input: WINCHESTER 73 is the story of a man (Jimmy Stewart) obsessed with getting back his prized possession, a repeating rifle made by Winchester. The rifle keeps changing hands, and Stewart doggedly keeps after it. This 1950 B&W effort by Anthony Mann is more a crime film than a traditional western, and the cowboys often seem more like modern-day gangsters than old-fashioned cowboys. Shelley Winters plays a woman of questionable virtue who is headed for a ranch with a man (Charles Drake) she may marry. She ends up falling for Stewart, but not before she is passed around a bit. Winters is the most complex character in a film filled with unusual characters. Watch for a young Dan Dureyea as a nutty killer and Tony Curtis in a very small role. A woefully miscast Will Geer plays Wyatt Earp.

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input: Skippy from "Family Ties" plays Eddie, a wussy 'metal' nerd who gets picked on. When his favorite wussy 'metal' singer, Sammi Curr, dies, he throws a hissy fit tearing down all the posters on his bedroom wall. But when he later gets an unreleased record that holds the spirit of his dead 'metal' idol. He first gets sucked into ideas of revenge, but then he doesn't want to take it as far as Sammi does. Which isn't really that far as his main victims only seem to go to the hospital. This movie is utterly laughable and has about as much to do with real metal as say, "Rock Star". OK, maybe a tad more than that piece of junk, but you get my point. And how ANYone can root for a guy played by Skippy from "Family Ties" I haven't a clue. The cameo by Gene Simmons is OK, and Ozzy Osbourne reaches coherency, I applaud him for that, but otherwise skip this one.

My Grade: D

Eye Candy:Elise Richards gets topless, an a topless extra at a pool party

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input: This movie has received a lot of bad press from people who don't understand what it was meant to be. One must understand that this movie was never meant to be taken seriously. It's camp, along the same lines as "Army of Darkness." AoD was silly, but funny and bad in a good way. "House of the Dead" fails to be "good bad.".

There are qualities inherent in good campy movies, most important of those being believable fantasy. One needs to believe what's happening in a movie to see the humor when a situation goes incredibly wrong. Without boundaries, the movie becomes absurd. HotD lacks any believability.

Worse still, HotD brings nothing new to the genre, and repeats the same plot twists and character reactions that many horror movies inevitably start to exhibit. For example, all too often, horror movies fall into the trap where the main characters find love amongst the gore and destruction. I don't know about you, but when I'm being chased by zombies, I wanna make out with a hot chick. Believe it? No? Then, you probably won't believe it when the characters start sucking each other's faces in this movie.

Beyond the obvious issues that plague this movie like so many other horror movies, Uwe Boll elected to add scenes from the video game of zombies being shot, randomly whenever a character shoots a zombie in the movie. Not only is there no clear rationale for this artistic choice, but it distracts one from an already unbelievable plot. Further, there are frequent and numerous examples of bad acting, and seemingly no attempts by the director to guide the actors' reactions to events... leaving the movie with no redeeming qualities. Avoid...

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input: A family (mother-Patricia Clarkson, father-Jake Weber, son-Erik Per Sullivan) go out for a family get together in some remote house in the middle of winter. They accidentally hit a deer while driving there. This angers some of the locals--especially Otis (John Speredakos) and things slowly (VERY slowly) go wrong.

I was expecting the worst when I started watching this. The bulk of the reviews for this, on this site, are extremely negative. Well...I disagree. First off it's NOT a horror film. The horror doesn't even begin until the closing 30 minutes. It plays more like a family drama with horror elements thrown in. On that level, it's pretty damn good.

First--the bad stuff: The pace is WAY too slow; Jake Weber is a horrible actor; WAY too many false dream sequence scares; the wendigo barely figures into the film and the clear view we get of the wendigo at the end is laughable.

The good stuff: Pretty good dramatic script; Clarkson is excellent as the mother; some great direction with eerie sound effects which are a little scary; a pretty explicit hot sex sequence between Clarkson and Weber (which actually is necessary for the integrity of the plot!); pretty good acting by Sullivan (only 10 at the time!) and Speredakos and a completely unexpected tragic ending.

I think many people are annoyed with this film because it's being pushed as a horror film--which it isn't. So, if you can ignore that, I think you might like it. I'm giving it a 7.

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positive