Q: What is the point of creating sequels that have absolutely no relevance to the original film? No point. This is why the Prom Night sequels are so embarrassingly bad.

The original film entailed a group of children hiding a dark secret that eventually get them all killed, bar one, in a brutal act of revenge. Can someone please explain to me what a dead prom queen-to-be rising from the grave to steel the crown has to do with the first movie then? Prom Night 2 had continuous plot holes that left the audience constantly wondering how did that happen and why should that happen? But in the end, i guess you could call it one of those movies that is so bad, you end up laughing yourself through it. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: Horror Gods Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi should be more than sufficient a reason for any Genre-lover to watch a film, and, even though the most convincing one they are not the only reason to watch this particular little Sci-Fi/Horror gem. While Lambert Hillyer's "The Invisible Ray" of 1936 does not nearly share the brilliance of other contemporary films starring Karloff ("Frankenstein, "Bride Of Frankenstein", "The Mummy",...) or Lugosi ("White Zombie", "Island Of The Lost Souls", "Dracula",...), or both ("The Black Cat", "The Raven",...), this is doubtlessly a highly entertaining film that no lover of cult cinema should consider missing. Compared to other Universal Horror pictures, the storyline seems a bit silly, but in a delightful manner. Karloff and Lugosi, of course, shine as always, and the film furthermore profits from great sceneries and an excellent photography. Karloff plays Dr. Janos Rukh, a brilliant scientist who has invented a technique to look into the past through a telescope, and finds out that a meteor has hit the earth thousands of years ago. Stunned by Rukh's invention, the celebrated French scientist Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi), invites him to join an expedition in to find the meteor. In Africa, Rukh makes a discovery that is capable of causing great beneficence and great destruction alike... It is somewhat odd that Karloff, who was in fact British, plays a Hungarian scientist here while Lugosi, who was Hungarian, plays a French Scientist, but they are both excellent as usual. As far as I am concerned, these two Horror Deities could have probably been filmed reading the telephone directory, and I am sure they would have made something out of it - either man is an icon of the Horror genre, and seeing them together is a treat for every fan of the genre. By the way, this is one of the few films, if not the only one, in which it is obvious that Lugosi was actually taller than Karloff. Frances Drake makes a very good female lead in her role of Dr Rukh's beautiful young wife. The rest of the performances are also good, if not particularly worth mentioning. Other than the casting of Karloff and Lugosi, the film's greatest qualities are probably the atmosphere due to great settings and photography, as well as the wonderfully cheesy and highly entertaining storyline. My main complaint is that I would have wished for more screen time for Lugosi, and for his role to have a bit more significance. He is fantastic as always, but his role could have been bigger, and more sinister. Otherwise, "The Invisible Ray" is a wonderfully entertaining film which should satisfy every lover of classic Horror/Sci-Fi cinema, and a must-see for all my fellow Lugosi/Karloff fans. OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: From the moment Christopher Lee puts on a pair of punk sunglasses and tries to sneak into a punk rock club, you know you've got a stinker on your hands! This film had potential. Beneath all of the sludge there are the remnants of what could have been crafted into a decent film, if not an interesting one. The final product is a real mess, however. Aside from the gratuitous nudity and some very attractive women, Howling II winds up being a laughable excuse for a horror film. Christopher Lee gives it a nugget of credibility, but even he cannot raise it above the level of crap.

Having never seen any of the other films in this series, this critic will be forced to accept on face value that this is a genuine continuation of the events in part one. We start off at a funeral for one of the characters from the original, and within the first ten minutes we find ourselves in Transylvania with a small group of heroes ready to battle a coven of werewolves. The film is paced fairly well, and there are not too many dead spots. The action is there; it just isn't filmed well. One bright spot is the music of a punk band called Babel. Though their song is played quite often, it is rather catchy.

The problems with this film are great in number. First off, the acting is worse than pitiful. Christopher Lee is good enough, but that's where it ends. The two leads Reb Brown and Annie McEnroe are lacking in just about everything you'd want for such characters. The writing is wretched, the editing redundant, and the direction amateurish. There are a couple nice special effect gimmicks, but the cheesy ones far out weigh them in number. Sybil Danning is nice to look at, but her acting performance is less than satisfactory. Judd Omen looks the part he plays, but his voice and acting are unconvincing to say the least. Much of the dialog is in an unintelligible language that may or may not be Latin.

I liked the general idea for the story. I always enjoy stories of true believers out to battle seemingly invincible forces of evil. One scene where a small group of good guys are trekking through a dark forest and shooting down a bunch of werewolves is even kind of exciting. Kind of. Maybe a bigger budget or a better director could have made the rest of the film a bit more compelling. 3 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Side note: As of this writing, the censors at youtube.com have still not taken down the ending credits with Sybil Danning ripping off her top several times while the Babel song is playing! Catch it while you can! OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: I love bad movies. Not only, because they often are as entertaining as 'really' 'good' films (like Pirates of the Caribbean series and other Hollywood pathos), but they often are far better than those films. And that's the reason why I love Italian rip off cinema of 1970s and 1980s. And that's the reason why I especially love this movie, The Barbarians & the Company.

Director Ruggero Deodato has made some actually very good movies, like House on the Edge of the Park, and also his Atlantis Interceptors and Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man are enjoyable action movies. But this is really bad. The Barbarians is so idiotic movie. Peter and David Paul as the Barbarian Brothers Kutchek and Gore are very funny, because of their lack of charisma and acting skills. But if they can't act, they yell and scream every time they do something important. In one scene people try to hang the Barbarian Brothers, and they escape very extraordinary way.

Bad acting, bad special effects, very stupid story, bad direction, actually everything is bad in this movie. I can't describe how much I laughed when I watched this first time. The Barbarians & the Company is camp classic everybody should see once. If you thought Plan 9 From Outer Space is fun camp, this will be a real killer. OPTIONS:
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A: positive