Decker Shado

I'm going to talk about the movie now. I'm definitely not going to sidetrack to yell and scream about YouTube's uploading having quite the streak of failures resulting in the lateness of this particular video. No, no no. Besides, I'm sure many would assume I'm just making excuses for being lazy. ANYWAY! Rocky II follows the original, where Rocky must get in the SECOND biggest fight of his life.. this time, with Apollo Creed! Again! But bigger, because now they're even more pissed off.

Well, this has been on the to-do list for a while. Considering the recent television series, now seems as good a time as any to finally get around to reviewing The Evil Dead. Though, there's not all that much to say really. It's an extremely simple film with a very low budget from then independent filmmaker Sam Raimi. Then again, it took the home video market by storm upon release, so perhaps there is more to it than it seems?

Diving back into the kaiju genre, and slightly breaking up my Evil Dead reviews, we have for examination this week Godzilla vs DESTOROYAH! The final movie in the Heisei series of Godzilla films, Godzilla vs DESTOROYAH pits the monster against a creature birthed from the only substance to ever kill Godzilla... the oxygen destroyer!

While The Evil Dead managed to charm audiences with it's simple yet entertaining production, Evil Dead 2 was Raimi's shot at showing what he could do with some real money. As in, what he could do that people might watch. A lot of the points of the first movie are gone over again, but this time the direction is more in line with horror comedy. Or perhaps at times, even just straight up action with gore. In any case, for being a sequel that goes over a lot of the same points and scenes as the first it couldn't be more different in feel.

As YouTube has screwed with not only Channel Awesome, but many bigger channels very recently, there is a lot of people speaking up about how bad the system is. Unfortunately, I haven't heard too many musing on the topic of potential solutions. I hope to change that.

After Rocky Again: Extra Victory Edition, Rocky III had a somewhat more varied story to tell. At this point in his life, Balboa isn't scraping at the bottom struggling to get by and needing to fight just for a chance. He had his chance, won, and is kicking ass at life. Unfortunately, Mr T has come to star as Clubber Lang and kick his life's ass.

I have been doing a lot of thinking on the topic of creator rights, and a creator's bill of rights. While having the finished bill to present would be impressive, I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about how to word thing to even pretend I could get that right. (innocent until proven guilty is a problem, herp derp) However, perhaps even more important than figuring out how to word such a proposal properly is being able to present it with a reasonable chance that it might actually work. That part, I think is where a lot of people might lose their enthusiasm. However, I believe it is well within the realm of possibility. So early on, it's not easy to tell how everything will pan out but the opportunity is definitely there. It all depends on if we do what we need to pull this off.

You really can't talk about Evil Dead without someone bringing up Army of Darkness. That makes sense, as it is part of the series but it was named so differently to differentiate itself from the previous entries. Though I suppose it could have got away with calling itself "The Evil Deadites" and it would have been just as different. Ash goes back in time to fight the evil dead, and try to get back to his own time... and Sam Raimi is still directing, so Bruce Campbell is in for some sh!t.

One of the biggest summer movies of the 90s, Independence Day (ID4) managed to wow audiences with honestly old-fashioned special effects done extremely well. There is CGI in the movie, but it's used very sparingly. Shields and stuff, all the ships are actually miniature models. Seriously.

The recent upset over YouTube's policies regarding creators being presumed guilty until proven innocent hasn't died down, which is good. However, I am worried that by focusing specifically on spreading public outrage, the best change we can hope for would only be a temporary solution that would not serve to fix the underlying problems. I don't seek to control the conversation, but I hope to at least be able to discuss my point of view with a few of the bigger voices out there to express my concerns.

The last movie of the Evil Dead franchise as of this review, is the first movie of the Evil Dead timeline, re-imagined for a new era! That era consisting of people who have no idea what The Evil Dead is, and bounce between being terrified of creepy girls in the woods and math problems. It's certainly a unique take on the tale, but.. holy sh!t indeed.

I was hoping to have a bigger, better video up today but life being what it is, things have gotten in the way. As such this video was actually recorded a few weeks ago, but I didn't get it up until now because life being what it is, things got in the way. Oh well, the point is there's a few updates that aren't mentioned in the video. The little girl has gone to her new home now. Her name is Tinkerbell, and the woman who received her on Valentine's day is in love with the fuzzy thing. Two-Tone will be going to his new home soon, and has also earned the nickname Edmund around here for his skill at climbing up my jeans and shirt in pursuit of a ham sandwich. Orange Boy is staying with us, and as such as a more proper name. He is now known as "Koban" after the fact that the kittens' mother had the colors and pattern commonly associated with the Japanese fortune cat. Said cat is depicted with a coin, "Koban" is Japanese for coin, the little orange cat was her coin.. you get the idea. Also, Koban is by far the biggest cat of the bunch. By the size of his paws, he's got a way to go too...

For years, Science Fiction has depicted the future as bright and wise. Or horribly dark, yet still overall smart. Very rarely do you find stories that explore the idea of people getting dumber as time goes on, and in Idiocracy we see what such a concept looks like when explored by the creator of Beavis and Butthead, Mike Judge. Also, creator of King of the Hill... on the DVD it just says creator of Office Space as that was his latest big movie at the time. Unfortunately Fox didn't seem to think he knew what he was doing, and trusted the test audience's negative reactions to the film too much releasing it late with very little fanfare. On the plus side, that does explain why the movie is set in 2005, then 2505, yet "came out" in 2006.

The Cold War is a pretty interesting point in history. Absolutely everyone was convinced that America and Russia would start bombing each other any moment, and while Russia was busy training it's youth how to maintain and operate heavy armor America prioritized duck and cover techniques. On the plus side, Hollywood never let up on casting Russia as the bad guy in the 80s, and there's just something nostalgic about the big bad Soviet Union coming to f#ck up some sh!t. Also, this is a Rocky movie. Yup.

While Fury Road tore through theaters as recently as 2015, the original Mad Max hearkens back all the way to 1979. It also was made for a measly budget of $300,000 which had more buying power in 79, but still very distinctly categorizes this film as low budget. That's no problem though, everyone knows it's legacy and everything, so it's gotta be good, right? ...right?

Released a mere 2 years after the original, Mad Max 2 completely changed the image of the franchise and set the standard for sequels to come. It also obviously was a heavy influence in the Fallout franchise, thanks to the huge budget and market penetration it had. Quite a mark was left on the world with this movie.. but how does it stack up today?

The third installment of the Mad Max series, Beyond Thunderdome brings with it yet again sweeping changes to the setting. Not just that evidently the previous post apocalyptic place was perhaps not post apocalyptic enough, but in the new super post apocalyptic setting things are looking up. Society is rebuilding, there is law in the land, an oasis of green with fresh water exists.. and it's all done with a PG-13 rating. Oh boy...

The latest Mad Max movie upon us, Fury Road, finally came out in 2015. While there's plenty of things littering the internet already going over the politics and the character depictions and all that stuff... I.. personally am more interested in what the actual movie as about. Also, I feel kinda silly for buying the movie now and paying Warner Bros for the privilege, considering they just smacked this review with a claim while I was editing this text box and now I ain't even getting paid on this till the dispute is settled. Cause I really needed something else to rant about, eh? UPDATE: Actually got released in less than 24 hours. As I say, if I can b!tch and moan when things don't go my way, the least I can do is acknowledge when things go better for me than that.

The 5th, and for years final movie in the Rocky Franchise, Rocky V was the big send-off for the character. For that reason, the film sought to bring the character back to his roots, and finalize that he is never going to fight again. It does this in the most haphazard, cruel manners it really is quite remarkable.

Horror movies are usually targeted at a teen to early adult demographic. With this in mind, studios will often incorporate things that are seen as popular in that demographic, even if they have no idea what in the hell they are. In 2006, it was finally figured out the average "gamer" was indeed older than 12, and was in fact the late teens early 20s demographic. With this in mind, we got Stay Alive.. and... sweet holy f#ck. That's it, really. Sweet, holy f#ck.

This past week, the channel finally reached 25,000 subscribers. Okay, as of writing this paragraph it's at 25,261... but while I generally let the milestones pass without much fanfare outside of a tweet or facebook post, I felt like this was reason enough to turn the camera on. Koban on the other hand, thought it was a great excuse to climb me and purr constantly.

I missed the 4/20 special last year, so better make up for that! So let's have a look at the movie credited for creating the "Stoner Comedy" genre: Cheech & Chong's "Up in Smoke." It's the story of two comedians that got popular enough, they were able to toss a bunch of material together and call it a movie. What, you want the plot of the movie? Don't look at me...

It's a B movie, about wasps! ..close enough. Stung is your basic monster movie, where a specific series of events unleashes upon the world monsters! Monsters that happen to just be normal everyday creatures, but giant in size! It also unsurprisingly is a low budget film not made in Hollywood, but Germany.

Very sorry, but my hard drive has crashed. My episodes and work are fine, but the os is toast as well as my ability to edit or ruin all those lovely programs I've got tied to this motherboard. I don't have an estimate for how long this will be, but I'll try to fix it asap.

I'm down, but I'm not out! Thanks to Nekotwins, I was able to finish this review on her computer. This review being Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final movie in the "Rocky" franchise. Oh, I'm aware of Creed, but technically that's a "Spin-off series." Nevertheless, Rocky Balboa sought to do what Rocky V failed to. That being, bring Rocky's story to a close in a way that actually feels like a Rocky movie. Geez, how many times did I say Rocky in that paragraph?

Recently I was asked what my favorite remake was on Twitter. I never answered this question, but it got me thinking about some of the better examples out there of studios taking a pre-existing story and recreating it for a new era of cinema. To that end, I present to you David Cronenberg's "The Fly." A remake of a classic science gone wrong story from the 50s, The Fly spices things up for the 80s with genetics and amazing effects. How well does it represent the source material though, and more importantly does that matter?

As the 1986 film was so successful, plus the original had multiple sequels anyway, it shouldn't surprise anyone that a sequel was thrown together for the new imagining. However, "thrown together" may be a little more apt than one would like, considering how up in the air so much of the story was during pre production and the fact that despite being a direct chronological sequel the two films could hardly be any more different.

The biggest badassed badass is back! But before being back, dat boi was back again. The second shot America had at making a Godzilla movie that wasn't just a re-edit of a real Godzilla movie, "Godzilla" which we always just call Godzilla 2014 was produced by Legendary Pictures in.. well.. 2014. People were concerned obviously, after Tristar's Godzilla in 1998 almost destroyed the Kaiju's reputation in the states completely. However, the two movies are vastly different from one another... not to say that people didn't still find things to complain about.

Many things made last month really hard, and I knew this review would be cutting it close from the start. However, it turns out the internet around here is now so shitty, there's no way the thing will be uploaded on time. Hell, I don't even know if it will finish by tomorrow.

Rocky Balboa was supposed to be "The Last Rocky Movie." Then again, so was Rocky V, Rocky II and Rocky, so screw it let's make another. Except it's not another Rocky movie, no no no this is a new series entirely, Creed, starring Michael B Jordan as the son of the deceased former heavyweight champion of the world. Of course this means no one thinks he has what it takes, but a big name might just hand pick him for a match everyone is sure he will lose but it's a chance to prove to the world he has a true fighter's spirit! ...wait, where have I heard this before?

While the events leading up to Death Race 2000 didn't quite go according to the initial prediction, that didn't stop Paul W.S. Anderson from taking the IP and revamping it for the 2000s! This gives us Death Race! Not 2000, nor the release year 2008, nor the year it's set in.. which it's not very clear about, but would have to be at least 2013 if not later. Except it's a prequel to Death Race 2000. Fuck it, blame Paul, he said it.

Took me long enough, eh? Dawn of the Planet of the Apes follows the newest reboot of the Planet of the Apes series, started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Sure, Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes only had one movie to the series, but it still counts as a separate reboot. Either way, Dawn follows a story similar to what we saw in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, which is interesting.. if they keep going this way, the next movie'll take place 2000 years in the future. I mean, I doubt that's what'll happen but I can dream.

Nothing says summer like summer camp! And nothing says summer camp like camp counselors being horribly murdered one after the other. Nothing says that quite like Friday the 13th, and nothing says Friday the 13th like... um... I think this description has run it's course.

20 years after one of the biggest sci-fi summer blockbusters ever made, we have finally been graced with a sequel. Of course considering the massive shadow cast by the predecessor (both figuratively and literally) is there any hope that the new film can even attain that level of awesome, even with all those new fangled CGI effects?

The Summer of Freddy vs Jason won't work without Freddy, obviously.. so let's jump right into A Nightmare on Elm Street and introduce the guy! Freddy Kruger is notable as while he had a mundane origin similar to Jason before going supernatural, our introduction to the guy is very much post supernatural transformation. He's a snarky serial killer who torments children in their dreams, toying with them while performing vertical unanesthetized street surgery. Of course like Jason, it took a couple movies to really hammer him down...

While the original Friday the 13th was a barely-released low budget flick with a definitively conclusive ending, that can't stop the hollywood sequel machine from kicking into high gear in record time! Introducing Jason as the killer, this particular entry in the series isn't actually seen as a high point despite paving the way for the iconic villain. Mainly because they way they did it was incredibly stupid, even for horror movie standards.

Damn, these titles are getting long... The point is, the summer special continues with A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge! This time we follow the misadventures of Jessie Walsh, a kid who recently moved to Elm Street and into the former home of Nancy Thompson! Bombarded with nightmares about Freddy Kruger, this doesn't kill him but everyone around him. Seems all the rules changed in between movies..

After proving the story didn't have to make complete sense as long as the movie was entertaining, the idea of a 3rd Friday the 13th movie wasn't out of the question. However, it needed something special to make it worth filming... so it was made in 3D! That's all. There wasn't much else they thought up before filming started, so prepare to have your eyes gouged out.

After New Line Cinema ensured they would be solvent for some time with A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, they did actually take the time to make the third installment more than just a simple cash grab. For one thing, they spent a couple years working on it, and more importantly got Wes Craven back on as writer and producer. The result? Something that cranked the concept up to 11.

When you used up your best idea to extend the franchise two movies ago and need something to grab people's attention it's time to threaten the world with ending a series! Be it by saying the main character might die, or by simply doing what Paramount did and claiming the series would be ending while at the same time continuing to plan for sequels.

Dream Warriors brought Wes Craven back to the series and showed that A Nightmare on Elm Street could be awesome even well into sequel land. The Dream Master though, was made in one year and without the help of Wes Craven. Oh well, it still follows the story where Dream Warriors left off and has many things within it worth praising.. though that's not to say it's a flawless production.

Much like the Halloween franchise tried to shake things up by stepping away from Michael Meyers, Friday the 13th took on a new direction in part 5 when the filmmakers opted to take the series past the increasingly ridiculous Jason Voorhees plot. While this didn't last any longer than this one movie, it still makes for a unique entry in the series worthy of critique.

As the sequels went on, the areas Freddy could influence only increased. With that, The Dream Child focused on his ability to take over the unborn and influence them for his nefarious plots of teen murder! It also was made fast enough to come out less than a year after the previous one, sooo...

Sick of Tommy stealing Jason's thunder? Well too bad, he's still in this one. The good new is said thunder has brought Jason back from the dead, to wreak havoc on teenagers, camp counselors, police officers and pretty much anyone else milling about his woods without adequate plot armor.

After 5 movies of varying quality, it seems New Line Cinema felt it was time to put the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series to rest. Or they got filled up with a bunch of people who just didn't like the series, as the only movie this entry has any connection to is the first. Like, a little bit.

The Friday the 13th series just keeps on going, but when your series goes on this long weird things start happening. An undead superhuman killer slowly transforms to be more undead and more superhuman over time, while the filmmakers try to figure out new ways to spin the formula. So we have Jason battling another supernatural person! No, no not that one.

Wes Craven was brought in by New Line Cinema to revitalize the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. After looking over the series so far, he concluded it was ridiculous, impossible to follow and Freddy wasn't scary anymore. Thus, he fleshed out the idea he had originally intended for the 3rd Nightmare on Elm Street movie, setting the film in the real world with movie-to-reality plot threads and a redesigned Freddy. As a kid, I found it ridiculous and impossible to follow. Now, however...

The last Friday the 13th movie to be made under Paramount, and coincidentally the last one to be made with the words "Friday the 13th" in the title, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is a cheerful tale of two teens in love being pursued by a deranged psychopath. But if you take Jason Voorhees away, they just spend some time in New York! While there, they get mugged, kidnapped, yelled at, and... hm.. you know, even without Jason, New York isn't looking too friendly here.

After Jason Takes Manhattan was a box office embarrassment for Paramount, it was decided they should sell off the Friday the 13th franchise to whoever is willing to pay. Turns out New Line Cinema was first in line to pick it up, and the best way they could think to show the world how much they respected the franchise was to kill Jason off immediately. Brilliant.

While Freddy vs Jason was in a hurry getting delayed severely at New Line Cinema, they decided to keep the franchise relevant by throwing a new entry together in a hurry. Not wanting to mess with the timeline, they set it way in the future. They still screw up the timeline pretty bad regardless, even within the movie's events, but that's not what most people shake their heads at here. Seriously, it's Jason in space. Spaceon.

Before we jump into Freddy vs Jason, it might be a good idea to take on the remakes. Yes, that means reviewing the movies even more out of order than before.. but it's either that or building up to a finale on The Summer of Freddy Versus Jason that isn't Freddy vs Jason. That confuses me.

Before remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, New Line Cinema actually got a remake of Friday the 13th sent to theaters. This is more impressive, when you consider they actually needed the permission of Paramount to pull this off, due to some remaining red tape. Also, I forget to mention it in the review but Jason Voorhees is played by Derek Mears, and he's not bad.

The grand finale of THE SUMMER OF FREDDY VS JASON is finally here, and yes it's still technically Summer. Trust me on this one. The point is, after so many false starts Freddy vs Jason finally became a thing in 2003. It's a movie about Freddy Kruger fighting Jason Voorhees, who'da thought? Problem is, there's those dang teenagers getting in the way...

What better way to ease into reviews that aren't Freddy or Jason movies than to look at a film that's a homage to the slasher legends of the 80s? To that end, this week's review is Hatchet, a story about a deformed killer in the swamps named Victor Crowly and the incredibly stupid teenagers that "fight back" in ways that look like they don't wanna hurt him too badly.

A movie I first learned about while researching Alien Resurrection and reading Joss Whedon say "I never wrote anything in the script about them fighting a big Pumpkinhead looking monster." - Pumpkinhead is the directorial debut of Stan Winston, and indeed the Newborn Xenomorph bears a striking resemblance to the titular monster, Pumpkinhead. With the tail and the curve of Pumpkinhead's chin, it could be surmised it's design was partially inspired by the Xeno, but that's neither here nor there. It's a movie about teens dying! AMAZING!

Got a head cold a few days ago, and it's been getting in the way of work... I'm working on getting the review ready asap, but in the meantime here's a little update on things going on. Here's hoping I can get everything back on schedule soon.

The long awaited review (cause I'm really late this week) of Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings is here! I hope you weren't hoping for a masterpiece of a movie to follow up the impressive but flawed initial entry... oh dear god will this week be disappointing if you did.

Things haven't exactly gone any smoother, but I took the opportunity to sit down and read the comments on the last "oh crap not ready" video. Then I ran into trouble cause there's an absolute ton of them, plus me saying I was sick resulted in most of them being "get well soon." Live and learn?

How do you follow up a theatrical cult hit and a straight to video.. uh.. thing? Well, why not get SyFy to slap together some made for TV tripe, and pump out today's picture: Pumpkinhead Ashes to Ashes. On the one hand, it actually acknowledges the events of the first movie and has a couple good actors in it. On the other, it's somehow less coherent than the second and more disrespectful to the source material.

There are quite a few similarities between Pumpkinhead 3 and 4. For starters, the Pumpkinhead suit is the same one between the two movies, and they were both made for TV movies for SyFy. Other than that though, the stories manage to be pretty different from one another... except for recurring characters and constantly dragging Lance back on the set no matter what problems it causes with the series continuity, but nevermind that.

The king-daddy of science fiction media today.. sort of like Fallout 4 is the lord of post-apocalyptic RPGs, Star Wars needs no introduction. Thus, I'll just use this blurb to point out that until the early 80s, the film was just called "Star Wars" as "Episode IV: A New Hope" wasn't tacked onto it just yet. That was but the first of the mountain of modifications the movie took on over the years.

While the Judge Dredd movie from 1995 may have gone down in movie history as one of the most spectacular bombs of the last few decades, the source material was rich enough and the fans loud enough that another movie based on the universe was made.. Dredd. They aimed to stick a lot closer to the source material this time around, but there was a problem with this plan. Namely, the studios weren't willing to blow nearly as high a budget on another movie based on the Judge Dredd comics, so fantastical technology, hovercraft and robots went right out the window, as well as most of the other fantastic designs.

The reboot of Death Race did so good, where do you go from there? Well if you like money you make a sequel! Except Jensen Ames is free and Jason Statham is expensive.. so you make a prequel, without said character! Just get another grizzled bald guy, no one'll tell the difference.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all! For those from outside the US of A, here's a primer on what Thanksgiving is all about. Eating, while cosplaying as settlers and natives. With that in mind, we're taking a look at ThanksKilling - a slightly different take where one also cosplays as the food, and kills the people instead! A movie that might have been made for less money than your gaming PC.

A Twitter poll has been created to figure this out.. but what will come of it?

The latest in the Death Race franchise, Death Race 3: Inferno mixes up the series that already mixed things up severely compared to the original. Some of these new additions make it similar to Death Race 2000, other "new features" make it similar to Death Race 2. I'm wondering what these people thought the definition of "new" was...

In keeping with the theme of 1 Star Wars review a month until I can make it through the whole series... it's time for the one that I must admit, several of you saw coming. The made for TV special that has a cult following in much the same way that Manos: Hands of Fate has a cult following... Like hairy family members? Constant screaming? Random disjointed whatever? Well... this special may still make you reassess you life decisions.

Although Dinocember 2016 is... not a thing, that doesn't mean dinosaurs in December is a no go! Therefore, today's review is KILLER\SAURUS! A happy tale about a small group of people who have high aspirations, but lack skill in the areas their occupation requires.. so they make a movie about bringing dinosaurs back from extinction.

Way before R rated horror movies started self-censoring to achieve a PG-13 rating and attain a wider audience, the PG-13 rating didn't exist. Still, there were horror movies made with the intention of pushing the PG rating as far as it could go.. and to that end, we have Gremlins. A Spielberg production directed by Joe Dante, Gremlins is about cute and fuzzy little balls of death, pain and terror. Wholesome family entertainment!

It's new year's, horror, science fiction, and even fits into Dinocember! What could go wrong? Well... there's that whole found footage problem, that's about as much of an issue as dating someone with a cannibalism problem.