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Once you realize this movie isn't going to be dependent on cheap jump scares that's when you can start to wrap your mind around what the true horror going on is about.

Yes, it's slow.

I hope I didn't ruin it with the jump scares thing. Should I call that a spoiler?

Early on in the movie you're disabused of the programming you get from watching modern horror: characters stare at something, and you know they're in touch with something that scares them, and you wait for it to jump out at them. And it doesn't. Then you are forced to enter the Lovecraftian world of the unseen.

I totally understand how that can be frustrating, especially for modern audiences.

It's not a tour de force, but it works. And I almost think selling it as a pure horror film does it a disservice. This is a drama about grief. About the ravages of mental illness.

And it's just gorgeous to look at. The movie is shot in such a warm and beautiful manner that it just raises into relief the horror roiling beneath the surface.

Definitely worth a watch, but temper your expectations and slow down. Take it for what it is.

It's totally unfair for me to even review this title as I started watching fully intending to not like it, and I haven't even finished watching. Also, having just read the wide variance in reviews, there's not much in my reaction to what I'm seeing that varies from a lot of others who didn't care for this.

Except I'm not seeing this as an anti-drug movie in any way. I did have those original reactions, like this was just a more styleized version of anti-school specials, but that's not accurate here, because the director doesn't seem to be making any real anti-drug statement. All we're doing here is watching people we never really started to care about descend into a state where the only entertainment factor becomes lurid, prurient, and sadistic.

So, unless I'm easily manipulated into caring about characters that don't seem real to me, or even if they did, I wouldn't care about, all that's left is going to the freakshow. And I guess I've never found that entertaining.

What I do find lacking from this movie, to its credit, is the mean-spirited, taking of pleasure in the misfortune and suffering of others I've found in the works of other directors like Todd Solendz, Larry Clark, or Harmony Korine. But I'm not convinced showing putrid aspects of human nature equates with honesty in any real way.

These just aren't characters I care about. I like some of the style going on here. I enjoy the baseline of the women in chairs in front of the building providing a hum drum contrast to what happens to the main characters. It's not a total botch by any means, but I don't find it all that profound or insightful, even when compared to better movies about the topic of drug abuse itself.

Maybe the second half will change my mind.

The philosopher Schopenhauer opined that human don't ever actually experience pleasure, only momentary relief from pain, which is our natural condition. We take the pebble that has been paining us out of a shoe and believe this is happiness, when in actuality it is only momentary relief from pain.

I watched this miserable series with my children waiting for the rock to come out of the shoe, but no relief ever arrived. It was merely the rock in the shoe for eight episodes.

Were there amusing moments and flashes of recognition when I saw Don Johnson and other actors in unexpected guest roles? Yes.

Was it worth being pummeled by a villain who, like trump, seemed to have immunity from being an insufferable @#%wipe... no. It was, for lack of becoming redundant, a miserable experience with no payoff.

If you like The Last Temptation of Christ, you're the type of person who will enjoy this. I didn't find it mean-spirited as much as I shared the continued assertion of the show itself that I should "look away." I should have. But my 13 year old proudly selected this show, and we all watched it as my younger child became increasingly disinterested, as did I.

You may really like this show. I didn't very much.

There are people who are keen to point out Peter Carpenter's back- to-back 1970/1971 films Blood Mania and Point of Terror aren't horror movies at all. Which is in a sense fair, because the promotional material would lead one to believe that they were, but so what? Still others want us to know they think Carpenter was a Tom Jones wannabee and the music in Point of terror is bad. So what? Blood Mania and Point of Terror are perfectly trashy and entertaining pieces of early 70's schlock that are unique, wonderfully shot, and chock full of pretty people to look at.

Tonight I'm watching Blood Mania for the first time, and I have to say it's a lot of fun. Not in the traditional sense of the word "fun," but the sense someone who enjoys seeing movies that are unusual and enjoys finding something new and unique. Sure, peter Carpenter probably didn't have the chops to be a leading man in A movies, but he was every bit up to carrying these B movies on his shoulders, surrounding himself with beautiful scenery and beautiful women, and telling an outrageous story that challenges ones ability to believe.

It's sort of shame as a movie fan that we don't get these kinds of movies anymore. I mean we get bad movies, but not these kinds of bad movies. Blood Mania is an entertaining movie for those who aren't looking to waste their own time picking it apart.

I was excited about seeing this movie, and expected a little more than I got. I think that will be the experience of a lot of people who have heard rave reviews, but aren't especially into comic book movies.

The movie is entertaining, and funny, but rather hollow.

It opens with a scene that is sort of a cheap, manipulative trick to garner sympathy for a character, but doesn't really earn that level of emotional investment. It goes on to throw together an ad hoc collection of characters that are in essence bad guys, and somehow they set aside their self-interests to team up, and become the closest of friends remarkably fast. Once again, the writing doesn't earn this progression, it just asks us to accept it.

I didn't. I had the same issue with Star Wars. Those characters didn't know each other long enough to have the feelings they developed in microwave fashion.

None of this will matter to you for the most part. But it does take those shortcuts, and uses those manipulations to substitute for character and story development. I did like two of these characters more than the others, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot, because I did buy their symbiotic relationship. The others I didn't.

The laughs are there. Big laughs.

The soundtrack was goofy. On several occasions they seem to stop the movie altogether so they can play a tired 70's easy listening song that doesn't fit, move the story forward, or make any damn sense. The songs aren't even particularly well-chosen.

Other than that, this is fantastic fare for those seeking what it offers. It will be frustrating for others.

Originally reviewed rather poorly, and referred to for many decades as campy, cheesy, and low-budget schlock, the recent resurgence of the zombie genre has brought a new generation to Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, and a whole new appreciation. This film holds up. It more than holds up, it gets better with age.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. 1973. Not only is this my favorite zombie movie, but it's my favorite movie of all time. For reasons that are as much emotional as intellectual. I first saw it on Elvira's Movie Macabre season 5 episode 17 when I was sixteen years old. The next morning I remember a cross country meet where I was running through the woods. Everyone on the bus had seen the movie the night before and what is forgotten in the descriptions of this movie as campy is that it's a scary movie. The scene where they look out into the night and the female zombie is eating Paul floored everyone. It was what everyone was talking about. Now it's more years since I saw CSPWDT for the first time than it was years since the movie was first made when I saw it that first time. Twice as many years, in fact, if any of that makes sense.

http://www.thingsofthedead.blogspot.com/

I find the above, or below review, depending on where they place this, of not much use. I actually am a horror fan, and I did feel this movie was made for me. This is a bad movie written and directed by horror movie host John Stanley. Of course, probably over 90% of the horror movies I've enjoyed throughout the years are bad movies. If you're not real fan of the genre or just enjoy finding an oddball offbeat piece of crap to watch once in a while, you'll hate this. It's not made for you, anyway. Move on. But pointing out the obvious that this is a bad film seems like standing outside a burning building long after the fire department has arrived and yelling fire. This bad movie is plenty good in my estimation and worth a look from any real horror fan.

This is garbage. It's basically a series of rape fantasies. Any satire is merely incidental. I'm not sure what's even supposed to be being satirized here. People who find rape and incest offensive? Put me on that list. I tried to push through that and was waiting for some greater point to be made, but the girl literally goes from scenario to another where she is raped. And it's not a statement about rape, everyone in the production seems to really be getting off on the message. The sixties seems to have been a time when if you wanted to mock someone or someone else's values you just created a stereotype and threw stones at it. Nonetheless this is a really offensive movie, and not in the sense that someone is trying to bring some issue to the forefront by satirizing it. I get the legitimate sense watching this that someone really got off on issues like rape and incest and wanted to make a movie about it. Not entertaining. Bummer, man, bummer.

If Orson Welles only had the talent he would have made Hard Rock Zombies, but he didn't. So these guys did. "Ghouls hate heads..." The plot of this movie is incomprehensible. The execution of the script is amateurish. It's quite possibly the stupidest movie of all time. And if you haven't seen it you're not alive. Get yourself some Milk Duds, some Schlitz, and HRZ, Troll 2, The Pit and have a grooviest bad movies of all time-athon. Umm, the music sounds OK, too, when you're really drunk. It's really kind of hard to say ten lines about Hard Rock Zombies. I just wanted to say it rocked I didn't want to be here all night trying to think of things to say about it.

I'm writing this min-review just to counteract the one I saw at the top of the list, which wasn't accurate or helpful. Death By Dialogue is best described as being in a group of films like The Pit, The Carrier and Hard Rock Zombies that are all badly made, badly scripted, badly acted... and absolutely AWESOME!!!! Because they are either so unintentionally bad or intentionally surreally unique that no description is necessary. Is this a bad movie? Hell, ya. Are there moments in this movie where I wondered what bleep was happening and laughed my butt off... yes. If you like those kind of movies this one has something for you.