Race Against Time (2000)

Movie and TV Mistress here,

So I have a bit of a soft spot for some of the better known B Movie actors such as Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Combs, Eric Roberts, Chris Sarandon and Cary Elwes. When I was looking though the many straight to video movies that Cary Elwes has done, I came across a movie with the last 3 in it and no I don't mean The Princess Bride, I mean a movie called Race Against Time.

Race Against Time was a made for TV movie about what if the US Supreme Court decided in 2008 that suicide was not criminal stating that each individual “The sole keeper of their own body, with the right to do with it whatsoever he or she see fit.” basically it is our choice to live and die. The movie starts with a guy being chased by what I can only describe as stormtroopers of 2018, I’m reminded of Mick Jagers Freejack type characters. The guy is surrounded tasered and put in a body bag and put in the back of an ambulance after Cary turns up and inflates the bag, I assume the bag is full of liquid nitrogen or something that freezes quickly.

So the actual plot is that Eric Roberts character has a son who is very sick and Eric works in construction and he claims to never get sick. We have some really bad blue screen and a rookie is made to go out on a beam which he falls off, and oh my god Eric Roberts is just Awesome, he gets tied off and saves the rookie by diving off after him and then he falls lands on a safety basket and Johnny who was attached to the other end of Eric's rope falls off and Eric nearly looses him every one is safe because Eric is that amazing. You would think they could make construction safer by 2018.

Eric visits his son and gives him "Gamer Goggles 256gb of gaming power because reality has no reset button" LOL

So there is a company called Lifecorp, kind of like medicare I guess, hmm Lifecorp don't sound evil in anyway nothing with corp in the name could ever be evil right.

Eric's Son has Ralph virus which Lifecorp apparently whipped out years ago and Eric has to settle his bills with Lifecorp before they will administer the vaccine. Hmm Ralph Virus is it called that cause it makes you Ralph?  So Eric goes to Lifecorp and meets Cary in the elevator and who say “I wouldn't.” what I'm not sure but I guess it is something to do with him never getting sick, Chris Sarandon loves the greatness of Eric’s body and health and Eric signs an agreement that he has one year and then they come for him and carve him up for parts, he is given the money he needs for his son and a lovely electric bracelet.

He gets to the hospital with the money and wouldn't you know it he's too late, the doctor says he is dead and that the body had to be destroyed. I suspect that he isn't dead and will turn up in the last act and that Lifecorp had him the whole time. Eric tries to give the money back and they won't take it, because he signed the agreement. Chris Sarandon says he has to get an early retrieval order on Eric as he is dangerous for the company and has chucked all the money into the lobby of the Lifecorp building, a judge is forced to agree with Lifecorp.

Eric gets drunk but isn't weeping like I've seen him in other movies, come on your son just died, Cary turns up kills Eric’s friend and goes after Eric with those stormtroopers and Cary like Logan before him says "They always run." 

Love interest of the movie has tuned up, I know this cause she was Jack Bauer’s and John Smiths Love interest for a season on 24 and Dead Zone respectively. OK I could be wrong she is a female bounty hunter called Alex for Lifecorp but as Al said in an episode of Quantum Leap “There are five stages of love, the first denial, second is sex, then there's acceptance, then is divorce and then there's sex, if your lucky...it's a theory of mine and a darn good one!”

Eric saved Alex's life and so now she is his bodyguard, meanwhile the doctor that treated his son is filing the report on his son's death and says he had a high white cell count which was inconsistent with the virus.

This film to me is so funny the Dread Pirate Roberts is being bossed around by Prince Humperdink and all I keep thinking of is the pain speech.

I'm not saying this film is predictable, OK I am, I haven't seen this before, but the story isn't new and I can see what’s going to happen next a mile off; lets put it this way Eric is Sarah Conner, Alex is Kyle Reece and Cary Elwes is the Terminator and will probably come round to helping Eric by the end and kill Chris Sarandon. That is my prediction at 43 minutes into the film.

We have some Blade Runner, Running Man and Freejack future screens on city buildings, and Eric gets the Doctor to remove the implant put in Eric when he was being check by Lifecorp and the guy who put it in Eric calls the guards and Eric grabs him and puts the implant down his mouth and so the stormtroopers take that guy instead, considering all the big pictures of Eric on the city buildings you would think they could tell the Lifecorp guy wasn't him.

Alex takes them back to her place to get her money, yes when hiding your money hide it a boom-box you have to smash to get at it. Dun dun dun Cary is in her apartment, well he has been seeing Alex and Eric is now wearing one of his jackets. Eric turns up and threatens to shoot Cary but trackers turn up so he has to get going and he chucks the jacket cause it belonged to Cary.

Oh Wow Alex and Eric are in bed and cold hmm I wonder where this is leading...yes stage 2 of love Sex, oh no girl got shot down by Eric wow guess your not his type. Next morning and Eric's pictures are not on the buildings, but he keeps seeing pictures of his son. Eric decides his son's alive and that he doesn't need a plan to get him back and he faces off with the stormtroopers and delivers a cheesy line “If you thought this was over think again.”

Meanwhile the doctor that treated his son has figured out that the medical results of Eric’s son were faked and has been called into Lifecorp he shares his findings with Chris' second in command. They confront Chris about what he did and he admits it and he is told the board have fired him, he ignores this and he fires to doctor so Cary shoots him, he then gives the order to the stormtroopers to get Eric and shoot to kill after Chris said both Eric and his son's blood could double life expectancy, and they don't need Eric, so If they didn't need Eric and they had his son what was the point of the chase?

Eric and Alex crash into Lifecorp and avoid getting caught by the stormtroopers and mess with the elevators, they find a load of kids on the 78^th floor, he gets Alex to take care of the kids, cause well he has to go to the top floor and confront the bad guys and get his son back, I wonder will this have the Last Action Hero Slater's son moment?

OK prediction about Carey's character was wrong we have him fighting Eric on a moving elevator, well bad blue screen CGI elevators, but apart from that is is actually a well filmed fight cause I can see what’s happening not like some action movies. Cary falls to what we think is his death but he can't be killed, he lands in the elevator Alex is in and they fight it out, and he gets electrocuted but no still not dead, so he makes her shoot him, he has to be dead now.

Eric sets off a bomb and Alex arrives on 100^th floor in stormtrooper outfit and kills the other stormtroopers while Eric Swings into the building from the roof a bit like John McClane, Alex fights it out with the stormtroopers while Eric finds Chris holding his son with a gun to his head in front of stained glass doors to a balcony and Chris tries to take Eric over the side with him but Eric's son holds his legs and Eric drops Chris and like my mum always points out he lands in the recovery position.

Chris' second in command is now in charge and orders that his body be checked out, Alex joins Eric and son on the balcony and he says “I lied I am afraid of falling.” and she replies “I'll catch you.” I didn't mind that sort of dialogue in Disney's Enchanted but in an action B movie I just barfed a bit. We get some more of that bad CGI that looks like it belongs in a PC game from 2000 and that's the end.

OK so not all my predictions were right, but I was right this movie is predictable but it comes round to being awesome and that is mainly because of the casting of Eric Roberts, Cary Elwes and Chris Sarandon, they are great actors who you can tell have fun with there rolls weather it be villains or good guys they grab you and you want to watch to see what they'll do next. I would pay to see another movie with these guys there chemistry together was brilliant. However that said Alex played by Sarah Wynter is not great she feels like the Kochanski of the group, as my sex and violence in film teacher told us, she is in the film to just be a love interest and to show that the guys are not gay cause they love or have loved her.

So would I recommend this film, in a word yes, it is a hilarious action film you don't see that often any more. the fight scenes are shot in a why that you can see what’s happening which is great, not like in the recent film The Eagle where you can't even tell what the hell your looking at during the fights, it's just close-up and fast cuts; this is the reason I love Martial arts films with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen, Jet Li and many others, because they show the fights the same way Fred Astair and Gene Kelly made sure you could see them dancing from head to toe.

Well like I said if you like B movie action check this film out you won't be disappointed.

Misfits of Science (the forgotton Heroes)

Welcome to another Movie and TV Mistress review.

This weeks review is of the rare and often forgotten super powered show of the 80's Misfits of Science, like many shows about super powers, before and since, it had a short 1 season run. Here's a bit of trivia, a co writer on the show would later go on to create Heroes, yes folks Tim Kring, but that’s not to say he created this and besides his writing credits also include Teen Wolf Too, but I'll review that film another time.

As I child living in Germany in the 80's we only had one British TV channel called SSVC which showed a mix of ITV and BBC programmes, and somehow I got to watch a pilot movie called the Misfits of Science which I really enjoyed as just a movie. However, it wasn't till years later that I found out there was an actual TV series after the film; it didn't last very long only 16 episodes, the 16th episode was never actually aired in America, but thanks to those great Germans it was released on DVD and the UK Sci Fi channel aired all the episodes.

The Misfits of Science are similar to the A-Team and Magnum PI, in this show they help people for free while using some special powers, because we all know the A-Team never really took any money. The team are basically a team of four people, with a couple of unofficial members, it is made of two doctors a rock star and a juvenile delinquent. I know I could quote the breakfast club but I won't.

Dean Paul Martin son of Dean Martin plays Dr Billy Hays who is the leader of the group, a ladies man, who is sometime a little over confident, he has a big heart and usually comes round to helping people, he does whine a lot when he gets captured in episodes and he is the only member without a power.

Dr Elvin Lincoln is played by Kevin Peter Hall who is 7'2.5 Tall he was the Predator in the original movies and also Harry from Big foot and the Hendersons Movie and TV series. Dr Elvin hates being tall and so became a scientist and developed a glandular growth potion which he takes to make himself small which works when he presses a spot on the back of his neck, he shrinks to the size of a Ken doll. He can only be small once an hour and it only last for 14 minutes, the effects work quite well considering the time and budget of a TV show.

Mark Thomas Miller an actor musician plays John Bukowski (Johnny B) who is electrical, can run really fast, he shoots electricity from his hands, if he has too much electricity his eyes glow so he wears sunglasses and he can charge up from the static electricity in the air. He is allergic to water as it cooks him and he tends to be the weapon of the team but he can also weld metal with his power.

Gloria Dinallo played by Courtney Cox from Friends is telekinetic, she kind of reminds me of Jubilee from the X men cartoon or what I think Jubilee should be like in that show. She has a probation officer called Jane and at least she doesn't kill her probation officer like the British Misfits.

Pilot movie is called Deep Freeze and aired in October 1985

The pilot starts with your classic horror opening, lighting and a creepy basement or warehouse, it kind of reminds me of a dusty and rat infested version of Warehouse 13 or area 51 from Indiana Jones. So we are following two guys who are looking for what is draining all the electricity in the building and they find a coffin shaped refrigerator that is open, of course a large frozen man is behind them and shouts Amelia, wonder if he's connected to Amelia Earhart this is all he seems to say thought out this pilot, and they do say he must be upset about the loss of Amelia Earhart. The film then cuts to classic cheesy 80's opening with flash cuts in time to the 80's song Science. But I have to say I do love this song it just makes me smile.

So the intro leads us right to Humanidyne – Science to help the Human condition and taken towards the janitorial department which is where the human investigation team Dr Billy and Dr Elvin are located. The Frozen man has been rushed here in an ambulance and he is making everything freeze we pass a sign saying weird r us and we find out that the refrigerator coffin was built for Howard Hubert in 1935 but they had trouble getting it to work for the billionaire, but Arnold Beifneiter went into it for 50 years and it has given him the power to freeze whatever he touches, he only appears in the pilot because Marvel comics objected to the character as they claimed he was too similar to Bobby Iceman from the X-Men. One Beef as they call him is frozen and if he gets to hot he will die, he has no control over his power, he is closer to Mr freeze from DC.  Bobby the Iceman can freeze water particles in the air and makes his own ice path and can make himself ice but he doesn't die at normal temperature, if anything Marvel should have objected to the Incredibles character Frozone voiced by Samuel L Jackson but since they are now both owned by Disney that would be pointless, OK end of rant.

The film is similar to Ghostbusters in some ways as we have two scientists who the company/collage disapprove of and so they are fired, they even have their own Janine type receptionist who reads out comedy messages throughout the series. The plot is that Humanidyne is working with the military, who in science fiction programmes always seem to be the embodiment of evil. So Humanidyne have made plans for a neutron beam for the military which will bring the cold war to the end by disintegrating whatever it's fired at, so the senators believe it is in the planning stages and that a impenetrable base for it to be kept in is being built but... oh no it's already built and being tested, the doctor who worked on it is now against the device and claims it's dangerous, so Humanidyne put him in a room with Beef and do tests on them both. He somehow gets to a phone in the room and calls Billy to help him so he and Elvin create the Misfits of Science. Johnny B and Gloria don't like Billy after how he treated them when he did tests on them and so don't want to help, but that is quickly brushed under the carpet when they see Elvin's power; because Gloria is a juvenile and on probation her probation officer Jane joins them, she is also Billy's love interest.

So the Misfits of Science are called that because Billy has Basketball uniforms with that team name, so they break into Humanidyne with an ice cream van to rescue the doctor and Beef, they escape and the doctor tells them where the base with the neutron beam is and they go to break in the supposedly impenetrable base. The final battle reminds me of a boss battle from one of those classic commodore 64 games I used to play; you see the team have to get past a swirling tunnel of water which beef freezes Johnny is out of juice so he tries to fake out the soldiers so Gloria has to use her powers to get rid of the soldiers, they send the neutron beam to the top of the mountain the bad guys get to the beam first, put in in a helicopter and use it against the Misfits.  Johnny is getting some juice but not enough for him and Gloria to bring the helicopter down, so it is thanks to Billy's basketball skills with a helmet hitting the helicopter blades that saves the day.

This was a cheesy 80's sci fi film, to me it was like Biggles, this is what I think the film Evolution should have been like, which is funny since both were obviously influenced by The Ghostbusters.

Oh I must point out that Billy and Elvin got their old jobs back by the start of the second episode and they live together in a house on Venice beach and though Beef never returns they still drive the ice cream van and their boss is now played by the dad from ALF

The second episode is called Your Place or Mayan? And starts with the two docs watching a Indiana Jones style TV show while there are cuts to an old guy doing the same sort of thing near Venice beach he gets to them and dies we go back to the TV and the Indiana Jones character is dead. OK I would like to point out that if that guy was the main hero of that movie/serial he would not be dead.

We then get opening theme tune, first we have a guy singing a song about the misfits of science in jazz and a person trying to change the channel then kicking the TV off the stand, a bit like how some episodes of Moonlighting started and then we get the main intro with another theme tune, this is only the second episode and we have had 3 theme tunes. Actually the second two songs are actually the theme for the rest of the series, and it does grow on you.

So episode 2 has Dean Devlin the writer and co creator of Stargate, Independence Day and Godzilla, he has genetic memory of Mayan language and helps the team find the lost Mayan treasure because the Mayans went from Mexico to Santa Monica, I'm kind of surprised that Dean Devlin didn't write this episode, or did he just use some of the ideas for Stargate...I wonder. It's not a great second episode to the series, it made me not want to go on with the rest but I did.

Episode 3 called Guess What's Coming to Dinner, In this episode we find out Jane Gloria's probation officer is heavily pregnant but Billy is oblivious and keeps calling her fat. The episode has the team investigating possible alien contact with a guy who Billy and Elvin laugh about at Humanidyne, the guy is like the dads in Gremlins and Honey I Shrunk The Kids, you know the type the guy that makes things which should help people but they don't work and his kids are embarrassed about him. This actually is one of the few good episodes of the series, we have Gloria getting Billy and Elvin to listen to him and they actually believe he has contacted aliens, but it turns out he has been speaking to a computer which is the targeting of a military bomb. I do think a lot of the plots of the episodes have been made into films, this could be Wargames.

Episode 4 is called Lost Link, it is about the misfits helping a primitive from a lost tribe in new guinea send his dead son's soul into heaven on a space shuttle. Coincidently the shuttle is delivering 2 Star Wars satellites into space with the idol of the primitive son and the Russians feel this is Americans using voodoo. No amount of voodoo would ever make the Star Wars project that Ronald Regan started work but that was him, he believe what he saw in the movies was true, does that mean that he believed ET was a true story?

Episode 5 is called Sort of Looking for Gina. Johnny B is playing with his band even though he said he wouldn't in the pilot, and he follows a girl who live in the sewers around.  While Billy is competing with the Miss Nance the Janine type receptionist character on selling tickets to the company picnic, the thing that dates this is Billy saying 83 friends I don't know 83 people, now today people still don't know that many people very well but we do generally have over 83 people as friends on facebook and twitter. This is the last time we see Jane Gloria's probation officer, probably because she had to give birth, they never mention her again.

Episode 6 is called Sonar...and yet so Far. It has dolphins that speak sadly they don't sing but it has seen some drug dealers sunken cocaine. Gloria wants to learn more about her powers but doesn't get any help from Billy or Elvin and learns nothing new. This episode also spoofs Miami Vice, I guess Miami Vice is like CSI: Miami today, hmm Miami is comedy gold for cop shows.

Episode 7 called Steer Crazy. Has 3 old people eat some glowing green burgers affected by a meteor. The episode also deals with the 80's fear of Nuclear power planets which was understandable then considering the Chernobyl disaster. Funniest stuff in this episode is Billy and Elvin dealing with a mouse that has the same powers as the old people and becomes angry and breaks out of her cage and they deliver some great slapstick. The plot with the old people reminds me of Cocoon oh and Courtney Cox played a doctor in Cocoon 2.

Episode 8 = Fumble on the One. Starts like a bond/noir detective story and then it is like the six million dollar man, well actually 11.4 million dollars apparently. So we have a narrator who kind of sounds like that guy from Hart to Hart. And the team try to help the 11.4 million dollar guy get back the presidential football from the bad guys and we find out more about Billy and Johnny B, Johnny apparently hung out in the desert for 3 years cause he couldn't handle his weirdness, hmm bit like Jesus, maybe that’s why Jesus disappeared to the desert for a while cause he needed to handle his weirdness

Episode 9 called Twin Engines. The story used in the episode was written by Tim Kring the same guy who created Heroes and this is not a very interesting story a bit like how after series 1 of Heroes the show was no longer interesting. It is about a mechanic friend of Johnny B who has premonitions but turns out he is just connected to a long lost twin, his twin is a successful bike racer who is on the wrong side of the mob. Meanwhile Gloria is preparing for her driving test. Is using her power to move a boy out of her way cheating on her test?

Episode 10 called Grand Theft Bunny. Is about animal testing and a woman called Sarah who is a temp that feels sorry for the animals being tested on and takes a cat that scratches her. Johnny B is becoming an electromagnet because of his power and his bodies trace metallic elements. Of course Sarah is friends with Billy, but Billy doesn't want to help her cause he went to jail a lot for protesting at collage cause she got him involved. But he goes to jail quite a lot throughout this series so blaming Sarah is just silly. So the animals have the andromada strain and bubonic plague rolled into one and are going to be used for germ warfare, one rabbit has the cure. The guy who fired the Ghostbusters from Columbia university is in this episode again playing a bad guy arsehole. Sarah and Johnny B get infected and its a race to get the animals back to save them and thanks to Johnny's electromagnetism the bunny flies to him because of it's metal collar.

Episode 11 is Grand Elusion. It starts in Russia in 1973 as they say it is 10 years since JFK died then a guy the KGB are after takes part in an illusion and disappears before John Schuck (Herman Muster) playing a KGB agent. Next it's January 1986, ah the Cold war was still big then, and Herman Munster is still looking for that guy who disappeared 13 years ago. So the rest of the episode is about bring father and daughter together while the KGB want to take back the guy, you know your typical 80's Russian wants to defect to America story. It's a nice sweet story and uses Gloria and Johnny's powers really well.

Episode 12 = Once Upon a Night. Is about a princess who is tricked into stealing her own bracelet to save her fiancé but he's fine it's just her father's employee who wants her for himself. Johnny B falls for the Princess. It's probably the worst episode of the series and is like Aladdin but Aladdin is way better.

Episode 13 called Center of Attention. Max (ALF Dad) is asked by the Humanidyne Board who the Misfits of Science are and we get a explanation of every character with cartoon images of them and he is then asked what do they do and he can't even answer. Meanwhile El's friend a basketball star called the fly is apparently jinxed, El finally plays basketball with the help of Gloria so he can get on his friends team and see if they are blowing the games on purpose or if the fly is actually a jinx. The Max Boardroom stuff ends with Max walking out and saying to camera they didn't get it, it is like a wink saying they knew that NBC execs didn't get the show and it was going to get cancelled, only two more episodes were ever shown.

Episode 14 is called Against all Oz. This is my second favourite episode after the pilot. The plot is Billy stays awake for 2 days and ends up in an alternate reality where he is a nerd, El is telling him off and acting a bit like Biff, Nerd Billy keeps having flashes of previous episodes, he even says the experiments they did were stupid. Though this is your basic memory episode it is using the what if story which I actually like. Max is the janitor for the big lab and he looks and acts a bit like bob Hoskins Mario Mario. The secretary is in charge in the other reality and we find out what they are working on, which is the most powerful nuclear bomb, while we are shown all her bad superpower jokes. And Johnny B is also a nerd with asthma and Max is a pervert, Johnny B is brilliant as a terrified nerd with a George McFly laugh, Billy tells everybody about his “Dream” Gloria is a security guard and is acting a bit like G W Bailey's Felix Maxwell in Mannequin. There is about to be a nuclear explosion as Max dropped a spoon into the bomb and Billy says he is the leader and that if they work together they can fix anything, they do and Billy wakes up from his 2 minute nap then everybody helps him give Max the research he wants and the bomb from the alternate reality is smaller and is actually a vacuum cleaner. I think this should have been the last episode.

Episode 15 is called The Avenging Angel. The episode is about Gloria helps an aspiring wrestler with her powers by accident and decides to keep helping him because it's the first time he has been happy for a while. However the Mob are after him and want him killed. Gloria and Billy are captured and chained into cinema seats and Billy has a crazy nightmare about being a wrestler and being decapitated. When he and Gloria are escaping he kick in the back of her seat to get her free and he removes the tape from her eyes so she can use her power, but before he removes the tape we get the following conversations “hay Gloria you smell nice.” “Billy I'm under age” “alright how bad can the wrap be for statutory smell.” funniest line in the series. This is the last episode that was aired in America on NBC. However episode 16 was aired and is available on DVD in Germany.

Episode 16 is called Three Days of the Blender. It starts like an episode of Hill Street Blues with a police meeting and assignment. Then we have a Jail and a priest is asking Billy to explain what happened. Billy was arrested for spying. The start of the episode is played as a serious news item looking at what Billy did. Billy got a blender from his mum which was posted to him 3 years ago. Billy tries to take the Blender home but apparently it is government owned as it has a warhead chip in it. Billy wants his Blender back but it's top secret. Max had the blender and was going to give it to the government, but Billy turned up and garbed the blender and was arrested for selling secrets. Hope your with me so far.

He won't talk to the rest of the Misfits and so is on his own playing blues on guitar. The bad guys claim to have voice print of who stole the blender and he doesn't agree to help them and starts singing hit the road jack he has a great voice, but then he is the son of Dean Martin and was in a band with Desi Arnez Jr. Billy is protecting Max by staying in jailing saying he is the spy. Turns out the blender was sent to the wrong office. The episode ends with the charges being dropped against Billy after another government agent is arrested and we see two men eating and talking about the events, who sound like Regan and Gorbachev then during the credits we see the misfits have a picnic and chocolate cake. This was the last ever episode, it was another great episode which should have been aired in America and works well as an end of the series but I do still feel that episode 14 would have been a good ending too.

Billy's character was the heart of the show and he kept me wanting to see how they would fix the problems he and Elvin are like Al and Sam Beckett.  This was Courtney Cox's first major role in a TV series, you can see she has talent, though the character of Gloria can be annoying at times, whining like a teenager; when she has serious issues she really shines.  Johnny B is great and funny with his singing when firing off electricity, his high sounding speech when he has too much juice and his amazing asthmatic nerd in the alternative reality. Courtney is the only Misfit still acting, because, Mark Thomas Miller retired from acting after losing patience with the business and is now a rescue diver and working for a product engineering and development company, but sadly Dean Paul Martin died in 1987 aged 35 flying a F-4 Phantom Jet for the national guard and crashing into San Bernardino Mountains, Kevin Peter Hall contacted HIV though infected blood transfusion and died in 1991 aged 35.

The series has some great moments but it is another show like Moonlighting that tried to do something different with each episode and occasionally it worked but mostly it didn't work, sometimes it is like watching random streams of consciousness and I understand why it did not get picked up. I do have to say the actors were really good and seemed to handle the different styles really well, not many shows can change style every week and succeed, apart from Quantum Leap; Moonlighting doesn't count as there were too many breaks between episodes.

I would like to Thank to thedon817 for uploading all episodes onto youtube, here are a couple of Miss Nance jokes from the pilot:

1. Mrs Krantz from Wisconsin called her son Randy has been breathing fire and she is scared about loosing the house

2. The invisible man called again he says he's been in to see you 6 times and you treat him like he isn't even here.

3. A man keeps sprouting fish scales whenever he goes swimming.

Not the best jokes in the world and they didn't get much better.

My Demon Lover (1987)

Movie and TV Mistress here again, as it is Valentines Day I have decided to review a 80's Cheesy romantic monster film called My Demon Lover staring Scott Valentine, who played Nick Mallory's boyfriend in Family Ties.

The plot of this film is your basic Beauty and the Beast but not as classy as the Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman TV show.  This movie was written by Leslie Ray who also wrote and produced The Fresh Prince of Bel Air so at least he went up in the world.

The movie opens with a fun 80's song and seeing a girl (Denny) walking home in New York having a dog steel some food from her and then her Boyfriend and cronies pushing her over as they steal all her stuff and she doesn't seem to understand that he is leaving her, so she is your literal push over. her friend Sonia arrives to help her and she is your classic strong sexy Latino, who is also a little psychic; for a psychic and friend of Denny's she is not great, as she didn't even know it was Denny's Birthday, plus she can't figure out who the bad guy of the movie is, but whatever.

While this is going on we are introduced to Scott Valentine's character Kas, he is a homeless Street performer, the type of guy you try to ignore and stay away from when on the subway. He loves women so much so he gains Pennywise the clowns teeth and red contact lenses.  We then see a scene on a subway platform with a woman screaming and falling down dead, it looks and sounds like the opening to The Equalizer.

Meanwhile Sonia decides to cheer Denny up and take her out they stop at Sonia's occult shop and we see her psychic powers predicting a phone conversation.  They head to a bar and Sonia tells Denny that she attracts scum, dogs, alley cats and actors then we are introduced to a dork as Sonia calls him played by Robert Trebor who is probably best remembered for playing Salmoneus in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.  At no point in the conversation do they introduce themselves but they some how know each others names and Charles later has Denny's number even though she doesn't give it to him, maybe he's psychic too.

We see Kas meet a street Psychic who tells him to put his curse away and stay away because there is nothing that can help him, we don't see him again until 32 minutes into the film when he shows what happened to Kas on a crystal doorknob and explains what he has to do to remove the curse, just your classic do something noble. This guy then returns at the end of the film for the final battle.

Denny goes to a vegetarian dinner and we have a really pointless scene involving a fat guy dying and falling in his leek soup, she orders a fruit burger and sits outside in a seat next too all the trash which is where Kas was sleeping he then bugs Denny for a bite of her burger and he takes a bit then spits it on her and then follows her home calling her fruit burger.  I'm starting to wonder about all the romance films why do people fall in love with their stalkers, seriously think about it, you have Sleepless in Seattle, Secret of my Success, even Sandra Bullock in All about Steve and well Twilight is the most obvious one.

Well it's lucky he followed her home because Chip her ex who stole her stuff turns up to beat her up because he got caught by the police and blames her any way we see the first of many demon looks of Kas in the film.  Denny lets Kas stay with her and the next day offers to be friends with him, no sex or romance and they agree...it doesn't last very long the next thing you see is a classic 80's romantic montage of them hanging out eating ice cream playing on kids climbing frames, you get the picture they fall in love in one day, so much for being just friends, Harry and Sally were friends longer then this.

Meanwhile we have a killer on the loose storyline a man is clawing and killing women and the press are calling him the mangler, the actual film the Mangler is scarier then this sub-plot.  Sonia's sister was attacked and relives the experience and Sonia sees and feels it too, because you know she's "Psychic" Sonia's cop friend doesn't believe her when she explains the mangler is the devil. 

So it's this point in the film we find out that Kas as a kid made out with a girl in front of all his friends, the girls Romanian grandmother caught them and cursed him with a Pazaski, which basically means he becomes possessed whenever he gets horny and he turns into a demon, and as Kas loves Denny he can't sleep with her, he also believes he is the mangler.  Kas gives Denny a birthday night and she tries to sleep with him he freaks out and tells her everything and she tells him to prove it so they make out and he changes into the second version of the Demon with telekinesis.

We have Charles reappear in the film phoning Denny and leaving messages about things they could do one of them being a command performance for Princess Diana and Prince Charles of Sylvester Stallone doing Dickens, probably the funniest throw away lines I've heard in a movie.

Kas has disappeared and Denny goes walking back to the places from the earlier montage while the same music plays and we see another couple plying around the climbing frame, is there a park in New York that is just for adult couples to play at because there are no kids in sight. She sees a guy in the garbage outside the vegetarian diner who looks like Scott Valentines ugly doppelgänger; of course like all lost things Kas is in the last place she looks at her house with his bags packed ready to leave.

She persuades him to stay, she tells him she doesn't believe he is the Mangler and says "If you start looking at me like a lite snack, I’m out of there and in therapy before you know it" it's laughable that it would take that to send her to therapy, I think she needed therapy at the start when she was defending her ex boyfriend.  So they go for a drink, yeah I would have to be really drunk to sleep with Scott Valentine and his different demon incantations in this movie.  

While they're drinking Sonia is also at the bar and Charles is hitting on all the woman at the bar and accidentally on her, he apologises and she starts talking to him and he tells his life story about being raised in Philadelphia, it's not as funny as the opening to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air sadly.

Sonia and Charles join Denny and Kas, Kas is turned on by just looking at Sonia and she sees his red contact lenses, Denny drags him away and back to hers and Sonia has Charles take her to the shop to get a demon killing sword so she can kill Kas. While this is going Denny and Kas are about to go all the way until he is completely possess and we get a couple of scenes which I think are meant to be funny but aren’t. first Demon Kas has a new look again then he bashes his head in on the wall and we get a guy with a bowl haircut talking about cheetos then he changes into a fat woman who looks and sounds like Roseanne, Denny smashes the woman’s head in and we get a scene of a yellow slime filled body that would not look out of place in Peter Jackson's Brain Dead Kaz returns, but Denny leaves after telling him she was right that he is not the mangler.

The background music tempo picks up so it must be getting near the end of the film, Sonia sneaks into Denny's apartment and Kaz changes into the 4th version of the Damon, this one looks like Jesus with wings (insert your own Beatles joke here.) Sonia attacks him and their fight continues on Charles' car roof while he is kidnapping Denny and taking her to his layer which is in a castle in Central park, pictured below.

Firstly that is not Central Park or the tiny non castle that is actually in Central Park, as Monty Python might say it's only a mat painting.  Kaz has to rescue Denny from Charles who we find out is the mangler, Robert Trebor is brilliant at delivering his lines like they are all throw away ones. Charles tells her he can show her how he made his monster hand glove and he acts scared when he sees Kaz as a demon but he is actually a demon too.

To be a strong demon Kaz has sex with Sonia which pisses Denny off of course and he then attacks Charles after getting rid of a bomb.  As I said Charles is also a demon but he has control over it and can change at will, he has Kryptonian breath and force lightning, which makes Kas loose his Demon hard on and return to normal Denny escapes as Demon Charles is distracted fighting Kaz.  The street Psychic has turned up with the cops as he was arrested for squatting, he and all the other characters are watching the battle from a window in the castle and he throws Kaz the demon killing sword, that Sonia used on him without success; the street Psychic tells Kaz to stab Charles in his curse scar because you see both Charles and Kaz made out with the same girl as children and were cursed by her Romanian Grandmother. So Kaz succeeds in stabbing Charles, he's blown back towards everybody and Charles explodes in something reminiscent of the quickening.

The street Psychic helps Kaz into the castle and the cop says "Just another day in the big city." yeah I guess New York cops are used to strange shit happening there what with the Stay Puff marshmallow man, X-Men, Spider-man and the statue of Liberty walking around the city a guess a little demon fight is nothing. 

So Kaz did something noble and is magically cleaned up, no I’m serious there is a magic whoosh sound and sparkles and he then looks like he is wearing Beetlejuices wedding tux he is happy but then worries that Denny might have gotten his curse because she is so close to him but she’s fine it was actually the street psychic that got it and considering what he said about the curse when he first saw Kaz at the start of the film I’m surprised at how happy he is about it.

This is not an amazing film, it is not an original story, it is 80's cheese and well it's a fun silly story that I know people have not seen.  The major problem with this film is it can't decide what it wants to be a romantic comedy or a scary cop thriller it feels like two separate films put together with a crazy fantasy ending. I'm still a bit surprised I saw this as a kid considering what makes Kaz a demon but hay I saw a lot of crazy films as a kid including Cellar Dweller.

I know you maybe expecting me to be harsh but hay it was the 80's none of the films of that period made much sense, not even Teen Wolf or any of the others I mentioned in this review and as I said in my last blog this is one of my guilty pleasures, plus it has a cool 80's soundtrack.

TV Show Remakes

I am working on reviews of a couple of classic TV shows, but thought that with all the American remakes of British shows that have started I should give my opinion on this subject.

For many years I have been against American remakes of British shows and also British remakes of American shows for the simple reason they are usually terrible and don't work.

I grew up in the 80's with two versions of shows such as Who's the Boss and The Upper Hand, Three's Company and Man about the House, George & Mildred and The Ropers, which demonstrated that sometimes both the Americans and British TV stations can make good shows based on others, however, more often then not we both fail, but we just keep trying.

Generally the shows that UK TV stations remade are American Game shows, but the scripted shows they remade apart from The Upper Hand were so awful that no one remembers them. The British TV Network ITV has been competing with the BBC for years and in the 70's and 80's they had some success with a few sitcoms, but in the early 90's their comedies were falling flat so they started looking at US shows, and we got the following remakes Married...With Children became Married For Life staring Russ Abbott, That 70's Show became Days Like These; both these shows came and went very quickly and didn't change to much from the original source material except on cultural references. After this ITV dropped it's comedy development section and have focused more on drama's.

Since living in Canada many of my Canadian friends have told me how much they love British TV shows, but they hate how short they are; I tend to think it is quality over quantity, and I have to admit Fawlty Towers is proof of that, people still love this show over 30 years later and it's only 12 episodes.

America has tried to remake Fawlty Towers three times with no success, the names of the remakes and the casting make me laugh, first in 1978 you have a pilot called Chateau Snavely staring Harvey Korman and Betty White; makes me think 78 was a bad year for Harvey Korman what with his three roles in the Star Wars Holiday Special which made me want to bash my head against a wall. Next we have in 1983 Amanda's staring Bea Arthur as the Basil Fawlty character then finally in 1999 Payne staring John Larroquette, the second 2 attempts got past pilot stage but didn't last longer then 10 episodes.

American networks have tried to remake many of the successful British show, probably so they don't have to pay third parties for the broadcast rights and now only have to pay them for the idea usually. The most successful remake in recent years is of course The Office based on a show that again only ran 14 episodes.

This year we have 3 remakes of current British shows, which are Being Human, Shameless and Skins. The first 2 shows have been received quite well, I think the casting in the current remakes is quite good, if a bit unexpected with William H Macy as Frank Gallagher and Joan Cusack as Sheila Jackson in Shameless.

Out of the current remakes Skins on MTV has had a lot of complaints, because some parents feel the show is child pornography. The fact parents are up in arms about the sex and drug taking in the show is nothing new even the British show got complaints when it first aired and still do, however what is funny about the Skins controversy is the reviews of the show by critics and fans of the British show that claim this American remake is tame in comparison.

I was against Being Human, since viewing it they haven't done much to make it new other then actually explain the characters back stories at the start rather as the British show did just jump in to the story and let you find out about the characters as the series progressed, it's not a bad thing just a different way of telling the same story; I do think the Warewolf transformation is better in the UK show.

When I heard over a year ago about all the remakes Channel 4 shows which include Shameless, Skins, The IT Crowd, Spaced and now The Inbetweeners and possibly The Misfits I was dead set against them, hell I’m still not entirely behind them. I will check them all out but so far my opinion has not been changed, TV Show remakes just don't work for me generally, of course their are exceptions; but after watching both pilot versions of an American Red Dwarf and episodes of the US Men Behaving Badly and UK Married...With Children I believe we should leave TV shows as they are. Networks need to realise the reason we like these shows is because they are already good and we don't need another version with jokes they think work better culturally.

I try to watch every new show that American and British networks bring out and give them a chance and this means I have seen a lot of bad shows and some great shows that didn't find their audience before they were cancelled, some of my favourite shows from my childhood are only 13 episodes long because they were cancelled, such as Misfits of Science, Automan, Blue Thunder, Street Hawk and The Invisible Man staring David McCallum; I hope to review them over the coming months.

However, next week it's back to the movies for a review of a guilty pleasure of mine, a film called My Demon Lover.

Somewhere In Time (1980)

Welcome to another review by me the Movie and TV Mistress.

I have a big fascination with Time Travel, I am a huge fan of the Back to the future films, I have watched many movies about time travel and there are some under appreciated ones out there like Time After Time which I also love, but today I'm reviewing a movie called Somewhere In Time.

This movie came to my attention when I wrote a story about travelling back in time and working on movies and well dating certain celebrities, it was a Mary Sue story. I found out that there was a movie already similar to this story so I never went back to mine. Today for the first time I watched this movie, it stars Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

With in 3 minutes of the film starting an old lady, actually the old lady who hung herself in the movie House gives Christopher Reeve a fob watch and tells him to come back to her, his expression says it all that was just plain creepy.

So we know that Christopher is the playwright of the play the old lady watched and that he's called Richard, hmm I wonder is this Richard Matheson doing a Mary Sue.  Any way it just skips ahead 8 years, he leaves his apartment drives off to the Grand Hotel and checks into 313, I have to point out I have worked in hotels and they don't tend to have rooms numbered 13 as it is bad luck, but whatever this film is not gripping me, could be something to do with the lack of dialogue or the fact I don't care about Richard.

So he goes to his room and the bell man tells him he has been at the hotel since 1910 and tells Christopher about what he was like as a child, I guess we'll see that later. He looks at the fob watch, hmm does he just pull it out every 8 years or something, damn its that song again I hope this is not going to get annoying like the violin in Full Moon High. So he is walking around the hotel and sees some old pictures and artefacts then a picture of Jane Seymour and the music swells and he looks like he is in love. OK that is just stupid falling in love with a picture of a beautiful girl from 80 years ago or older, I know we have all had crushes on film stars at different times, but he seems to just become really obsessed with that picture and well like the song addicted to love he can't eat and he can't sleep.

Sometimes I think Christopher Reeve is a bit of an over actor he makes me just want to cringe even when I watch Superman, so he goes to the library to research Jane’s character Elise McKenner and finally he sees a picture of the old lady from the start and he seems happy, oh I’m starting to feel queezy about this film.

He goes to see a lady called Miss Roberts about Elise and lies at first saying he wants to write a play about Elise and then he says it's personal and shows the fob watch, it turns out the watch was missing from Elise the night she died. We get some character introductions Christopher Plumber her Manager William and Richard's philosophy teacher Mr Finny whose book she read over and over, which is called travel through time. He then see a music box shaped like the Grand Hotel and it plays that fecking Rachmaninoff song. Richard then says “I don't understand what is happening to me?” I would like to point out nothing is happening.

He goes to his old philosophy teacher Mr Finny and asks “Is time travel possible?” and he explains how time travel is possible in this film, no machine or delorean, no you just need a really really old hotel and you hypnotise your mind into thinking that it is the past. OK I understand that films are not fact and each time travel story has it's own mythos but this makes less sense then the Butterfly Effect.

OK I have to give the movie and Christopher's character marks for at least sorting out money, clothes and haircut for the time period he wants to go to. However, this movie just seems kind of sick and more sick then Marty's mum kissing him. Richard makes a recording to play while he sleeps to make himself travel back to 1912 and I'm getting angry about this process it is just so...ridiculous and stupid, oh good it didn't work. So he is upset and goes to Arthur the bell man for help finding more old Hotel stuff, Arthur tells him that everthing is in the attic. So off Richard goes digging around the hotel attic. Wait a minute how did he get to the attic, what no one in the hotel catches him and chucks him out of the hotel for trespassing. Well anyway he finds the 1912 guest book and his name is in it and so he goes back to his room and tries to do the hypnosis thing again with the tape recorder and hides it under the bed cause apparently having anything from present day visible makes this not work.

Well this time it did work, whatever. He is in 1912, you can tell because of the sound of horses outside, he wakes up in a woman's room and is trapped in there while the woman and a man bicker, Richard does a little Clark Kent stick after he escapes and then goes to Elise’s room but is turned away and he goes to the lobby and we see it is really busy and young Arthur is playing ball; I’m reminded of Danny in the Shining Mini Series, actually come to think of it, isn't this what happened to Jack Nicholson's Jack in the Stanley Kubrick film.

It takes 45 minutes for us to finally see Jane Seymour in this film and she says to Richard “Is it you, Is it?” Christopher Plummer turns up and interrupts then tells Richard to stay away or he'll have him removed from the hotel, Richard catches up with Elise and dances with her, she tells him she doesn't even know him, but then continues to dance with him and he comes off as a creepy stalker.

William (Christopher Plummer) has Richard removed and Elise follows and confronts him, he tells her who he is and she assumes that because he is a playwright that he wants her to do his play, he asks her why she asked is it you and she doesn't tell him then we see her smiling, yes cause all women love to be stalked, oh wait no we don't. She asks William if Richard is the one and he says only you can answer that. I would really appreciate some explanations right about now.

Well he persuades her to go walking with him and then finally checks into the hotel and then we get a montage of them getting to know each other. So she finally explains why she said is it you and it turns out that William knows a lot about the future and her career and that she was expecting a man who would change her life. I guess this means William is also a time traveller, but like the rest of this movie that is never explained.

The best part of this film is the snippet of the play Elise is doing and then Richard is summoned by William who explains that he believes he will ruin her and then has two thugs beat him up. Elise finishes the play and is scared that Richard is missing, she confronts William and tells him she will not stop looking for Richard, but the play is done and it is time for her to leave the hotel. Richard has been tied up and placed in the stables, he escapes and runs to find Elise, he hears that the theatre company have left and losses hope but Elise finds him and that feels like the end of the film, but no we have a love scene which then focus's on a flaming candle, then the next day she asks him will he marry her to which he laughs but replies yes.

OK I still hate the time travel element of this film, he has accidentally brought a 1979 penny with him this freaks out the music in the film and he wakes up back in present day. I just don't care any more, this film makes me want to watch Superman 4 rather then this and that film is just as stupid ahhhhhhh. so richard can't get back for some reason that again is not explained, Oh Yay I think Christopher Reeve's character is dead, please let this movie end.

the last image of the movie is Richard with Elise in the afterlife, you have got to be kidding me this is the ending of Titanic and I hated that film too.

This film is boring, the love story is uninteresting and the time travel is just plain moronic. I am shocked that both the story and screenplay were written by Richard Matheson the guy who wrote I am Legend, The Box and The Incredible Shrinking Man and other great Sci Fi stories.

There have been other time travel films that have had a great love story in them that were better Time After Time, Back To The Future 3 even the Butterfly effect had a good tragic love story.

I was serious about Superman 4, if I only had Somewhere In Time and Superman 4 on DVD and I could not rent, buy or download another film, given the choice I would watch Superman 4, yes it's awful and a rehash of the first film at times but at least it tries to be funny and well it has Gene Hackman.

ONCE BITTEN 1985

This week I'm reviewing Once Bitten the little known vampire film staring Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton from 1985. Once Bitten was one of the many comedies based around the horror genre that were very popular in the mid 80's like Full Moon High, Fright Night, Teen Wolf, House, Monster Squad and Gremlins.

This Movie starts with a great song and we see the sheriff from Blazing Saddles Cleavon Little in riding chaps sorting out what we assume is a bloody Mary or a hangover drink for his master, but wait this is a vampire film it must be blood. The house is decorated in the classic colour of the 80's... White, even the coffin is white with a pink interior and TV inside and the master is actually a mistress, played by Lauren Hutton.

The movie just jumps right into exposition, no foreplay, a bit like the Jim Carrey character and his friends when it comes to sex.

So the plot is as it is explained in the first 5 minutes that Lauren, the Countess needs to drink the blood of a virgin Three times before all hallows eve or she will become old but this is the 80's and virgin blood is hard to come by apparently. The Jim Carrey story is that he wants to sleep with his girlfriend but she's not ready.

So the vampires who live and work for the Countess are having trouble looking for a virgin that isn't 12 years old; now what they should do is go to a comic book store or one of those war hammer shops, your bound to find someone who is a virgin there.

As I’ve said Jim Carrey's girlfriend won't put out so he seeks the advice of his best friends who are also virgins Jamie and Russ, oh and if you didn't know they were the comic relief they work at a buger stand dressed as clowns.  Russ acts like he knows all about women but he is just an idiot and out of the pair the best lines come from Jamie like this one “There's to much pressure for getting laid, it's like taking drivers test for manhood.” Mark (Jim Carrey) and his friends decide to go to Hollywood to get laid as they figure it will relieve the pressure to have sex.

We get a montage of them driving around Hollywood in an Ice cream van, because that’s Jim's job selling ice cream. The Vampires are out looking for a virgin and seem to know that the Ice Cream van has virgins in it.  Random part of the montage is seeing a woman walking a Lion, apparently that was normal in the 80's. Anyway they go to a club where you have a number and a telephone on your table so you can call someone across the room and start something, it's kind of like today’s chat roulette online but more classy.

So again this movie doesn't waste to much time we get a joke where Russ is hit on by a man in drag and then the Countess invites Mark over for a drink and she tells him to call her Countess and he replies “wow that’s nice I had a dog called king once” you can see Lauren is trying not to giggle at that.

A disgruntled husband turns up and pulls a gun on Mark's friends and the police are called and Mark is rushed out the back with the Countess.

They arrive at the countesses house and she explains “We just moved in the previous owner slaughter his family and then hung himself.” so she lives in the amityville house.  The countess leaves to fresshen up we get another gay joke and as Vampires don't have a reflection she has Sebastian (Cleavon Little) do her make up and basically tell her that she is the fairest in the land.

We learn that female Vampires don't bite you on the neck but bite off all your buttons, she sends him back home and makes him believe he got laid. Robin his girlfriend over hears him and his friends talking about their night in Hollywood and she breaks up with him. we then get a few signs that he is changing into a vampire and his parents probably think he is on drugs. We then have a strange dream sequence where Mark tries to act all smooth but fails comically.

Mark persuades Robin to get back with him, which works surpise surpise.  He then takes his friends to a laundromat to pick up chicks and he finally says what we have all been thinking “You two are insane and what you know about women would fill an atom sized piece of toilet paper.” The funny part of their scene is that Jamie's idea of protection is a rubber glove cause he doesn't know what size to get.

Mark goes shopping at the clothes store Robin works at, the Countess is in the changing room, he notices that she doesn't have a reflection and doesn't question it so she gets her second drink from him. We get more scenes showing that he is changing into a vampire and a really silly scene where two kids run off cause he turns round to give them their ice creams and pulls a classic I’m a vampire face without fangs with that silly noise we have all made when we do that. But why would two boys run off, the more believable thing would be for them to laugh at him and tell him he's stupid or a pedo

He has another dream sequence this time in the classic cheesy vampire style with him doing what I can only describe as the claw, well actually he is doing that vampire mind trick on Robin while Countess watches.

He wakes up and it cuts to the high school dance that seemed to be in every teen 80's film with the obligatory choreographed dance number, this one is really funny and has Robin striping to reveal a white lacy dress; the dance number is basically a fight between the Countess and Robin for the love of Mark and Robin wins this round. Mark runs off and sees his reflection disappear for a moment and he finally says “I think she is a vampire and is turning me into one.”

Robin investigates vampires and how to tell if he has been bitten by going to a book store and asking the owner about vampires. In the movies of the 80's if you had a question you needed answered you would ask a librarian or a book store owner, now a days you ask google or wikipedia.

So she finds out that female vamps bite the artery closest to the source of untapped sexual potency and asks his friends to check if he has a bite mark near his balls and hijinks ensue, including as Jamie puts it, re-enacting a prison rape scene in the showers.

We now have thunder and lightning, which means we must be near the end of this film and time for the final battle, as for some reason Robin gets into a limo with Sebastian. Mark and his friends go after her in his ice cream truck and they sneak into the house, free Robin and then get caught by the vamps. Mark is tied to a table and about to be bitten the third time.  Robin breaks free and she and Mark's friends untie him, there is a chase around the house and well it ends with Jim and Robin in the coffin meant for him and they have sex, the Countess finds them and says “you couldn't have you had less then a minute... you could have, but you didn't have time to enjoy it.” So he's not a virgin any more meaning that the countess has failed and she ages rapidly.

This movie is really silly but a lot of fun basically it is a cougar story, with lots of gay jokes and we get an early look at the comedy of Jim Carrey and see how flexible he is. I saw this movie as a child and like many of the movies of the eighties it is pure cheese but that doesn't mean it's awful it is what it is, a fun film.

It's rare to see a female vampire movie, but they do exist, however, most films about vampires are about the male kind, this is partly because the stories of vampires are written for women and apparently we like vampires because they are in control and well as far as I can tell it has something to do with women loosing their virginity which is very obvious in this film and Fright Night where Charlie's girlfriend is seduced by Chris Sarandon's Vampire, she bleeds when he bites her and has what sounds like an orgasm.

I would recommend this film only if you like 80's cheesy comedy horror films like Monster Squad and Teen Wolf, but if you prefer your 80's vampires a little more serious well then I'd stick with The Lost Boys or Near Dark.

MY YEAR IN CANADA

OK so this is not a review of a TV show or Movie, there will be one very shortly, but some people have been telling me to write about my year so far so hear it is.

Since April 14^th 2010 I have been living in Canada, I came to Canada with the intention of working in TV/Film production as either a PA, AD or Extra and to travel and see more of the country.

I spent the first 4 and a half months in Vancouver where I signed up with an Extras agency went on loads of auditions and called up the production companies responsible for many of my favourite show to offer my services. Unfortunately I was not what they wanted fro their commercials, films or TV shows, but I remained positive.

I tried getting part-time work to pay the bills but none were forthcoming in Vancouver, which is why many people moved on to the next place in Canada or went home, I stuck it out and thanks to my friend Ket she got me a volunteer job working in the box office of the Theatre Under the Stars in Stanley Park, it was a great job and I did not mind that I was working for free, I was doing something connected to entertainment and I was happy.

I said to many people with in the first month of being in Vancouver that I did not feel happy in Vancouver and that I felt I should go to Toronto, but I wanted to give it a chance and stick it out over the summer as lots of TV shows were being filmed and I hoped that I could work as an Extra on them; sadly this was not the case and in July I received an email fro the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that I had been accepted as a volunteer. I took this as the sign it was time to leave Vancouver and head to Toronto, so at the end of August I arrived in Toronto with 37 degree heat and I attended the Fan Expo, the start of my celebrity gazing in Toronto.

The summer before I went to London Comic Con and met and got my photo taken with Scott Bakula and in Toronto I met and got my picture taken with Dean Stockwell. I was so nervous to meet Dean Stockwell because well he is one of the last remaining old Hollywood stars, he grew up in the system and he has this presence a bit like when I met Chris Sarandon in London he had a presence and I also did not want to come off seeming weird which I feel I usually do with some stars like when I met Bruce Boxleitner, he was talking to the assistant beside him about the fans and I spoke up and said “Of course cause your Captain Awesome Dad and you were and Awesome Captain in Babylon 5 and you were Awesome in TRON” and he responded “And I'm Awesome in the new TRON movie” Yes people that is me geeky fan girl extraordinaire.

Anyway back to my travels in Canada. I Volunteered for TIFF everyday of the festival and a few days in the month after, I loved it I met so many people who were into the same thing and others who weren’t. Once October hit I applied for part time jobs and jobs in TV and Film and like buses 3 came at once and I'm not kidding.

First I got offered a PA job on a short film, then I got offered a part time job at a cinema and then even after a very bad start to an interview I was offered a Job on a film as an AD. The film jobs were originally happening the same weekend and so unfortunately I had to choose so I accepted the AD Job when I emailed the first film producer he replied saying if I had known you were looking for AD work I would have offered you that position, but then at the last minute the shooting of the second film was postponed, so I contacted the first film to say yes I can work and they gave me a AD position, Brilliant. With the second film moving I had to turn down the paying job and 2 days after I did the filming of the second film became postponed indefinably so I could take the paying job at the cinema after all.

One thing I have noticed about Vancouver and Toronto is there are a lot more people who are trying to get in to the industry then there are in Belfast which is great cause we can all relate to how hard it is to get paid work here.

Anyway back to my travels around Canada, this year I have climbed a mountain, maybe a metaphorical one but actually a real one in Vancouver, it took 4 hours and I thought I would never make it but I did I took pictures of myself at different parts and you can see the point where I was no longer happy about the mountain, the funniest picture for me is the last one as I took it at the top and when I made it I started to laugh and cry cause I could not believe I made it. When you climb the Grind it is like going through a dark tunnel of trees and you literally head towards the light at the top, funny thing, when you get to the top you then have to climb a couple more stairs into the building to get warm and have some food. While in Vancouver I went kayaking which was a lot of fun a recommend it I think I would like to learn to do it solo, I also went white water rafting again this time the rafting was more intense and I even fell out of the boat, I wasn't scared cause well there was no time to be scared I just grabbed the rope and the guide got me back in the boat it was Awesome, seriously I actually like falling out, not enough to do it on purpose but if it happened again I know what to do. I come off as a fragile person sometimes but I love that sort of action. In Whistler I went Zip lining down the mountains so much fun I did try to go upside down but I need more practice. In the Rockies there was a lot of nature walks and I went western style horse riding; it does not mater what style of riding you do on a horse it still hurts but I know know why John Wayne and other cowboys walked the way they did it was cause their thighs hurt so much.

Yes on the west coast of Canada I as an adventurer on the east coast I have been a star gazer and writer. I finally finished the first draft of my fairy tale story, I am now working on my second draft, writing my blog and writing the first draft of a romance horror story set in Toronto's PATH system.

Since being in Toronto I have been very laid back but still pushing myself out there with interviews for positions in the industry, I have met so many people and have drunk as much as I did in Vancouver but that’s cause I have not found a bar as fun as the Beaver at the Samesun hostel and as welcoming. If your ever in Vancouver check out the bar they have great people working there, the food and drink is cheep and the Thursday night quiz is a must I tried to not miss that it was great fun and the teams I was on won it a few times which meant a free trip to Whistler and free beer, what’s not to like.

Well there are a few more months left of this year here and so I will have to up date this once the year is officially over, but for now be excellent to each other and live long and prosper. ;)