesh-eating zombies by a top secret nerve agent that was intended to keep wounded soldiers alive long enough to be brought to a medic for treatment.

This was my least favorite movie of the weekend.  There are exceptions to this, but I'm not generally a fan of military and war movies.  I found myself annoyed that it felt like it was going on forever even though it was only 90 minutes long.  It's possible that I was just getting tired and would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't the last movie of the night.



The final night of Zombiefest XI began with two more of my favorite zombie films from the 80's, followed by the third chapter of the Re-Animator series which I've never seen before last night.


The final night of Zombiefest XI kicked off with writer/director Fred Dekker's love letter to the horror genre, the 1986 cult classic Night Of The Creeps.  It starts off looking like it's going to be a science fiction movie before spending the next ten minutes convincing the audience that it's going to be a slasher, after which it finally becomes an insect horror and zombie film mashup.

This is one of the greatest horror movies from the 80's.  I saw it for the first time when I was an adult, which is a shame because I would have gone bananas for this when I was a kid.  It's not included in any streaming subscription services that I'm aware of, but it's more than worth the $3.99 rental fee to watch it on Amazon Prime.  It will thrill you.
 

The second movie of Sunday night was Return Of The Living Dead: Part Two.  I've gotten to see the Part One twice at the Mahoning (once in 2023 and again on Friday night), and I saw Part Three at Zombiefest VIII in 2022, so I've now gotten to see the first three Return Of The Living Dead films on 35mm on the big screen.

This is my least favorite of the first three Return Of The Living Dead films, but I don't at all mean that I don't enjoy it.  Part Two is a lot of fun and a worthy chapter in the series, and I'm glad that I got to see it at the Mahoning.  Maybe next year they'll show all three of them as a triple feature.


The final film of Zombiefest XI, and the most recently released movie of the weekend, was the Brian Yuzna film Beyond Re-Animator.  Seeing this on the big screen projected from 35mm was a rare treat.  The movie premiered on The Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 and received a very limited theatrical release.

I had never seen this final chapter in the Re-Animator series before, and I was cautioned by some of my friends on the lot who had seen it to not get my hopes up.  I'll agree that it's not as good as the first Re-Animator movie.  Few "part three" movies are as good as the original, but I don't think it was bad at all.

According to Untold Horror, Brian Yuzna has originally planned to continue the Re-Animator series with a follow-up movie in which President George W Bush (played by William H Macy) dies in office and is brought back to life by Herbert West.  That sounds like it would have been one hell of a movie!


That's a wrap on Zombiefest XI.  I need a nap.


The next few weekend at the Mahoning are stacked.  This coming Friday and Saturday is dedicated to the films of Keanu Reeves with a single feature of the 1981 film Thief on Sunday.  The following weekend is the second annual Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan event on Friday and Saturday, with a Sunday night screening of The Phantom Of The Opera with an organist set up under the screen to perform the score along with the screening of the movie.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)