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The Omega Man from 1971 is an adaptation of the I Am Legend book. I don’t know if it’s streaming anywhere.
Sure it is!




Peter Weir's The Last Wave is on Criterion. I almost went with that one but decided on Chosen Survivors instead.
Seen it many times and I love it!

Edit 3: Idaho Transfer. It's availability might not be the best.
This one is streaming several places, thanks!

It's not technically post-apocalyptic, but Hills Have Eyes looks enough like it that it should at least qualify for some kind of end-of-times consideration.
It pops up on some IMDb post-apocalyptic lists, but it's not, right? I've always avoided it because it looked to sad and rape-y for me. And probably a pet dies. These are things I'm just extrapolating from the cover and the vibes it gives me.

The Omega Man from 1971 is an adaptation of the I Am Legend book. I don’t know if it’s streaming anywhere.
It's the one I wanted to watch, and JustWatch says it's on HBOMax, but that's a lie!




It pops up on some IMDb post-apocalyptic lists, but it's not, right? I've always avoided it because it looked to sad and rape-y for me. And probably a pet dies. These are things I'm just extrapolating from the cover and the vibes it gives me!

They are kind of post apocalyptic characters that happen to be in the modern world. So, it doesn't legit qualify, but it feels similar in tone.


I don't remember particulars well enough. It's definitely less rapey than Last House on the Left, but I can't vouch for it being completely rape free. It may be there, or it may be implied. Or not at all. Not sure.



Same goes for pet deaths. It feels like this could be in there, in fact suspecting it likely is, but I'm not 100 percent.


Overall, it's not as grimey as some of these kind of films. But it is definitely uncomfortable. And sweaty. And the only Craven film I would consider putting on a (very extended) favorite horror movie list.



I've always avoided it because it looked to sad and rape-y for me. And probably a pet dies. These are things I'm just extrapolating from the cover and the vibes it gives me.
Without specific spoilers, I'll just say you have extrapolated correctly on all counts.
I'm sure you've seen much nastier films, but if you're not in the mood than you'll probably want to save this for another time.
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Without specific spoilers, I'll just say you have extrapolated correctly on all counts.
I'm sure you've seen much nastier films, but if you're not in the mood than you'll probably want to save this for another time.
I feel like it's a film that would have been my brand of grit in my late teens or early 20s, but not at this point. I think you'll all understand when I say I don't think there's much point for me in watching it.



I feel like it's a film that would have been my brand of grit in my late teens or early 20s, but not at this point. I think you'll all understand when I say I don't think there's much point for me in watching it.
Yeah that's fair. Not a lot of levity in the movie, aside from the son's impossibly short shorts.



Takoma, neither one of these are streaming outside of rentals but maybe:

Genesis II (1973) with Alex Cord
Quintet (1979) with Paul Newman



Takoma, neither one of these are streaming outside of rentals but maybe:
Quintet (1979) with Paul Newman
I am really interested in Quintet, but I'm being cheap and trying to find stuff that's free (or at least free to me on streaming). I do have it bookmarked, because generally I'd like to check it out.



I feel like it's a film that would have been my brand of grit in my late teens or early 20s, but not at this point. I think you'll all understand when I say I don't think there's much point for me in watching it.
Just know that by skipping this movie, you're also missing out on the sequel in which a dog has a flashback to the first film. If that's something you feel like you can live without, that's on you.



Just know that by skipping this movie, you're also missing out on the sequel in which a dog has a flashback to the first film. If that's something you feel like you can live without, that's on you.



Just know that by skipping this movie, you're also missing out on the sequel in which a dog has a flashback to the first film. If that's something you feel like you can live without, that's on you.
Also lots of sweet dirtbike footage.


(I actually kind of like the movie. I mean, by slasher standards, it's not thaaaaaat bad.)



Alright, I guess I started my Halloween viewing. Reposting here to spread the love.



Blood Shack (Steckler, 1971)



In Joe Bob Brigg's introduction to Blood Shack, he notes that Ray Dennis Steckler was a fan of both Ed Wood and Michelangelo Antonioni. Despite Wood's reputation (and I admit I'm not in his fanclub), it's easy to see what a filmmaker working with such meager budgets might have admired about Wood. Antonioni was a little harder to grasp, based on my prior experience with Steckler, which felt a lot goofier (and not in a bad way) that anything I'd see from the Italian director. Yet his influence is pretty clear in Blood Shack, a slasher in which characters are murdered after setting foot in a shack in a disputed property in the middle of the desert. If Body Fever could be seen as a lower rent version of Jean-Luc Godard's Made in USA, this is a substantially cruder approximation of parts of Zabriskie Point, bringing to mind the Antonioni parody sequences in The Other Side of the Wind, but without the immaculate craftsmanship or formal daring present in the Welles film or in Antonioni's own.

The previous movies I'd seen from Steckler aren't exactly what I'd call tightly constructed, but they do feel relatively busy and loaded with incident. Blood Shack in contrast is stripped down to the barest of narrative essentials, letting the environment do the heavy lifting in setting the mood. The desert is a hostile, barren and under a scorching sun, casting a primordial atmosphere over the inane proceedings. Every couple of minutes somebody, despite being warned otherwise, steps into the shack and soon after gets murdered by the Chooper, a slim male figure in tights wielding a short sword. The Chooper cuts nowhere near an intimidating figure, but I admit the sight of him in broad daylight, his unabashed goofiness unobscured, did generate a certain frisson, if only because of how incongruous he is to his surroundings. This will not be most people's idea of an effective horror movie, but I'm an admirer of the original Friday the 13th for the way it uses its marginal production values to add to the tension, and I think Steckler kind of does the same thing here, if with less potency. The environment also brings to mind The Hills Have Eyes, but Steckler lacks Craven's ferocity.

Were the movie just a cycle of desert sun and murders in tights, it might have worked on an avant garde level, but Steckler grounds this in a story about a woman who inherits the property and fends off an overly aggressive interested party. There's some reference to a decades-old familial dispute and an Indian burial ground, but as you can probably guess, neither is explored with much interest. The woman is played by Carolyn Brandt, who at the time was Steckler's ex-wife, and she plays the role with a certain magnetism even if there isn't a whole lot to her character. She brings some much needed style to the desert, sporting a number of monochrome outfits as well as a pair of stars-and-stripes pants during the climax, nicely complementing the attempted excitement during that scene. In reliable Z-horror fashion she also gets saddled with a few audience-pandering shower scenes, although these are relatively chaste. I assume the divorce was amicable.

Steckler also pads the runtime with footage of the rodeo and particularly a few kids palling around. I watched the 55-minute "director's cut", which I understand excises 15 minutes of additional rodeo footage. Hope the original audiences liked the rodeo, because they would have gotten a lot more than any sane person might ask for. Am I being unfair to the pleasures of the rodeo? As my primary reference point for them is the rodeo scene from Borat, quite possibly. Now, Steckler likely isn't putting in the kids to highlight their innocence in contrast with the bloodletting (a theme perhaps too sophisticated for this movie's narrative interests), but aside from possibly using the production as an excuse for daycare, why does he spend so much time on them? My guess is that he's secretly a big softie and is happy to fill up the movie with kids playing musical chairs (with one chair!), puppies, calves and horsies (including a pony named Peanuts) because he thinks they're cute. Is that so wrong?




For what it's worth, I've started Final Exam (1981). Getting some solid Halloween vibes from this one and its nerdish character reminds me a little bit of Randy. Even though his obsession with serial killers feels borderline creepy.



I say it again: a nurse is seen crossing the hallway with big grass scissors in her hands



I am really interested in Quintet, but I'm being cheap and trying to find stuff that's free (or at least free to me on streaming). I do have it bookmarked, because generally I'd like to check it out.
Found two copies of Quintet on YouTube. One is a really cropped film that may be missing 20 minutes or so. The other appears to be full length but is in Italian.

Genesis II on the other hand, there's two workable copies on YouTube.



(I actually kind of like the movie. I mean, by slasher standards, it's not thaaaaaat bad.)
Hmmm...can't agree with you there, I'm afraid. I remember it being aggressively bad, to the point where I was borderline angry about it. I've only seen it the one time, though, to be fair.

Big fan of the first film though.



Found two copies of Quintet on YouTube. One is a really cropped film that may be missing 20 minutes or so. The other appears to be full length but is in Italian.
If you sync up the copies right, you just need to know twenty minutes worth of Italian.



Hmmm...can't agree with you there, I'm afraid. I remember it being aggressively bad, to the point where I was borderline angry about it. I've only seen it the one time, though, to be fair.

Big fan of the first film though.
Are you implying that a movie with a dog flashback, endless dirtbike footage and a shower scene in the middle of the desert is anything less than quality cinema?


(Tbh, I'm partial to movies that use their environments interestingly and this did so well enough.*Hence a pass from me and me alone.)



Are you implying that a movie with a dog flashback, endless dirtbike footage and a shower scene in the middle of the desert is anything less than quality cinema?


(Tbh, I'm partial to movies that use their environments interestingly and this did so well enough.*Hence a pass from me and me alone.)
Two things that I remember are:
1. Seemingly half the runtime was flashback footage from the first film, and
2. the print I watched was the most aggressively pan-and-scanned thing you've ever seen, which severely impacted my enjoyment, such as it was.

#2 isn't the movie's fault, of course, so I'll no doubt give it another shot one day.



Two things that I remember are:
1. Seemingly half the runtime was flashback footage from the first film, and
2. the print I watched was the most aggressively pan-and-scanned thing you've ever seen, which severely impacted my enjoyment, such as it was.

#2 isn't the movie's fault, of course, so I'll no doubt give it another shot one day.
I'd hate to talk you into a rewatch, but last I checked it was on Tubi in a nice transfer.*


I do remember a good amount of recycled footage, but half seems a bit high from my memory.*