1970’s

[5] Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset play deep sea divers who stumble upon a sunken supply of morphine and Spanish treasure. They enlist the help of Robert Shaw (in one of his final performances) to excavate their findings, all while fighting off a giant moray eel and a voodoo drug lord played by Louis Gossett, Jr. The Deep, written by Peter Benchley, is an obvious …

[4] Inspired by conspiracy theories that the moon landing was a hoax, Capricorn One depicts a fictitious manned trip to Mars. Hal Holbrook gives a face to the evil government who forces astronauts James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and O.J. Simpson to play along, and then seeks to destroy them when the conspiracy is threatened to be uncovered, thanks to a probing journalist played by Elliott …

[3] A young housekeeper learns that her boss’s daughter is instructing zombies from a nearby graveyard to kill at her command. There are some neat moments and ideas in this mess of a movie, scenes where the housekeeper dreams she is dancing with a scarecrow, and the climactic zombie siege for example. But the film falls victim to a horde of B-movie ailments, including wooden …

[4] Based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot is about the crew of a German submarine and the survivors of a ship they torpedoed banding together on a mysterious island full of dinosaurs and cave people. The British production takes a long while to get to the island, so much so that it feels like an entirely different movie …

[5] This Australian TV movie from Peter Weir is a subdued psychological thriller about a woman who grows increasingly frustrated and fearful of an eccentric plumber. Weir (Witness, Dead Poets Society) throws in a little commentary on the issue of class prejudice and does a good job building some suspense, but the stakes aren’t high enough, nor the motivations dire enough, for the movie to …

[4] This ‘bad in a good way’ sci-fi/horror flick features a melting astronaut who must feed on human flesh to keep from becoming a puddle of goo. I’m all for melting people, but The Incredible Melting Man is too narrow in scope. The script strings together one ‘stalk n’ kill’ scene after another, with little attention to the naturally sympathetic plight of its title character. …

[7] In New York City, a young nymphet named Alice (surely a Wonderland reference) receives an obscene phone call and immediately falls in love with the caller. She embarks on an urban adventure to find her lover, meeting one strange person after another, until finally coming face to face with the mystery man himself. The Telephone Book is all about sex, but it’s not a …

[7] A social worker investigates a mother and her two adult daughters who take care of a 21-year-old man who wears diapers, sucks baby bottles, and sleeps in a baby crib. The family insist the man has the mental and emotional capacity of an infant, but the social worker’s not so sure. The Baby isn’t the dirty, fetishistic film I thought it would be. Director Ted Post …

[7] Everyone associates George Romero with his zombie flicks, but if you ask the director, he’ll say the dark character study Martin is his favorite work. Martin is a young man (John Amplas) who believes he must drink blood in order to live. Early in the movie, Martin moves in with his cousin (Lincoln Maazel), a superstitious old man who whole-heartedly believes Martin is “nosferatu,” …

[4] In this fourth installment (and final, by my count) of the disaster franchise, George Kennedy returns to pilot a super-sonic plane to Paris. Trouble is, the bad guy (Robert Wagner) wants to blow the plane out of the sky to stop an on-board news reporter (Susan Blakely) from uncovering his corporate shenanigans. For the most part, the Airport movies are a guilty pleasure, but …

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