icyjones' movie mayhem: #36-#41

Firestarter (1984)

Another Stephen King adaptation starring a young Drew Barrymore who has the power of pyrokinesis
Really great fire effects at certain points. The ending is stellar.
Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen, and George C. Scott also star. Scott turns in a powerful performance. Very cold and calculated character, but you can still sense he cares for Charlie.
The father daughter dynamic is very real. Drew Barrymore does such a great job at such a young age.
Truly crazy how many King stories have been adapted into movies. This is one of the good ones though.

Alfred Hitchcock's famous film about nature turning on man.
The characterizations are very good and very well fleshed out. I even cared about lesser characters and their death is that much more effective.
Funny little additions in this one, like the lovebirds swaying with the fast driving of Ms. Daniels.
Some intense gore for the time.
Over all, I liked it. I won't be rewatching it a lot though because while certain scenes are creepy, when ever the Birds actually attacked, it always seemed hokey to me.

I always have an image in my mind of what these classic movies are like. They are usually really wrong. I figured a Mummy would be traipsing around killing people. Turns out, love story.
Boris Karloff is a badass as Imhotep/Ardath Bey.
The make up effects are great as advertised.
Some things about the plot didn't add up for me, but all in all, it was good story wise as well.
I have no idea how accurate any of the movie is to ancient Egypt, but it didn't seem to dumb down the mythology.

Boris Karloff is awesome again as the Monster. The ability to emote through all that make up is amazing.
It is really interesting to me how different this movie is than the original novel. Both are really great, and are based on the same concept, but how you get to this movie from that original story is beyond me.
I really liked the dark and gothic tone of the whole film.
Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein is very good. Very believably swept up in his madness to imitate god.
I wonder how amazed the original audiences were with all the electrical effects. They are still neat, but I'm sure they blew away people in the '30's.

Karloff reprieves his role with improved make up and vocabulary.
I was strangely attracted to Elsa Lanchester who plays both Mary Shelley and the Bride. Her bird like portrayal of the Bride was appropriately eerie.
I hated the character Minnie played by Una O'Connor. She was there for comedic relief. I thought this movie needed no comedic relief and had way too much. Including the scene with the "little" people.
The story in this sequel is much better written, and the effects far outshine the original. There are flaws here though, such as the comedy, that taint it overall for me though.
Interesting that they began it with Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and Percy Shelley. There is a theory that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein as an allegory for her husbands homosexual tendencies with Byron. The monster being his homosexual side. This first scene has echos of that, although I think unintentionally.

Jamie Lee Curtis continues her horror streak in this slasher on a train.
Wait a second. You mean to tell me that there is a horror movie with David Copperfield in it, and nobody told me? I can't believe it. He is amazing in this by the way.
Pretty good whodunit. I figured it out, but was very proud of myself.
Really good use of masks and costumes to keep us guessing.
The gore is minimal here, but even though, this movie is very fun. A great one to watch with a group of teens. Just one quick boob shot. Highly recommended.