Alien collection: Two masterpieces and some pretty good followups

This Blu-ray set, released in August 2017, includes the four 1979-97 films starring Sigourney Weaver and the two Ridley Scott prequels from the 2010s. 

The only one of these movies I had seen before diving into this set was Alien, the first film. The rest were first-time watches.

I really enjoyed this collection of iconic spaceship films. We get a couple of unquestionably great movies. Three of the other four are fairly decent.

The first two films alone are worth the price of admission. 

Alien is one of the most memorable films I've ever seen. Who could ever forget that shocking scene when the creature explodes out of John Hurt's chest? Imagine seeing that in a dark theater in 1979 when you have no idea what's about to happen.

Ridley Scott delivered an influential classic in both the science fiction and horror genres. It holds up extremely well. I loved it this time around.

James Cameron came on board as writer and director for Aliens, which hit screens in July 1986.

Cameron toned down the horror elements of Alien and ramped up the action, in the process making Sigourney Weaver a badass star.

Like Alien, Aliens holds up really well. It became one of my all-time favorites.

The franchise crashed hard in 1992 with Alien 3. This was David Fincher's debut as a feature-film director. He's disowned it as a studio-meddled disaster. 

Alien 3 easily is the worst film in this collection. It's just boring and uninteresting and mostly a slog. It's the only one that gets a thumbs-down from me.

Writer Joss Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet killed the franchise in 1997 with Alien: Resurrection. It died at the box office. It's OK, not the disaster that Alien 3 was. It's a cartoonish version of Alien -- over-the-top ridiculous but engaging enough.

Ridley Scott returned in 2012 with the prequel Prometheus and its 2017 followup, Alien: Covenant. Both are stunningly beautiful with some exciting action set pieces. The problem with both is that the Alien origin story is confusing, overbearing, unsatisfying and maddening.

This box set is obsolete now, but you might be able to find a copy for around $30 if you look around. I felt I got a lot of bang for my bucks out of it. I would have felt that even had I stopped after those first two movies. But there was more than enough meat on the bones the rest of the way to make me feel like this one is unquestionably a slam-dunk.

Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948): Universal milks some laughs from its classic monsters

Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein, 1948, directed by Charles Barton, 3.5 stars.

Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein was a surprise box-office hit in 1948. It was a movie the two stars did not want to do. Most everyone involved hated working with them. But not much else was happening at the time for anybody, so they all had to suck it up and just do it.

Abbott and Costello were at a career crossroads. They had just lost their long-running radio show, they were in a nasty personal feud with each other, and both were struggling with health issues.

Universal's megahit monster series had petered out, reduced to lame sequels and crossovers during the World War II years.

And the studio was struggling to stay afloat through a succession of desperate mergers and acquisitions. Universal-International, as it was known in 1947, got hold of a script titled The Brain Of Frankenstein that featured several of the studio's iconic monsters.

The plot had Dracula seeking a simpleton brain to transplant into the Frankenstein monster. The studio still had Abbott and Costello under contract, and someone got the idea that Lou would be perfect for the part of the targeted victim.

Costello hated the script and wanted no part of it. Universal dangled a $50,000 cash advance in front of Lou, and he and his estranged partner reluctantly got on board.

Bela Lugosi agreed to play Dracula for the first time in more than 15 years. And Lon Chaney Jr., dumped a few years earlier by Universal, returned to play The Wolf Man.

Glenn Strange, the then-current go-to for the Frankenstein creature, returned to the makeup chair. Boris Karloff later agreed to do a promotional appearance as the monster, but "only if I don't have to see the movie."

Despite all the turmoil, the damn thing worked. Audiences flocked to it, and a bickering comedy team and a struggling studio got their grooves back.

I've watched Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein a couple of times in the past several months. It holds up reasonably well. It's more goofy than spooky, obviously. As far as the monsters, Bela Lugosi's Dracula shines brightest. He's charismatic as hell as the pivotal character.

I give it 3.5 stars on Letterboxd. I found a few good laughs in there -- some of them ironic. Dracula running scared from The Wolf Man and then stopping to conk him on the head with a chair is one of the funniest things ever.

Hell House LLC (2016): No upgrade necessary

Hell House LLC, 2016, directed by Stephen Cognetti, Prime Video, 3.5 stars.

Hell House LLC is a top-notch found-footage film from 2016. This was a Video On Demand release from writer and director Stephen Cognetti, making his feature-film debut.

It was successful enough that Cognetti has been able to make a career of turning out Hell House LLC movies. His fifth one, subtitled Lineage, landed in August 2025.

In Hell House LLC, a young entrepreneur and his staff go to work converting an abandoned hotel into a haunted-house attraction for the Halloween season. The plot is framed as a documentary crew's investigation five years later into an unexplained "malfunction" on opening night that killed 15 people.

The story is told through video shot by the crew while setting up the attraction -- as well as clips from TV news coverage of opening night and an interview with the crew's only survivor.

Let me interject here: We all know there are two kinds of movie fans, right? Those who like found-footage films and those who don't. I'm in the first camp. I've enjoyed these things ever since I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater more than 25 years ago.

I'm here to tell you that Hell House LLC is a particularly good one. We see pretty much from the beginning, when our heroes first go to work on this old place, that this hotel is already haunted -- no upgrade necessary. In fact, our crew keeps ignoring signs that intervention is probably not a great idea.

Cognetti delivers the scary, creepy goods with Hell House LLC. The staging is exceptional, the characters are well-written and the acting by an unfamiliar cast is strong. All those are essential elements for making a film like this work.

My Letterboxd rating is 3.5 stars, which means I really enjoyed it. I've seen this twice in the past year or so, and I'll happily visit it again at some point.

I did watch the second film in this series, titled Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel, from 2018. It was a big dropoff, not enough to get me excited about moving onto the third one.

Hell House LLC is on most all the free streaming services, including YouTube. It's also on Prime Video, AMC+ and Shudder. I cannot find a disc release anywhere except in a franchise collection from Umbrella Entertainment.

 

Haunt (2019): A real scream

 

Haunt, 2019, directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods, Prime Video, 3.5 stars.

A group of college friends leaving a Halloween party make their way to a haunted-house attraction in a remote area.

They're greeted at the entrance by a guy in a creepy clown outfit who has them sign liability waivers and lock up their cell phones before they can go in. Of course, we know that's a flashing red beacon of danger. But our heroes pay it no mind. They're just here for some chills and thrills to cap off their evening.

You know what's coming. Our heroes get a couple of jump scares early before they get lost in a maze, and the operators of the haunted house start messing with them. The fun and games that aren't so fun and playful get increasingly chilling and violent.

Haunt has the potential to be just another of a gazillion claustrophobic psycho-slasher movies out there. But it does stand well above the crowd with some truly tense, white-knuckle moments and enough surprises to keep us engaged.

Beck and Woods deliver the goods. The script is well-paced and the cinematography is expert. I was not familiar with anyone in the cast, but the acting was solid. The costuming, the makeup, the lighting all are effectively creepy. We get plenty of beautiful gore. Perhaps best of all, rare for a movie like this, the payoff is exciting and satisfying.

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The Substance (2024): Disturbing and disgusting -- but most of all brilliant

The Substance, 2024, directed by Coralie Fargeat, Mubi blu-ray (2025), 4.5 stars.

I spent the first half of this movie nearly hyperventilating, covering my eyes and gasping for breath, trying to decide if I was loving it or hating it. I spent the last half nearly hyperventilating, squirming and cursing out loud at the screen, completely overtaken by this brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Part of what was going on is that I am not, never have been, a fan of body horror. That stuff always gives me the heebie-jeebies. I have never been able to rewatch The Fly, the David Cronenberg masterpiece. Don't even talk to me about stuff like Saw and The Human Centipede. I have no interest. Hell, I remember freaking out for a few seconds in every episode back when I binge-watched Nip/Tuck.

But The Substance I was kind of forced into. I got caught up in the buzz last fall about Demi Moore winning all those awards and about how this little horror film was making noises about Oscar nominations. I jumped on it when the blu-ray came up for preorder in December for about $16. It was only after I got my hands on it that I learned it was a pretty intense body horror movie. And I put the disc on my shelf in no hurry to have a look. I was not looking forward to seeing it, but I decided to go ahead and dive in now before the Oscars this weekend.

And holy crap, was I nervous and grossed out and blown away by the time this movie was over.

I'm convinced. The Substance definitely is Oscar material. It is an excellent movie. And Demi no question deserves a best-actress nod. She's onscreen for maybe half of the movie's 141-minute runtime, sharing lead duties with Margaret Qualley, who is excellent. But Demi, her performance here is freaking stunning. She does get help as the movie progresses with some brilliant makeup effects, no doubt. But she throws everything she has into this role, and I am thrilled that the people who give out these awards are recognizing her for it. Kudos.

I have not seen most of the movies in the Oscar hunt, I will pick off a few of them eventually, I am sure. But I would love it if The Substance picks off one or two of the big ones.

 

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012): Somebody had to put down those Confederate blood-suckers

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 2012, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, 20th Century Fox blu-ray (2012), 3 stars.

I'm thinking the historical accuracy might be a little iffy ...

I was surprised to learn that this Tim Burton-produced gothic-horror flick was not an original concept but was adapted from a 2010 novel. It's an interesting concept, a sort of fantasy-action biopic mashup.

The ruse is that Abe, at about 8 years old, witnessed his mother being killed by a vampiric plantation owner and grew up vowing to get revenge. He trains as a young law student in the vocation of vampire hunting and becomes fairly proficient. He eventually gets himself elected president with a mandate to put down the confederacy of slave-owning vampires rising up in the South.

It's a slow-burner of a story that explodes with some spectacular, stylish CGI action sequences. I found the tale interesting enough and the set pieces glorious enough to stay entertained, though the movie did have its dead spots and felt a little long sometimes at 105 minutes.

Tim Burton is credited only as a producer, but it's definitely got his signature gloomy vibe. I can see myself revisiting this at some point to sort through the goodies. 

 

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Back To The Future Part III (1990, rewatch): A fantastic comeback

Back To The Future Part III, 1990, directed by Robert Zemeckis, Universal Studios 4K blu-ray (Back To The Future: The Ultimate Trilogy box set, 2020), 3.5 stars.

Two out of three, in the end, ain't bad, I suppose.

As disappointed as I was with Part II, I really was pleasantly surprised with Part III. I was dreading watching this but decided to soldier on and be done with it. And I wound have having a blast with it.

We got a little too much fat in the first and last 10 minutes of Part III -- mostly having to do with revisiting and doing some cleanup with Part II. But with the 100 minutes or so in the middle, Part III was a fantastic homage to the great Western movies of the past -- with some big nods to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of the 1960s. Marty McFly adopts the Clint Eastwood alias, dons The Man With No Name's trademark hat and poncho. And the showdown in the street between Marty and Buford Tannen was straight out of A Fistful Of Dollars, as telegraphed on a TV screen we glimpsed in Part II.

That and the fantastic action set piece at the climax put this film over the top for me. I pretty much forgave the transgression that was Part II by the time Part III was over, even if the coda that wrapped up this series was a bit cheesy for my taste.

I think what makes Part III -- and the first film -- so successful is a solid focus on a central human story. Where Part II bounced all over the place with a cardboard character, Biff Tannen, as its malevolent centerpiece, Part III was all about the joyful Doc Brown wrestling with his demons and ultimately finding his happy place. And the clever anachronistic comedy of the first movie was back in Part III.

Everything worked for me in the first movie. Nothing did in Part II. Most everything did again in Part III.

So, in the end, I would call the Back To The Future trilogy a pretty good one. If the middle one didn't happen, it would have been an all-time classic one-two punch.  

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