The Black Dragons (1942)

"The Black Dragons" is an excellent representation of the film noir period of the 1940's and is a significantly more in-depth film for the creator, the famous horror genre pioneer Bela Lugosi, as an actor, as well as a director. Bela Lugosi is probably best known for his role as Count Dracula in "Dracula" and for his work with other famous monsters, such as the Wolf Man and Frankensteins Monster.
"The Black Dragons" follows an incredibly deep and involved plot in which he plays a plastic surgeon who transforms six members of the Black Dragon Society in Japan into lookalikes of 6 famous industrialists in America. The Black Dragon Society plans to infiltrate major American industries before the war. However, their plan backfires when they make the mistake of locking up Dr. Melcher (Lugosi) who kills the other occupant of his cell and takes his face for his own (metaphorically of course). So Dr. Melcher goes to America with the face of Monsieur Colomb (his cell mate) in order to extinguish the presence of the Black Dragon Society in America.
Of course none of this makes sense until the end of the movie when the motives and past on Monsieur Colomb are revealed. Throughout the entire movie it appears to the viewer that something strange is definitely at work, but it is unclear who the culprit is or what his or her motives are. "The Black Dragons" gets a 4/5 for being an great old movie.

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Attack of the Giant Leeches definitely can be classified as a classic horror movie, complete with bad acting and even worse special effects and costume designs. The plot is pretty stereotypical of the time period (1959) and goes from mysterious deaths and disappearances around the vicinity of a swamp in the Everglades. To the dismay of the townspeople, they realize that they have become the captives of giant leeches which seek to suck the lifeblood from every single one of their victims. They end up blowing up the swamp and destroying several giant leeches that float to the surface after the smoke has cleared. But is that really all of them?
I have a soft spot in my heart for these kind of classic old movies, not only because they paved the way for the later classic horror movies that I love, but because I'm sure if I had watched this when in came out in 1959, I would have made a mess in my pants. Nobody wants to encounter regular leeches, let alone giant leeches! Some people don't know how I put up with the terrible acting and the less than par special effects, but really it's all part of the experience. Film directors from this time period didn't have very much to work with in terms of the technology that we take for granted today, and I think that they did an excellent job with what they had at their disposal. For the sake of the general public, Attack of the Giant Leeches gets 2.5/5 solely because I have a feeling that nobody else would enjoy watching it except for me. However, if you are a fan of this period in film, definitely check this one out, along with other "creature" movies, like The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Salo (1975)

Salo: The 120 days of Sodom, is the most disturbing movie that I have ever seen. Period. Unless you can handle some really disgusting stuff, I would not even consider reading this review. Anyways, lets continue with the crapfest.
Salo depicts a symbolic event in which four wealthy aristocratic men in World War I Italy act out and follow through with the most disgusting sexual pleasures ever conceived by man. There's everything from sodomy, to eating human feces, to scalping. All this is going on while all of the victims are completely naked. I ended up stopping it about thirty minutes in and really thinking about whether I wanted to finish it. I caved and decided that I needed to finish it because I had already started it, and because I had a partner in crime so that I didn't have to watch it alone.
After watching Salo, and doing some research to see what other people were writing about it, I found a parallel between Salo and terrible things that it portrayed, and Dante's "Inferno" and the different levels of hell, which when I think about it, that could be what the director, Pier Paulo Pasolini, was alluding to. It's also apperent that he was drawing parallels between what is portrayed in Salo, and the terrible living conditions for Italians under the facist ruling of Benito Mussolini.
Honestly, I had to dig very, very deep to find anything about the symbolism and meaning of this movie. It was difficult to really get anything from it except that the living conditions were terrible in Italy during the time. The only time that "Salo" is mentioned is in the first five minutes of the film when it is seen on a street sign.
In my opinion this movie should difintely be given serious thought to if it is to be considered watching. This morally shaking film is so incredibly grotesque and disgusting that it really shook me to the core. It gets a 2/5 for ruining my life.

Special (2006)

Special is an emotionally gripping independent film about the adverse effects of a drug-in-testing on the main character, a lonely meter maid named Les. The drug gives Les the impression that he has amazing super powers in which he can read peoples minds telepathically, walk through walls, and levitate. Of course, Les being the comic fan that he is, decides that it's his duty to protect the general population by stopping and preventing crime (he ends up doing a lot of "preventing" a.k.a. tackling people who he sees as suspicious). He finds out later that he has become part of something significantly more in-depth than he ever thought.
This film was definitely one of the better ones I've seen in a while. What I liked most was the transformation in Les from a lonely, nervous guy that doesn't really have that much to live for, to realizing his real superpowers, that being his perseverance and his kindness. I think that's the main moral of the film; that we don't need what most people consider "superpowers" to do good, and I think Les realized this at the end of the film. At the beginning, Les is under the impression that with so many billions of people on the planet, not all of them can be unique or special, which he of course proves false by the end of the movie.
This movie also kept me thinking because it's filmed with situations that sort of neutral about whether Les actually does have superpowers or not. For the majority of the movie you are wondering whether he can actually walk through walls, or whether it's all in his head. Of course this leads to many hilarious instances of Les running full-speed in to concrete walls. Other than the heart-warming factor of this movie, it had a pretty interesting concept and was very well made for most likely being filmed on a very low budget. Special gets the coveted 5 out of 5.

Hard Candy (2005)

Hard Candy. What the %$@!? Hard Candy is on the list of most disturbing movies (found here: http://movies.popcrunch.com/the-15-most-disturbing-movies-ever-made/) and definitely lives up to this honor. I was planning on checking all of these movies out but after watching Hard Candy (which is number 12 on the list) I'm having second thoughts about having my sanity stolen from me by watching these movies.
Hard Candy is a movie depicting what happens when a pedophile attempts to make a victim out of a completely psychotic, fourteen-year-old, pre-pubescent girl. The plot goes through a number of plot advancing events mostly consisting of brilliant dialogue between the predator and the prey. The main character, Hailey (Ellen Paige, in other words, Juno), brings the pedophile to realize his wrongdoings and convinces him to attempt to "set things right".
What I really dug about this movie was the apparent transformation of Ellen Paige within the first 15 minutes of the movie. She starts off as an innocent teenager with an independent outlook on life and air for sarcasm. In other words, pretty much the same character as in the movie Juno. However after going through with her plot to bring Jeff the pedophile to his knees, literally, she transforms into a hardcore, psychotic, tormentor. Her sarcastic attitude remains, however in a sick, demented form. The cinematography is also genius in this film. It uses a very simple idea of changing the background and reflection colors from light tones (while nothing violent is happening), to dark tones when something violent or hostile issues). I was truly disturbed and uncomfortable while watching this movie, but I still give it a 4 out 5 because of the fantastic acting and emotional disturbance.