A Brilliant Conflict

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

"Popcorn" from 1991 has to be one of the better feel good horror flicks that's a blend of old style horror meeting the present day and being a film within a film of the 80's slasher style. It's also a twist and tease of drama, suspense, fun comedy, and murder in a bloody slasher type of a way. Set in California at a college some film students decide to run an night horror marathon at an old run down cinema house. The students will do crazy special effects while the crowd watches the old vintage 50's and 60's films. Thru it during the night a crazy sadistic killer is on the loose causing an 80's slasher type stalker feel, from behind the curtain and thru the audience. As this creep has a connection to an old film called "The Possessor" plus this monster knows one of the film students from his past. Also horror queen legend Dee Wallace Stone has a part that's memorable as a damsel in distress who's kidnapped and has her mouth taped with white duct tape! Overall "Popcorn" provides thrills and chills to any horror film buff as it's a little independent horror gem to belong in any fan's chest!

The majority of this movie was filmed on location in Kingston, Jamaica in the Ward Theatre, 10, North Parade, Kingston. The theatre was opened December 16, 1912 with a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". It is in a poor state of repair after being badly damaged by Hurricane Dean in 2007 and from 2012 funding has been sought for renovation.I watched this film recently on the Horror Channel in the United Kingdom and found it entertaining, holding my interest until the end. The acting was average for this type of film. As an aficionado of cinema and theatre building, it was its authentic setting which made it most enjoyable for me, and it was great to see the building in such good shape. Let's hope it will be restored in the near future.

Good Lord, this is the horror version of 'The Room' where some scenes are so silly it can only be considered an unintentionally bad comedy.5.7? This has a rating of 5.7 here? WTF? Standard slasher plot: College professor Ray Waltson has his film students renovate an old movie theater to show 50's B horror films for a single night.First off, WTF does film making have to with construction and renovation? Also, they're renovating a condemned building just for a one night show? Also, we see no promotion for the theater, begging the question, how did they get a sold out show? They could have at least shown a montage of the students handing out fliers.The first truly mind numbing scene is the montage of the students fixing up the theater. It looks like those legendarily bad European Mentos ads. Only worse! So on the big night the killer emerges. He peels off the flesh of his victims and wears them like masks to disguise himself because apparently that's how human tissue works! Just stick someone else's face on your own and you'll look just like that person.And WTF is the killer targeting the students?...... That's never answered! Oh, he explains why he's a deformed psycho. As a child his mother was cheating on his father so he burned down the theater killing her, but he was burned and his face disfigured. So WTF does this have to do with the students? His revenge motives are unclear.This villain's motive explanation scene is the funniest as it goes on and on and on for about fifteen minutes! Also, the killer's voice and movements are like all of Jim Carrey's 'In Living Color' characters rolled into one! HTF are we supposed to take this seriously?Like 'Shanghai Surprise' this movie is a special kind of intentional atomicity. It's not just the result of a low budget, bad actors, or poor film making. It's a deliberate well planned massacre of cinema. The fact that these scenes were written, acted, recorded, and edited together by dozens of people working together is truly disturbing.This film is totally devoid of any entertainment value even for laughs. We seriously have to wonder what was happening behind the scenes that created.

I've always been kind of surprised that people find this movie remarkable in any way. Maybe the problem is that I was already getting tired of movie psychopaths, serial killers, and the whole slasher formula by this point, and having yet another entry in that crowded scene kind of bored me. This one was admittedly a bit smarter and wittier than the competition, but that just wasn't enough to win me over. You'd have the be a hell of lot wittier and smarter than this to win me over, and very, very few slasher films have done so, since the 1980s (when the genre was already in decline, thanks to a glut of low budget sequels).I probably should mention that some people consider it a cult classic, so maybe you'll like it better than I did, but I can't really recommend it. If you'd really like to see a really good slasher movie, I'd suggest Halloween (the John Carpenter original), Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, or Man Bites Dog.