Willy's Wonderland

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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated 1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going to review every single movie I see.  I’m going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future).  You can always ask me why I gave the ratings for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under the ‘About Me’ section).

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Willy’s Wonderland                                                     OK/G

I was in when I heard it involved Nicolas Cage battling killer robots.  Well, I haven’t really cared about Nic since the Nineties, so the killer robots are what had me.  They are animatronic machines at the titular location in a backwoods town (one character referred to it that way, more specifically a backwoods inbred town), it being a place much like Chuck E. Cheese wherein birthday parties were held and there were games to play (I’m using past tense because the place has been closed to the public for a while and you’ll find out why).  Nic, who doesn’t speak once in the film, is tasked with cleaning the place overnight in exchange for his car being repaired since he didn’t have any cash on hand and this “backwoods” town conveniently doesn’t accept credit cards (nor has a working ATM).  I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what eventually happens since you know killer robots are involved.  Some local teens provide some fodder since Nic Cage’s character is obviously the protagonist and killing him off would mean the end of the movie.  It has a bit of an Eighties vibe (it doesn’t take place then since one character uses a cell phone), contains a good backstory (maybe not altogether fresh, but generally welcome in the horror world), and there’s an overall air of fun about it, but it is silly sometimes (yes, even for this concept) and the action occasionally happens a bit too swiftly.  Oh, and, sorry, but another horror movie already used “Free Bird” at the end of it in a much more effective way.  The pros ultimately outweighed the cons for me though and I may watch it again, just not anytime soon.  It may be a bit too early to determine if it will achieve cult status, but time (and fans, of course) is always what makes that decision anyhow.  4/15/2021

Bonus reviews:

Six-String Samurai                                                      OK/G

I knew not of this 1998 film until I recently saw an ad for it in the latest issue of Fangoria.  It is not a horror movie by any means despite being featured in that magazine.  I guess it became a bit of a “cult” movie, even though that label is arguably subjective.  It takes place in a Mad Max-type America that became that way since 1957.  The titular protagonist (yes, he carries a guitar and sword) is on his way to “Lost Vegas” in order to become the new Elvis (I, personally, think Jeffrey Falcon is better looking than “The King” here; I don’t know how he looks now).  A little boy follows him all the way and many battles ensue with other groups of people.  This film could’ve been a whole lot sillier than it was, and it is very dopey at times, but it still manages to be somewhat entertaining.  I wonder if Quentin Tarantino was inspired a bit by it in regards to Kill Bill considering this came out five years before Volume 1.  4/14/2021

The McPherson Tape                                                  OK/G

Found footage film from 1989 also known as UFO Abduction.  I’m surprised it’s not talked about in regards to found footage films, especially since it predated The Blair Witch Project by a decade, a film claimed to be responsible for jumpstarting the subgenre.  Yes, Cannibal Holocaust came out in 1980 and is said to have influenced Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s film, but it’s emphatically known more as a cannibal film over a found footage one.  This film takes place at night in 1983 during a birthday party at a house in the mountains before the men go to investigate strange lights that landed nearby.  Lo and behold, they come across a spaceship and aliens (they look like stereotypical ones you’d expect), so back to the house they run after being seen.  The film is suspenseful for a good deal and tense at times (it probably puts that aforementioned Witch movie to shame in regards to shaky cameras, at least in the beginning), and had I not seen an overabundance of found footage films, or at least have actually seen it in 1989, it might’ve ended up legendary (at least to me).  It’s not a great film, no, but it’s worth an hour of your time (roughly) and currently available on Shudder.  4/14/2021

Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

The Banishing  >>>EH

    (Shudder)

Cat People (1942)  >>>EH

The Curse of the Cat People  >>>EH/OK

The Last Shift (2020)  >>>OK/G

Lingering  >>>EH/OK

    (Shudder; In Korean with subtitles)

The Toll  >>>EH/OK

---Sean O.

4/16/2021