November 25th, 2015 - Shocker (1989)

I feel like Shocker has gotten a little extra play as of late, given the recent passing of writer/director Wes Craven. It's a surprisingly light flick, considering the big bad is a serial killer (Horace Pinker) who massacres entire families! Usually, slashers just kill off teens or (shitty) single people/couples. Because knocking off an entire family is kind of depressing. And actually, Pinker is a serial killer until he's executed. At which point, using some sort of occult spell/black magic, he manifests into some sort of ghost/spirit who can jump either (a) from body to body, possessing the person, or (b) into the TV (?). It's interesting… Shocker starts out pretty grim, and progressively gets zanier until the big climax, which plays more like a comedy than anything else. So, even though it's a little on the long side, at least Shocker is never boring. 

Is it good? Eh... I mean, it's entertaining for sure, but I think I kind of expected more considering it's a Wes Craven joint - and also considering all of the love I've heard for it over the years. Granted, it's a love that often comes with an asterisk, but still. The tone is just kind of all over the place, and it never really cohered into anything that made enough sense for me to enjoy on anything other than a superficial level. Although there could be love for it because of how insane it is... and I kind of get that. But overall it just never clicked for me.

November 18th, 2015 - Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (1982)

Like Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell, Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (originally known as Curse of the Screaming Dead) has the dubious distinction of being named as one of the five worst films in the entire Troma library by founder Lloyd Kaufman. And also like Croaked, Curse is a rough-looking, amateurish, regional horror film that is not a "good" film by any means, but one that I found charming nonetheless.

Here's the scoop. Six friends who don't really seem to like each other (three guys and their girlfriends) are heading out on a camping trip. They end up lost in the woods and come across an old church/graveyard - and as you can guess, there are Confederate soldiers buried there. One guy (whose main trait is that he steals things) finds an old journal laying about and takes it. This greatly angers the dead soldiers, as they rise from the grave and go after our heroes in typical early 80s gut muncher style.

October 21st, 2015 - Sodoma's Ghost (1988)

I'm not sure why they went with a font that made it look like it was a made-for-cable-access film. The rest of the film at least looks more professional.

If you're anything like me, the phrase "Nazi Ghosts" will instantly make your ears perk up. As soon as I came across the description of Sodoma's Ghost, I knew I had to check it out. And it's a Lucio Fulci joint? Even better. So despite having a rough couple of days with torturey/mean-spirited and bad movies, I went ahead and checked it out - knowing full well that Fulci can be pretty mean-spirited himself. But Sodoma's Ghost was not too rough in that respect. I'm not going to say it's a blast, but as far as Fulci's films go? It's pretty fun. It's certainly not all that good of a film, but it's not all that boring either. So that's a perk.

October 19th, 2015 - Entrails of a Virgin (1986)

Simply put, I was not prepared for Entrails of a Virgin. Per imdb, the plot is: "Members of a film crew making a soft core porn are dismembered by a demon in a warehouse." That sounds like it could feasibly be up my alley. Wrestlemaniac was okay, right? What is should say on imdb: "Semi-consensual rape-porn with a "demon" in it, and some demented visuals." It's easily the most pornographic thing I've watched for this movie a day project - I was worried about the sex-noises waking up my wife. And honestly - getting porn when you are expecting a horror movie is kind of weird... I guess any "surprise porn" would be. I assumed the first sex scene would be quick... but then it just kept going, and going, and going... and then there were more. And I'm no international pornography expert, but I'm not sure what the Japanese consider "soft-core." Other than genitals being blurred out, it seemed pretty intense to me. I don't think you can have as much semen in a movie as Entrails of a Virgin has and still be considered "soft core."

October 17th, 2015 - Revenge of the Living Zombies (1988)

aka Revenge of the Living Zombies on my VHS copy

Whelp - Revenge of the Living Zombies sure is a zombie movie. Provided your definition of "zombie movie" doesn't include things like interesting characters or an engaging plot. Bottom line, it delivers the requisite zombie goods and nothing else. You get some solid late-80s gore effects and lots of the undead shambling around. So if that's all you want, you'll be fine. Honestly, I expected it to be terrible... and *no* story is better than a terrible story, right?

Anyways, before being retitled, the film was called FleshEater. It was written/directed by and "stars" Bill Hinzman, who managed to build a career out of being (arguably) the most recognizable zombie from Night of the Living Dead. Hinzman is the titular FleshEater, who is released from his grave when a farmer removes a stump and reveals some weird satanic stone alongside a locked coffin. Of course, he opens the coffin, and who should be inside but the FleshEater himself. The FleshEater bites the farmer (as zombies are wont to do), and the undead plague begins.

October 16th, 2015 - Nightbeast (1982)

Not sure why they went with the 80s cop
show font, but what can you do?

Nightbeast is a pretty fun independent monster movie from the great Don Dohler (of Galaxy Invader and Fiend) fame. I don't know what it is about his films - they've got a cheap, regionally shot, straight to home video feel... but there's some heart and love of the genre in there too. They are not "great" in the traditional sense, but there's enough passion and effort on display that I find his films extremely charming and hard not to like. When I think "cheesy monster movie," I naturally look back to the black and white creature features of the 50s and early 60s - your Attack of the Crab Monsters and Giant Gila Monsters of the world. But there were still spiritual siblings of those films being made long after that - which is where Nightbeast fits in. While it's a little more gory and the effects are (a little) better, it's heart is in the same place... which is why I think I liked it so much.

Nightbeast starts like so many a creature feature - an alien spacecraft crashes in the middle of a small town. The titular Nightbeast (not actually called that in the film, as far as I can remember) wastes no time and starts to kill off the townsfolk. He's got this chintzy looking laser gun that can disintegrate who or whatever gets shot with it in a flash of cheap animation. (Or at least as it fits in with the story - it doesn't disintegrate walls or rocks or anything, but it will take out a car and the people inside. That's alien technology for you!)  But don't worry - Nightbeast can also rip people in half if he has to.

October 5th, 2015 - The Hidden (1987)

The Hidden is just really fun. I mean, maybe I'm easy, but I was pretty much on board the moment two workers were carrying a giant pane of glass across the street, and a car chase comes through and smashes through it. I haven't seen that done in earnest in a film for quite some time - and man, this was earnest. Honestly, that earned a lot of goodwill from me.

The film has pretty unique action/comedy/sci-fi vibe to it. I feel like there was a window of opportunity in the late 80's where you could get away with having serious action but being kind of goofy at the same time. The Hidden throws some sci-fi into that mix (our baddie is an extra-terrestrial), and there's just enough nasty creature work that you have to toss horror in there too. My biggest issue is that it felt like it peaked a bit too soon - it's a solid story and it's fun getting to know the characters, but it sort of runs out of steam by the end of the film.

October 2nd, 2015 - Evil Clutch (1988)

In honor of the release of my favorite band's new album, I decided to watch Evil Clutch today. That band, for the record, would be Clutch. Psychic Warfare came out today, and I have to say it's pretty darned great. Generally speaking, it takes a while for albums to grow on me, but there are a couple tunes on there that are already all-timers.

Although the "clutch" in Evil Clutch seems to imply a grasp - as in being in clutches of evil. And that's pretty evident, because it takes no time at all for a guy to get his dick ripped off by the clutch of a giant bird claw coming out from between the legs of our main zombie/vampire woman. So at least it starts "strong." But as for the rest of it? Well, this screen-cap sums it up nicely:

September 21st, 2015 - The Demon (1981)

Let me set the stage for you: It's late - I'm tired, I'm wasted - I just want to go to sleep; I'm literally looking for something that I could start watching in bed and fall asleep without feeling bad. (It was a *long* Monday.) I randomly picked The Demon on youtube - it looked bland enough to fit the bill.

But my meager expectations were handily surpassed. I'm not willing to call The Demon "a good movie," but it managed to hold my attention. Although I reckoned as much when I saw Cameron Mitchell's name in the credits - I don't know why, but I love that guy. I mean, "I watched it without falling asleep" sounds like pretty feint praise, but considering how I was feeling that night? It's honest-to-goodness regular praise.

September 16th, 2015 - Dead Dudes in the House (1989)

Dead Dudes in the House is a pretty damned silly title, and the movie itself is only slightly less silly. (Before Troma got it for distribution, it was finished with the not-silly-enough title The Dead Come Home.) But the wacky name is probably for the best - it's hard to play it straight when your villain is an elderly lady who likes to stab people (obviously played by a young man in makeup doing a generic Granny impression, BTW). There's some goofy fun and cheap gore to enjoy here, but mostly it's just a little too cheesy to be all that enjoyable.

Dead Dudes is about a group of eight or so friends (not all dudes, for what it's worth) going to renovate an old house. One of them bought the house as a fixer-upper at a bargain basement price... I wonder why? If you guessed "haunted," then come up and collect your prize. There's the creepy and stabby old lady wandering around, and the house itself seems intent on keeping the friends there - once you're inside, the doors won't open and the windows don't break. But the kicker? After someone is killed, they'll come back to life and try to kill their other friends. And they're not just brainless zombies or anything - they can still talk and joke around or whatever. The only differences are (1) they look worse for wear, and (2) they want to kill you.

September 13th, 2015 - Nightmare Weekend (1986)

Since I watched Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell the other day, an entire new world of film has been opened up to me. It seems like Troma films has a ton of their stuff available on Amazon Prime... and while I'm pretty hit or miss on a lot of the films produced directly by Troma (they sometimes feel a little *too* intentionally cheesy to me), I'm pretty happy to have found a lot of the older independent films that they've distributed at one time or another. 

And for me, Nightmare Weekend was a wonderful find. Objectively speaking, it's a bad, bad film. But it's just plain weird enough, incompetent enough, and filled with enough WTF moments that I had a great time with it.

September 8th, 2015 - Death Warmed Up (1984)

Death Warmed Up is a pretty crazy Island of Dr. Moreau/zombie mash up that's surprisingly entertaining. The hit-to-miss ratio on this Pure Terror Budget set has been solid enough that I'm starting to expect good movies - or at least entertaining ones. And Death Warmed Up fits the bill - not "good," but a fun enough time. While the overarching story is relatively simple and easy to follow (dude goes to island for revenge on a crazy doctor), it's not a particularly well-told tale - it feels a little sloppy at times, but not enough to derail what is a mostly good time. It's a high-energy New Zealand import, made several years before Peter Jackson brought the New Zealand horror-comedy to international fame. Like Jackson's early films, there is mad-cap craziness to Death Warmed Up that is hard not to enjoy. While it's not as intentionally humorous as Dead Alive or the like, it's got some solid WTF moments/effects that will have you half-covering your eyes and half-laughing.

The film is about a young man named Michael who is hypnotized by Evil Doctor Archer Howell (I think). Dr. Archer claims to be doing very risky brain surgeries in the name of bringing immortality to his patients, but he seems to be more cut out to make psycho-zombies. Anyways, Michael's Father is a rival of Dr. Archer - i.e. he believes in being responsible and the scientific method and all that boring stuff. So Dr. Archer hypnotizes Michael and makes him kill his parents. Micheal is found guilty of the crime and sentenced to a mental institution.

September 7th, 2015 - Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell (1981)

Also known by the (much sexier) title Croaked: The Frog Monster From Hell. I'm guessing it was renamed after team Troma got a hold of the distribution rights. While Rana does share some traits with the typical Troma film (i.e. it looks cheap and features some iffy special effects), it's a pretty earnest lake monster film that lacks Troma's patented blend of goofy humor and/or over the top gore. Rana was directed by Bill Rebane (of Monster a Go-Go and The Capture of Bigfoot "fame"), and it's got a regional feel I couldn't help but find charming. Rebane shot his film in the cinema hotbed of rural Wisconsin with the only kind of cast you can get to act in a low budget horror film shot in rural Wisconsin: game, but not that seasoned. And while the film is a bit slow at times, it more or less won me over with it's straight forward style and just enough oddball characters, moments, and surprises to never be totally boring.

July 29th, 2015 - A Night to Dismember (1983)

"Worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate" is a pretty bold claim, but it's one I heard recently on the Badasses, Boobs, and Body Count podcast. So, being a lover of bad films, I was immediately curious. The argument on the podcast was that Manos is probably the best known "worst movie," but there are others out there that are in fact objectively worse. A Night to Dismember was Exhibit A. And now, having watched it, I would have to agree. While Dismember and Manos have a lot in common (they both really crappy looking, ineptly shot, and entirely dubbed over), at least Manos has a semi-coherent plot. I'm not totally even sure what A Night to Dismember is even about.

I mean, I guess the basic plot is that a young woman has just been released after years in an insane asylum, after she committed some heinous murders as a pre-teen. Her mom and dad happily take her back, but her brother and sister want her gone... out of jealousy, I guess? Anyways, once she's back in the house, people start getting viciously murdered again. It's up to an "intrepid" cop to not only figure out what exactly is going on, but to also NARRATE THE WHOLE DAMNED MOVIE.

July 27th, 2015 - Parasite (1982)

Except for the couple of times that a nasty worm thing is graphically popping out of someone's body, Parasite is a mostly slow, kind of unexciting film that just didn't click for me. It's got a kind of interesting premise and (cheap) post-apocalyptic feel, but ultimately it doesn't have the budget, humor, or panache to make it work or ever elevate it above a crummy B-movie. And unfortunately, there isn't much of the B-movie charm you'd hope for from a 3D Charles Band film. Oh well.

Parasite is about a scientist named Paul Dean... he's been working on some sort of government project (presumably - you have to just infer a lot of stuff about the story here) involving - you guessed it - a parasite. But when he accidentally infects himself, he goes on the run with a bunch of medical equipment and a thermos with a living sample in it. I guess his bosses just want to kill him (and actually send some guy in a fancy ass car to chase him down), so he needs to find an isolated place where we can shack up, do some science, and hopefully get the parasite out of him.

July 26th, 2015 - Mystics in Bali (1981)

Mystics in Bali is the sort of cult film that I just love. There's some bugnuts insane horror stuff in there, but the overall story and execution is just so... off? In a good way though, one that is just super entertaining to me. I'm not sure if it's a translation thing (it's an Indonesian film and actually focuses on a legitimate piece of Balinese folklore), or an international edit that cuts out some pertinent stuff, but what you're left with is a fun concoction of bizarre effects, bad dubbing, and an overall groovy feel.

Mystics in Bali wastes no time in cutting to the chase. After a rad opening sequence featuring lots of Balinese percussion and cool looking masks, we are introduced to Cathy - an American student studying in Bali. She sounded that way, anyways - some reports have her as Australian. At any rate, a she's white foreigner. Hanging around with Cathy is her Balinese boyfriend Hendra. They *seem* to be romantically involved anyways, but anytime they are about to kiss or whatever, they are "comically" interrupted. But right away, Cathy is all "I want to learn Leyak" (a Balinese form of black magic), and Hendra is all "Sure! It's the most dangerous form of black magic, but I can help you out. Let me arrange a meeting with the Leyak Queen." (Besides interrupted intimacy, their relationship basically consists of Hendra doing whatever Cathy tells him to do.) Cathy wants to write a book about the dark arts, and figures the best way to learn about it is to get trained by the evil Leyak Queen. And it's apparently not that difficult of an application process, because before you know it Cathy is training with the really weird - and *constantly* cackling - Leyak Queen.

July 22nd, 2015 - Wolfen (1981)

Wolfen is pretty badass. It's got an old-school vibe that I found impossible not to enjoy. There's some comedy in there, but mostly it's a serious film about a cop trying to solve a series of vicious murders in New York City. Wolfen is more or less a standard police procedural film, one that is played totally straight - I think these types of things hadn't been done to death in 1981 (and there wasn't as much competition on television), so it was nice to see a straight-ahead procedural without any bells and whistles. It also looks very cinematic and seems to have a bigger budget than I would have expected for a "werewolf" film - there are some really nice shots in there, especially of the bridge in the opening sequence - sorry New Yorkers, not sure which one. So while the story feels a little generic at times, you never hold it against the film because there's so much other cool stuff going on: great use of NYC, some thinly-veiled social commentary, solid (if sparingly used) gore, and a great supporting cast (featuring Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos, and Tom Noonan).

Wolfen kicks off with a clearly wealthy couple coming home from their anniversary party. They make the last minute decision to stop by the park where they were married. While they are there, they are stalked by someone... or something... with proto-Predator heat vision. Moments later, they are violently dispatched. Officer Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) has a troubled past and seems to be on some sort of leave of absence. But since he's the best damn cop on the force, his boss calls him in to work on the case. Along with CSI guy Whittington (Hines), Dewey determines that this was not your standard random murder... it's extremely nasty and seems to be a ritualistic murder or a gangland style execution. But despite the bodies being torn to shreds, they can find no trace of any metals in the bodies, so no knives. What gives?

July 19th, 2015 - The Killing of Satan (1983)

I just don't really even know what kind of a movie The Killing of Satan is. I mean, it's about a guy named Lando (yes!) in a battle with the devil, and the title sure as shit sounds like a horror movie. (And you get a couple of surprising bits of gore totally out of nowhere.) But in the bizarre world of this Filipino import, somehow Christian mythology is mixed with guys who can shoot lazers out of their hands and have telekinetic powers. You also get some really bizarre shape shifters, teleportation, and lots of snake abuse. Praise Jesus!

Honestly, it's a hard one to summarize, and I don't think a synopsis does it any justice anyways. But the gist of it? Lando is a family man who is killed but brought back to life by his magical uncle, who lives miles away on an island somewhere. The uncle is a very powerful magic good guy, and is apparently fighting the forces of evil. It is the uncle's dying wish to pass on all of his powers to Lando - which I guess you can do when you are that magic. But when Lando goes to visit magic uncle he finds out that he has passed away. But that doesn't mean his uncle's rival - the Prince of Magic (a surprisingly toothless way of saying High Disciple of Satan) is going to leave Lando alone. Nope, the Prince of Magic heads to the island and attacks Lando and his family, kidnapping his daughter and taking her to be Satan's bride. Lando, along with his less magical but still pretty cool cousin, must journey to Hell (I thought it was just a cave, but I'll go with imdb on this one) to rescue his daughter.

July 11th, 2015 - Raw Force (1982)

Okay, this is the second day in a row where I'm not totally convinced that I watched a horror film. But Raw Force is also known as Kung Fu Cannibals, and does in fact have zombie martial artists and monks that barbecue and eat women. So I guess it counts.

And unlike yesterday's film of questionable horror vintage (Virgin Witch), Raw Force is a heck of a lot of fun. I mean, it's really quite stupid, but its goofy tone and the way it revels in its exploitation roots makes it quite entertaining. It's a hefty helping of early 80's action cheese with a significant grindhouse/sleazy vibe. It's not going to win anyone over who isn't into dumb 80's movies, but it works as a fun, trashy, and dumb action film - if you're into that sort of thing.

June 30th, 2015 - Macabre (1980)

Macabre is somehow kind of boring and kind of great at the same time. It's a mostly slow moving thriller that occasionally tests your patience, but when you look back at the whole shebang there's no doubt it works. It's got a sort of plodding but tension-filled feel to it - while there aren't any super tense scenes, there is just this underlying feeling that something terrible is going to happen. It's an interestingly structured film - the opening ten-fifteen minutes are pretty horrific, and then things slow down and stay that way until the last ten-fifteen minutes. But you spend most of the time feeling confident that the film will get back to the peak established earlier - it's just a matter of how (and when) it's going to get there. And ultimately, Macabre doesn't let you down.

It's hard to get into too much without spoiling that first part... and it works better if you go in cold. So if "moody early 80's Italian slow burn" is your thing, best ignore the rest of this. Also, it's the feature film debut of Lamberto Bava (Mario's son), who also directed Demons, Demons 2, and, uh... Devil Fish. Fair warning though - it's pretty straight-forward (i.e isn't as bugnuts as some of Bava's contemporaries) and doesn't have as much atmospheric moodiness as you might expect from a film with the Bava name attached to it.