I have been looking for this movie for awhile.  It is a notorious movie filmed as if it were a documentary, and claims to be based on a true story, but it embellishes some of the stories of the Fouke Monster, a hairy man-like creature that lives in the swamp area of Boggy Creek near Fouke, Arkansas.

Some believers think that the Fouke Monster is related to the Sasquatch, but the film draws some notable differences, such as the number of toes.  The Fouke Monster is also shown to be fairly violent and reactive, whereas Sasquatch is usually shown as shy and reclusive.

There are some real-life people from Fouke in the movie, as they dramatize the legends of the creature that floated around the area since the 1950’s.  The acting certainly showed that in the film, but the ambiance of the “documentary” kept it from feeling too bad.  I get a better feel of this movie than I did with Birdemic or Manos.

The film actually does a decent job of creating mood and a feel of dread as the film progressed.  Everything from the music to the bouncy camera work created an atmosphere that was surprisingly effective.  The movie was put together by the community to take advantage of the news of the Fouke Monster.

I can see why this movie has become a cult classic, because there is a homemade charm to it.  Yes, the lack of real actors or any sort of FX budget hurts the movie, but it does an admirable job of overcoming its weaknesses.

It had been a long time since I saw Dumbo.

So much so that I did not remember much about it.  However, with the new live-action Dumbo coming out from Disney this week, I figured it was time to watch the film again.  And at a sparse 64 minutes, Dumbo was not a hard watch at all.

There was a lot of the 1941 movie that I did not remember.  There were some real mean spirited parts of the film. The crows were blatantly racist.  The other elephants were simply bullies.  Even Dumbo’s friends were using him through much of the film.

Yet, there was a feeling of magic here.  The whole concept of seeing an elephant flying is amazing and they pull it out in a great moment for Dumbo.  It really is able to put all of the negativity in its place right at the end of the movie.

It did feel too short.  As if there was more to this story than what we got.  Still, it was a fun watch.  You got the story of someone overcoming their difficulties to become something special (those ears were really big).  The drunk scene was disturbing.

I am looking forward to the new version of this movie.  We will see if it can match the magic of the original.

What a weird premise for a movie.

So, in this movie, Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) changes places with an Elvis impersonator to get away from the limelight and the craziness of the life as Elvis.  However, the real Elvis falls and winds up in a coma.  When he comes to, he finds himself in an East Texas rest home and discovers that “Elvis” had died.

With several other physical problems, Elvis found himself struggling to find the positive parts of life.  Instead, he lamented for what he had lost and where he was.

However, Elvis becomes friendly with a man at the rest home who believes he is President Kennedy (Ossie Davis).  Making things even stranger, they discover that there is an ancient Egyptian mummy that is staying alive by sucking the souls of the residents of the rest home out through their butts.

I’m not joking.

And despite that oddball premise, this movie is fantastic.  It might be a ridiculous set-up, but the performance from Bruce Campbell as Elvis is simply amazing.  It is the best work I have seen from Bruce Campbell.  Elvis is soulful and reflective and the film clearly cares about the character of Elvis.  He is also funny as he has the typical Bruce Campbell wit.

This was quite a surprise The film had no reason to be as good as it was, but I enjoyed it a ton.  It was a great combination of horror/comedy/drama/thriller.  Ossie Davis was compelling as Jack and one almost believed that he truly was President Kennedy died black.  There was also Kemosabe (Larry Pennell), a man at the rest home with a mask and toy guns who was clearly meant to be the Lone Ranger.

Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-Tep was directed and written Don Coscarelli.  I found it on Amazon Prime tonight and I am very happy I took a chance on it.

We had a movie schedule to show at school the other day, so we chose Meet the Robinsons.  The movie has a great example of growth mindset, encouraging learning from failure instead of giving up, which is a huge lesson for middle school kids to learn.  Plus, it is an awesome fun film from the animation wing of Disney.

Lewis (Daniel Hanson) was an orphan who desperately hoped to become an inventor some day and his desire to be adopted fueled his efforts to invent the proper gizmo.  When he comes up with a big time invention for the school science fair, he draws unwanted attention from Bowler Hat Guy (Stephen J. Anderson), a man from the future looking to steal Lewis’s invention.

However, Wilbur (Wesley Singerman), another person from the future, returned in a time machine to help Lewis recover his invention, stating that the future depended on it.

Meet the Robinsons is very funny and the story is clever.  The writing and dialogue does an extremely solid job of entertaining and enhancing the story.  Time travel stories are always potentially confusing, but Meet the Robinsons avoids these cliches and traps with a well developed and competently written script.

Sure the story is a bit predictable, but the reveal of the villain and what happens with him is one of the best parts of the movie.  While I saw the Lewis story coming a mile away, that does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie.  The part with the T-Rex is both dramatically exciting and remarkably funny.

As I said in the opening, the message of growth mindset in the movie is very positive and helps provide an important message… keep moving forward.  Middle Schoolers really have to learn this lesson because so many times, they simply give up when something gets too tough or when they have something that they fail at.  Lewis shows them that failure can be something to celebrate as well.

The animation is as great as it always is for Disney and the brightness of colors leap from the screen.  They have a wonderfully creative villain in the bowler hat named Doris and the end result of the confrontation with Doris and Lewis is as simple and awesome as any conclusion in any Disney film.

There may be too many characters involved in Wilbur’s family in the future, though the film does an admirable job trying to give a personality to each.  My favorite is hearing the dulcet tones of Adam West in the voice cast.  However, we really know very little about any of the future characters and that is a weakness.

Meet the Robinsons may not be the greatest Disney film ever, but it is certainly an entertaining watch and it has a great message that is important for young kids to understand.

Dark Comics’ Hellboy is set to return to the big screen this year with a new version of the movie featuring David Harbour in the titular role.  Because of that, I figured that it was time for me to see the Hellboy original film featuring Ron Perlman and directed by Guillermo del Toro.

I have never seen the first Hellboy (I believe seen pieces of Hellboy 2), so I found it on Netflix and set out to watch the Dark Horse property.

I found this to be a bit of a mixed bag.  I was not a huge fan of the first part of the movie, but I do believe it picked up dramatically as it continued.  The story was fairly complicated and difficult to follow and I disliked the main villain, Rasputin (Karel Roden).  However, Hellboy was unique and clever, with a wit that helped keep this movie engaging and fresh at all times.

Based on Mike Mignola’s work in the comics, Hellboy takes some time getting going, but the pay off is worthwhile.

I enjoyed the work of John Hurt as Prof. Trevor Bruttenholm, the man who rescued young Hellboy from the Nazis who intended on using the demon to turn the tides of World War II.  Hurt is warm and caring and provides a perfect counterbalance to the young “monster” he rescued and trained as a super hero against the world of the paranormal.

While this was not my most favorite film ever, I enjoyed more of it than I did not.  I expect the sequel will be better yet. It has helped make me more interested in the new version and that is part of the reason for this watch.

As I was doing some work today, I heard the “Weird Al” Yankovic song, This is the Life and I knew what I wanted to watch tonight.

“You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes… like yourselves.”  -Roman Troy Moronie (Richard Dimitri)

Johnny Dangerously starred Michael Keaton as the titular role and included such 1980s icons as Joe Piscopo, Marilu Henner and Peter Boyle.

Keaton’s Johnny Dangerously was in the mob, but he was beloved by most.  Since he was 12 years old, Johnny was the best at everything.  When he got a chance to make some money to help cover medical costs for his constantly ailing mother (Maureen Stapleton), Johnny couldn’t refuse the offer.

This movie has an amazing sense of humor.  The comedy here is top rate and makes me miss the days when spoof movies were more than just dick/poop/sex jokes.  I mean, there are sex jokes in Johnny Dangerously too, but there is way more here than just those.  The spoof on the gangster movie provides some rich material and this delivers.

The story is fast moving.  The characters are funny.  The actors involved look to be having a heck of a good time.

“You shouldn’t hang me on a door. My father hung me on a door, once. ONCE” -Danny Vermin (Joe Piscopo)

The film is as quotable of a film as you will find.  The dialogue is quick and witty.

The charm of Michael Keaton as Johnny Dangerously is off the charts.  He is the main reason why this all works.  He holds this movie together with his bad boy smirk and the sparkle in his eyes.

“Did you know you’re last name is an adverb?” -Lil (Marilu Henner)

I wish there were more spoof movies like this or Airplane, or The Naked Gun series.  There is an intelligence behind these films and are not just a mean-spirited film like many of the recent spoof movies are.  Johnny Dangerously is a heck of a good time.

It is Oscars night, but I found a film to watch this afternoon was decidedly not an Oscar film. It was still quite an enjoyable experience.  I see that there is a remake of this film coming out in September of this year so it is time for me to finally see the film Child’s Play, with the slasher doll, Chuckie.

Right off the bat, there was Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride, Chris Sarandon as the lead detective.  I know he is the greatest tracker in the land, he can track a falcon on a cloudy day… but I did not know he was here to take on a doll.

Serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) was being chased by Sarandon, whose character here is named Mike Norris.  After being gunned down in a toy store, Charles Lee transferred his consciousness into a nearby Good Guy doll, and thus Chuckie was born.

The doll wound up in the possession of Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) who gave it to her son Andy (Alex Vincent) for his birthday.  When terrible things begin to happen, Andy gets blamed for them and taken to a psychiatric hospital, leaving the living doll a chance to wander around dulling out retribution.

I have to say, I had just a little bit of trouble with the doll as the killer. While everything was sufficiently creepy and moody, I could not get it out of my head that he was a doll.  Just tear off is head.  Then, the head did come off and it did not stop Chuckie.  Ha, who knew?

I kept thinking that they needed to take a trip to the wood chipper.

Chuckie showed himself very resilient throughout the movie, taking on the much larger humans, but he was always more dangerous, in my mind, when he was messing with Alex.  I have a hard time buying that Detective Humperdinck couldn’t have just tore the doll apart.

The special effects were outstanding, especially for 1988 and the story was simple.  The whole transfer between bodies was weird and came from out of nowhere, but they did circle back around later to address why Charles Lee could do this.

The movie was a good time and I enjoyed watching it, despite my needing to suspend my disbelief more than usual.  I’m looking forward to the new version in Spetember.

Two documentaries from Amazon Prime for a snowy early Sunday afternoon.  I love the stories of Bigfoot and the other mysterious monsters that people believe they have seen and I tend to believe more than I disbelieve.  These two documentaries from the company Small Town Monsters can make you a believer if you let them.

First one I watched was about the Bray Road Beast, which was something that I had never heard of before. Interestingly enough, this is a wolf/werewolf type creature people claim to see in the Elkhorn, Wisconsin area. Originally seen in 1916, a rash of sighting in the 1980s and 1990s led to the investigation by newspaper reporter Linda Godfrey.  She discovered enough details to write a book on the monster, and she appears throughout the documentary.

There were all kind of possible solutions to the mystery of the Bray Road beast, including that of Satanism.  It is a fascinating watch, especially for some of the Wisconsin color shown from the locals.

The second documentary was Boggy Creek Monster: The Truth Behind the Legend.  The world was introduced to the Boggy Creek Monster from the independent film of 1972 called The Legend of Boggy Creek.  It is dubbed as a true story, and the film apparently feature several real life people from Fouke, Arkansas who had encounters with the monster.  This movie spends a good deal of its run time looking at the true story of the parts of that docudrama film from 1972.

The documentary features discussions with many of the local residents who have seen the monster and who were willing to share their stories.

Though mentioned, the film does not do much to encourage the idea that this is simply some more Bigfoot sighting, but sightings that were given its own monster a name.

Little is shown on either of the documentaries n the other side of the debate.  Nothing is shown to make one think that these eye witness reports were anything but honest people who saw something.  Yet there has been some suggestions, especially for the Boggy Creek Monster, that the recent sighting were hoaxes.

Both of these docs are fun to watch and to amaze at the possible mystery of what might be out there.  However how unlikely it may be, the fact that these legends keep popping up tells you that humans need something mysterious in their lives.

I’m not crying… you’re crying….

The second movie in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy goes deeper into some serious emotional moments that you do not see in too many animated movies.

When we return to Berk, we find that the Vikings and the dragons are living together in an almost Utopian society.  When they discover that the evil Drago Bloodfist (Djimon Hounsou) was coming with his dragon army, the community was sent into panic mode. Chief Stoick wanted to hide and batten down their land, but his son Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) wants to change the mind of Drago about the ways of the dragon.  Stubborn Hiccup takes Toothless and they fly off to try to talk sense to Drago.

However, on the way, Hiccup finds someone that he did not expect to find… his mother Valka (Cate Blanchett).  Valka had been rescuing dragons for the twenty years since she was believed to have been killed and the reunion with Hiccup is short and sweet, because the dangers of Drago is real and on the way.

This is a wonderful sequel to the original movie.  This film has some real deep, mature ideas and messages that you do not normally see in animated movies.  Another idea that you rarely see in animated movies is the passage of time.  It has been five years since the original movie and Hiccup has grown into a young man who is on the verge of being given the position of Chief of Berk.

The animation continues to be awe-inspiringly gorgeous.  Everything has been upped in this area from the first film, which was a beautifully animated masterpiece.  The scenes of Valka moving form dragon to dragon as they fly through the sky is visually stunning.  The set pieces are consistently as good as you are going to get.

There is tremendous action in these movies, creatively executed and wonderfully shot by returning director Dean DeBlois.  The voice cast continues its excellence from the first film, this time adding the alluring Cate Blanchett as the slightly crazed Valka and Kit Harrington as Eret, one of the dragon hunters working for Drago.

The only drawback was in a major SPOILER scene.  After a mind controlled Toothless attempts to kill Hiccup and, instead, kills Stoick, I found Hiccup’s forgiveness to be a tad too quick.  Sure they were best friends, but Toothless had killed his father.  Whether he was in control of the situation or not, you would think there should have been a bit more of a damage to their relationship.  When I first saw the movie, I felt that way and I felt the same tonight.  The trust between them should have been affected, even if it were just a scene more.  Maybe there was no time in the story to fit another scene because they did move quickly into the final battle, but I feel like this would have helped show that the friendship had faced a real stake.

I think this movie is just a step behind the first one, but not too much behind.  It dealt with some truly major life and death type themes and How I Trained Your Dragon 2 packed a real emotional wallop.

Bring on How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World!

In just a week or two, the third film in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy is scheduled to be released and the first word of mouth is extremely positive.  In order to get ready for The Hidden World (#3), I decided that I would re-watch the first two films.  Hard work, I know.

What a wonderful movie this is.

I remember when it first came out, this film was so surprising, so magical.  It took the well-known trope of a boy and his dog movie and upped the ante big time.  From dog to dragon.

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) was unlike the other Vikings.  He was small, soft-hearted and lacked the killer instinct shown by the others, including his own father, Stoik the Vast (Gerard Butler).  Stoik, obsessed with the Viking war against the dragons, was embarrassed that his son was the local laughing stock.

When Hiccup luckily shoots down the rare and vilified night fury dragon, no one believes him.  When he goes to finish the injured dragon off, Hiccup realizes that he in not capable of killing the beast.  Instead, he goes about forming a friendship with him and helping to mend his injured tail.  Naming the dragon Toothless, Hiccup becomes close friends with the dragon and learns a lesson about the creatures.

The animation is stunning.  Absolutely spectacular.  The flying scenes with Hiccup on Toothless’s back is stuff of legend and the final battle with the giant dragon and the flames could not be rendered in a more perfect way.  This animation holds up to today’s standards and only makes me even more excited to see what the next film will look like.  Full of amazing color and creative designs, this movie is an epic mosaic of pigmentation.

The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless is front and center, but not the only relationship that is given time in this narrative.  Hiccup and his father have a fully understandable and relatable relationship and the sweet first love connection in the world of Vikings is shown between Hiccup and Astrid (America Ferrera).

The voice cast, led by the great work by Jay Baruchel and the others already mentioned, include such top line voices as Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig and T.J Miller.

This first film starts the trilogy off on an epic journey and you wonder how they could possibly match the strength and emotionally powerful debut.  #2 is next.

I was on Twitter early this morning and I came across the following Tweet from Collider’s Jeff Sneider.

So I went to Netflix and put it into my queue because it sounded fascinating.  Then, of course, I got the call saying that we had yet another snow day from school, so I went back to Netflix to watch the doc.

What an unbelievable story.

In October 1974, a 12-year old girl named Jan Broberg was kidnapped by her next door neighbor and close family friend, Bob Berchtold… affectionately called “B” by all involved.  Berchtold had an unnatural connection to Jan and went about a series of shocking and disturbing machinations to possess the little girl.

What was even more shocking than what ‘B’ did was the reactions, responses of Jan’s parents, Mary Ann and Bob.  The manipulation and brainwashing of Jan was just the tip of the iceberg for Berchtold as he played with both Mary Ann and Bob in ways that made them both, practically, accessories to the kidnapping in a sad and dark manner.

Listening to the story in these people’s own words is amazing, thoroughly emotionally powerful, and it is difficult not to think of these people in such a negative light.  I will admit to yelling at the screen several times during the playing of the documentary because I just could not believe that anyone could be so taken in by a monster like ‘B.’

The story is unthinkable and the emotion is as high as it is going to get.  This provides an absolutely vital message to families everywhere about who they trust and that the signs that are showing must be seen and not ignored.  This was a story that did not have to have happened, but the weaknesses of these people were masterfully exploited by a manipulator with charm and apparent care.

This was the second to last Alfred Hitchcock film, a thriller focusing on the sexual predator known as the Necktie Murderer.  We see the dead body of a victim float to the side of the Thames River in London and the film is underway.

The woman is the ex-wife of Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), who becomes a suspect.  Richard hides out when the police start to look for him and the killer, Robert Rusk (Barry Foster), continues his killing.

I’m a bit torn by this film.  I usually love Hitchcock’s films and this has a positive connotation to it, having a good Rotten Tomatoes score and being overall well received.  However, I found this to be a mixed bag.

There were aspects of this that I enjoyed.  I liked the killer.  I thought the general story was well done.  There were some great moments of suspense, much like the classic Hitchcockian movies of the past.

There were a bunch of moments though that felt out of place.  Most of the humor missed, in my mind and it felt like that made the film’s suspense inconsistent.  The whole stuff with the police chief’s wife and her cooking was just ridiculous.  The ending was lacking as well.

Not sure how I feel about this film.  It was not as great as I thought it was going to be.

This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Or….not so much.

Recently, the Top 10 Show had their Top 10 Movies in the Snow and I compiled my own list.  I put, at #10, Fargo, mainly because I enjoyed the FX TV show so much.  When I had first watched the movie, I was not a fan.  As I wrote the list, I thought to myself that I wish I had watched Fargo for my recent Binge involving second chances.

Them fate stepped in as, once again, the weather caused our school to be cancelled.  This gave me the opportunity to pull up Fargo on HBO for a second chance.

And I am not sure what I was watching the first time, because I LOVED this.

The Coen Brothers wrote and directed this story of a man who hired two criminals to kidnap his wife so he could extort money from his wealthy father-in-law.  And then all things went to hell.

I LOVE Marge!  Frances McDormand is iconic as the tenacious pregnant police chief investigating the triple homicide that lead her to the Twin Cities.

You betcha!

I laughed every time Marge said anything.  Just love this character.

William H. Macy is Jerry Lundegaard, who was the auto dealer who hired the criminals, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, to kidnap his wife.  Jerry is one of the worst characters in this movie because he was such a false person.  Everyone else in this movie is exactly what they look to be.  Macy is great as the weaselly little grub.

Fargo is extremely funny and unbelievably dark.  You see a man shoving someone into a wood chipper.  I remember that scene when I first saw it and I was not a fan.  I do not know why because this time was so epic that I was laughing and loving the scene.  Maybe it just appealed to me more now than it did when I was younger, I don’t know, but I just loved this moment.

I also thought some of the scenes that were included that had nothing to do with anything were awesome.  Why did Marge meet for lunch with Mike (Steve Park)?  It had zero to do with the story.  It was just like an aside for the film to highlight these wonderful characters living in this oddball area.

Truly glad that I watched this one again.  It was at #10 on the Movies in the Snow list, but it would be WAY higher if I redid the list today.

Word is that there is some kind of big game being played today.

I thought this was a good opportunity to fill a gap in my movie viewing history.  Friday Night Lights is considered one of the top, if not the top, football movie ever made and it is one that I have never seen.  So, finding it on Hulu, I decided to give it a chance.

I have always liked Lucas Black, from his early days on American Gothic to his turn as Pee Wee Reese in 42.  He has always been appealing with his quirky line delivery and his interesting accent.  To me, that allowed him to stand out from the pack and made him much more intriguing to watch.  So I was happy to see Black appear as QB Mike Winchell.

Friday Night Lights was the true story of a football team, The Permian Panthers, and their battle to reach the State Championship in the football-obsessed state of Texas.  When their star player Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) is injured in the opening game of the season, the team had to struggle to find its identity and avoid the insanity of expectations from the community of Odessa.

Each character had to face their own demons throughout the film.  Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) had to face the over zealous attitude of his drunken father and Odessa football legend Charles (Tim McGraw).  You can’t help but feel the pain and embarrassment of young Don as his father yelled and belittled him constantly for his perceived slights.

The pressure upon Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) was ridiculous, with overbearing community members sticking their noses into his job and making veiled threats as motivation.  This film shows the insane driving forces behind Texas football better than any film I have seen before.

The football scenes are tremendously shot by director Peter Berg, and they really help punctuate the struggles of each individual.

I can see why people like this.  I was full enthralled with the film and it made a great Super Bowl Sunday preshow.

Holy crap.

Okay, I was watching the live edition of Movie Fights tonight and they were having a Movie fights Championship match between the challenger Greg Alba of the Reel Rejects and the reigning, defending Movie Fights Champion, Dan Murrell.  It was a great episode with two extremely spirited debaters.  One of the questions was “Most Underrated Movie of All-Time.”  I mean… how do you answer something like that?  Well, Dan Murrell mentioned a movie entitled Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, and Richard Crenna, and he made it sound really interesting.

So, after the Movie Fights was over (No Spoilers), I went to YouTube and rented a copy of the movie.  And…holy crap, did I love this movie.

Seriously, it was one of the best films I have seen in a long while.  I can’t believe that I hadn’t heard of it before tonight.

Audrey Hepburn, who was nominated for an Oscar for this film, played Susy Hendrix, a woman recently blinded who was trying to cope with her blindness.  Her husband, played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, wound up unwittingly with a doll that contained something that the psychotic killer, Roat (Alan Arkin), wanted back.  Roat enlisted a pair of criminals, Mike (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston), to help him reclaim this doll.  It meant trying to fool the blind woman in a complex and intricate manner.

This film is as tense and nerve-wracking as you are going to find.  I was on the edge of my seat through the entire film, and the finale was as great of a scene as you are going to find.

Susy Hendrix was nobody’s victim.  Despite her supposed weakness with her blindness, Susy was smart, quick-witted, brave, and yet vulnerable.  She was the most heroic of characters and I loved her completely.  The performance of Audrey Hepburn was off the charts and certainly deserved the Oscar nomination that it earned her.  She could have easily been shown as the victim of this movie, but she was able to see through the criminals’ lies and manipulations through her own brand of intelligence and resourcefulness.  I did not expect to see a female character this strong in a 1960s movie, but there she was.

Alan Arkin was unbelievably good as the evil Roat.  He was as compellingly wicked and menacing as could be.  Arkin was so great here that I had no idea what was going to happen and I was holding my breath as I hoped that Susy could make it through this problem.  Arkin was involved in a jump scare in this movie that scared the living crap out of me.  I literally yelled at the screen when it happened.  Dan Murrell had mentioned it in his argument on Movie Fights Live, but it still did not prepare me for how effective that jump scare was and how much I was actually shaken from it.

As a horror/thriller movie, this was fantastic.  The tension built throughout the film until the final moments, which was as amazing as you are ever going to see.  There may be a few plot holes here and there, but it is a 50+ year old film and it feels as relevant today as ever.  There are moments and scenes here that are obviously influential to other films of this genre moving forward.

Based on a 1966 play of the same name by Frederick Knott, Wait Until Dark has basically one set and all the drama and action takes place in this location.  Even though the below ground apartment is the only location, this film never felt boring or as if it needed more than what was there.  It felt like more than just a play on film (like Fences, a film starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis did).  It created superior suspense and kept me riveted the entire time.

Thanks for the recommendation, Dan.