Ghostbusters-1984 Original (blu-ray)

I could never do a film like the original Ghostbusters from 1984 justice because it's just an outright 80's comedy that still to this day has a solid and rabid fan base. Most of you zits and zombies already know that this isn't horror (barely) but the tale of three science nerds who get thrown out of a college for wasting their grant money on their research of psychic and paranormal phenomena, with which the dean basically says that will never help out mankind in the long run. How silly and wrong could he have been. Egon, Ray and Peter end up going into business for themselves as sort of a third civil service sector-part firemen and part police. With one helluva twist. They "bust" ghosts in a really cool way by using their scientific know-how and technology at hand to develop P.K.E. meters, proton packs, a laser grid to contain the apparitions once they catch them, ghost traps and whatever else they need to apprehend such beastly shapes. All of the comedy comes in of course from Bill Murray being a likeable jackass and womanizer, pushing against Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd's characters being all about the science and the discovery of the afterlife actually being real. Even when Ghostbusters was first released, it had the word classic written all over it mainly because it's witty, flows extremely well, never lags anywhere and has some amazing practical effects that still hold up even today watching it in 2k or 4k. When there's something strange in your neighborhood, who are you gonna call?

Damn this is a huge library.

Even ghosts hate the Dewey Decimal System.

Venkman is always looking for "shocking" results.

Ectoplasm!

"Someone blows their nose and you want to keep it?"

Keep drinking that booze-you'll figure it out.

I've never seen eggs cook themselves-have you?

The condiments in Dana's fridge must really be expired.

   "I collect spores, molds and fungus."

Yeah... it's one helluva cockroach.

Slimer is gettin' down with that hotel food.

"I feel so funky."

Walter Peck is a fucking loser.

There is no Dana-only Zuul.

There are those of us out there that have lived under rocks for most of our lives, and if you're one of those sad individuals that somehow has never seen the first Ghostbusters film-stop being Amish already. Push the sequel to the side and completely forget about that piece of shit that came out a couple of years ago... the only one any of you rotting corpses need to sit through is the glorious initial offering. Everything about it is top notch film making and it has every good reason to have the huge following that it does. Even the theme song by Ray Parker Jr. will get stuck in your head for days after it sprinkles it's magic into your eardrums. Just the entire concept surrounding this film is straight genius because the universe that this vocation takes place in in New York really feels like it could be a real job that anyone could apply for. Hell, I would. After how many times that I have seen this picture myself, my two favorite scenes are still the commercial that they have on t.v. saying that "they are ready to believe you" and when they destroy the Stay Puft marshmallow man. Two odd choices, but really anyone could probably pick almost anything from Ghostbusters as a great scene and it would stick. Zits and zombies, charge the proton packs and clean out the ghost traps... cause I ain't 'fraid of no ghost.

Lady Frankenstein

I'm pretty sure that I have mentioned this in past posts before, but my absolute favorite Universal monster has always been and will always be Frankenstein. The story and the character itself is so classic because of how it portrays the normal human feeling of confusion, self-awareness and being automatically cast as a misfit just because you "don't fit in" according to society at large. There is a whole franchise of films that have to do with the legacy of Frank (and his bride, and his son) and with that type of territory there are always re-makes and re-imaginings. Lady Frankenstein is the latter because it's basically the same story, just re-done with a different twist and has nothing really to do with the original canon or lore of Dr. Frankenstein creating his monster except for the actual act of him doing so along with his fiend causing a ruckus and stirring up some shit. His daughter Tania learns fairly quickly that his own creation has killed him and wants to continue on with his work, and starts putting her surgical skills and personal lust into the mix to contrive sort of a sick plan to transplant her lovers' brain into a (let's be honest) retarded servant boy's body only for superficial reasons of course. Everything goes as they plan it, and the original monster that her father created comes back for revenge. Everything comes back eventually. 

You grave robbing bums.

Hilariously foreboding music makes me smile.

A patron of science? More like a greedy bastard.

"Here on earth... Man is God."

Simon is the town drunk version of Tom Savini.

  Tania-I mean Lady Frankenstein-is quite ravishing.

 Legalized murder? I'm all in.

Secret doors, secret rooms and secret passages.

Lobotomy comes first. Lightning second.

I want a sunroof in my laboratory.

Even in classic horror films there's to many damn bats.

The most grotesque of creatures deserves life.

Every police captain should dress like Jack The Ripper.

Holy shit-even an ugly sleaze bag like Lynch can bone some premium blonde pelt.

 If any of you zits and zombies out there are into old school horror, Lady Frankenstein will hit the spot. It has very good production value, the plot keeps you on your toes and as everything unfolds there's a sense of "is this actually going to work out" hanging in the balance which does pay off even before the finale comes into play. It's basically the initial plot with some severe twists that change it up against what you already know about what happens in the first place, and to be very honest I might actually like this more than the original film with Boris Karloff as the monster himself. It's probably hidden in the execution somewhere, but this film has more going on than the original and I was engaged with what was going to happen with his daughter and what she was going to do to continue what the doc had in mind. She just ended up doing what she wanted instead. No bettering mankind here.