Die Monster Die! - Mini Review

  Die Monster Die was one of the earliest film adaptations from an H.P. Lovecraft story.  It was also one of Boris Karloff's last films.  Made in 1965, the film is very loosely based off of Lovecraft's story, "The Color out of Space".

  It is a decent horror film.   The two things that keep the movie interesting are the acting and the atmospheric film locations, particularly the cool mansion in which most of the story takes place.

  The Blu-ray was recently release from Scream Factory.  It is not a special edition release, the only extra is a trailer.  The trailer is made up of all the action scenes in the movie, including the ending.  It is kind of like fast-forwarding through the entire disk.

  I did enjoy the movie.  I would have preferred that the film had followed Lovecraft's story more faithfully, but I guess the special effect technology at the time wouldn't allow it.  I would give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Big Ass Spider! - Mini-Review

 This movie has a lot of buzz going on about it.  They did a pretty good job of promoting it.  Troma helped promote the movie at one of their panels at the last Comikazee convention in LA.  They passed out game cards from the movie.  Mine is pictured below, I didn't win anything.

  This is a fun, campy movie with some scares.  It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it is not too over the top where you don't care about what happens.  It fuses a 50's style giant insect movie with a modern day comedy. 

  The main star of the movie is the CGI spider and the CGI destruction it commits.  The CGI is fairly good for a low budget feature, and there is a lot of it.  The effects are not as believable as a big budget science fiction film, but for a film like this, they are adequate.

  My only critisism of the Blu-ray version of the film, is that the extras are lacking.  There are only some trailers and about 6 minutes of SXSW premiere footage / cast interviews.

  It was a fun, film, I would recommend it.  I don't think it quite lives up to its hype.  You can tell the filmmakers put a ton of effort into this production.  I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.