We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
An '80s slasher, '90s action, and a protective dog.
BODYCOUNT (1986)
Ruggero Deodato was the director of Cannibal Holocaust, a film with death scenes so disturbing and disgusting that he had to present his cast members to a court to prove that he didn't actually kill people in the making of that movie. Six years later, Deodato cashed in on the '80s slasher craze by taking the helm of BodyCount - which didn't make anyone believe it was really a snuff film and quickly faded into obscurity, but it is entertaining to watch thirty-plus years down the line.
One of the many backwoods slashers to follow in the wake of Friday the 13th, BodyCount is set at a campground that was built at the site of a Native American burial ground and is said to be haunted by the spirits of those who were buried there. Fifteen years ago, a teenage couple was brutally murdered by a knife-wielding maniac, their deaths witnessed by the young son of the campground owners. Now that kid is returning to the campground after serving in the military, and a bunch of young vacationers who are out to party arrive at the camp the same day. Soon enough that maniac is knocking off the campers one-by-one - and to play up the exploitation elements, Deodato makes sure nearly every female character gets naked at some point before she's removed from the film. But it's not all female flesh on display in here, as there's also a quick shot of full frontal male nudity.
As pointed out by blog contributor Priscilla when we watched the movie together, the biggest issue with BodyCount is that there are so many camper characters who have barely any personality, so they're basically interchangeable. Although they have scenes to play, when they're getting killed you might not know who most of these characters are. Five person are said to have worked on the script; Alex Capone, Luca D'Alisera, Sheila Goldberg, Tommaso Mottola, and Dardano Sacchetti; but I get the feeling that they weren't working very close with each other. The film is very scatterbrained and so nonsensical that it sometimes doesn't make much sense. The character work is mostly reserved for scenes involving the love triangle between grumpy campground owner Robert (David Hess of The Last House on the Left), his wife Julia (Mimsy Farmer), and the local sheriff (Charles Napier).
I really didn't care whether or not the story made sense, and I certainly didn't care about any of the characters, but I didn't mind. I put BodyCount on to watch people get knocked off by a slasher, and the film provided some good moments of slashing, with intense moments accompanied by cool score tracks composed by Claudio Simonetti of the band Goblin.
An '80s slasher, '90s action, and a protective dog.
BODYCOUNT (1986)
Ruggero Deodato was the director of Cannibal Holocaust, a film with death scenes so disturbing and disgusting that he had to present his cast members to a court to prove that he didn't actually kill people in the making of that movie. Six years later, Deodato cashed in on the '80s slasher craze by taking the helm of BodyCount - which didn't make anyone believe it was really a snuff film and quickly faded into obscurity, but it is entertaining to watch thirty-plus years down the line.
One of the many backwoods slashers to follow in the wake of Friday the 13th, BodyCount is set at a campground that was built at the site of a Native American burial ground and is said to be haunted by the spirits of those who were buried there. Fifteen years ago, a teenage couple was brutally murdered by a knife-wielding maniac, their deaths witnessed by the young son of the campground owners. Now that kid is returning to the campground after serving in the military, and a bunch of young vacationers who are out to party arrive at the camp the same day. Soon enough that maniac is knocking off the campers one-by-one - and to play up the exploitation elements, Deodato makes sure nearly every female character gets naked at some point before she's removed from the film. But it's not all female flesh on display in here, as there's also a quick shot of full frontal male nudity.
As pointed out by blog contributor Priscilla when we watched the movie together, the biggest issue with BodyCount is that there are so many camper characters who have barely any personality, so they're basically interchangeable. Although they have scenes to play, when they're getting killed you might not know who most of these characters are. Five person are said to have worked on the script; Alex Capone, Luca D'Alisera, Sheila Goldberg, Tommaso Mottola, and Dardano Sacchetti; but I get the feeling that they weren't working very close with each other. The film is very scatterbrained and so nonsensical that it sometimes doesn't make much sense. The character work is mostly reserved for scenes involving the love triangle between grumpy campground owner Robert (David Hess of The Last House on the Left), his wife Julia (Mimsy Farmer), and the local sheriff (Charles Napier).
I really didn't care whether or not the story made sense, and I certainly didn't care about any of the characters, but I didn't mind. I put BodyCount on to watch people get knocked off by a slasher, and the film provided some good moments of slashing, with intense moments accompanied by cool score tracks composed by Claudio Simonetti of the band Goblin.
BLACK DOG (1998)
I come from a family of truck drivers, so I have a soft spot for movies that deal with truck driving, whether it be the bootlegging comedy Smokey and the Bandit or the arm wrestling drama Over the Top. So the 1998 action flick Black Dog should have been right up my alley, since it's about a man trying to haul a load of illegal items from Georgia to New Jersey and keeping the pedal to the metal while several attempts are made to hijack his vehicle. But in '98 this sort of medium-budgeted action movie wasn't what I was looking for, so I wrote it off. Now I have a much greater appreciation for old school action, so I found Black Dog's 89 minutes to be a lot of fun to sit through.
Directed by Kevin Hooks (Passenger 57) from a screenplay by William Mickelberry and Dan Vining, the movie gets its title from a trucking legend I had never heard of before, so if it really exists it wasn't popular enough for my father or grandfather to ever tell me about it. According to the film, truckers who have been on the road too long, pushing too hard, getting greedy, will see a vision of a black dog that "comes to take everything away from you". I don't know about all that, but when the legend of the black dog is brought up during a conversation in the movie, one of the characters says, "You mean like the Led Zeppelin song?" And since Led Zeppelin is the first thing that comes to my mind when I see the title Black Dog, I'm glad the filmmakers acknowledged that.
Patrick Swayze plays Jack Crews, a trucker who is trying to get his life back on track and fix his family's financial situation after serving two years for vehicular manslaughter due to a crash that occurred when he saw a vision of the black dog. A man named Cutler (Graham Beckel) hires him to haul a load of mysterious items from a place in Georgia that's run by a man called Red (Meat Loaf) back to his home state of New Jersey, and the Crews family is in such a bind that Jack accepts the job, no questions asked. With aspiring singer/songwriter Earl (Randy Travis) in the passenger seat and Sonny (Gabriel Casseus) and Wes (Brian Vincent) riding in a car behind his truck, Jack hits the road.
From that point on, Hooks throws a new high speed action sequence at the audience every few minutes, as Jack has to fend off attacks on his rig and the FBI - represented by characters played by Charles S. Dutton, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Lorraine Toussaint - keep track of the truck's every move, waiting for the perfect time to make a bust.
Black Dog is simple, it's short, it has some cool stunts and plenty of vehicles getting smashed up and exploding. It's a good time.
I come from a family of truck drivers, so I have a soft spot for movies that deal with truck driving, whether it be the bootlegging comedy Smokey and the Bandit or the arm wrestling drama Over the Top. So the 1998 action flick Black Dog should have been right up my alley, since it's about a man trying to haul a load of illegal items from Georgia to New Jersey and keeping the pedal to the metal while several attempts are made to hijack his vehicle. But in '98 this sort of medium-budgeted action movie wasn't what I was looking for, so I wrote it off. Now I have a much greater appreciation for old school action, so I found Black Dog's 89 minutes to be a lot of fun to sit through.
Directed by Kevin Hooks (Passenger 57) from a screenplay by William Mickelberry and Dan Vining, the movie gets its title from a trucking legend I had never heard of before, so if it really exists it wasn't popular enough for my father or grandfather to ever tell me about it. According to the film, truckers who have been on the road too long, pushing too hard, getting greedy, will see a vision of a black dog that "comes to take everything away from you". I don't know about all that, but when the legend of the black dog is brought up during a conversation in the movie, one of the characters says, "You mean like the Led Zeppelin song?" And since Led Zeppelin is the first thing that comes to my mind when I see the title Black Dog, I'm glad the filmmakers acknowledged that.
Patrick Swayze plays Jack Crews, a trucker who is trying to get his life back on track and fix his family's financial situation after serving two years for vehicular manslaughter due to a crash that occurred when he saw a vision of the black dog. A man named Cutler (Graham Beckel) hires him to haul a load of mysterious items from a place in Georgia that's run by a man called Red (Meat Loaf) back to his home state of New Jersey, and the Crews family is in such a bind that Jack accepts the job, no questions asked. With aspiring singer/songwriter Earl (Randy Travis) in the passenger seat and Sonny (Gabriel Casseus) and Wes (Brian Vincent) riding in a car behind his truck, Jack hits the road.
From that point on, Hooks throws a new high speed action sequence at the audience every few minutes, as Jack has to fend off attacks on his rig and the FBI - represented by characters played by Charles S. Dutton, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Lorraine Toussaint - keep track of the truck's every move, waiting for the perfect time to make a bust.
Black Dog is simple, it's short, it has some cool stunts and plenty of vehicles getting smashed up and exploding. It's a good time.
INTO THE DARK: GOOD BOY (2020)
The Hulu / Blumhouse anthology series Into the Dark has had its ups and downs over the course of its two seasons, but that is to be expected with any anthology, and I have enjoyed the majority of the feature films that make up this holiday-or-notable-date themed show. With the June entry Good Boy, director Tyler MacIntyre may have delivered my new favorite Into the Dark movie. Watching this with a beloved animal by your side would be a great way to celebrate Pet Appreciation Week.
Good Boy stars Judy Greer, who too often in her career has been relegated to playing the side character who is just there to provide support while others get all the good moments. Here she's at the center of nearly every scene, playing a character that writers Aaron and Will Eisenberg crafted specifically for her. That character is Maggie, a 39-year-old woman whose biological clock is ticking very loudly, and she's considering getting some of her eggs frozen because it doesn't look like she's going to be able to have children any time soon. She's not having any luck in the dating world, her job is in danger because the newspaper she writes for is going digital, and her nagging landlord (Maria Conchita Alonso) keeps finding ways to get more money out of her. Lonely and stressed, Maggie decides to get an emotional support animal and rescues an adorable little dog from a shelter.
Maggie names the dog Reuben after he snatches her Reuben sandwich off a countertop that should have been too high for him to reach. Reuben is played by Chico, and I believe this dog deserves to be a new canine superstar, because I was delighted every moment he was on the screen.
Maggie and Reuben quickly develop a bond, and she soon realizes that dogs truly can sense a person's anxiety. Reuben is so sensitive to her anxiety that he starts killing everyone in her life who causes her stress, mauling them to death (off screen) with displays of strength that this little dog shouldn't be capable of, just like he shouldn't have been able to get onto that countertop. Reuben is clearly not your average dog, and Maggie is forced to clear up his bloody messes every time he knocks off another person who gave her grief. She really cleans up the crime scenes more than is necessary, because Reuben's victims are usually so chewed up that there's no way such a little dog would be suspected of being the killer.
Although this is a killer dog movie, viewers shouldn't go into it expecting something as intense as Cujo. Good Boy mixes the thrills with a heavy dose of humor; this is primarily a comedy, as evident from the casting of Steve Guttenberg as Maggie's drunk, marijuana mint popping, empathy feigning boss. Guttenberg is great in that role, though, and I found Good Boy to be legitimately amusing throughout.
Greer and Chico own the show, but MacIntyre and the Eisenbergs also gave them a solid supporting cast to work with. In addition to the actors mentioned above, there's Ellen Wong as a social media influencer Maggie used to babysit; McKinley Freeman as someone who could either be a serious love interest for Maggie or a serious problem for her, since he's a cop; and Elise Neal as Maggie's fertility doctor.
Good Boy is a fun and cute movie that also happens to have blood and guts splashing across the screen. Greer fans will find it refreshing that she was given so much to do for a change, and dog lovers will find Reuben adorable - even when he's scampering off to kill people. If you've been keeping up with the Into the Dark movies, you'll find this one stands out from the pack in terms of scope. Most of the entries in this series are set in confined locations, but Good Boy has scenes that take place in various locations around Los Angeles. It also features some really cool nods to previous entries, so watch out for those!
Good Boy stars Judy Greer, who too often in her career has been relegated to playing the side character who is just there to provide support while others get all the good moments. Here she's at the center of nearly every scene, playing a character that writers Aaron and Will Eisenberg crafted specifically for her. That character is Maggie, a 39-year-old woman whose biological clock is ticking very loudly, and she's considering getting some of her eggs frozen because it doesn't look like she's going to be able to have children any time soon. She's not having any luck in the dating world, her job is in danger because the newspaper she writes for is going digital, and her nagging landlord (Maria Conchita Alonso) keeps finding ways to get more money out of her. Lonely and stressed, Maggie decides to get an emotional support animal and rescues an adorable little dog from a shelter.
Maggie names the dog Reuben after he snatches her Reuben sandwich off a countertop that should have been too high for him to reach. Reuben is played by Chico, and I believe this dog deserves to be a new canine superstar, because I was delighted every moment he was on the screen.
Maggie and Reuben quickly develop a bond, and she soon realizes that dogs truly can sense a person's anxiety. Reuben is so sensitive to her anxiety that he starts killing everyone in her life who causes her stress, mauling them to death (off screen) with displays of strength that this little dog shouldn't be capable of, just like he shouldn't have been able to get onto that countertop. Reuben is clearly not your average dog, and Maggie is forced to clear up his bloody messes every time he knocks off another person who gave her grief. She really cleans up the crime scenes more than is necessary, because Reuben's victims are usually so chewed up that there's no way such a little dog would be suspected of being the killer.
Although this is a killer dog movie, viewers shouldn't go into it expecting something as intense as Cujo. Good Boy mixes the thrills with a heavy dose of humor; this is primarily a comedy, as evident from the casting of Steve Guttenberg as Maggie's drunk, marijuana mint popping, empathy feigning boss. Guttenberg is great in that role, though, and I found Good Boy to be legitimately amusing throughout.
Greer and Chico own the show, but MacIntyre and the Eisenbergs also gave them a solid supporting cast to work with. In addition to the actors mentioned above, there's Ellen Wong as a social media influencer Maggie used to babysit; McKinley Freeman as someone who could either be a serious love interest for Maggie or a serious problem for her, since he's a cop; and Elise Neal as Maggie's fertility doctor.
Good Boy is a fun and cute movie that also happens to have blood and guts splashing across the screen. Greer fans will find it refreshing that she was given so much to do for a change, and dog lovers will find Reuben adorable - even when he's scampering off to kill people. If you've been keeping up with the Into the Dark movies, you'll find this one stands out from the pack in terms of scope. Most of the entries in this series are set in confined locations, but Good Boy has scenes that take place in various locations around Los Angeles. It also features some really cool nods to previous entries, so watch out for those!
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