NOW a Warning?!?

Ah, youth.  We wasted it when we had it, we long for it now that it's gone and we'll do ANYTHING to reclaim it.

In case you haven't guessed, we're gonna visit Lisle Von Rhoman and a few members of her VERY select group of friends.

The film begins with Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), an engaged couple attending Helen's friend Madeline Ashton's (Meryl Streep) musical, Songbird, a REALLY bad version of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth.  After a brief meeting backstage, Ernest, despite his promise, leaves Helen for Madeline which, of course, drives Hel into a spiral of junk food and madness.  Madness that lands her in the loony bin   An obsession that even Olivia from Sesame Street can't crack until she has a breakthrough on her own.

Idol, Goddess, Shameless Hussy.

Seven years later, it's extra-obvious that Mad and Ernest have, well, an obvious Hollywood marriage.  Mad's career is on the wane and she's bitter.  Ernest is a "tragic, booooooozy, flaccid clown" who's been downgraded from "plastic surgeon to the stars" to "undertaker to the stars".  They legitimately hate each other but they keep up appearances.  Out of the blue, Mad receives an invitation to a book signing by, you guessed it, Hel.  

Mad, of course, rushes to the spa where she is refused a plasma separation treatment because she had one three weeks ago.  Mad gets pissy about the aesthetician's 22-year-old skin and her tits like rocks and the manager steps in.  He gives Mad a card for someone who he believes can help.  A Ms. Lisle Von Rhoman.  Of course, Mad is unbelieving.  

So, they attend the party, of course and there's Hel.  Looking STUNNING and slinking her way through the crowd like a greased weasel.  And because Hel is still insane, she plays Ernest and Mad off of each other like a harp from... well... Hell.

Of course, this drives Mad to visit her boy toy who is in the process of schtupping another woman.  He inadvertently... and then deliberately... makes her feel cheap and old which, along with an appropriately timed rainstorm that soaks her to the bone, sends her straight to Lisle (who's played DELICIOUSLY by Isabella Rosselini) looking like a drowned rat.

Sooooo much double-sided tape...

There, Lisle sells Mad a little potion.  One that will keep her young, FOREVER, and tells her that after ten more years of fame and fortune, Mad has to disappear from the world.  Mad is OK with this.  She also adds on the fact that Mad only gets one body so she should take care of it. 

In the meantime, Hel shows up at Mad and Ernest's house and helps Ernest to plot Mad's murder.  Because they're in California and divorce is just unthinkable.  And because she's now a murderous sexpot, Ernest buys right into it.

After witnessing her own transformation and declaring that she is, in fact, a girl... since the ownership of a vagina didn't clarify that enough (although I'm assuming she's referring to age, not physiology)... Mad goes home to change out of her sopping clothing and is confronted by Ernest who, after a heated exchange, pushes Mad down the stairs.

I bet she's tapping her foot.  Wives do that.  Or so I'm told.

Of course, since Mad's not dead, Ernest takes her to the hospital where they find out that she actually IS dead.  And so is the doctor who examines her.  Ernest rescues her from the morgue and takes her home to repair her.  He just finishes when Hel shows up prepared to bury her.  Mad overhears the plot, since Hel isn't exactly being quiet about it, and Mad blasts her in the guts with a double-barrel.

There is a HOLE in my STOMACH!

After a shovel fight, the girls realize that they both took the potion and reconcile.  Mostly because Ernest is the best reconstructive mortician money can buy.  They convince him to fix up Hel as well on the condition that they allow Ernest to leave without another word.  They agree.

Pleeeeeeeease?

Of course, it's never that simple.  They realize that they can't do what Ernest does so they take him to Lisle.

Now, this isn't conventional horror-comedy.  This is introductory horror.  It's got a little bit of gore but not enough to throw people off.  The horror comes from things that are barely said.  The horror comes from the effects of the potion and the realization that forever is a very, VERY long time.

DRINK IT!

That said, we all know that this movie got mediocre reviews but it DID win the Oscar™ for visual effects and Meryl Streep got a Golden Globe nomination for playing Madeline so obviously somebody did something right.  Frankly, I ADORE this movie.  It's eminently quotable, the camp factor is through the roof and it's delectably dark.  Even the significance of the names was well thought. 

I can see my ASS!

Not just the first names.  Mad and Hel is easy.  Ashton and Sharp also indicate mayhem and burning ruins.  Ernest is just trying to live his life and the girls are seriously trying his ability to be earnest.

This tasty, tasty tale of frienemies is a true classic.  I feel bad for all of those critics that didn't see it the first time around.  These immature and emotionally ugly women deserve what they get and they get to live through it so we get to watch the wheel of karma LITERALLY kick them in the ass at every turn.  Delightful.

I can't WAIT for this to be remastered to Blu-Ray.  The DVD release kinda sucked.  We're pretty sure that's because it was made from the laserdisc and THAT was an awful piece of technology.

GIB TO ME, UNIVERSAL!

Fool Me Once

Blogger's... ummm... Blog.  Day 4 of Holiday Horror:  April Fool's Day.

Not the first, and certainly not the last, of the Spring Break Slasher flicks, this 1986 kinda-Canadian barker is another one of those lukewarm horror flicks that were churned out during the Slasher Renaissance of the 80s, those carefree days when nobody cared about plot or back story and just wanted to see death and boobs and boobs and death.

(Compare and contrast with the Slasher Reformation which began in 1996 with Scream, where the genre-savvy teenager started both throwing the slasher off his game and, ironically and stupidly, falling into the same damn traps.)

Hello, doctor?  Is there a pill to cure unnecessary angst-face?

It's your standard premise, really.  A bunch of friends with stupid, stereotypically rich-kid names, Harvey, Nikki, Rob, Skip, Nan, Kit and Arch, take a Spring Break trip to the fabulous island vacation home of Muffy St. John.  (Not a cabin this time.  Color me shocked.)  Muffy, it seems is a bit of a jokester.  With a name like Muffy, I'm certain this is a defense mechanism.  Much like her drifting into flashback when she finds a Jack-in-the-Box, because you take your happy places where you can get them, I suppose.  Anyway, the tone is set when a deckhand gets injured when they pull into the dock.

So, as the night progresses, the intensity of Muffy's pranks gets worse and worse.  Heroin left out.  Tapes of babies crying.  And at some point, Skip goes missing.  Bodies start popping up everywhere.  Muffy has an evil twin named Buffy.  (Also, I'm sure, a defense mechanism.)  The deckhand has a creepy brother who's main hobby is being a red herring.  All your usual bullshit.

There's a kick to April Fool's Day, though, that threw a lot of folks for a loop and seriously, if you haven't seen this one, far be it from me to ruin the joke. I WILL say that this is not a slasher flick so much as a Scooby-Doo Mystery.  Seriously?  All these bitches needed was a talking dog and this movie would have been perfect. 

That being said, it's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.  If anything, you can always make fun of the 80's fashion, huge hair and tightey-whiteys.  Well, maybe not that last part.  It was actually kind of refreshing in the middle of all of the horror movies that tried to avoid plot altogether.

Anyway, I have to go unmask some villains and stock up on Scooby Snax.  

They would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for us meddling kids.

AMUCK!!

A lot of die-hard horror fans will probably hate this next post because it doesn't, technically, involve a horror movie.

Except it kind of does.

But it doesn't.

I'm going to go on record here and say that Disney's Hocus-Pocus is one of my very favorite spook movies.

Except it's not that spooky.

But it is.

See, this is that movie that has a little something for everyone.  It's definitely a kid's movie but it's grown up enough for adults to enjoy it, too.  (Disney has really gotten the hang of that over the years.)  It's not gory or scary, really, but it's just creepy enough to keep you interested.  It's got a great, if simplistic, story and, now that we're older, we can appreciate that it brought us a young Thora Birch who's practically a psychological indie-horror mainstay, now.

Except we don't know what the hell happened here...

And the movie does have some horror cred behind it.  Mick Garris co-produced and wrote the screenplay. 

This isn't to say that it isn't cheesy as hell.  I mean, it IS a Disney movie and it actually wasn't even supposed to go to the big screen.  It was supposed to be a made-for-tv movie for The Disney Channel.  But the cheese-factor is WHY I love it.  Besides the fact that it does have an incredible cast.

I mean, Bette Midler as the head villain, a centuries-old witch aiming for world domination and Toddler on a Bun for lunch?  Come on.  Who casts that unless large hunks of cheddar is what they're going for?

I'm sorry, Bette, but as much as you want to be considered a serious actress and you have the chops for it, you're always gonna be bold, brash, ballsy Bathhouse Betty to me and that, and the fact that you had TONS of fun making this movie, shines right through.

Add in an utterly ditzy Sarah Jessica Parker and the fat joke that walks, Kathy Najimy (prior to losing a lot of weight), and there really is a triple-threat, there.  And MY favorite part, as is everyone else's, I'm sure, is Bette's big musical number.  It's probably my favorite version of "I Put a Spell On You", ever.  (No disrespect, Screamin' Jay Hawkins.)

There's really not a lot here to hold on to the hard-core gore-hounds but I still think this is oodles of fun and it's a Halloween staple in my house.  

I don't even HAVE kids.

I buy fun-size Baby Ruth bars for ME, bitches.  Hands off.

Of course, my triglycerides tell a different story and are possibly out to get me.  I'm not full-on paranoid, yet, but I still think I see little fat ninjas lurking about sabotaging my lunch and turning it into a salad.

Assholes.

Sequins and Slaughter

There's something about low-budget horror that draws me in.  I don't know if it's because of the unintentional hilarity or just seeing horror through the eyes of a young filmmaker but low, and even micro, budget horror films just grab me.

It always shocks me when I realize that John Waters never made a horror film but I think that the avant-garde art community has finally filled that niche with San Francisco's own Peaches Christ aka Joshua Grannell.

It seems that drag queens and horror mix well and Peaches collected enough of them dollars to make herself a movie.

Not only is All About Evil a fun, campy romp through low-budget-opolis, it's a hilariously loving homage to B-movies.  This is reflected in the script, the filming, the location (it was shot around the SF area and features the Castro Theater, which is one of the MOST AMAZING theaters I've ever had the pleasure of entering) and, most importantly, the cast.  It stars Natasha Lyonne (But, I'm a Cheerleader), Thomas Dekker (Nightmare on Elm Street), Cassandra Peterson (ELVIRA, BITCHES) and B-Movie ROYALTY, Mink Stole.

All About Evil is the story of a librarian who is trying to save her father's theater and inadvertantly starts a guerrilla film movement when the murder of her step-mother is caught on the security cameras and inadvertently shown to the audience currently waiting for one of their horror favorites.  The audience eats it up.  We witness a very FAST descent into madness (which is just as satisfying as a slow one) and it's a giddy, bloody, candy-colored ride through to the very end.  

This movie does NOT, by the way, give us the interminable slowness of a lot of indie films.  It's fast-paced and exciting.  Peaches knows her shit and she is one of the many, many reasons I wish I lived in San Francisco.

Seriously, I have NOTHING but good things to say about this movie.  Yes, it's overacted but that's intentional.  It's still wonderful.  It gives us gore-gore girls and rabid fans and skips gaily through the forest of tropes.  It's an insane trip through the mind of a frothing horror fan and it's FUCKING ADORABLE... well, as adorable as a horror movie gets.

Now, this is really only shown at arthouses and cons but if you can snag yourself a copy on DVD it's totally worth it AND it supports a fantastic artist and supporter of genre films and underground filmmakers.

What are you waiting for?  Order it, now!  Visit Peaches' site and make her print more!  Or, even better, get your ass in front of the TV on Halloween at 3:00 PM EST and make sure you have Chiller 'cause they got it!  

SO excited!

'Cause I have Chiller.  And the DVD.  And, yes, I'm a nerd, how did you know?