TREMENDO TIME

HACK O’LANTERN (1988)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:30:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Hy “Quack” Pyke, Gregory Scott “Cracked” Cummins, Bryson “Brat” Gerard, Katina “Whacked” Garner, Carla “Good in Sack” Baron, Larry “Smacked” Coven, Jeff “Lacks” Brown, and Patricia “Snack” Christie.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Pumpkin-crazy Grandpa (Pyke) is very close to his grandson Tommy (Gerard), perhaps a little too close. In fact, Grandpa damn near covets little Tommy with slobber as he has grand plan for the future in which the boy will play a very powerful, pivotal role.

My guess as the bad guy in every teen sex comedy.

But Mom (Garner) doesn’t want Tommy or his brother Roger (Brown) and sister Vera (Baron) to have anything to do with weird old Grandpa, especially since the old coot murdered their father on Halloween night. And it turns out the elderly rascal is actually the leader of the local Satanist group and they want Tommy to be the next leader when he comes of age.

PentagramPa.

Years pass in the family's crummy town and while Roger grows up to be a Sheriff’s Deputy and Vera blossoms into a beautiful young lady, Tommy (Cummins, aka Mac’s Dad on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) alienates himself from the family and becomes a dark, brooding presence in the household.

That or he was rejected at the Warriors audition.

Mom worries day and night about Tommy, that is, when she’s not obsessing over her dead husband who she speaks to in pumpkin form.

The pumpkin is the most well-rounded character in the picture. (HY-UCK!)

And Mom has plenty reason to worry about sullen Tommy who works out constantly, hangs out with tattooed Annie Lennox clones, and has music video nightmares with lame 80s hair bands. Said Night Flight-influenced visions feature:

Evil women with burning eyes that shoot out shrunken heads, castrating concubines, and … this guy.

Under his Grandpa’s control, Tommy matured aware of his destiny which will be fulfilled this particular Halloween night. But while everyone else is preparing for a night of ghoulish fun, a mysterious figure in a devil costume is stalking the town.

“Well, it was either this, Medusa, Leatherface, or Glenn Beck.”

And the figure starts offing local post-coital teens that are linked to either Tommy or his family.

“Sweet Dreams are NOT made of this!”

“Well, it was either this or gonorrhea.”

But suddenly our attention shifts from horrific mayhem to Vera’s attempts to lose her virginity during lunchtime, Grandpa’s obsession with affordable Black Mass candles, and Roger’s attempts to bed Vera’s friends on top of fresh graves. (No, really.) Fortunately, our story shifts back to horrific high-gear when the town Halloween party begins and this guy…

this fucking guy

... performs the worst stand-up routine in the history of movies. I mean, you would’ve thought that a bizarre music video and a context-less stand-up routine both showing up in a movie would be awesome in a random kind of way, but they aren’t. Witness this aching sequence here, if you dare. Anyway, while Grandpa and Tommy prepare for the ceremony that will make him the Devil’s Son and the body count shoots to the harvest moon, Roger is hot on their Satanic tracks and when all is said and done, the identity of the Devil Killer will shock you in a twisted conclusion soaked in blooooood!!!

Eh, whatever. It was the Mom.

THE FINISHER:

Hack O’Lantern, aka Halloween Night, made on the uber-cheap, cast with porn stars, featuring zero scares, and lacking any coherence, consistency, or sense is actually the perfect movie for Halloween Night. That is, if you spend Halloween night ripping your wrists open with a pen knife while weeping on the can. At times the movie feels like it was made by Christians telling a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of Satanism and bloody sacrifice, but there’s little decidedly Christian about full-frontal nude scenes, neck-chopping, and hyperventilating in place of acting. All japes aside, the movie is a friggin’ hoot, despite the long periods of nothing happening, and cinema masochists and nostalgic pop culture geeks will bask in the dated awfulness of references to hair bands, beer posters, and necrophilia. But that guy, that fucking guy and his stand-up routine that I mention above. What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. Hack O’Lantern isn’t a bag of treats but it does trick you into laughing out loud at times. And that beats a razor blade in the Krispie treats any day.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

UNINVITED (1988)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:30:00 +0000

THE CARD:

George “Tubby Tabby” Kennedy, Alex “Hairwolf” Kord, Clu “Pickled Pyewacket” Gulager, Toni “Unsinkable Sammy” Hudson, Clare “Scatnip” Carey, Shari “Feline Fine” Shattuck, Rob “Milo” Estes, Eric “Cat Nickname” Lawson, and Giselle, the Wonder Kitty from Hell.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Spring Break paradise for horny dorks or Mecca of genetic engineering? Well a little of both, at least in 1988. A top secret lab protected by the worst security guards and the most inept scientists this side of an iPhone prototype closet allow an experimental animal to escape the test facility. The liberated animal in question is a very special cat with a dangerous power.

A face only an epidemiologist could love.

The cat is host to a ferocious parasite that can exit its mouth and attack anything that threatens its with bites and scratches from its puppet arms. Plus, it can spread a deadly contagion that kills within minutes. Also, it’s particularly fond of chubby truck drivers.

"I CAN HAZ FAT GUY?"

Meanwhile, a crooked businessman Walter Graham (Cord) and his henchmen Mike (Kennedy) and Albert (Gulager) plan a quick getaway on a yacht to the Cayman Islands to secure some ill-gotten millions out of a bank and then go on the lam.

A triumvirate of B-movie brilliance: Killer Cord, Clu doing Jim Bakker shtick, and George lying down. Again.

Walter conceives a well-thought out plan to invite random sunning bimbos Bobbie (Carey) and Suzanne (Shattuck) along so as to “not attract attention”.

Not even a half-sandwich between the two.

To further not attract attention, Walter allows the gals to bring along arbitrarily selected Spring Breakers Corey (Estes), Martin (Larson) and some other guy whose name I didn’t catch.

This guy is uninvited even to places he's been invited. Check out the disgusting hickey.

And the plan comes full circle in its perfection when Suzanne finds the mutated kitty at the marina and brings it onboard as well. This ticks off the yacht’s captain Rachel (Hudson) who’s got some past heat with Walter and his dirty dealings. Predictably, Mike hates the kids, Albert glugs wine and pines for Tammy Faye while Walter puts the move on the cuties.

“Yup, Jan-Michael Vincent and I are this close.”

So the cat starts offing everyone onboard, spreading the horrid painful disease through its bites, and serving watered-down martinis. Bad kitty!

It can’t even do the Isaac.

Everyone goes batshit with fear when communications are lost and all the food is contaminated with dirty kitty juice. Plus Walter and Mike reveal their criminal motives and hold the kids at gunpoint while plotting their next move which may or may not end up with them becoming Tender Vittles. As the body count rises, Mike pants like Lou Costello after a 10K run, loses his mind, and starts shooting erratically which incurs the wrath of the killer cat who takes a bite out of his ankles.

“Gah! Something’s finally bulging down there!”

Will nothing stop the mutated menace? Will the gang survive this feline onslaught? Will this be the worst Spring Break since Pork Taco Night in Mazatlan?

“Meow meow meow meow Eat your flesh I will meow meow!”

THE FINISHER:

Greydon Clark’s Uninvited may be so unique amongst low-budget thrillers that it can be considered Avant-garde. It is unlike anything I have ever seen in terms of its story structure, style, and execution which suggest an audacious, self-conscious ineptitude approaching contempt for its audience. The film feels like a grand experiment in the custom of non-traditional cinema, pushing boundaries and breaking rules of narrative expectation, creating a twisted labyrinth of sequential logic that forces the viewer to question the real and ethereal. To wit, the movie daringly casts away character motivation. Characters indiscriminately just meet each other and decide to interact. Backstory? Bah! Leave that for the flyover states! The source of horror, the explanation and exposition that horror fans hunger, expect, and demand, is similarly and may I suggest bravely ignored. The cat, representing a centrifuge of existential panic, simply “is” mutated. Take that, horror spoon feeders! The cultural critique in Uninvited sizzles like a subterranean electrical current. Walter, the corrupt figure of oppressive power, is subdued by the collective rebellion of the females who have exposed his greed, taken his ship’s “helm” and forsaken their revealing bikinis for slightly less revealing bikinis. Say it loud, sisters! The movie is executed in a firmly tongue-in-cheek, at times out of focus style to conceal its undermining motives to surgically dissect convention to reveal the socio-cultural fallacies that mainstream horror denies.

Well, that or it could just be a really stinky movie about a fucking killer cat.

PLAGUERS (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Alexis “Space Ace” Zibolis, Bobby “Space Some Guy” James, Noelle “Space Beeotch” Perris, Jared “Space Lookalike” Cohn, Paige “Space Kook” La Pierre, Erica “Space Grace” Browne, Chad “Space Zombie Meal” Nell, Stephanie “Space Zombina” Skewes, Maija “Space Afterthought” Polsey, and Steve “Space Paycheck” Railsback.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

The far future. Mankind has finally mastered space travel. We have light speed engines. We can survive in deadly conditions for long periods of time. We can explore our galaxy for alternative energy sources. Yet we somehow can’t get over our attraction to glowing things. Such is the dilemma of the USS Subtly-Titled Pandora which is returning to Earth after a successful salvage mission, carrying a very powerful but very menacing Green Glowing Thing (GGT).

“Hiya, folks! I’ll be back to cause havoc later! Hee-Hee!”

They theorize that the GGT may be a source of incredible power and plan to sell it to the highest bidders when they get back home. But tragedy struck during the mission when the Captain was killed in an accident, leaving distrusted but adorable Holloway (Zibolis) in charge.

“Does anyone else have problems with split ends in zero-G?”

The crew of the Pandora totally disrespects Holloway and questions her every decision. Fortunately she has super-strong synthoid robot guy Traver (Railsback) on her side.

Trying for Lance Hendrickson, looking John Carradine

When the ship answers a distress call, they dock with a hospital ship carrying traumatized nurses who claim they’ve survived a vicious attack by space pirates.

“And we missed three episodes of Gossip Girl!”

But it’s all a ruse as the gals seduce the men and assault the women in order to steal the cargo for themselves. But the GGT is acting rather strange, being more greeny and glowy-er than usual. In fact, it’s transforming all who touch it into rampaging zombies!

Hi, this is Nola (Skewes). She’s just risen from the dead. Just like NOLA.

And they start picking off the crew one by one, transforming their victims into the nasty undead as well.

Colin Farrell in a role that may surprise you.

But these particular plaguers don’t play-guer by the rules and instead of spreading the zombie disease the good ol’ fashion eat-your-guts kind of way, it delivers the virus through a booger transfusion.

Moist Kleenex of the Living Dead

“SOOO SALTY!!!”

The epidemic overcomes the ship and the bad girls must join forces with the Pandora crew and their elderly robot-boy to survive the ordeal.

And not get Pilato-ed to death.

THE FINISHER:

Brad Sykes is a masterful low-budget filmmaker working on his craft for the last two decades. The man is a direct-to-video factory whose aspirations aim for the Moon but in the end usually delivers no further than the weather vane. In Plaguers, Sykes explores the science fiction/horror hybrid subgenre by melding Alien, the Dead films, and perhaps a dash of the Dead Space video game franchise in a space soap opera with zombies. Perhaps his most ambitious film to date, the movie unfortunately doesn’t disappoint in the being disappointing department. There’s no doubt about it, the movie is terrible. Sometimes achingly terrible. But it’s not without appeal. Yes, it’s low budget. Yes, it’s hackneyed and filled with half-baked ideas, obvious references, and bad acting. Yes, it’s unintentionally sorrowful at times. (I dare you to look into Railsback’s eyes and not avert your gaze from a void of sadness). But it’s not inept, it’s not horribly paced, and it’s definitely not without a sense of fun. The action, which included overly fake guns, misfiring squibs, and Railsback arthritically worming through air vents, is hysterical. The zombie effects and creature make-up were definitely solid. The gore kind of outstanding at times. And the main monster was, well I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

Screw it. Here it is. Magical.

So yeah, Plaguers is fun and not boring. It could easily occupy the mid-card on any all-night horror marathon, something to relax and laugh at until the bloodletting is turned to 11. Well, at least that’s how I schedule my horror-a-thons. As for Sykes, I hope he continues to churn out his made-on-the cheap hokum. Keeps this little miserable blog in business. Plus the man loved Alien and you can’t knock a guy for screaming in space, knowing full well no one can hear him.

THE HALLOWEEN THAT ALMOST WASN’T (1979)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

I can vividly recall that particular week before Halloween 1979, when I missed a week of 5th grade due to the flu. My fever was so high at times that I began to hallucinate, including once when during NBC’s airing of The Three Caballeros when Donald Duck, Jose Carioca, and Panchito Pistolas popped out of the TV screen and merrily danced away sweaty, Vicks-smothered minutes to my death right in the living room. Another time was during the only episode of Project U.F.O. where they couldn’t scientifically explain the flying saucer sighting. No one remembers that episode or that show so I must conclude that it was some Mark VII-produced fever dream. I must have also sickly imagined a TV movie starring Judd “Taxi” Hirsch and that nice lady from the Polaroid commercials as Dracula and a hideous witch, who had to join forces to save Halloween, return happiness to poorly dressed children, and sell lots of fucking candy corn. Years later, the Goodwill Video Store of the Internet confirmed that it wasn’t a Robitussin-soaked delusion at all but rather an actual ABC live action Halloween special called The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t!

The memories flooding back are making me woozy.

Our story begins with Count Dracula (Hirsch) awakened by Igor (Gibson) to view a breaking news story about the rumor that Halloween is about to be canceled, perhaps forever!

If it wasn’t reported on the Mustache News Network, it didn’t happen.

This scene begs the question: since when does Igor answer to Dracula? What happened to Renfield? (Please don't refer me to the novel. Just don't.) Was there some leveraged buyout of Dr. Frankenstein’s employee pool that’s never been reported? Anyway, judging from Hirsch’s bugged-out camping, maybe this story takes place in the Bela Lugosi Dracula continuity where the Frankenstein universe does indeed interact with Drac, so there’s that.

"I don’t drink vine, or know Tony Danza’s home number."

Meanwhile, a nearby family also hears the news that there may be no trick-or-treating this year. Mom and Dad nonchalantly drop trivial tidbits about the pagan history of Halloween and its many traditions and rituals rooted in harvest lore and myth in the hopes it may calm the kids down or qualify this show as educational.

Not pictured: Michael Myers tapping at the front window.

Cut back to Transylvania…

Or Tarrytown, NY

Dracula calls upon all the monstrous icons of Halloween to gather in the castle to come up with a solution to the holiday problem, which has just reached Threat Level Pumpkin. First up is Warren the Werewolf (Riley).

Warren's name is a tip of the furry hat to Warren Zevon

Next, Zabaar The Zombie (Elic) who is either the King of the Undead or the King of East Coast Delis.

Brain Guy?!!!

The Mummy (Fitch) emerges from his geometrical crypt to offer sage tactical advice or provide a cheap alternative to toilet paper.

“Where’s that Brendan Fraser son-of-a-bitch?!”

And lastly is Frankenstein’s Creature, who based on a then-recent Mel Brooks interpretation is obsessed with singing and dancing terribly.

Yep, ready for X-Factor.

Mysteriously missing from this monstrous summit is The Witch. Her absence makes Frankenstein’s Creature howl a few bars from La Boheme.

Or maybe it was Christina Aguilera.

When the Witch finally shows up she admits to being behind the rumors to end Halloween, and blackmails Dracula to give up his post as leader of the monsters else she won’t make her annual flight over the moon that kicks off the holiday. She makes a list of demands which include more control over merchandising and better working conditions.

And lots and lots of Noxema. LOTS.

Dracula refuses to give up any power and dismisses her demands. She then admits that she wasn’t interested anyway and that she’s just tired of being ugly and wants Halloween to take a hike. She escapes to her castle where Dracula orders the monsters to attack. Their initial attempt fails miserably.

Igor goes both ways: dead and undead.

Ultimately, the tired, clumsy, and unorganized monster-oppressors and the greedy one-percenter aristocrat Dracula are unable to match The Witch’s newfound liberal radicalism, self-empowered will to take back her body and image from cooptation, and progressive feminist socialism.

#OCCUPYHALLOWEEN!

Plus, she unleashes The Three Musketeers to swash their blades on some monster butt.

We ain’t shit without Paul W.S. Anderson.

Drac loses his shit. The battle is lost. The monsters are sad.

“Well, I guess it’s back to serving Dick Cheney in Hell.”

But in the end the Witch’s cold heart is warmed by the kids from before who squirt a few tears and beg Witch to ditch her beliefs and forsake herself to the patriarchal corporate oligarchy.

“I give up. But you kids are getting eaten later! OK?”

So Witch flies over the moon and Halloween is saved! Um, somehow.

“I’m personally gonna crap on every one of you down there! HEEHEEHEE!!!”

And in the end, the message is all conflict can be resolved (YET AGAIN) by disco dancing!

Deep down, I truly wish this was a delirious childhood memory.

So there you have it – The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, an almost forgotten relic of 70s children’s TV. Now I know that nine-year-old Tremendito wasn’t crazed by brain heat. Actually, the special ran for years on the Disney Channel’s Halloween slate of specials during the 80s and 90s and was released on video as The Night Dracula Saved the World, which is really messed up because The Witch was the real radical hero (even though she buckled under to the system in the end) and Dracula did nothing but look constipated.

“I vant to dreenk your prune juice!”

THE CARD:

Judd “Camp Count” Hirsch, Mariette “” Hartley, Henry “In Between Altmans” Gibson, Jack “Kill Dr. Hartley” Riley, John “Supreme That Guy” Schuck, Josip “Conquered Santa” Elic.

You can watch the whole damn thing here.

VISITING HOURS (1982)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:30:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Lee “Sally Messy Raphael” Grant, William “Pronounces it ‘Shah-tner’” Shatner, Michael “Deadside Manner” Ironside, Linda “Ritchie Cunningham’s Squeeze” Purl, and Lenore “My Future’s in Voice Work” Zann.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Deborah Ballin (Grant) is a TV talk show host whose vehement defense of battered women and staunch anti-violence platform breeds controversy. Her producer Gary (Shatner) has to stand up for her often but lacks the spine to deal with her volatile, non-Vulcan temper. After a particularly contentious interview, she returns home to discover someone has broken into her home and murdered her maid.

“And I’ve been picked up by FOX?!!”

The naked intruder attacks and slashes her arms but she is able to escape in a dumb waiter. Rescued by a neighbor, Deborah is taken to the nearby county hospital. We learn that the attacker is a sadistic, disgruntled viewer with a particular hatred of the media, minorities, and women.

Also, fashion.

The disturbed assailant is Colt (Ironside) works as an overnight custodian at Deborah’s studio. In his spare time he writes threats to judges and other public figures and hangs the letters on his wall like trophies. He has killed before, preying mostly on older women whom he photographs and then creates a clip-out montage of their dying faces.

I prefer skull mosaics made of happy turtles.

He is troubled by memories of abuse by his disfigured alcoholic father who now mentally deteriorates in a nursing home, scarred by grease in a fight with Colt's mother long ago. His murderous fetish of choice is a trusty switchblade that covets like a body part. He seduces and abuses runaways yet is desired by crazy old ladies and lonely waitresses whom he openly despises. And worst of all, his apartment is really untidy.

Actually, the director’s office after the last day of shooting.

Meanwhile, Deborah is going batty with fear in the hospital but Gary is right at her side.

Movie Kirk hair and tapioca heal the pain.

Colt infiltrates the hospital to finish the job on Deborah. He takes out a few old broads, an orderly or two, and some chubby mouthy nurse who likes to openly rank her lovers on a scale of 1 to 10.

“OK, OK! You’re a 7!!!”

When spunky nurse and single mother Sheila (Purl) witnesses Colt’s dastardly deeds, she’s brutally attacked but manages to get away. She goes home where the threat of the madman’s return haunts her front door. Fortunately she has a recently showered partner to comfort her.

Things just got really interesting.

Meanwhile, Colt seems to get nuttier and goofier and more off the deep end in his obsession to kill Deborah. We finally learn that the lynchpin to his trip to Cuckoo Farms on Mixed Metaphor Road was Deborah’s vigorous advocacy of a woman who killed her husband in self-defense which elicited upsetting memories and sweaty over-acting in him. Colt continues to stalk Deborah, Sheila, vengeful runaway Lisa (Zann) and nothing from inept Canadian Mounties to Shatner’s shoulder thrust to a strongly worded doctor’s note will stop him!

Gah! Another elevator killer!

THE FINISHER:

Marketed as a medical horror show (I still remember the movie’s distressing video box residing in my do-not-rent nightmares as a kid), Visiting Hours is more a psychological thriller repackaged to compete in the slasher movie glut of the early 80s. Aspiring at times to become a Canadian giallo with its pseudo-Goblin soundtrack, bizarrely ugly sexuality, and the killer’s phallic switchblade, the movie is nonetheless a complete drag with slow pacing, disinterested main actors (though Shatner is all-pro), and a total lack of atmosphere for scares. Unlike its contemporary horror flicks, the movie is void of dread and suspense; we don’t fear that the murderer could strike at any time. That’s because we see the killer, we follow him around, we know his every move and motivation. We’d follow him into the toilet if that explained his crazy, for crying out loud. That said, Ironside does bring a whole mental ward of madness to the role of Colt. He’s is scintillatingly creepy, even today an underrated visceral actor who makes every B-picture feel like an A. But in the end, Visiting Hours overstays its welcome. Plus there’s no Dr. Giggles, The Dentist, or hell even a Nurse Ratched! What the hell, man?

THE LIFT (1983)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Huub “The One Guy” Stapel, Willeke "The One Gal" van Ammelrooy, and um, more Dutch people than a Vermeer print fire sale.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

An office building in the Netherlands is home to the Restaurant Icarus atop its penthouse floor. One night, four obnoxious drunks narrowly suffocate to death in an elevator after a night of shooting back gin and obsessing about crops. Dutch oven joke should go here. Said elevator became trapped in between floors and did not respond to controls and appeared to be under the influence of an unknown power. Baffled by the near fatal accident, the building staff consults elevator repairman Felix (Stapel) to fix the problem.

Searching for things that go BING! in the night.

Despite double and triple-checking, the elevators continue to malfunction, taking victims in myriad horrific ways.

Well, mostly one way.

While the staff engages in various sexual hijinks and Felix becomes obsessed with the case and increasingly detached from his wife and family, the elevator continues its massacre with zero discretion.

The vile elevators’ victims include old guys, kids, and very rude floor cleaners.

With the help of a female journalist (van Ammelrooy), Felix uncovers the puzzling fate of the man who previously maintained the elevator and discovers that he went insane and was institutionalized. He tracks him down at the nuthouse but he’s little help.

The sight of pudding dripping from the walls is ghastly. (Sorry, off-screen).

The journalist tracks down a brainy computer expert who postulates the theory that the elevator’s computer chips have been compromised and made self-aware with the desire to kill people. Chips haven’t performed this much intestinal damage since Olestra. As if sensing Felix is close to stopping its malevolent ways, the elevator steps up its murderous game.

Steven Tyler was WRONG!!!

Felix confirms the prof’s theory of the elevator's sentience and grouchiness when he finds a very much breathing and a very slimy chip control panel inside of it.

Was this triggered when the chip said, “I don’t know”?

Felix arrives at a crossroads. His family has abandoned him. His employer distrusts him. People are being chopped up around him while the elevator mocks him and his unkempt hair. If Felix can summon the will, the audacity, and the gallantry to stop the massacre, the lift's days are numbered. Oh and a wrench might help too.

THE FINISHER:

The non-vehicular inanimate object as killer sub-genre, much like its four-wheeled cousin, is one that is much maligned and dismissed. The general impression that all these kinds of movies are terrible is inaccurate as both good and bad can be discovered if you look hard enough. For every Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (it does) or Battle Heater: Kotatsu (yes, a killer heater) there is a Pin (killer mannequin) or Magic (killer ventriloquist dummy), the latter two solid suspenseful stories, the former, well not so much (but still a hell of a lot of fun). In light of a truly ridiculous premise, The Lift is actually a neatly crafted thriller that’s played so straight-faced that you may not even care that in the end it’s about an elevator that kills people wantonly. An odd charm pervades the proceedings, enough to admire even though the film’s tone shifts schizophrenically from ludicrous family drama to conspiratorial intrigue (we learn that the elevator’s devilish mechanization was designed by a twisted scientist) to mad as a shithouse full of burning wooden shoes. But the real star is the comical and maybe not so accurate dubbing in the American release. Samples of weird dialogue include “Brain doctor, he used to be OK”, “I used to work Vice Squad. You get numb. It’s a pity”, “[He] picked up a girl on the street, took her to his place and gave her a sleeping pill so she'd keep quiet. Then he went to work with a drill, Black & Decker I think”, and the immortal “If I were an imbecile, [LONG PAUSE] and I’m not…”. Also early 80s Dutch parenting is a sight to behold. Felix openly calls his son stupid. A woman slaps the sass out of her daughter’s mouth after the girl survives near consuming by the elevator. And a mother tells her daughter she will grow breasts if she sits down and shuts up. Poetry. Thanks to director Dick “the Maaster” Maas, we get plenty of gritty elevator tech talk accented with enough computer chip conspiracy theories to grow back Jesse Ventura’s hair. In the end the movie is surprisingly appealing and technically well-made with an effective culmination in the final showdown. Maas remade his film (of course he did) as 2001’s Down (aka The Shaft) which I can’t wait to see because this month’s selection of films have had its. … wait for it … ups and downs. GAHHHHH!!!

Rushing to pump out my killer insurance building flick!

GHOST CHASE (1987)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Jason “Clodzilla” Lively, Tim “Dork After Tomorrow” McDaniel, Paul “The Only Stargate in this Movie” Gleason, Jill “Wishes She Was Anonymous” Whitlow, Leonard “The German Patriot” Lansink, Ian “Dead Parrot” McNaughton, and Anthony Hopkins as Gollum in Remains of E.T.’s Day.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

It’s the sweet, magnificent 1980s and aspiring filmmaker Fred (McDaniel) and his dim pal Warren (Lively, aka the original Vacation’s Rusty Griswold) need to come up with some cash quick to fund their latest horror epic. All seems hopeless when the star actress and their child labor walk off the set. But being the plucky young artistes, they still believe in the Hollywood dream.

I guess even Scorcese & Kubrick started out butt-dumb

Their house is a treasure trove of movie posters, film props, masks, and boxes of cereal strewn everywhere. Unfortunately, the presence of all this cool stuff holds true in the 80s as it does now: it’s sex kryptonite. But they do have an awesome doorbell.

“HEE HEE HEE! NICE KNOCKERS! HEE HEE HEE!”

Good news arrives in the form of a letter that announces that Warren is now eligible to receive his late father’s inheritance. Unfortunately, it turns out to be just a suitcase full of old stuff including a picture of Warren’s creepy old Grandpa (McNaughton) and a haunted clock. That night, strange sounds and lights appear in their house while an eerie mist emanates from the clock. Things get even weirder when film producer Stan Gordon (Gleason) hires a German goon (Lansink) to steal the suitcase from the guys.

Gordon is remaking King Kong. Of course he is.

Fred starts having bad dreams about the clock and one night at exactly midnight the ghost of Grandpa’s butler appears to him. The next day, he gets an idea for a movie and builds a replica of the little ghost he saw. That night, the elderly ghost named Louis inhabits the animatronic copy of himself, walks around serving drinks, speaks with an English accent, and generally freaks everyone out.

E.T. phone A.A.R.P.

The guys and their struggling actress pal Laurie (Whitlow) learn from Louis that their Grandpa’s house holds the vengeful Grandpa’s secret fortune. Unfortunately the house is still inside the Hollywood studio of evil Stan Gordon who is also keen on the money as his family grifted Grandpa years ago. So the gang hatches a plot to infiltrate the studio, take the cash that’s rightfully Warren’s for some reason, and wait for the director’s royalty check to Scooby Doo to clear.

“ZOICKS!” ™

THE FINISHER:

Every film director has an early embarrassment. Kubrick has Killer’s Kiss. Coppola has Dementia 13. Roland Emmerich has everything except maybe The Patriot. He also has 1987’s Ghost Chase, a K-Tel Presents greatest hits mix of other 80s movies like Ghostbusters, Weird Science, Gremlins, and Name-Your-Teen-Sex-Comedy-Here. Despite everything the movie references and despite all the glorious awfulness to be found here, there’s nothing much to say other than the movie is a fairly generic horror teen comedy that elicits moments of exasperated perhaps nostalgic sighs and no surprises. I guess can just go ahead and catalog all the wonderful 80s misery I discovered: 1) Minimalist animated credit sequence (ie a pair of googly eyes). 2) Standard but unrecognizable 80s pop music. There’s a song called “Imagination” that’s repeatedly played over scene after scene, ironically. 3) Loads of German crew members. 4) Many classic posters including Frankenstein, Friday the 13th, and King Kong Lives. Ahem. 5) Shots of unrecognizable Hollywood and Sunset Blvds. Those Denny’s, pizza joints, and hooker corners no longer exist. 6) Product placement: Morton’s, Smuckers, Puffed Rice, Raisin Bran, Beer on Cornflakes. 7) Paul Gleason in a lovely scarf (R.I.P.). 8) Roland Emmerich in tears. The saddest thing, however, is seeing legendary Monty Python’s Flying Circus director McNaughton ham it up as Grandpa’s ghost. Weird. But all cheesiness aside, it does have one very special thing going for it:

ANOTHER appearance by Porky!

BLOOD CAR (2007)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:54:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Mike “Blood Geek” Brune, Anna “Blood Paycheck” Chlumsky, Katie “Blood Slut” Rowlett, Marla “Blood Window Dressing” Malcolm, and Bill “Blood Cheap Joke” Szymanski.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

In the near future, the cost of a gallon of gasoline has risen to $36 which is slightly less than the Chevron on Cesar Chavez and Alameda today. No one but the very rich and powerful drive and the rest of the world is left to ride bikes like incredibly fit schmucks. Archie (Brune), a milquetoast vegan kindergarten teacher, is struggling to invent an engine that runs on wheatgrass, vegetable juice, and hippie dreams.

Archie, wannabe inventor of the I-Coulda-Had-A-V8 engine. Yuk, yuk!

In between bedroom engineering and reading inappropriate stories to his class of confused kiddies, he buys said wheatgrass from local vegan cutie Lorraine (Chlumsky) who is hopelessly in love with the indifferent Archie.

My Girl’s girl: “Where’s a bee swarm when you need one?”

When all efforts to get the engine started fail, he goes on a spastic rage and accidently cuts his arm. His blood drips on the prototype which magically makes it work, even without Tim Gunn’s catty inspiration. After failed attempts to use animal blood, he concludes that the engine thirsts only for human blood. He eventually designs and installs a larger version to fit in the trunk of his Honda of Horror.

Henry Ford and Boris Karloff would be proud.

His new hemoglobin-fueled wheels draw the attention of math-impaired carjackers, racist mechanics, and sultry, gloriously foul-mouthed BBQ joint cashier Denise (Rowlett).

Va-va-vroooom of Doom!

She seduces the hard-up Archie for free rides and all kinds of kinky non-J.G. Ballard scripted car sex, much to the chagrin of broken-hearted Lorraine. To keep his social calendar active, Archie embarks on a rampage of violence and killing to keep his tank full and his pants off.

Finally, a green serial killer. You can all shut up now, hippies!

But Archie’s shenanigans also draw the attention of mysterious government agents who want the secret to his maniacal mechanizations. But even though Archie has forsaken his integrity, beliefs, and perhaps true love, he fights the power and goes on a nutty binge of appalling sadism that would make Patrick Bateman on coke blush.

Cheaper than a Texaco card, I can assure you.

THE FINISHER:

Blood Car isn’t really an evil car movie; it’s more an evil people movie, that is, unintentionally evil people. It satirizes our dependence on gasoline and the car culture that’s just as addictive as sex and power. Hysterical but ultimately flawed, Blood Car explores really cool ideas that could have merged into a brilliant black comedy had it had more time to flesh out its satirical themes and a bigger budget to hammer them down. It’s still a really funny and messed-up movie with plenty of dark humor, wanton blood and boobs, and enough dirty talk to ruin a sailor’s bachelor party. While most of the actors are absolutely fine, it’s Rowlett as the sex-hungry but unmoved Denise who almost steals the film with a profane performance of passive apathy. Plus she’s super hot. Also not doing bad in the growing up department is Chlumsky who appears to be ready for her own True Blood-esque break out. The movie is also shot and edited very well for such a low-budget picture and the distasteful jokes and gory hijinks make up for the evident lack of resources. But as it goes with all of these kinds of micro-budget films, the story falls apart about two-thirds of the way as the filmmakers struggle with reaching feature length or whatever the reason. Fortunately, the grim finale makes it worth the wait with a truly dismal, screwed-up, and hilarious resolution. In these times, Blood Car may be too on-the-nose, but at least there’s comfort in knowing that we’ll have plenty of hippies, racists, and airheads to fuel our trip to Hell.

WHEELS OF TERROR (1990)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Joanna “Replicant in Heels” Cassidy, Marci “Kid that Squeals” Leeds, Arlen Dean “Deals in Error” Snyder, Carlos “Don Fix-ote“ Cervantes, and the 1974 Dodge Pederast.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Single mom Laura (Cassidy) escapes the hustle and bustle of the city and settles in rural Copper Valley with her pre-teen daughter Stephanie (Leeds). The small family adjusts quickly as Stephanie makes friends quickly, townspeople are welcoming and friendly, and Laura lands a job as the school bus driver. But things go quickly awry when a creepy Dodge muscle car stalks the valley running over cheapskate Dads and terrorizing young girls.

Automotive design by Larry, Daryl, & Daryl

Unfortunately, the kids are spared death and are sexually assaulted before being released and left traumatized for life. The town erupts in fear and blames the inept police department and the head detective in charge (Snyder) for lack of answers. Curiously, no one seems to notice that the black primered car waits for kids IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL EVERY AFTERNOON. But being the keen big city gal she is, Laura soon develops suspicion about this car, especially when it tries to run the bus full of kids off the road.

Objects in the mirror are eviler than they appear

And then the car starts to stalk Laura and Stephanie around their ranch home, revving the engine and circling the yard in the middle of the night menacingly.

You’re a long way from that sexy transparent jacket, baby.

But no one from the inept police Detective to the horndog Hispanic mechanic (Cervantes) believes her story despite multiple witnesses and the continued disappearances of young girls. So when Stephanie is taken right in front her, Laura pops the clutch and puts the hammer down and pursues the villainous vehicle her own self.

Milf on a mission: “Not without my daughter you gear-head rapists!”

What follows is a Motherly showdown worthy of Ellen Ripley, Sarah Conner, Beatrix Kidd, or at the very least a very ticked off Sally Field.

Twisted Metal meets Mr. Rogers

THE FINISHER:

Once again, Arizona is the setting for an evil car movie in Wheels of Terror but this time the horror is inspired less by supernatural or demonic forces but one more grounded in reality, a parent’s nightmare of their child being abducted, assaulted and murdered. That fact makes viewing this movie feel all the more icky but yet it reinforces characters' motivations and our identification with Laura's plight as a desperate mother all the more. So in effect, the movie plays out more like The Car as if re-imagined by the Lifetime network. Hell, maybe Oprah. Unfortunately, we don’t get to know much about Laura and Stephanie. We get the gist that she’s moved from L.A. to this small town but aren’t given much to go with that. There’s not even a suggestion as to why she’s relocated, why she picked this Podunk town, or why she’s so good at driving school buses loaded with racing car engines.

This flying Dodge loves kids, but not in a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang kind of way.

Also ridiculous is the police, the townspeople, and the children’s inability to LOOK RIGHT, as in the DIRECTION THE CREEPY MOLESTER CAR IS COMING AT YOU. But despite the lack of character development, the movie is not without charm as the last 50 minutes are dedicated to Laura and the Dodge’s explosive car chase confrontation which is actually pretty darn good. Wheels of Terror was a TV-movie produced for the USA Network and was directed by Christopher Cain whose previous effort was the hit Young Guns, and so the film is fairly bloodless but not without its aforementioned atmosphere of desperation and well, icky-ness, and deserves a spot in the pantheon of evil car lore.

SUPER HYBRID (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Shannon “Super Final Girl” Beckner, Oded “Super Jerk” Fehr, Ryan “Super Brain” Kennedy”, Melanie “Super Rack” Papalia, Adrien “Super Pant Soaker” Dorval and Super “Not Really A” Hybrid.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

A sleek but strange black sedan stalks the streets of Chicago searching for victims to lure inside its eerie interior to be strangled by obsidian tentacles, ripped apart with razor sharp teeth, and consumed by soft Corinthian leather. And it will take more than Ricardo Montalban’s latin lover accent and good posture to make this cursed Cordoba sell.

The car of your nightmares can be yours for All Your Body Parts Down, A Pint of Blood a Month (on Approved Credit)

After devouring a couple of low octane teens out for a night on the town, the car is flattened in an accident and has to be impounded at a city garage. The garage employees led by dick boss Ray (Fehr) prepare for the garage’s closure for remodeling and will spend the night clearing out the joint. So the car is tucked in a corner somewhere where it waits, and watches.

Blood Vision is a (Death) Dealer Incentive

The car repairs itself and possesses the ability to shape-shift into various car models - mostly American because monstrous vehicles that digest Cubs fans is what made this country great, damn it! Anyway, it messes with the mechanics' heads, morphing into your Grandpa’s Caddy, your Mom’s station wagon, and your penile-challenged dick neighbor’s pick-up truck. Bored with the games, it starts picking off the garage staff one by one.

Talk about your sticker shock. HA! HA! Heh …

Twenty-six minutes into the movie, we are presented with “it’s an ancient predator who mimics” theory as to the origin of the car. I know, you’ve heard it all before.

The new 2012 Pontiac Cthulhu.

Female mechanic and car expert Tilda (Beckner), her nephew Bobby (Kennedy), sultry sarcastic secretary Maria (Papalia), and Ray are the last ones standing after the car’s all-you-can-eat demolition derby. And it’s a scramble against time, the creature’s voracious hunger for blood, and rising oil prices to stop the Super Hybrid from being so Hybridy!*

“The Goddamned Consumer Goddamned Reports is gonna hear about this one!”

*Dude, it’s totally not a hybrid!

THE FINISHER:

I must admit that my heart skipped a beat when I read the tagline “The New Generation of Killer Car Movies is Here” on Super Hybrid’s DVD cover. Finally, a triumphant 21st century return to a much maligned and forgotten subgenre! Oh the running-down of dopey shoddily dressed gear heads! Oh the promise of turbo-charged gore! Oh the obvious technological metaphors! And it’s directed by Eric Valette who made the not-completely terrible One Missed Call remake and it’s written by a guy named Benjamin Carr. His name is CARR! Super Hybrid starts off strong with a cool overhead shot of Chicago and appropriate music tailored for possible vehicular manslaughter. Wonder of wonders I thought to myself, how could this go wrong? Well, the question really is not how but how soon. Turns out, it took 26 minutes. That’s when we learn that the car is a mighty morphing squid of some kind. Skipped heart broken. Oh, and it’s not a hybrid at all. I know this because it did not morph into a smug ironic-glasses-wearing prick. Beset by a total lack of gore and the budgetary aesthetics of a SYFY Original, the movie degenerates into a predictable spookshow in a car garage and not fuel-injected massacre of my dreams. But it’s not a complete loss. The finale is action-packed and enjoyable despite the poor CG effects. In the end, what’s baffling is why the makers stuck to a PG-13 rating. Were they anticipating a quick sale to SYFY? Maybe, who knows? In the end, the thirsty Super Hybrid may have a penchant for red but if the makers had made a blood-soaked thrill ride instead, they would’ve seen a lot more green.

THE HEARSE (1980)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Trish “The Fairlady Z” Van Devere, Joseph “(Off) The Wagon” Cotten, David “The Phantom” Gautreaux, Donald “The Rambler” Hotton, Med “The Black & White” Flory, Perry “The Mustang” Lang, and Christopher “LeBaron” MacDonald.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Mousey plain Jane (Van Devere) is struggling with the recent loss of her mother and a painful divorce which resulted in mental breakdown. She seeks solace and healing in the country home of her deceased aunt which she inherited in her mother’s will. She travels to the sleepy town of Blackford where every male drives like a jerk, salivates over her like a bug-eyed cartoon wolf, and carries on like she’s Cheryl Tiegs.

She’s not Cheryl Tiegs.

But the soothing bucolic splendor of sexual harassment is abruptly broken up by the presence of a creepy black hearse that follows Jane, frequently sideswiping her because she is constantly driving at night.

I accuse this hearse of heresy down the Hershey Highway!

Jane’s therapeutic getaway sinks further to shit fail as the townsfolk treat her like crap and she begins to see the ghost of her dead aunt poking around the house. And worst, she’s harassed by boozy realtor Walter (Cotten), condescending Reverend Winston (Hotton), and leering deviant Sheriff Denton (Flory) who all think she’s nuts.

To say nothing of the aspiring porno actor/carpenters.

When visited by Walter, who in consultation with Scooby Doo plots to scare Jane away so he can take over the house, she nonchalantly announces that she’s known all along that dear old dead Auntie was a Satanist who was in love with a handsome stranger but died suddenly. And on the day of her funeral, the hearse carrying her body blew up over the town’s bridge. Something for the family scrapbook I’m sure. She then starts reading her Aunt’s diary and has disturbing dreams in which she is chased across the dark countryside and/or stars in a Bonnie Tyler video.

A total eclipse of my pants!

Also, the driver of the hearse walks the halls of her house, breaks windows and dishes, and appears to her in broad daylight.

Haunted hearse driving is just a summer job for The Most Interesting Man in the World

But when things are looking bleak, a handsome stranger named Tom (Gautreaux) enters her life, romances and sweeps her off her feet, reassuring her that all her troubles will soon end. But the strangeness continues and you can bet that there’s something far more ominous at work that will cure Jane's problems forever. Probably the hearse’s gas bill.

“$4 a gallon, are you *&%ing kidding me?!!!”

THE FINISHER:

The Hearse is not really an evil car movie per se, but more an atmospheric ghost story that slow burns creepily towards a confusing, lackluster resolution. I mean, the hearse itself is evil I guess but its body count is nowhere near colleague evil cars The Car or Christine, (although it dents Jane’s Chevy Nova many, many times). For the most part, the story is hackneyed with the forced hostility towards Jane lacking a clear motivation. Every character either wants to kill her or screw her, but we never really get to know why. It probably would have helped to flashback to the Aunt and her beau’s satanic doings in the past. The movie was Van Devere’s follow-up to The Changeling with husband George C. Scott, a far superior ghost story in every way, but being a trooper she invests in the character of Jane but appears to be the only character working with the material. Cotten, who slummed around in low-budget fare in the last part of his life, runs through his lines while Gautreaux turns in a slick, spooky performance. Visually, the hearse and the driver are the highlights but the film ends up fairly bloodless and low on scares. The Hearse is not terrible or really unwatchable, but its terror mileage is certainly low.

But, hell it’s got a cameo by Porky himself!

CRASH! (1977)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Sue “BANG!” Lyon, Jose “POP!” Ferrer, John “GLUG!” Carradine, John “THUD!” Ericson, Leslie “EEK!” Parrish, and Jerome “WHO?” Guardino.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Don’t worry, this movie contains no perverts who like to do it during fender benders or Sandra Bullocks whining in some rich white guy’s vision of a racially simmering Los Angeles that are about as realistic as my aspirations to win the LGPA. Even better, we have an evil car fueled by blood-steamed vengeance that, *pinch me*, actually growls!

“Grrr…I’m an evil car…grrr…wait, ‘blood steamed?’”

Our story begins when young hottie Kim (Lyon, Lolita) goes shopping in a drive-in swap meet to search for, well whatever it is people buy at swap meets. Tires? Gum? Cheese spread? Desperation?

You’re a long way from Humbert Humbert’s, baby.

Turns out people buy old Hittite relics that hold the power to unleash hellish vengeance at the very whim of their owners, which is exactly the kind of discount knick-knack Kim purchases from a wheezy swap meet weirdo. She returns home to her wheelchair-bound husband Marc (José Ferrer) who’s intensely jealous and suspicious of his pretty wife’s life on two-feet.

“Well, at least I can say I nailed Rosemary Clooney.”

The couple fights over Marc’s constant outlandish accusations of her infidelity and when Wheelie gets violent, she flees their home. Naturally, they seek counseling and therapy and in time trust is re-established and their relationship prospers and strengthens through their newfound belief in one another. Naaaah. He sends his monstrous pitbull after her as she’s driving away. The dog attacks her in her black convertible which crashes and erupts in flame. Still clutching the idol, she survives the accident and awakes in the hospital with severe wounds, amnesia, and a bout of demonic possession.

That’s ObamaCare for you!

Using Kim’s subconscious desire for vengeance, the idol takes control of her convertible which starts to terrorize motorists, cops, and hippies in vans all across the land.

Boom goes the Hittite dynamite. (tee-hee, “Hittite”)

Her doctor Greg (Ericson) and nurse Kathy (Parrish, Giant Spider Invasion) take a special interest in Kim’s case. They notice her spellbound obsession with the idol and decide to investigate its power through intense research and consulting scholarly journals, local libraries, and renowned experts. Naaaah. They call on John Carradine.

“It’s origin is *HIC*…*HIC*…*HIC*…Hittite.”

Greg discovers that the only person who can unravel the mystery of the idol is of course Marc himself, an cultural anthropologist. When Marc discovers that Kim survived the attack, he plots to kill her in the hospital but fails. He returns home where Kim remotely controls his wheelchair to kill him.

Couldn’t get a screenshot of the wheelchair attack, so here’s another shot of possessed Lolita.

Meanwhile, the possessed vehicle continues its motoring massacre wiping out every used car and leftover Starsky & Hutch cop car in the state.

Hal Needham wept.

Eventually, Marc takes Kim home from the hospital and promptly locks her in the couple’s spa as the car circles the house, calling Marc out as Kim reaches the moistness of a good hot dog bun. Most of this final showdown is comprised of Kim regaining her memory in which the movie FLASHES BACK EVERY SINGLE CAR CRASH FROM THE LAST HOUR! And once the final showdown/time filler is complete, all you’ll want is a warm place to forget and to CRASH!

THE FINISHER:

If you lived and breathed in the 80s and were able to walk and be semi-sober, chances are you’ve seen and/or heard a Charles Band movie, or at the very least been felt up during one. His companies Empire Pictures (Cemetery High, Re-Animator) and Full Moon Features (Puppet Master, Dollman) pumped out many a Friday night creature feature and enough cinema badness to fill 365 Days of Halloween. (Please, no!) Just looking at his output as director and producer makes me want to rethink Spielberg and Kubrick as childhood movie influences. And the man had his hand in just as much greatness (From Beyond) as he did crap (Robot Holocaust). Speaking of crap, Band’s foray into the evil car sub-genre is CRASH!, a super duper low budget occult thriller shot somewhere in central California over a weekend, or so it appeared. Now, anyone born before 1977 can call me Will Rogers but I’ve never seen a movie with lots of car crashes I didn’t like. But CRASH! is a mixed mélange of horror, melodrama, and action that delivers spectacularly cheap returns. The movie is about one-third evil car, one-third possession/revenge story, and one-third “where’s the remote?”, the last third due to facts that the cinematography is murky (shot by future The Fugitive director Andrew Davis), the plot nonsensical to labyrinthine at times, and that the vile convertible seems to occupy a universe where cars blow up by lightly tapping them. CRASH! was an early Band film and the amateurism surely shown throughout is forgivable and not completely terrible. In fact, Lyon and Ferrer are good sports dealing with all the silliness, explosions, and vehicle smashing. And the car, well, the car was a just a grouchy pompous ass!

“GRRRRRR…”

THE WRAITH (1986)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Charlie “Wheel Stud” Sheen, Nick “Spoiler” Cassavetes, Sherilyn “Trim Package” Fenn, Randy “Fender Bender” Quaid, Matthew “Hubcap” Barry, and Clint “Nut” Howard.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Mysterious lights descend from the sky into the Arizona desert, race down a rural highway at light speed, and merge to form an enigmatic figure in black and his turbo-charged car. The sight is as baffling as the state’s preference for wacko governors.

“Just point me to the nearest Eegees.”*

Meanwhile on the same rural highway, teen psycho Packard (Cassavetes) leads a bunch of Road Warrior/Sid and Nancy rejects terrorize drivers, challenges them to near-death races, and steals their car when they’re run off the road.

You pay with a pink slip, but the lickin’s free.

Packard's punks also use words like “quif city” and “dick butter” and drink toxic Kool-Aid moonshine and hydraulic fluid. But on the plus side, they get to hang out with Clint Howard.

Clint Howard...heals the pain.

The following morning, a stranger named Jake (Sheen) arrives on a motocross bike into town.

The only winning here is by insomniacs.

He immediately stops to ogle town cutie-pie Keri (Fenn). And really, can you blame him?

A pre-Twin Peaks Fenn shows off her twin peaks. (I hate myself).

We soon learn that tinderbox-tempered Packard is dangerously obsessed with Keri and threatens to kill anyone who gets near her.

Billy Zabka and Rick Springfield mated and pooped this out.

In fact, we also learn that unbeknownst to Keri, he’s responsible for the brutal murder of her previous boyfriend, Jamie. Jamie’s brother Billy (Barry) befriends Jake and notices that the stranger shares the same scars and wounds as his dead brother. Hmmm.

This is the extent of the scary scenes in The Wraith.

So Keri and Jake begin a secret courtship (which I can only assume happens because Sheen disappears for most of the movie) while Packard and his mentally-challenged gang members pursue and race the mysterious Turbo and each meet fiery demises.

I’m assured that this car complies with Arizona’s Hands-Free Evil laws.

When the car takes a life, it not only ruins the exterior and serious degrades the resell value, it also takes the driver’s soul by removing their eyes ala Three Stooges.

HEY MOE!

So as the car offs the punks one by one, the town’s Sheriff (Quaid) finally gets involved not only because does he despises Packard but it’s also election season.

Back in the days when Quaid was still sane.

The Sheriff’s fleet of Chrysler K-Cars gets smashed by the ghost car and it appears that its vengeance is far from over until it delivers a final message to the vile Packard.

The Ghost of Carburetors Future

After Packard steps up his game and learns to remember his lines, he escapes the cops, kidnaps Keri, and challenges the Turbo to a final race. And this is all leading to the huge reveal of the identity of the Turbo’s vengeance-fueled driver. And you know how it will turn out but if you don’t, your movie-watching license should be revoked.

THE FINISHER:

Longtime reader(s) of Tremendo Time might recall that I’ve variously mentioned that I grew up in a town that had no movie theater for most of the 80s. The Wraith is one of many movies I missed out on during this time and didn't catch later, not even on cable where this was a late night staple. While going through the research on evil car movies I at first disqualified this picture because I thought it was more of a sci-fi flick. But it does possess the essentials of an evil car as it's about a mysterious vehicle under an unknown power that kills people for revenge so that’s enough qualification for me.

One last pic of Sherilyn. (I need the hits!)

So let’s review. The Turbo was designed for the movie by Dodge and is pretty cool. It's got a sleek, futuristic design that recalls a Delorean or maybe the car from Black Moon Rising but smaller and lightweight. In several shots, you can see that it’s basically a frame on wheels. Sheen is barely in the movie, occupying a few minutes in the beginning to set up his character and then disappearing until the start of the third act. He did little that was memorable. Cassavetes insists on playing his villain role straight-faced which results in over-scowling with a constant non-reaction to anything, not even when he’s got a shotgun in the face by the Wraith’s driver. Packard’s gang is pure comic relief, at times unintentionally funny, at other just miserably inept. Fenn is given little to do but stand around, squirt a few tears from her diamond-blue puppy dog eyes, and look awesome. Quaid is wasted in a non-comic role and makes it really hard to take Cousin Eddie seriously as tough as nails Sheriff. Clint Howard was Clint Howard and that should be good enough for me or any of you all! But in the end, the movie plays out like a High Plains Drifter acted by my high school class drama club. So if you dig the 80s sound and feel, cool cars, explosions, a decidedly 80s soundtrack (Ozzy, Sammy Haggar, Motley Crue, and heavy metal gods Robert Palmer and Bonnie Tyler), bikinis, thongs, and requisite nudeness, greasy hamburgers, and phallic cacti, The Wraith should be your vehicle of choice.

*Hello, Tucson friends!

THE PAUL LYNDE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (1976)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Actor/comedian/game show staple Paul Lynde is a TV icon of the 1970s. His career spanned Broadway to bit parts in sitcoms to feature film comedies to bigger parts in network shows to perhaps his most memorable role occupying the center square on the original Hollywood Squares. Older folks will remember him as mischievous Uncle Arthur on Bewitched while younger people may not realize that Lynde's trademark snarky, catty mannerisms are still referenced in characters from The Simpsons, American Dad and Family Guy. Lynde played the awkward nervous guy and self-absorbed foil to perfection. He reveled in the sarcastic quip and was a master of the witty double-entendre which often alluded to his secret but not so secret sexual preference. He was a really funny guy. So it's no surprise that ABC tapped him to do a couple of TV holiday-themed variety shows*. The Paul Lynde Halloween Special aired on October 29th, 1976 and featured a cavalcade of stars including an iconic rock band's television debut and absolutely no members of Chewbacca's family. Let's review.

The show opens with Lynde confusing the theme of his holiday special.

X-mas, Easter, and Valentine's would all be more tolerable with a little Lynde.

After a scolding by his maid (Margaret Hamilton, aka Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West), Lynde performs an agonizing Bruce Vilanch-scripted monologue filled with election day and fat kid jokes that, to no fault of Lynde's, land like 10-ton candy corns.

I'd like to see John Stewart blab against an awesome giant jack-o'lantern background.

But we do learn that Lynde was a chubby kid who one Halloween dressed up like the Hindenburg. The result? It was a disaster. Hey oh!! (I actually chuckled warmly at that one.) Last word on the monologue: a Bugsy Malone reference! Paul then sings a song and dance number about kids and Halloween that ends with him being dumped in a trash can by other variety show icons Donny & Marie:

She's a little bit Satan, he's a little bit red-sequined Prince Valiant.

Margaret then wisks Paul away for an evening at her sister's house who turns out to be H.R. Pufnstuf's Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes). Goddamn this thing is soooo 70s.

If the Wicked Witch and Witchiepoo can't turn Paul, no one can.

Margaret reveals to Paul that the pair of witches have a hidden agenda in their invitation to the Witchiepoo castle which thankfully is not a threesome from my nightmares. They want Paul to use his star power to dis-spell the myths of evil witches and spread a better image. Margaret then reveals her true identity.

She was instrumental in releasing Toto's Africa in the 80s. Heh...heh...

They also introduce Paul to Miss Halloween (Betty White), who mistakes him for Paul Newman and then insults him cruelly.

"In thirty-five years, I will be a GOD!"

In exchange for some good press, the witches grant Paul three wishes. His first wish is to become a truck driver, or at the very least participate in a really long, drawn-out sketch about truck driving which was fricking HUGELY popular in the 70s. Seriously, they made movies and TV shows about it and everyone talked in CB Radio talk and ate a lot of bacon and did speed and there was a huge hemorrhoid epidemic and ... well, let's just say it was just a very confusing time. What happens next are three words that have saved many a shitty variety show: Enter Tim Conway.

"Breaker, breaker, anyone got a 20 on Harvey Korman so I crack him the fuck up?"

The sketch involves Paul and Tim fighting over the same scrawny truckstop waitress (Roz Kelly, better known as The Fonz's girlfriend Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days).

Pinky looks like she's made a stinky.

Guys, if this thing gets any more 70s, Elton John's disco sunglasses will sprout from my head. Anyway, Paul wins the girl when he announces that he'll be rich because a movie is being made about his life called "Deep Truck" in which he has a "teeny weeny part". Another warm chuckle. The gang and some hard-bodied bachelors then engage in the biggest dance number about truck driving since Convoy.

Nothing screams Halloween more than dancing and singing about trucks.

So far, I can't see how a kid, even a 70s kid, would enjoy this special. Despite the presence of kid show star Witchiepoo, none of the jokes are dumbed down for children, not even stupid children. To illustrate, Paul's next wish is to be a Arabian sheikh and make out awkwardly in a desert tent with Florence Henderson. Florence of Arabia, guys! HAHAHAHAHAHA...heh...heh...

Some immense will power in display here, folks.

A couple of cheap plugs to ABC TV shows Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, and Baretta and a few bestiality jokes later, Florence sings a disco version of 'That Old Black Magic'.

Forget Florence, I want this goddamned neon bat!

But then we come to the real curious cultural artifact of this special: the television debut of KISS. They take the Witchiepoo stage and belt out their hit Detroit Rock City.

Toned down were the lyrics and Paul Stanley's bulge.

I have to be honest here and risk the un- and de-friending of some good pals but I never thought KISS was any good. I thought they were all flash, flesh, and gimmick. Kids around the neighborhood worshiped these guys, which gave way to the adoration of the similarly silly sheet-metal bands of the 80s. I guess have KISS-lexia because I can't tell any of their songs apart, aside from the popular ones. Gene Simmons, who I admire as a man who enjoys a good comic book and ghost story, is despised as a reality star and snake oil salesman for anything and everything KISS. There's my honesty, bared out in the open. But in the special they are really good sports and lip-synch their hearts out. They follow Detroit Rock City with other giant hit Beth.

I wished he purred this song.

Lastly, they blow the roof off the dump with King of the Night Time World. And then Lynde knocks it out of the park with a "kiss and make-up" joke. Last warm chuckle of the evening. In the final number, everyone gathers to sing something that involves the lyric "Move it in, move it out, Disco Baby!" repeatedly while KISS chills in the rafters.

Ace refuses to participate in the Disco Baby abomination, probably because he's asleep.

The show ends with Paul Lynde addressing the TV audience directly and sincerely thanking them for "accepting him" (for real, his words!) and letting his kooky troupe entertain us this evening. Despite the corniness, the hit-and-miss one-liners, the lack of specific Halloween-related skits, and the fact that I forgot to include Billy Barty's presence in the show, The Paul Lynde Halloween Show was an amusing and fond look back at a time long gone. Despite a few attempts to restart the genre, variety shows have been replaced with singing contests and reality talent shows, and we may never see the likes of star-driven holiday shows again (Stephen Colbert a very strong exception). But sadder is the fact that we may never see the likes of a Paul Lynde again, a man who despite a troubled personal life managed to keep us laughing and keeping our dirty minds active for decades with a swishy wit, sardonic smirk, and an acidicly dark sense of humor.

Happy Halloween, Funny Man.

But I still want that goddamned neon bat!

*I could have sworn there is another Paul Lynde special with Alice Cooper, but my research came up empty. Anyone? Anyone?

DEATH SHIP (1980)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:27:00 +0000

THE CARD:

George “Fear Admiral” Kennedy, Richard “Spook Deck Pappy” Crenna, Nick “Stabbin’ Boy” Mancuso, Sally Ann “Worst Mate” Howes, Kate “Really Old Spice” Reid, Victoria “All Hands On Boob” Burgoyne and Saul “Bad Nautical Pun” Rubinek.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

The 1970s were to Cruise Ships as Jimmie “J.J.” Walker was to comedy. They existed. And aboard a very 70s-ish cruise liner is Captain Ashland (Kennedy) who is about to retire as captain of the particularly non-dyno-mite ship. He’s also quite bitter about handing over the reins to younger, superiorly bearded Trevor Marshall (Crenna) who’s brought his wife Margaret (Howes) and young family aboard. Never quite fitting in with his fun-loving, buffet-gorging passengers, Ashland reflects resentfully on the dying art of life on the high seas.

He also hires chimps on his crew. So progressive.

While a party rages in the bingo hall/ballroom, a mysterious vessel under the power of unseen forces is on a collision course with the ship. Despite the crew’s valiant efforts, the cruise liner is sunk when the ship rams into the lower decks where apparently all the stock footage is stored. The next day, a raft carrying Marshall’s family, First Mate Nick (Mancuso), his sultry girlfriend Lori (Burgoyne), lounge singer Jackie (Rubinek), elderly passenger Sylvia (Reid), and the fished-out Ashland encounters the eerie ship in open water.

Unholy Ship!

The survivors board the ship but find no one and nothing but Nazi paraphernalia, eerie World War II-era music resounding in the hull, and peppermint candy that causes fatal acne. When Jackie is scrimshawed* to Davy Jone’s Locker unceremoniously before he even has the chance to be annoying, the gang heads indoors for safety. Poor schmucks. Almost immediately, whatever sinister power is commandeering the ship also takes control of Ashland who fantasizes about choking sailors and descends into madness, delusion, and the constant need to lie down.

“I’ll just lie here and wait for the Zuckers’ callback.”

While the survivors start to drop faster than pants at a Tailhook convention**, Marshall and Nick discover the ship was used for brutal interrogation by the Nazis, operates on human blood and could be haunted by the victims and torturers alike.

Unfortunately, bloodbaths do not exfoliate.

No evil seamen has caused this much havoc since Robert Kardashian. Needless to say, it’s time to abandon the fuck off the Death Ship.

*Yeah, I don’t what it means either.

**NOTE: Tremendo Time is committed to references older than your Grandpa’s aftershave.

THE FINISHER:

I remember seeing the Death Ship VHS box many times during trips to the video store in years past. I always thought it looked cheesy so I never picked it up. A haunted boat that kills people? “Guffaw!” said young, stupid El Tremendo. Recently, after recalling ship-related horror movies like Triangle, Ghost Ship, and The Rig, I remembered Death Ship and it turns out my 1988 judgment of that video cover was hasty. While it takes its time getting there, the movie is an eerie, disturbing ride. The rusty, oily, claustrophobic atmospheric sets in slowly but once the mayhem begins, the feeling of an inescapable almost cosmic doom grabs hold.

The Nazi Victims were hung in the galley with care…

I don’t know, there’s something about 70s and 80s movies that made your skin crawl and increased your chances to look away or at least leave the room for a minute. It’s an indescribable, palpable feeling that’s missing in most horror movies of the last twenty years. Could it be that current viewers are too conscious that they’re watching a horror movie and have come to expect the scares and know the rules? Are advances in technology and aesthetics diluting the ability to cinematically terrorize? It’s not that Death Ship was any more innovative or competent than any of its contemporaries or descendants (it’s still kinda silly in parts), it just has this atmosphere unique to its time that was really effective in conveying disaster and fatal destiny. Death Ship is an underrated hallmark in the nautical horror tradition, and should you see it drop anchor near you, don’t be young and stupid and miss it.

JACK-O (1995)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Linnea “Nude-O” Quigley, Rebecca “Ditzy Mom-O” Wicks, Gary “Bore-O” Doles, Ryan “The Director’s Kid-O” Latshaw, Catherine “Spooky Chick-O” Walsh, Michael “Guido-O” Walsh, Cameron “Drunk-O” Mitchell, John “Dead Drunk-O” Carradine, Brinke “Cameo-O” Stevens, and not a sequined glove in sight.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Back in the olden days, according to some crazy fat guy talking into fire, an evil old man with mystical powers (Carradine) put a curse upon his death on the town that sentenced him to eternal damnation.

“Oh Satan, where’s my tapioca?”

We learn that longtime residents of the town, the Kelly family, were instrumental in bringing the evil man to justice using a crucifix made from a special tree. (Note: I wasn't paying attention as to why the tree is special. Please forgive me. PLEASE!) We flash forward to today (well, 1993-ish) and young Sean Kelly (Latshaw) is having bad dreams about the old man while a creepy figure stalks him with a rusty scythe.

Humanity’s last hope, or just another atomic wedgie victim?

Meanwhile, the mysterious Vivian (Walsh) arrives in town and seeks out the Kelly family to warn them of impending doom on Halloween night while constantly groping Sean. We learn that Vivian is a descendant of the old man and she tells Dad Kelly (Coles) and Mom Kelly (Wicks) the legend of Jack-O, the suspenders-wearing demon from Hell with a pumpkin for a head who is under the control of her long-dead ancestor.

Jack-O is Wack-O

So Jack-O is stupidly resurrected from the grave by some Hamms Light-drinking 30-year old teens which triggers his blood-spattered, autumn-potpourri scented vengeance on the Kelly family, that is if he can get past their spooky-looking Mom.

“Mommy needs her medicine now, dear.”

Jack-O slices and dices his way through the town’s nerdy and annoying inhabitants while the Kellys proceed with their tradition of a homemade spook house for Halloween where the holiday-obsessed folks hand out candy and pull dimestore pranks on trick-or-treaters. They hire babysitter Carolyn (Quigley) to watch the creeped-out Sean for no other reason than to have a boobilicious showering scene.

Linnea makes me Quigley!

Our fruit/vegetable villain Jack-O then proceeds to weed out the town including Carolyn’s scuzzy sister, her Discount Vinnie Barbarino boyfriend, and a rude TV-dinner-loving, child-hating grocer. In the final showdown Jack-O plows his way to the Kelly’s to play Halloween games like Apple Dunking, Candy Swaps, and Gravity-Defying Intestinal Impalement.

“Hey, I wanted a Rolo!”

THE FINISHER:

How can you resist a Halloween slasher flick with a pumpkin-headed killer offing annoying teens, pert scream queens, and the director’s relatives? Well, it’s easy if you try. But I didn’t so I watched Jack-O, a decrepitly cheap holiday scare fest from renowned, infamous, and partially devoured bad movie producer Fred Olen Ray. About the only things I can suggest were even remotely good were Jack-O’s kinda cool-in-a-Kmart kinda way design, the main kid who was a pretty decent little actor, and of course Leanna’s nudie butt scrub. In fact, the entire film seems to orbit that one scene while loading up the star cannon with Carradine, Stevens, and Mitchell (who plays horror host Dr. Cadaver for ten seconds) and throwing in a squirt gun of strawberry jam for blood effects. The masterful touch of the immortal Fred Olen Effing Ray. Unreleased until two years after Mitchell’s death (this was his last appearance) and made in the early 90s but feeling very mid-80s, Jack-O is a slight sweet in your trick-or-treat bag, somewhere between Grandma’s Circus Peanuts and that could-be-taffy from the weirdo bachelor down the block who watches too many horror movies. Ahem.

Happy Jack-O-Ween!

CAMPFIRE TALES (1991)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Robin “Who?” Roberts, Tres “No Clue” Holton, Courtney “Eh?” Ballard, H. Ray “Looks Familiar” York, Barbara “You know, from that Thing” Jackson, Josh “Some Guy, Always Wore a Shirt” Craig, Lawrence E. “The Other Guy from that Other Thing” Campbell, Harold “Passed his Acting Class” Odom, William “Looks like Mike” Cooke, and Gunnar “Holy Shit, It’s Leatherface!” Hansen.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Three boys camping in the woods are settling in for the night but are soon disturbed by a wandering bearded stranger (Hansen) who asks the boys for a few minutes by the fire. In exchange he offers to regale them with four spooky tales of the macabre that may or may not have to do with chili made of human.

Your host, Wolfman Gunnar

In “The Hook”, the classic urban legend of the hook-handed killer on the loose stalking couples on Lovers’ Lane is retold with a twist which involves an exceedingly asshole-ish boyfriend, his tomboy girlfriend who is reluctant to put out, and her family's poorly lit driveway.

A-boo!

In “Overtoke” a couple of fun-seeking hoser potheads seek the ultimate high. But with funds dwindling and the gas tank running dry, they don't have much luck. Fortunately, they happen across a peculiar dope dealer selling cheap weed at bottom basement prices. Unfortunately, the weed has some unlucky side effects other than rampant Ding-Dong gorging.

Nancy Reagan was right!

In “The Fright Before Xmas” a failed spa owner deeply in debt returns home for the holidays only to complain about his waning Yuppie lifestyle, spit cookies, and cruelly off his elderly Mom. Later, his nephew and niece, unaware of the grammatricide, inform their killer Unc that there is both a Good Santa and a Bad Santa which I hope to dear God doesn’t mean I’ll have to see Billy Bob Thornton’s ass again. Nonetheless, a visit from a grumpy St. Nick to spread bad will on earth is forewarned on the kids’ X-mas present:

This move would never fly on Words with Friends.

In the morning, the family is treated with the gift that keeps on giving: permanent holiday-related psychological scarring.

"Billy Bob's ass...so saggy, so so saggy..."

In the last tale, “Skull & Crossbones”, Captain Plantain (Campbell) washes up on a deserted island after ditching his ship during a storm. Along with his cabin boy (Cooke) who he abuses mercilessly, he searches for his treasure while eerie things follow him in the woods and a mysterious inhabitant of the island (Odom) calls to him by name and knows his deep dark secret. This spooky saga is a tale of intrigue, betrayal, deceit, and murder on the high seas. But best of all it’s got PIRATE ZOMBIES!

Avast ye brains, matey!

THE FINISHER:

I like a good horror anthology film because regardless of its budget or quality, there’s almost always at least one good story to be found, from the creepy ventriloquist tale in Dead of Night to the Zuni fetish doll story in Trilogy of Terror to the Tazmanian Devil segment in Creepshow amongst many others. The low budget Campfire Tales is no exception. The first two stories don’t serve have much of a point at all and merely warm up the proceedings and offer a chuckle and a slimy gross-out or two. "The Fright Before Xmas" picks up the action better with a creepy Claus and a very deserved kill. But the standout of the movie is the final story, “Skull & Crossbones” which I think is so good it should *perish the thought* be remade. Take the silly over-produced ridiculousness of the Pirates of the Caribbean to the trash can and make a gritty horror tale with pirates, voodoo-zombies, black magic, and an existential mystery. Far more ambitious that the first three segments, “Skull & Crossbones” features simple but effectual zombie effects, good acting, decent dialogue, and a nice twisted ending. Cheap but vastly entertaining, Campfire Tales is a solid bad movie night candidate with a gem mixed in with largely forgettable crap.

We’ll always have PIRATE ZOMBIES

PSYCHO COP (1989)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Bobby Ray “Dumb Teen Genocide” Shafer, Palmer Lee “Impersonating a Laura Strode” Todd, Jeff “Bland Larceny” Qualle, Cindy “Manchild Abuse” Guyer, Dan “Driving while Stupid” Campbell, and Linda “Bad Acting without a License” West.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

A police officer (Shafer, the future Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration) prepares for his day doing what every good cop does in the morning: shine those boots, polish that badge, load that pistol, and bathe in the blood of the innocent.

“We’re all out of Calgon!” (Sorry, but El T was alive in the 70s).

But instead of protecting and serving, this cop is projecting knives and serving suffering as he roams the countryside offing innocent citizens, which when you think about it is only a few notches away from speed traps. Offering his victims to Satan, the Psycho Cop stalks three fun-loving teen couples out for a weekend of partying in a quaint rental home.

Poor 80s dry-look dopes.

The three couples, who apparently detest each other, spend most of their time drinking skunk beer, bickering about absolutely nothing, getting disturbed by the sound of wood chopping, and deciphering Satanic omens out of missing hairbrushes and spilled soup. They guys are all annoying doofs begging for a slow death by billy club. And if you close your eyes during the girls’ dialogue, you will hear every female character from any Peanuts special. No wonder this cop went psycho.

Officer Not Friendly. Nope, not friendly at all.

So Mr. P. Cop stalks these morons and offs them one by one, offering a brand of Hellish Justice for crimes known only in his maniacal mind.

Well, maybe Career Suicide

THE FINISHER:

OK, so killer cop movies instantly recalls Maniac Cop, right? Yeah, well that Lustig classic has got nothing on this poor, dull, snoozefest which looks like it may have been literally shot in a weekend. But it’s not without its uniqueness and may still appeal to bad movie masochists. The characters/victims completely freak out for any reason. A misplaced hairbrush is somehow a practical joke. Spilled soup is a national emergency. Missing beer spells the End Times (yes, alcoholics maybe it does). A chased character falls and screams “Ow, my ribs!” which was obviously dubbed. Blunt logs cut through people like butter. And Shafer, who is actually pretty hilarious as the robotic Psycho Cop, spews Krueger-esque kill quips that go over about as well as a turd in a jail cell.

Better titles would have been The Batshit Sheriff, The Devil’s Deputy, The Cuckoo Constable.

Even when you think about it in respective terms, this late 80s slasher feels dated and eight years too late and probably would have fared better during the slasher glut earlier in that decade. Accented with fairly obvious references to Halloween, Terminator, and Nightmare on Elm Street, the movie isn’t worth the time to seek out even for the most hardcore of 80s slasher completists (although there was a sequel!).

BLUE MONKEY (1987)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Steve “Azure Ape” Railsback, Gwynyth “Cobalt Chimp” Walsh, Don “Ultramarine Orangutan” Lake, John “Glaucous Gorilla” Vernon, Joe “Prussian Gibbon” Flaherty, Robin “Baby Blue Bonobo” Duke, and Sarah “Majorelle Macaque” Polley.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

An old man visiting an old lady in her greenhouse is bitten by a bug when he touches a peculiar plant. He chokes, passes out, and is soon rushed to the emergency room where he spits out a slimey worm. His attending physician Dr. Carson (Walsh) is disturbed when his ailment soon spreads to anyone who was near him, causing alarm in the hospital and nervous tie-wringing from bad publicity-phobic administrator Mr. Levering (Vernon). They isolate the worm for further study which is spewing green goo at an alarming rate.

Feel free to insert your own racist joke here.

To make matters worse a wounded cop arrives with his panicked partner Bishop (Railsback) in tow, some wisenheimer sick kids run around causing mischief, and first-time parents The Bakers (Flaherty and Duke) arrive to have their baby and crack jokes about databases and menstruation.

“We’re having an adventure, like The Goonies!”

Carson and her crew dissect the worm and a big ugly bug hatches. They place the creature under glass but when a horny nurse and horny orderly leave the lab unattended to pursue horniness, the nosy kids innocently but stupidly feed the bug growth hormones. When the horny ones return, they are summarily dispatched by the now big-ass ugly bug in a decidedly non-horny fashion.

Thanks for ‘roids, kids!

As the situation worsens, she calls local etymologist Elliot (Lake) to help investigate the growing infection. Meanwhile, the government has quarantined the hospital and an ominous Disease Control-type guy has given the Army orders to shoot anyone who leaves the building. Bishop, Carson, and Elliot hatch a plot to lure the creature into an experimental laser operation room where they hope to slice and dice it. (NOTE: if you introduce a giant space laser in the first act, you have to use the giant space laser in the third act. First rule of Cinema, my friends.)

Our intrepid heroes, oh, and a guy who looks like the Cuban military leader in Red Dawn.

Meanwhile, more and more people are dying in the hospital due to infection, the government has ordered to incinerate the hospital if the bugs cannot be stopped, and the creature has nested in the boiler room where it (Elliot identifies it as a hermaphrodite) busily hatches eggs. With the help of the kids who know every inch of the hospital, our heroes prepare for the final showdown with the Blue Monkey, which is neither blue nor a monkey*.

THE FINISHER:

Blue Monkey is a fine, colorful, and fun homage to classic giant insect movies from the 50s mixed with 80s horror aesthetics and Canadian low-budget cinematic sensibilities (ie sorta TV-movie-ish). Referencing everything from Them! to Aliens, the movie is an enjoyable outing balanced with scary action and comic relief. The horror is delivered by an effective giant insect costuming and gory bug effects while the comedy comes from a Canadian heavy-hitters Flaherty and Duke (SCTV and SNL alums respectively) and the hilarious Lake (of Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman fame, amongst others), who here actually plays it rather straight but enthusiastically. Railsback, who’s known for his angst-ridden roles in Helter Skelter and The Stunt Man, also plays it straight-faced and actually looks to want to be involved in the wacky buggy nonsense surrounding him.

Bishop’s partner's vampire family thanks him for saving Dad.

I also really dug the strong female characters, particularly Walsh who although may be aping Aliens’ Ripley at time is nonetheless a thrill to watch. Another treat was seeing a very young Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead, 2004) and searching for an alleged Helen Hunt cameo (didn’t find her).

Sarah Polley. Toddler Zack Snyder nowhere in sight.

So yeah, I really enjoyed Blue Monkey. The script is hurried but plausible, wasting no time on deep characterization but peppering the dialogue with what sounds like believable scientific jargon. The soundtrack was your typical 80s synthesizer fest (not a bad thing, in doses) and the cinematography was above par.

The director was in love with this shot. Not bad.

Blue Monkey is a nasty little treat filled with cool monster action and light humor and good characters you kind of actually care about. I can almost forgive the utter lack of a blue monkey. Almost.

*I had to fast-forward through the movie again to figure out the title. Turns out it’s a reference to brief line by one of kids who call the boogeyman “Blue Monkey”. You can sleep now.

DEMONOID (1981)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:51:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Samantha “Leggy-oid” Eggar, Stuart “Boxing Priest-oid” Whitman, Lew “Used to be on CHiPs-oid” Saunders, Roy “Token Tubby-oid” Jensen, Jose “Token Mexican Tubby-oid” Chavez, and Thing Addams. Oid.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Pic starts promising with a couple of hooded guys chasing a comely female in a spooky cave which results in torn clothing, kicks to hooded guys’ groins, exposed nether regions, and a hand amputation. The hoods then trap the still-moving and seemingly intelligent hand in a silver box to seal away this apparent appendage of evil. We learn very quickly it’s evil because a half-second-long shot of a demonic figure flashes subliminally throughout the rest of the movie.

Rock on, Demonoids!

Flash forward many unknown number of years to Guanajuato, Mexico, site of a new silver mine owned by Jennifer (Eggar) and husband Mark (Jenson) who are having trouble keeping employees as the mine spooks the taco-enjoying locals who believe it to be the cursed tomb of the demon-hand. Soon snoopy Whitey unintentionally unleashes the demon hand which takes possession of all who touch it, granting them incredible strength and will to commit evil.

Smooth as a baby demonoid's bottom.

The hand takes control of Mark who then blows up the mine, sealing it forever while killing several workers. He disappears and Jennifer embarks on a worldwide search for him which eventually leads her to Los Angeles, the home of immoral body parts. There she meets boxer-blacksmith-priest Father Cunningham (Whitman) who knows Mark’s whereabouts but guffaws this silly evil hand nonsense.

Give me five, brotha!

That is, until the evil hand emerges from Mark’s paupers grave, takes possession of a few folks who get their hands cut-off in mild to outrageous ways, from cauterizer to freight train. Jennifer has learned that the hand is seeking her out for reasons never explained and Father C has to become strong and confront his weakening faith, just like every horror movie priest is mandated to do. Fortunately, Father C is a blacksmith of some type (it’s never really explained either) which sets up an excuse to use a blowtorch in the final act. And in the end we learn that when you talk to the hand, it sometimes talks back.

THE FINISHER:

Demonoid (aka Messenger of Death and The Devil’s Hand) plays out like a macabre body part shock show with 70s TV movie aesthetics and a few unintentional laugh out loud attempts at horror. But the real terror is seeing the poor bewildered faces of Eggar and Whitman trying to keep a straight face through this film.

"Pssst...Why 'Demonoid'?"

Whitman’s accent subtly shifts between Irish and American but fortunately he appears quite sober throughout the picture. Eggar’s presence pretty much serves to class up the joint, but little else. Russ Meyer legend Haji turns in a small role as a vengeful gambler’s girlfriend who gets a full face of evil hand.

"Russ, please return my calls!" (Muffled)

Apparently, the movie was filmed before Oliver Stone’s body part flick The Hand but sat around waiting to be released in the midst of a mini-living-evil-hand craze that I don’t remember happening at all. Demonoid is possibly one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen: slow, abjectly cheap, poorly lit, and nonsensical to the point of absurdity, riddled with pointless …

THUNDERCRACK!!!

On second thought: best movie ever!

BLOOD HARVEST (1987)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 18:21:00 +0000

THE CARD:

“Not So” Tiny Tim, Itonia “Beanstalk Swank” Salchek, Dean “The Milquetoast Maniac” West, Lori “Hang Her Boobies High” Minetti, Frank “Sheriff Useless” Benson, Peter “I was young, I needed the money” Krause, and the Disturbing Absence of a Ukulele.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Jill (Salchek) returns to her quaint Wisconsin hometown from college only to find it in economic shambles. Her banker-father has foreclosed on many of the farmer-neighbors’ homes and her family has become a social pariah.

Matters worsen when Jill discovers that her parents are missing and the local Sheriff (Benson) seems more interested in softball and mugging at the camera than finding her folks.

Just part of the rich tapestry of cheeseheads to be found in Blood Harvest

Adding to her terror is wordy but efficient phone threats (“Fuck you, bitch!”), misspelled blood red graffiti on her house, and gold and green dummies hung in effigy to protest her greedy Pops. Enter childhood friend Gary (West) and his weirdo former-circus clown brother Mervo (Tim) to save day.

Tiptoe through my nightmares.

Unfortunately Gary, who’s crushed on human-stick figure Jill for years, becomes a little upset when Jill announces she has a boyfriend, 80s cheeseball Tom Cruise wannabe Scott (Krause of TV’s Six Feet Under and Parenthood) who unexpectedly shows up so we can have a nude scene. The love triangle that ensues hampers the investigation into the disappearance and the identity of Jill’s harasser. And the mentally unstable and puffy Mervo, who’s batshit cuckoo, obsessed with bible quotes, and is also Tiny Tim isn’t any help either.

Fortunately, Jill’s Commando poster above her bed was a source of comfort.

And thus Jill’s nightmare begins as margarine tubs of blood wait silently and ready to pounce, a pantyhose-head creep stalks the night and takes pictures of Jill as she sleeps, and the victims pile up in the spooky barn out back where every victim seems to think is a safe place to hide.

Something horrifying happened here. I’ll have to get back to you.

In the end, we learn valuable lessons, never trust guys in sweaters during Wisconsin summers, never practice ballerina moves after rugburn sex, and never turn your back on your lunch with Tiny Tim in the room.

THE FINISHER:

In difficult economic times such as now, you’d think the one-line movie pitch “Tiny Tim in a horror movie” would be just the thing to turn things around. Think again.

Uncertainty about Tiny’s acting chops certainly didn’t stop Wisconsin auteur Bill Rebane (Monster A-Go-Go, Giant Spider Invasion) from seeing this pitch come to life. And the result is, well, weird, but you kinda couldn’t expect less from the ukulele-strumming legend. Clad in clown pants, splotched with bad make-up, and being so him, Tiny is the best thing about this slow but eerie psychological thriller, but unfortunately his scenes are few and far between. The film is probably Rebane’s most technically adept as absent is “The Rebane Touch” (essentially: 1. Point camera at people, 2. Tell them to say stuff, 3. Hide in a hayloft for three weeks and hope everything works out). But unfortunately present are Rebane’s other staples: clunky dialogue, random religious references, and minimalist gore. And then there’s not much blood harvesting going on, in fact it’s more like watching weeds grow. But the real treat is watching the late, bloated, gloriously great Tiny Tim doing his shtick, disturbing and enthralling us with his own brand of unique weirdness that will probably be unparalleled in pop culture history.

STALKING SANTA (2006)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

Santa hos and Shatner shats; a not-so subtle Erich von Daniken parody; and thousands of ass-flattening hours watching the History Channel.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Lloyd Darrow (Chris Clark) is the world’s premier “Santologist" or Santa Claus Expert whose glorious, lifelong and mostly futile attempt to prove the existence of Old Saint Nick is the focus of this incisive documentary. The breadth of Darrow’s research has included first-hand accounts of Santa sightings from impish kids and questionably sober adults, alleged recordings of Santa sending X-mas wishes during séances, the interrogation of so-called Mall Santas who may be agents of a secret cabal to conceal the truth, and of course, a plethora of Santa-related archeological evidence:


The Aztecs loved their stocking of sacrificial heads on X-mas morn.

Also featured are his long-suffering but supportive wife Barbara (Lisa Clark), his sweet daughter, his increasingly disillusioned son, and enthusiastic research assistant Clarence (Daryn Tufts) who stands by Darrow's questionable certainty despite the odds. The detail of their investigation in the days leading up to X-mas reveals the full scope of the Santa Conspiracy which provides explanations for everything from crop circles (alternate landing fields for Santa’s sleight), to UFO sightings (Santa’s sleigh ride tests), to the so-called “alien” body recovery at Roswell, NM in 1947:


All the autopsy revealed was three pounds of semi-digested sugar cookies.

The passion that drives Darrow and his protégé Clarence is finding out the identity of who or what is suppressing public knowledge of Santa's existence, and they come up with some pretty reasonable answers. For example, if Santa – the universal gift giver – existed, parents would be able to save their money at the end of the year, or perhaps invest in a certain masked movie blogger’s Hamdinger franchise. Santa’s free goody giveaway would result in economic ruin as well as a shitload of leftover candy canes. While the rest of the world mocks him, Darrow perseveres and his belief is bolstered by the appearance of mysterious characters that enter his life with secret information and stories about governmental interference in the truth about Santa Claus. In the end, we are presented with a livid portrait of a man obsessed with unraveling that which cannot – and perhaps should not – be unraveled, and the truth may reveal a stocking filled with glittering lies, a Pandora’s box of tinseled chaos, a time bomb of elfin deceit. Insert gratuitous fruitcake joke here.

THE FINISHER:

I might be talking out the business end of my hinder but when it’s all said and done, the 2000s will be known for one thing and one thing only: the post-Spinal Tap reemergence of the mockumentary. Stalking Santa is a great idea for a fake documentary and its X-mas chuckles, creative enthusiasm, spirited performances, and awesome William Shatner narration make for light fare and fun times. Filmed perhaps to perfection in the style of any History Channel UFO documentary with hints of The Office, the movie hits its comedic notes consistently and the production values in terms of the Santa “evidence”, eyewitness accounts, and interviews are smart and well-done. Interspersed between the wackiness are interviews with real kids sharing their feelings about Santa. For the most part, these sequences are cute but not very memorable. Well except for this one little girl.

Trust me, this kid steals the show.

The movie for the most part avoids most of the pitfalls of lesser mockumentaries that could have sunk its subtle humor and deadpan delivery and provides some good laughs without getting too wacky or off-topic. If Santa does indeed exist, and duh he does, maybe he’ll put this fun little movie in your movie stocking. That is, if you haven’t been a complete asshole this year.

ELVES (1989)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

THE CARD:

A Grisly End to a Career; A Catalog of Bent Wangs; Crypto-Nazi Grandpa; Crypto-Nazi Imaginary Beings; Crypto-Nazi Valley Girls; a useful purpose for non-virgin blood; Christmas Cat Dip; (s)elf-powered puppets; and the thankful absence of Will Ferrell beating midgets.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Bitchy teen waitress Kirsten (Julie Austin) has never had a nice X-mas. All her life she’s had to deal with her insufferable family including her extremely nervous Mom (Deanna Lund), her pervy TMNT-fan brother, and her wheelchair-bound badly accented Grandpa (Borah Silver). And so to battle her holiday depression, she enlists the aid of her mentally-challenged girlfriends to venture into the forest and perform an arcane ritual to ruin everyone’s X-mas. She accidentally cuts herself and bleeds into the grave of long-entombed creature. So what at first was a cry for help quickly turns into an accidental conjuring of an evil elfin spirit, and I ain’t talking about double-chocolate dipped chip cookies.

Speaking of cries for help, former cop and recovering alcoholic Mike McGavin (a very sad-looking chain-smoking Dan Haggerty) shows up at Golem’s department store and begs for a job. He eventually gets the coveted job of store Santa after the former jolly fat dude gets Lorena-Bobbited by the evil elf which is now on the loose in the store and apparently hates wieners. Kirsten, who works in the store’s diner, befriends Grizzly Santa and one night while locked in the store, the pair is attacked by German goons on the trail of the resurrected demon-spawn in a furry hat.


No, I won't work past five on the 24th, Fatso!

The next day, Mike and Kirsten launch an investigation into the nature of the monster and its khaki-clad followers and discover that elves were worshiped by the Nazis and subsequently genetically engineered by Kirsten’s Grandpa in order to raise an army of angry toy-making freedom haters. They also find out that on Christmas Eve, this particular alpha-elf is going to stuff virgin Kirsten’s silken stocking to jump-start the Master Elf Race, aka the Littlest Reich. Oh, and there’s this weird incestuous twist tossed in that takes Mike over the edge and so he starts whaling on anyone that might look “whimsical”.

You said you'd pay me in cash!!!

So what follows is a Magical Pixie Apocalypse that brings the forces of evil (German Goons & Uber-Elf) against the Forces of Good (Virginal Kirsten) against the Forces of Tubby and Phlegmy (Poor Ol’ Dan Haggerty).

THE FINISHER:

The tradition of shitty horror movies set at X-mas continues with the abjectly cheap Elves, a relatively and perhaps deservedly obscure X-mas horror title. Ok, so this wasn’t James Cameron’s sequel to Elf. Strike one. Also, Haggerty didn’t bother to bring along a big ass bear to do some Nazi-chomping. Strike two. In defiance of its own title, there is only one fricking elf in the film. Strike effing three. And it’s a hatefully ugly little thing, kind of like a $.99 Store version of a mini-Voldemort only not good. And you never see the full body, only the top half which moves way too puppet-like. The idea of evil elves battling Santa Claus in a department store on X-mas Eve sounds like a no-brainer, and the casting of Haggerty sounds even more inspired. But somehow the creative forces behind this thing decided that piling on incest, racism, animal abuse, and an uncomfortably horny kid made for fun holiday horror fare. Well, actually it does kinda work at times, but the inept execution takes the edge off and ultimately it comes off as just mean-spirited and creatively bereft. Another huge problem is that you only see Haggerty in a Santa suit for about ten seconds. What the hell, man?

EL TREMENDO RETURNS VERY SOON!

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:00:00 +0000

EL TREMENDO is planning to review random movies very soon. Any obscure, cultish, weirdly outstanding titles to recommend?

A CHRISTMAS NIGHTMARE (2001)

noreply@blogger.com (El Tremendo) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:00:00 +0000

O Axe of wonder, heads to hit,
Axe that really makes you shit,
Downward leading, death's proceeding
Guide it to a skull to split

THE CARD:

12 axes chopping, 11 gardeners peeping; 10 jerks a-slapping, 9 ladies drowning, 8 broken cell phones, 7 damsels fleeing, 6 snipers aiming, 5 weenie husbands, 4 possessed agents, 3 holey shovels, 2 gloomy ghosts and a Psycho not far from Elm Street!

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

According to the fake news cast, a politician is gunned down on live TV. Edward Anderson (Charlie Finelli) and his wife Alice (Tiffany Baker) witnessed the slaying and can identify the killer. For their own safety, they are sent into hiding by the FBI in the Witness Protection Program. Just a few days before X-mas, Agent Simmons (Hugo Armstrong) escorts them to their new life in the countryside, but they have to brave a violent storm to get there. Wet and exhausted, they arrive to find the house unfurnished and ill-prepared to receive the Andersons, especially Alice who’s a few weeks pregnant. The Andersons share a tense relationship, possibly due to the impending arrival of the child, and there is trouble brewing between the pair. Simmons leaves them in the dark house to get a better signal on his cell phone, but when he returns in the morning, he acts strangely towards the Andersons, eerily distant as if under a trance. As they wait for help over the next few days, Alice begins to see and hear strange things in the house – shadows moving, disembodied voices, and the apparition of a strange man in overalls and two sad ladies in white floating in the pond. She finds a diary in a creepy barn that belonged to a man who worked for the long-dead owners of the home. She learns the tragic history of the farm where the man murdered for revenge and desire before hanging himself from the windmill. The strange stuff intensifies but skeptical and clueless Edward is in denial about the emerging evil in the house that has taken a grip on Simmons. Meanwhile, a bigger threat looms in the scary woods. A hired killer, perhaps the same man who killed the politician, is stalking the Andersons and Simmons’ every moves. Simmons’ behavior gets weirder and weirder and the Andersons begin to fear for their lives as something far more sinister than a bullet may be waiting to claim their souls.

THE FINISHER:

Sometimes the best X-mas gifts are those wrapped the lousiest. And the X-mas thriller A Christmas Nightmare is wrapped in the usual low-budget trappings of irritating electronic soundtrack, amateurish acting, and lack of characterization. But after all that is tossed aside, the movie turns out to be quite a nice surprise. We have a good old fashioned ghost story here, told from the perspective of a tragedy in the past that continues to affect the present, an essential theme of a cracking good ghost story. Director Vince De Meglio, now a seasoned Hollywood screenwriter, displays solid if economic filmmaking here, holding back big scares and gory effects for an atmosphere of intensity and uncertainty, borrowing just a tad from The Shining. The pace is slow, however, sometime exceedingly slow but the story remained engaging enough to hang in there until the bloody end. So don’t prejudge Uncle Jeffro’s pineapple- shaped present wrapped in twine and street porn ads. What may look like a low-budget truck-stop DVD cheapo may turn out to be an effective, nicely shot, and spooky thriller perfect for a cold winters night.