Friday, May 24, 2013

All I Ever Wanted.

Just a heads-up, kids, I'm gonna be offline next week.

Disney and Universal Studios beckon and their siren call cannot be ignored.

I'm hoping to snag me some Haunted Mansion swag.

EEEE!

Meanwhile, In Eastern Europe...

The intermingling of porn and horror is not a new thing.  The mixture of eroticism and death is something we've explored since the advent of fiction.  Vampire stories, for example, are morality stories about venereal disease (which is why I want to slap the fuck out of Stephenie Meyer).

On that note, we're going to bypass the supernatural crap and get straight to the inhumanity of man.

A Serbian Film.

This, Chernobyl Diaries and Hostel are the prime reason that I will never, in my life, visit Eastern Europe.

It's not that this movie is scary but... well, we'll get to that in a minute.

OK, so it goes like this:  Milos has decided to get out of the porn racket because he doesn't think it's a good example for his son, Petar.  His wife, Marija is a little clueless about her husband's past and is more worried about his next paycheck which, really, is only proper.  Not the clueless part, the paycheck thing.

Anyway, Milos is concerned about money, too, since he's become accustomed to being the big dick in town.  A former co-star, says "Oh, hey, I got a job for you but it's still porn" and introduces him to Vukmir.  Milos initially refuses, mostly because he already caught his kid watching one of his films, which is kinda creepy, and he doesn't have the details of Vukmir's script but, eventually (at his brother's insistence, which is also kinda creepy) accepts to do the project for the money, which is substantial.

No.  This guy's not skeevy at ALL...

From this point, the situation gets weirder with a shoot in an orphanage which wigs Milos out.  He tells Viklos that he wants out.  Viklos proceeds to creep him out further by explaining his "vision" and introducing Milos to "newborn porn".  'Cause eew.

Milos storms out but managed to get slipped a mickey by Viklos' on-staff doctor.  He wakes up with no memory of it and wobbles himself back to the now abandoned set and finds a set of tapes.  Like a moron, he watches them and discovers that he was drugged to the point of animalism and in his highly suggestible state, was filmed raping a woman to death, getting raped himself and generally being kind of a douche.  A girl that defends him has her teeth removed and gets suffocated.

And it only gets worse from there.

'Sup?

Now, I understand that this is not an accurate portrayal of Serbia or its culture but the thought of this film actually being made as "a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government.." is still disturbing on a socio-political level. 

It's not that this is a bad film.  In fact, for what it is, it's rather good.  I enjoyed the concept in and of itself.  Well... not "enjoyed".  More like "found interesting". The problem lies in the content and the imagery.  I have absolutely no problem with controversial material to make a point.  I have no problem with harming a cinematic child if it's integral to the plot and, frankly, it's integral, here.  That doesn't make watching it any more comfortable.  It's SUPPOSED to bother you and it does so with gleeful abandon. 

Yep... Imagery.

And, really, when you watch the movie with a detached eye, the Grand Guignol nature of it pushes the movie JUST to the edge of parody.  Yes, it's blacker-than-black but the over-the-top nature of the goings on are almost horrific comedy.  They aren't "funny" per se but the manner in which they are portrayed is SO gruesome that they border on the absurd.  Let's face it, though, this movie is still GRIM as FUCK and it's hard to achieve that detached state of mind.

That said, I ONLY recommend this movie to the hardcore viewer.  The imagery may be heading toward absurdity but it's still pretty fuckin' disgusting and, frankly, this movie is offensive on just about every level. There are no taboos in this film and that explains why it's been banned in a whole lot of places.

If you think you can take something this dark, go for it but don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm off to watch Disney movies to wash the gross out of my brain.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

The Ultimate Slasher: Rube Goldberg

In March of 2000, we witnessed the beginning of something bland-ish.

Part of the wave of self-referential teen thrillers, Final Destination did give us one cool thing.  Death itself as a slasher.






Our story begins with a 15 fucking minute dream sequence on a plane that explodes that gets REPEATED in the next 15 minutes with the added bonus of a Devon Sawa freak-out.  The cops get involved and then the plane he just got booted from for claiming it was going to blow up, as in his dream, blows up.  A bunch of his classmates and a teacher get booted with him and they are all rightfully tweaked the fuck out at the loss of the entire rest of the French class.

After the mass memorial service, the snarky best friend manages to get himself hung by the bathroom clothesline and we should never believe that's an accident for a MINUTE!  Mostly because we then see the toilet water that caused the problem recede back under the toilet.  When our protagonists go all Scooby-fuckin'-Doo to find their friend's corpse, they find Tony Todd instead who, in that creepy-ass voice of his, tells them about Death's Design.

Ooooooooh, creepy.


David Carradine, eat your heart out.

Then the girlfriend of the douchecanoe that hates Sawa gets a bus to the face proving that creepy mortuary dude is right and then the teacher that got left behind gets stabbed with a kitchen knife that also causes her house to explode.  WOOOO!
 
That towel is NOT her friend.

So, then. in the process of explaining all of this to the douchecanoe, douchecanoe gets all pissy and moany about having no control over his life and parks his car on the railroad tracks.  Sawa saves him by the skin of his teeth and then the village idiot gets decapitated.

After that, Sawa goes right 'round the twist and segregates himself from society, eating pudding out of cans and avoiding getting tetanus from old fish hooks.  He thinks he's next but it's actually love-interest.  He goes to her rescue, gets some impromptu electro-shock therapy and then they all go to France where he has to avoid a swinging sign and forget about that whole "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" thing.


 Now, as a concept, I think this movie is kinda neat.  Originally written as an episode of The X-Files, they decided it was a little too heavy for the show and expanded it into a feature.  All "strange coincidences" and "fate" and "intuition" and all of that crap made it an interesting watch and the best thing was that you never saw a killer except in dark flashes and redirected fluids.  The philosophical idea of the inevitability of death isn't new but it was handled in a kind of awesome manner.

As a finished product, though?  How long do we have to sit through someone's psychotic break?  Sawa is a good actor.  The entire cast is made up of good actors.  They all take a back seat to Sawa's Nicholas Cage impersonation.  There's craziness all throughout this movie but there's a point in the film where I just want to slap the bejeezus out of EVERYBODY.  It's like it lost control of itself somewhere in the middle of the movie.

All in all, this is an OK time-waster but I'm not sure it should be considered a horror classic in any sense other than the choice of villain.  The Scream movies are SO much better than this.


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Give Me My Damn Monsters Back!!

Have I mentioned that I'm ENTIRELY sick of "paranormal romance" fiction?  No, seriously.  The sub-genre has pissed me off for years.  I mean, it was cute for a little while and I still like watching True Blood but that's only because some of the monsters are still portrayed as, well, monsters.

And this brings us to today's review of Warm Bodies.





OK, so, if you've read Romeo and Juliet, you get the basis of the story.  R, our zombie protagonist, is a zombie.  Dead.  Shambling.  Living in an airport.  He still has a little bit of coherency of thought but I blame that on him looking pretty darn fresh for a corpse.  He has a best friend, M, that he kind of grunts and stares at in lieu of actual conversation.

 Best Friends Forever.  Or at least until one of them gets a double-tap.

Then we get introduced to Julie, her father and her ragtag band of attractive, well-dressed, post-apocalyptic survivors.  They get sent by Julie's father to get medical supplies and manage to get attacked by R and his friends and through the power of 80s John Hughes movie music and the eating of Julie's boyfriend's brains (which Julie did not see) he falls in love.  Brains, ya see, make zombies "feel alive" because, like any primitive society, eating your enemy gives you power.  And I'm glad to see that old chestnut rearing its ugly head, for realsies.

So... because he's all twitterpated, he takes Julie back to his airplane home to keep her safe from the other zombies.  And thus, in the weirdest case of Stockholm Syndrome ever, they bond.  Julie gets bored so she tries to teach R how to drive.  Really?  Seriously?

Booooooooooobs.

So, after a day or so, R brings Julie home.  Along the way, of course, we get introduced to the "Bonies" which are those zombies that are way too far gone to be anything but utter douchebags.  They are skeletons with a tough leather wrapping, really, and they are the monsters I prefer to see.  
 
Unlike this asshole.
 
So R really does take her home but like an idiot, not that we expected that much from a reanimated corpse, he tells Julie that he killed her boyfriend.  Naturally, she thinks this is a dick move.  He goes back to the airport where we see that other zombies are showing signs of life, too.  Because... love... is... infectious?  

ANYWAY, they think that R needs to go and tell the normals what's going on plus there's that whole reverse necrophilia thing going on.  (Biophilia?  Maybe?  Whatever.)  In the aftermath of a really awkward balcony scene, Julie and her friend Nora (Nora... Nurse... get it?) are convinced that the zombies are curing themselves and take R to see Julie's dad and dad, of course, wants to blow R's head clean off his corpse-y shoulders.  It's only natural, really.
 
Has the right idea.  No one cares.

Nora helps R escape with Julie and the big battle between of the zombies begins.  The Bonies are pretty much after anything with a heartbeat which, of course, now includes R and his necro-buddies.  

Necro-Buddies.  I should trademark the fuck out of that and make a Saturday morning cartoon out of it. 

So, yeah, R comes fully back to life, dad shoots him, he bleeds proving he's alive, love wins, dad's an ass, humans joined forces with the zombies, Julie's in love, the apocalypse ends (which, really, isn't possible) and the world starts to rebuild thus completely ruining the Romeo and Juliet story for everybody because it's no longer a fucking tragedy like Shakespeare intended.  

So... yeah...

GAH!  I fucking hate this movie and it's not because it's not well made or well written or even well acted because it is all of those things.  I really have nothing to complain about in those departments.  

What I have a fucking problem with is that dead people aren't people.  Reanimated corpses are monsters.  Even in Frankenstein, where there's at least a glimmer of sympathy for the creature, the creature is still a monster and nobody wanted to fuck it INCLUDING the Bride that was made for it.

I get that we're talking about the power of love and blah, blah, schmaltz, gooeyness, huggy-wuggy, blah but seriously?  Isn't there ONE monster that can be left alone?  I know that we don't OWN zombies as a concept but there are rules, dammit!  Besides, this story was already told in My Boyfriend's Back, Boy Eats Girl and a myriad of other movies.

Watch it if you want.  I don't care.  Blargy-bloo.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Like He's Never Slashed Before

Ooooooooh, I been WAITIN' for this one.  The fuckin' French got this a year ago.  Damn French.  With their Eiffel Tower and their baguettes which, let's face it, are only good as weaponry.

ANYWAY, 1980's Maniac is considered a seminal grindhouse horror film.  2013's Maniac, directed by Franck Khalfoun, takes away the grindhouse and cranks it to eleven.


The movie starts with Frank Zito (Elijah Wood), the titular maniac, in his car, stalking a girl exiting a club.  But there's a twist.  We're watching it through his eyes.  We'll go over that later.

So, it turns out that Frank spends a lot of time on dating websites and just, y'know, trolling the streets for girls.  Yes, that's as creepy as it sounds and the reason why is creepier. 


See, his mom, who ran the mannequin restoration business that he currently owns, used to moonlight as a hooker and, occasionally, would take him along for the ride.  So, now, because he's so traumatized, he keeps trying to find girls that, like Psycho, will please dear, old mom.  But because lugging a body around would be cumbersome and draw attention, he just scalps them and be-wigs the mannequins in his collection with them.

You, ahhh... got a little somethin', there.

And then he meets a girl that he doesn't want to kill.
 
Awwww... She's all sweet and virginal and stuff.
 

Because this is so new, that's all you get.  Sorry.  Hate to be a buzzkill but this technically hasn't released to the American audience, yet, so I gots to keep my trap shut.  You understand, don't you?
 
Awwwww, now don't be that way.
 
I WILL say that by removing the suspense of "where's the killer", we, as the audience are forced to look at horror in a whole new way.  Yeah, the trick has been used before in films like Black Christmas but never to this extent.  Other than a few key scenes, the entire movie is shot from Frank's point of view and the madness that taints it is supremely evident.  And the movie isn't so much about seeing the killer, it's about hearing and feeling him.  Connecting with him on a level that film-goers rarely do.

The happiest day in a girl's life...

The one thing that will disturb audiences the most, though, is the choice of Elijah Wood as Frank.  Wood, throughout his career, is pretty much a "good guy".  Other than his voiceless role as Kevin in Sin City, Wood has always been "wide-eyed innocent" and Khalfoun uses that to creepy advantage.  Frank is still, in a shattered kind of way, an innocent.  It's even implied that he's a virgin.

I will warn the movie-going audience.  This is NOT a standard horror film.  It is a slow burn and it is, in its way, beautiful and dream-like.  Yes, there is gore and a lot of it but do not expect it to be a slashfest like, say, Texas Chainsaw.  This is more along the lines of American Psycho only there is no "is it happening only in his head" factor.

Highly recommended, this one.

The Creepiness... I lists it.

Hey, kids!  Want all your Creature Feature creepiness in one place?  You got it!  I'll be keeping a running gag... I mean, tally right here!

But, seriously?  The gag thing?  Not out of the realm of possibility. 

*********************

Intro to Creature Feature Week by Brandon at Movies @ Dog Farm.

Kweeny Todd's Top Ten Modern Creature Features.

Brandon gets introspective with The Beast Within.

Gettin' icky with it.  SQUIRM!

Dirk Benedict is just happy to see you.  Sssssss!

Kweeny gives us a music review and gets her Psychobilly on with Creature Feature.

TropeFest:  Attack of the 49 foot, 11 and 1/2 inch Whatever!

Brent at The Big, Gay Horror Show LOVES Creature Features so he goes over 5 random ones.

I swear to the great Blogathotep, William Shatner hates everybody.  Kingdom of the Spiders.  Damn. 

Betty White kicks ASS!!  Lake Placid, an unsung horror-comedy masterpiece.

Erin at Deep Red Rum is suffering from Brain Damage.  Poor thing...

Surprise!!  Erok from Theatre of Guts goes international with Goke: Bodysnatcher from Hell.

Maggie from MK Horror gets down and dirty in the NYC sewers with her review of Mimic.

I hope you all enjoyed Creature Feature Week!  I know I did.

If you write your own blog and would like to be a part of future Blog-a-thons, let me know!  They're a heck of a lot of fun and they're a great way to gain exposure.

Now it's off to tent our fingers and giggle maniacally while we plan the next one.  Stay tuned!

Regular posts continue tomorrow.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Creature Feature Week: Foul-Mouthed Biddies

Good, old Stan Winston.  Comin' through with the monster madness.  Bringin' us Betty White and crocodiles... in Maine... because he doesn't understand how reptiles work...  yeah...



We open on serene Black Lake where a local Fish and Game officer is brutally attacked by an almost unseen whatever-the-fuck a la Jaws in front of the town sheriff Hank Keough (Brendon Gleeson, best known as Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films unless you're a fan of British cinema).

Enter paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) who dislikes Maine and was probably sent because her ex-boyfriend doesn't want her around for a while.  The "ex-boyfriend" thing isn't important.

Once in Maine, Kelly meets up with the sheriff and Jack Wells, another Fish and Game officer, both of whom apparently dislike New Yorkers and try to dissuade Kelly from taking part in the expedition to get rid of the lake monster.  Kelly threatens to sue and gets her way because she's Bridget Fonda.

Yep... Maine law enforcement...


Once at the lake, they check in with the resident little old lady, Dolores Bickerman (Betty White in all of her longshoreman glory).  She claims to have mercy-murdered her husband with a skillet.  Why she isn't arrested at that point is completely beyond me.

And then we get Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt) a "rich kook mythology professor" who likes to swim with crocodiles.  Because he's fuckin' crazy.  And rich.  And a sexist bastard.  Arrives in his own helicopter.  This is important.  He informs us that as long as a crocodile's nostrils don't freeze, a salt-water crocodile will survive a Maine winter and I don't believe that for one damn minute.  And then they get flipped into the water by something but none of them get eaten.  Boo.

So, yeah, it turns out that cranky old lady has been feeding a crocodile that followed her husband home.  Her husband was an idiot that got too close and then had his name changed to "Lunch".  The thing, now, has graduated to whole cows.  Instead of actually taking her in, like any sane police force, they placed her under house arrest.  Because law enforcement in rural Maine is lax.

Beef:  It's What's For Dinner.

So, anyway, Hector finds the cove where the croc lives and takes a dive when it pops up right behind him (conveniently next to his helicopter).  To avoid getting eaten, he uses an inflatable raft as a diversion but the croc manages to catch hold of the whirlybird.

Realism is our friend.

And the rest of the movie is all about hunting the damn thing down with an aim to kill it.  They DON'T kill it, because Bridget Fonda always wins, but that was initially the goal.

This movie got a LOT of negative reviews when it came out but frankly, I love it.  It's another of those movies that has that perfect blend of horror and humor.  I think that's WHY it got as many bad reviews as it did.  Even Roger Ebert hated this movie. And I can kind of understand because this situation really is entirely unrealistic.  A 30-foot salt water crocodile in a lake in Maine?  Come on.  A little old lady that has no problem feeding the thing?  OK, given the amount of news stories about crazy cat-ladies, I can kinda believe it.

Seriously, though, there ARE enough scares in this to make it a great "intro to horror" without freaking people out entirely.  It's still got an R-rating so Lake Placid did take its horror seriously and the movie is worth it just to watch Betty White call Keough "Officer Fuck-meat".  The dysfunction among the group of hunters is fun to watch, too.  Personally, I view this movie as a parody of movies like Jaws or Grizzly and that's what makes it enjoyable to me.

Give it another go, I say.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Creature Feature Week: Oh, Fuck That.

God damn you, 70s!  I fucking hate you, I seriously do. I really need the 70s to die in a fucking fire.

I say this because 1977 brought us the "nature strikes back" cult classic Kingdom of the Spiders.


FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUU!!

John "Bud" Cardos, who needs to be beaten with a fucking oar, takes us to a small Arizona town (which, really, is no big loss, ultimately... because Arizona SUCKS) that's having a little bit of a problem.

It starts with a prize-winning cow at the Colby farm.  Perfectly healthy in every way until something attacks it.  This brings in the town vet,  Robert "Rack" Hanson (William Shatner in one of his better roles... you know... without all the... pregnantpauses).  We get introduced to Rack with him chasing down a bull to give it its antibiotics.  There's a little bit of confusion because the girl that's helping him is actually his sister-in-law and you get the feeling that something gets nipped in the bud when she referes to him by his brother's name.  The brother died in the Vietnam War but that's kind of peripheral to the plot.  The Shat can't figure out directly what happened to the dead cow but sends a sample off to be analyzed.

Enter Diane Ashley, an arachnologist that has Rack's test results.  The cow died from a massive dose of spider venom.  Rack obviously doesn't believe her because she's a girrrrrrl.  Ashley is adamant that the issue is serious and gets Rack to show her the carcass and its pen.  And then the dog dies.  Ashley runs a quick chemical test (because she couldn't have done that a few days ago and just made a fuckin' phone call) and discovers that the dog died from spider bites, too.  The owners of the dog and cow reveal that they found a massive "spider hill" in the back forty.

My but that's a fashionable 70s pantsuit.

Ashley theorizes that because of the rampant use of pesticides like DDT, the tarantulas, which are hunting spiders, anyway, are colonizing to attack larger animals for food.  This pretty much gets proven when a bull stampedes out of the barn covered in tarantulas.

And this, folks is why I try to eat organic whenever I can.  This does not, however, eradicate my love of Funyuns.

ANYWAY!  Ashley is pretty damn sure that the tarantulas won't hesitate to attack people and, seriously, where would this movie be without that mental tidbit.  And, for real, the rest of the movie is The Shat and Blondie finding web-strewn corpses everywhere.  Ashley, much like in Jaws, tells the mayor that instead of pesticides, they should be using birds and rats to maintain pest populations but the mayor pooh-poohs the idea saying that rats and birds would freak out the attendees of the upcoming County Fair.  That being said, he sends up a crop duster who promptly screams like a little girl when he finds himself covered with tarantulas and crashes.

We shall call him Princess.

Seriously, from here on out, it's just a matter of time before everybody in town is attacked by tarantulas in some form or another.  Up to and including ACTUAL little girls.

Oh, look.  Future therapy visits in their larval stage.

So, this is one of those cult films that become kind of ubiquitous.  It certainly added a lot of new arachnophobic individuals to society, myself included (although that has less to do with the movie than it has to to with my allergies).  Much like Jaws, tarantulas got a whole lot of myths attributed to them after this came out.  

Just so you know, a tarantula bite is generally no worse than a bee-sting.  This does not mean that I want the hairy motherfuckers anywhere near me.  With their beady eyes and their eight creepy fuckin' legs and eeeeeeeeeew...  It didn't help that when I saw this the first time my asshole brother kept making crawly hands on my shoulder.  Ass.

*shudder*

But, I digress.  

This movie, much like a lot of the Creature Features in the 70s, was pretty damn anvilicious in terms of environmental messages.  The trend at that point suggested that the supernatural was not our worst enemy.  The environment was.  Because we were abusing it.  And in the wake of global warming, they were probably right.  PLEASE DON'T DIE BEES!  I heart you.  Except when you sting me.  The we gonna have words.

A couple of trivia notes.

First, there were 5000 tarantulas used in this movie.  The studio paid $10 each for every live tarantula caught locally which was 10% of the movie's budget.  Tarantulas, though, are cannibalistic, which meant that they had to be kept in individual containers, and shy, which meant they wouldn't actually move toward people without a little encouragement by way of air hoses.

Second, they could never remake this movie today with as many spiders they killed during production.   At least not the same way.  You'd have to expect a lot of CGI and a PETA representative on set.

Third, the director, during auditions and meetings to cast the actors, kept two tarantulas on his desk to weed out the ones that would freak out.  Those that freaked included Barbara Hale and Donna Mills, both of which appeared in killer spider movies later on.

And lastly, there was a SERIOUS problem with itching on set because tarantula hair is used to make joke itching powder and with thousands of spiders around... well... you know...

All in all, I do like this movie.  The acting, for the time and considering William Shatner's record, was really very good.  The plot, although a little simplistic, was well thought out and it's one of the first movies I remember having a downer ending.  Nobody gets out of this alive.

And that, just by itself, makes this movie awesome.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Creature Feature Week: Is That a Cobra In Your Pocket?

About a month after I was born, Universal released one of its last double features.  This double feature contained The Boy Who Cried Werewolf and Sssssss!, a coming-of-age screwball com... wait, no.  I got that wrong.


Sssssss! delves deep into the world of a mad... well, really more "drunk" than "mad", herpetologist, his daughter and his unsuspecting intern/lab assistant.

Yeah, I couldn't even type that with a straight face.

So, yeah, anyway.  The movie starts with Dr. Stoner selling a large, moaning, presumed snake to the carnival.  Then Stoner hires David Blake (Pre-A-Team Dirk Benedict), a bullied young man, to be his unsuspecitng intern/lab assistant.  David probably should have known that something was odd when Stoner fed his snake, Billy, a bowlful of whiskey.

Stoner, by the way, believes that the human race is doomed and the only way to survive the upcoming apocalypse is to turn humans into reptiles.  Ummmm... yeah.  So... There's a way to prove a hypothesis.  Stoner is not demonstrating it.  Because he's crazy-cuckoo-pants.

Stoner has David help him feed a poisonous snake with no anti-venom, injects him with an "inoculation" meant to make him immune to cobra venom and salmonella and all that crap.  (Trivia note: Benedict was actually stuck with a real syringe for the scene.  Because he's a method actor or some such bullshit.)

Side effects may include dizziness, nausea, death and gross skin peelies...

He then introduces David to his daughter, Kristina.  They get to liking each other in a "horizontal mambo" sort of way.


Precious Moments.

Daddy does not approve and specifically tells her "No intercourse".  Of course, it had already happened by the time he said it but, hey, it's the thought that counts.  In the meantime, a dude that hit on Kristina kills Billy and Stoner sets a Black Mamba on him in the shower.

Reb Brown does have a nice butt.  That freaky toe weirds me out, though.

All the while, David is slowly turning into a cobra.  Because of the "inoculation".  And I SAY "slowly" but it kind of hits him all at once and he changes in a matter of minutes once it finally hits.  While it's happening, his college professor sees him and is knocked out and handcuffed to a pipe in the basement where he is then promptly eaten by a large python.

Another fuckin' shot?  Seriously?

 
David's transformation concludes, Stoner is killed by an ACTUAL cobra, Kristina found the "snake" from the beginning at the carnival and brings the police back with her.  They kill the real snake and then they all find David-snake fighting for his life against a mongoose... because that's not sterotypical at ALL.  Kristina screams and the movie ends, leaving everybody's fate about as clear as mud.

OK, so, really?  I like this movie, and it was another one that I caught on Creature Double Feature as a kid, but it's a little... tame and boring.  I'm really not sure how this film got the cult following that it has.  It's kind of unintentionally hilarious but not really enough to make a big deal out of it.  I mean, they covered up butts with cartoon tree-branches to get a PG rating.  The concept, though, is kind of awesome.  It's kind of a cross between a werewolf story, Frankenstein and "nature strikes back". 

The film, really, and much like most mad scientist movies, is all about hubris, that karmic retribution that a person gets for challenging the gods and the demise of Dr. Stoner certainly fits the bill.  And to make that come through perfectly clear, ALL of the snakes in this movie are real.  Five King Cobras were imported from Thailand to make the movie and the cobra milking scene was authentic except for the bit where Stoner takes the snake by the head where a puppet was used. All 5 snakes were used to film that scene because most of that day was spent keeping them from escaping the enclosure since the snakes wanted to do THAT instead of their fucking job which was rearing up and looking menacing.

The only thing that bugs me about Sssssss!  is the shift between protagonist and victim.  You spend the movie really thinking that David is going to save the day and the twist at the end throws you for a loop. And the undecided ending?  Looks like they were angling for a sequel.

All in all?  Another OK way to spend a couple of hours but nothing to write home about. 

Monday, May 13, 2013

Creature Feature: I Wanna See You Squirm

Before we get into today's review, let's talk about why this week is going on, shall we?

First off, it's happening because my friends and I at The Incredibly Strange Horror Bloggers Network were wracking our brains over what themes we should cover for smaller cross-blog events and this one just popped right into my head.  I mean it's so obvious.

But, really, we're doing this to celebrate the unsung hero of the horror genre.  The ubiquitous Everyman of fright films that everybody knows but no one talks about.  Well... we talk about them because they're awesome (or awesomely bad) but I feel they don't get enough recognition otherwise.

Creature Features exploit our fears, whether it's of the creatures themselves or the societal issues that the creatures represent, in a unique fashion.  They specifically put a face to our fears and phobias and above that, COLLECTIVE fears and phobias.  But they're simple.  With simple plots and simple characters.  They are not great movies by any stretch of the imagination.

Most of all, though, Creature Features represent a lot of childhoods.  I remember waiting for Saturday morning cartoons to end and the afternoon Creature Double Feature to start on Channel 56 in Boston (that UHF station had a really long range because I watched it in Maine, too).  It was where I watched movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Food of the Gods.  It was the one thing in my house, as a kid, that my siblings and I wouldn't fight over.

That's why, this week, we're looking at B-grade schlock, for good or ill, and, well, featuring the creature.

Just to be clear, though, we're not, generally, looking at humanoid monsters, here.  We're talking about the mindless beasts.  The mutated monsters.  The "nature gone wild" movies.  We may touch on the humanoid but we're not really looking at the traditional monsters like vampires or werewolves.  While they count, I almost consider them a separate genre.  I call THAT genre "traditional horror".

ANYWAY!  Today we're going to look at one of my favorites! 






Squirm starts with the backstory.   In text.  On a black background.  Presumably because they couldn't find stock footage of a thunderstorm.  Suffice it to say, there was a thunderstorm.  Oh, wait... they DO show us the thunderstorm.  FINALLY!  Someone with a camera and a lick of sense.  Plus?  Screaming worms.  With legs.

Deep in the backwoods of Georgia, in a town called Fly Creek, where nothing good ever happens, a young woman is mooning over her pre-internet-internet-boyfriend who's on his way to visit.  This is where the thunderstorm happened.  We know this because the old lady keeps bemoaning, in a horrific accent, mind you, that the storm was just fucking awful and that the roads are flooded and that the fridge went out.  Mom is also upset about pre-internet-internet-boyfriend.  Geri, the young girl in question, borrows the local worm-farmin' feeb's truck to pick up Mick, the pre-internet-internet-boyfriend.

Mick gets dropped off and Geri takes him to the local store where she has to pick up ice to keep Momma from bitching about the fridge.  Plus, you know, salmonella bad.

And then things get weird.  I say weird because apparently no one in the South has heard of an egg cream.

An egg cream, by the way, is just vanilla or chocolate syrup, soda water and a little milk.  I don't know WHY they call it an egg cream because there's no egg OR cream in it.  Mick finds a worm in his and in doing so pisses off the local sherriff who, like all law enforcement in horror movies, is a useless pain in the ass.


Eeeeeeeeeew.

Roger, the aforementioned feeb and legitimate hayseed... who actually spends a bit of time WITH A HAYSEED BETWEEN HIS TEETH, gets all angry because Geri lost his worms and his father makes him go and replace them.  Because his dad picked on him, he eventually ends up like this:

Worst.  Diet.  Ever.

So, anyway, the rest of the movie is all people finding worms that like to burrow under skin because lightning apparently gives ANYTHING super-powers. 
Somebody needs a shave...

I really don't know why I love this movie.  There's really nothing redeemable about it.  This is just deliciously awful, b-grade, "nature strikes back" madness.  There's definitely no social message in here.  I'm pretty certain that this was made just to give Rick Baker a chance to cut his teeth and make people say "icky".

The acting in here, except for Mick, is just fucking atrocious.  The pregnant pauses and syrup-y sweet Gone With The Wind accents just make me want to strangle someone but, much like 2000 Maniacs, the chicken-fried horror works.  The acting makes this movie HILARIOUSLY awful.

Plus there's enough Pabst Blue Ribbon in this movie to drown about 50 hipsters.

If you're in the mood for brainless 1970s backwoods creepy-crawlie-ness, this is an awesomely horrible way to spend a couple of hours.  Just fry you up some chicken and get you some collard greens and corn bread and it's a mo'fuckin' PARTY!

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Creature Feature Week!!!

Creature Feature Week is here!!!

This week we're covering monsters, natural or otherwise.  Whether it's dinosaurs or genetically modified  ants or blobs of space goo, we're talking about the non-humanoid creepy.

I'll be posting all week, as usual and I'll be linking to articles, as they become available, from:

MK Horror
Kweeny Todd
Movies at Dog Farm
and
Deep Red Rum
The Big, Gay Horror Show

And maybe a surprise or two.  

In fact, Kweeny has already kicked us off with her Top 10 Modern-Day Creature Features!

Lunchy-munchie!



Show the Demon Blogger some love!


Friday, May 10, 2013

The Ancients

Sorry, kids.  No post today.

I'm visiting with the mother-in-law.  No computer with which to make the pretty words.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

I Kind of Hate You, Ti West.

Ti West is currently seen as a wunderkind of horror and frankly, I don't see it. 

What the fuck is it about literal grindhouse throwbacks that drive people nuts?  I mean, Kill Bill was awesome but, come on.  There was at least PART of Kill Bill that wasn't taking itself seriously.  Which brings us to today's review of The House of the Devil.


The movie starts with Samantha, a college student in need of some cash, who answers an ad for a babysitting job.  She gets a runaround for a bit from the mysterious dude who's hiring her but eventually they nail down that the job is not for a child but for Mr. Ullman's (that's the mysterious old dude) mother.  It pays $400 in 1980s money.  Because the movie takes place in the 80s.  With feathered hair and girls in baseball jerseys and yellow title fonts and Walkmans.

Nothing comes between her and her Calvins.

Samantha's friend Megan is wigged by the whole thing and leaves because old dude creeped her out.  She stops to get a cigarette lit and is promptly shot in the face by the dude that popped out of fucking nowhere and gave her a light.  And that is a waste of a damn good 1980s vintage cigarette.

Don't get used to her.

So, in standard Scooby-fucking-Doo fashion, Samantha goes snooping around the damn house and finds what looks like evidence that Ullman killed the previous owner and stole his car.  She calls 911 on an actual corded phone that is actually attached to the wall but calms down when the pizza dude arrives.  Because pizza.

Uh-oh, though.  Pizza's been drugged.  This was a set-up!  A conspiracy of the highest order.  Turns out Samantha was meant to be a lunar eclipse human sacrifice.  Well, damn.  And she just got the new apartment and everything.  Kiss grad school goodbye.

They seemed like such a nice couple...

So, yeah, obviously she wakes up in the middle of the thing and has to slaughter her way out.  Ullman chases her out of the house and tries to reason with her saying she's been chosen.  Because that's supposed to make her feel better.  And, seriously?  She was chosen by this guy.

Fugly.

Way to make a girl feel special, assholes.

So, yeah.  I watched this feeling like I was being raped in the eyes by a hipster.  But not a cute hipster, should such a thing exist.  The kind that actually thinks skinny jeans and thick-framed glasses look good on them.  The kind of asshole who wears a Keffiyeh scarf but doesn't know what it means.  The kind of dickwad that hates everything you like, snags all of the stuff that fits you off the rack at the thrift store, drinks PBR because they're poor and it's cool, and declares that giving up red meat and whining about it justifies their pseudo-counter-culture snobbery.

One more time, I dig an 80s horror flick as much as anyone else but I think Mr. West tried too hard and took himself WAY too seriously.  Vintage is one thing but damn.  The kids that would watch this have no idea what a rotary phone is. 

As for plot, it's too fucking simplistic.  A five-year-old could come up with something more interesting.  Of course, Samantha would be rescued by Dora the Explorer riding a unicorn/dragon hybrid and they would ride off over a rainbow to the land of gummie bears or something but, hey.  Whattayagonnado?

Hands off, beyotch.


I will say that the acting isn't bad and it's good to see that Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) is alive and kicking but, all-in-all, I really did hate this movie.

Stop giving Ti West money, kids.  He's just spending it on PBR.  Seriously, look what he blew $5000 on for The ABCs of Death.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

So long, Ray.

Today, the fantasy, science fiction and horror film world lost a legend.

Ray Harryhausen, creature designer extraordinaire, died today at the age of 92.



As a kid I LIVED for his movies.  I remember watching Clash of the Titans on TV in my grandparents' dining room, keeping out of the adults' hair on a Saturday night.  Nana made us popcorn and I was enthralled.  It, just like Jason and the Argonauts and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, EXPLODED in my brain.  I thought, "This is my favorite stories come to life!" just as I always did when his movies were on.  The grey sisters and Pegasus and Bubo and Kalibos and Medusa and "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" 

I remember watching The 7th Voyage with my mom on a Sunday afternoon in Summer.  I remember getting upset when Golden Voyage was on at a friend of my parents that we were visiting and we had to leave in the middle of it.

His movies were heaven to me and my whole life I wanted to meet the man that brought me my stories.  I never did but that's OK.  I never expected I'd be able to. 

I know he hasn't made anything for a long time but he didn't have to.  His special effects, even though they used handfuls of clay and wire and old-time stop-motion, are timeless and unforgettable. Ray Harryhausen's work has been a blueprint for creature effects and the cinema world owes him a great debt.

Goodbye, Ray.  The world will miss you.

Thank you.

Ice Fishing Confuses Me

No, really.  Who the hell wants to sit on a frozen lake all day around a hole (that has drastically affected the stability of said ice) waiting for fish to take bait they wouldn't even take in the summer?  That's assuming that fish are still mobile under all that ice.  I'm pretty sure ice fishing is just an excuse for people to sit around not talking to one another (because it'll scare the fish).  Either that or it's a means of play-testing outdoor gear. 

But, yeah.  That's what 2010's Hypothermia is all about.  Ice fishing.  And family togetherness.  And ice fishing.



Ray Pelletier and his family go ice fishing once or twice a year at the same lake.  They have a cabin and everything.  Their son, David, and his girlfriend, Gina, are visiting after graduation and have yet to drop the bomb on Mom and Dad that they're joining the Peace Corps.  Dad's out on the ice for some reason when he sees a dead something or other on the other side of the lake.  He shrugs it off and takes one step and falls through the ice.

Because walking on ice is STUPID.

A leisurely stroll, huh?

David goes looking for Ray after dinner and helps him out of the icy water and they manage to get him home without any additional damage.  Gosh, we're glad those kids are doctors, now.

So, they get on the ice for a rousing day of sitting on their asses with fishing lines and coffee when a gigantic douchebag and his son arrive with their humongous truck and their snowmobiles and their state-of-the-art ice fishing trailer.  They're extra-loud and annoying and this causes tension.  Somewhere along the line, they question why they haven't caught anything, yet.  They consider moving across the lake when something HUGE snags their lines.  Annoying dude, who later introduces himself as Stevie Cote (his son is Stevie Jr.), tries to help but the lines snap because he's a dumbass.

He is DETERMINED to catch this huge thing and has his son carve out a bigger hole.  He invites the Pelletiers over to hang out and have a few beers and while they're doing so, Jr. gets his arm sliced open by the huge thing in the lake.  It gets all infected and gross and while they consider taking him to the hospital, he manages to get himself eaten.  Stevie Sr. goes all Papa Bear and gets all determined to kill the creepy lake monster. 

Because firearms are ALWAYS useful against lake monsters.

So, yeah.  It turns out that this thing is both bipedal and amphibious.  Because what use would a damn lake monster be if it couldn't get out of the water?

I need to slap a makeup artist, stat.

And the minute I saw the monster, I lost all fucking interest.

Sorry.  This one is a total barker.  The premise is kind of interesting but if you're gonna hand me an ice-fishing horror movie, I better be seeing some insane monster makeup.  You did not provide this to me, James Felix McKenney.  You cheated me as a horror fan and this makeup is un-fucking-forgiveable. You need to be dragged into the street and shot.

I would say that Michael Rooker was the saving grace of this film but he really wasn't. You're better than this, Mr. Rooker.  So much better.
 
The dialogue was cheesy, the acting was underwhelming, the plot was so-so, the make-up was terrible (thank you, Alaska Thunderfuck) and I actually had to shut it off, not caring whether these people lived or died.

Underachievement-on-a-stick.  Skip it.

Monday, May 6, 2013

So Much for Infant Immortality

Brace yourself, kids.  This is a rough one.  And not in the good way.  More in a mediocre "kids are gonna get it" way.

2008, for some damn reason, gave us two movies called "Baby Blues".  This is the more offensive of the two, seeing as how this is a horror movie, not a sappy romance.



The premise is simple.  Take one woman, add a trucker husband, four children (one an infant), a tiny farm in the middle of the Georgia boonies and a whole heap of post-partum depression complete with psychotic break.  Blend well, pour onto celluloid.

The movie starts with a relatively accurate portrayal of mental illness which is kind of designed to throw us off guard.  Mom has just had a baby and post-partum depression is a part of that.  We get that.  We understand.  It's a real thing and there's no shame in it.

Mommy needs a prozac.

Little things start piling up.  Kids get annoying, we get that, too.  Hubby's a trucker so he's not home a lot.  It's a pain in the ass.  Gotcha.  You're seeing blood spots show up on the laundry.  Ummmmm...

Yeah, so the eldest, Jimmy, is concerned about his baseball game and his mom and brings this up to his father who, in typical fashion, blows it off.  "Moms just get like that."  Seriously?  Also, do truckers still use CBs?  Is that still a thing?

Anyway, Dad leaves for work and Mom sets off on her very quick trip to Binkers-Town.  Like, a hop, skip and a jump.  Kids bicker at dinner and mom starts throwing dishes around and takes the baby for a bath.  She somehow forgot the baby's snorkel because after Jimmy cleans up, he goes to check on Mom and finds the baby dead.  Mom is crying in the bathroom.  Little sister Cathy comes in to report a spilled juice box and Mom decides to do the laundry with the little girl still in it.  Jimmy saves her by breaking Grandma's mirror over her head.

Jimmy sends little brother Sammy to get help but Mom stops him with the power words "Because I said so" and then stabs him repeatedly with Grandma's mirror for disobeying her. 

You know, a session on the naughty stool might be more effective, here.

Jimmy and Cathy run for their lives through a cornfield and Mom chases them down with a combine.  Jimmy shoots out the glass with a slingshot and takes his sister to the barn where mom stabs a pig AND Cathy with a pitchfork.  Jimmy, in true horror movie fashion, steps on a nail and hides out in the henhouse.  Mom finds him but gets distracted by the dog so that Jimmy can make it to the house and call for help on the CB.    Mom, of course, kills the farmhand that comes to save her from the dog and gets to the house where Jimmy, for a little while traps her in the bathroom.  And the struggle continues.

I TOLD you to EAT YOUR PEAS!

OK, so, I know that this is based on the Andrea Yates situation but I'm not entirely sure that there needed to be the "Based on Actual Events" disclaimer at the beginning.  Andrea Yates just used a tub.  She was one of those weird "Duggar"-like religious people that use their uterus like a clown car and feel that they should have as many children as possible in order to force an Evangelical majority but she didn't go all "The Shining" on her kids.  Well, she might have but there was no stabbing involved. 

This is not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination but it's not great, either.  It's not badly acted, for the most part, and the directors, Lars Jacobson and Amardeep Kaleeka, do a good job in making the mundane fearsome but Jacobson needs to be slapped around a little for Mom's dialogue.  No one talks like that, Jacobson.  No one.  It's seriously like he wanted her to be the Mominator.

In all actuality, though, this IS a tough watch because no one wants to watch kids being killed, even if the deaths are off-screen, let alone by their own mother.  And it IS made all that much more disturbing by the fact that post-partum depression is a real thing and it DOES make bad things happen.  Not THIS bad but bad enough.

This film is NOT recommended for pregnant women but it'll kill a couple of bored hours for anyone else.