NOTHING

The title pretty much says it all.  It started off okay, but I soon lost interest and fell asleep at about the 30-40 minute mark.  Maybe I was simply tired and the high FF isn’t fair, but that’s the way it went down. I wasn’t interested enough the next night to pick up where I’d left off.

FF= 7

HIGH TENSION

Pretty sick and relentlessly grim.  Don’t see this unless you’re a true-blue gorehound.  Even then, think twice, because it foists a clichéd twist on you toward the end that’s supposed to give it some sort of lame existential cachet.  It doesn’t.  Your reaction  won’t be, “Cool!”  It’ll be, “WTF?”  Except for the relentless gore, the first three-quarters is a shameless rip-off of Dean Koontz’s novel Intensity.  Dean could have brought suit, but after seeing it he decided he didn’t want his name associated with it in any way.

FF= 7

UNCLE SAM

I thought this might be suitable for Bad Movie Night (which means it’s so bad it’s fun) but this one’s just terrible.  Screenwriter Larry Cohen (Phone Booth, Cellular, and a zillion other scripts) on autopilot.  A little bit Valentines Day, a little bit Prom Night, a lot Maniac Cop (another Larry Cohen creation – Maniac Cop 3 is one of my guilty pleasures) but lacking the verve and sense of mischief.  A couple of somewhat imaginative murders, but mostly deadly dull.

FF= 7 (might even be 8 – my finger was glued to the FF button between the murders)